The Dead Good Tanking Guide

My final post.

2011-09-29T01:45:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, don't worry - it's my final post "at this address". Whether or not you can be bothered with my ramblings, I'm sure most can agree that the blogging community can scarcely afford to lose another warrior.

As mentioned yesterday (gotta love the pace of change), I've migrated all of my previous writing from this address to the new one and have managed to set up a template that I kind of like and I kind of hope is more inspiring than the dreary, tombstone black of this blog. The settings and "fluff" are now pretty much all in place as well, there will just need to be a few updates over the next couple of weeks due to my ongoing trial and whether I pass or not. You might be interested to know that I did pretty well last night, but for getting the most complicated Shannox tactic I've ever seen a bit wrong. 39th in the world on heroic Baleroc isn't bad, though - boy did I underestimate the contribution of Rend.

So, without further ado, I will be continuing at:

Piercing Howl.

I'm sticking with Blogspot because it's been good to me but, as you can tell by the name, I intend to spread content to a wider warrior audience than just tanks. The title, Piercing Howl, is a hat tip to an iconic tri-spec talent that also plays into my new race of worgen. The aim is to produce content more often, without cutting back on quality, and covering subjects that I invariably leave alone - playing Fury, Arms and (though a weak period) getting stuck into PvP. I did a bit of an Arms post a while back, but it was from the vantage point of a dabbler who played Arms as an off-spec for a bit of a laugh. Indeed, the fact I never write about Fury or PvP much is because I don't actually play Fury or PvP much. I suppose that leads onto the obvious question of how in the blue Hell do I intend to cover these subjects when I don't really play them?

I'm looking for authors!

If you love playing a warrior and want the opportunity to write about it, let me know in the comments. I'm not looking for pure-bred experts in server leading guilds who can automatically link first class parses (as nice as that would be). What I'm looking for is players who love getting stuck into a raft of content with their plate-clad deliverers of pain, and are passionate about the development of their favourite class and how its doing. Rather than the work of starting your own blog, this opportunity comes from the vantage point of an already established set up with an author of over two years experience in blogging and one who's had his work linked on WoW Insider on several occasions.

The warrior community has lost some high-class authors, and I'd like to set the ball rolling that plugs the gap. Wider and more varied content brings in a wider and more varied readership which, in turn, will hopefully inspire other authors to start writing about their favourite class in their favourite game.

I look forward to hearing from anyone interested in taking up this opportunity, and hope to start providing more top-quality content as soon as possible.

Welcome to the ground floor!

Moving on.

2011-09-28T03:17:00.000-07:00

Though I usually critically strike for walls of text here on the DGTG, this is a general update post about what's going to be happening in the short term as there are some pretty large changes and some less than large ones. I'll start with the smaller, I guess.

1) Your humble author will no longer be visiting TankSpot for any reason. While that has no impact on readers here, I have used this blog to comment on some of the threads there in the past and this obviously won't happen any more. The standard of raiding content has gone down significantly, and the finance behind it has caused a "quantity > quality" approach. Personally, I don't care about Lore's opinions one iota (he now dominates the site through the Weekly Marmot, PST and Legendary) and I can't be bothered putting up with a small, but prolific, forum clique of online bullies who attempt to belittle those who disagree with them.

Learn2Raid is a significantly better resource for raiding, with better players at the helm. If you happen to love Darnell (as I do), you can get your weekly fix of Blizz Blues from Gamebreaker.

2) I've bemoaned the loss of Veneretio and Kadomi from the Protection warrior world of blogs, but they're not the only ones. It seems that so many warrior posters have bitten the dust as players have lost interest in blogging, the game, or both. Some of them use Twitter, a media I struggle to see the sense of if you're interested in thought provoking debate.

The problem with my blog to date is that it's widely read, but rarely debated. It could be my style, it could be my content, it could be my lack of charm or grace... Whatever it is, I want to start plugging the gap departed warriors have left behind and I'm dreaming up ways of making this happen. If you have suggestions, please post them. :)

3) This blog will be moving to something more aptly named. Originally, I started as a Forsaken toon and the "dead good" was a play on that concept. As I'm unlikely to ever play Forsaken on my main character again, the name no longer fits and a change is needed. I can change the name of the blog easily enough, but not the address so I'll create an entirely new one and then migrate everything here across. The exact title and focus is not yet determined, as it depends on point 2 and plays into point 4...

4) I'm no longer a member of Argent Dawn, or indeed The Inner Cloister (duh!). The opportunity arose for your humble author to step up to a more progressed and more serious raiding guild, so I took that opportunity because it's not one that comes along very often at all. As I said to my friends back at Argent Dawn, moving on always means you're leaving people behind - and that's never easy. But truth be told, I'd become a little disenchanted with how things were going and I felt I needed to leave the server behind.

And play Alliance. :o

I'm now to be found plying my trade on Darksorrow, hoping to prove to my new guild mates that I'm the warrior they never knew they needed. The standard trial is a fortnight, so I hope you'll wish me well during it and I'll be seriously trying to up my game to a level I've never played at before. That said, I'd like to publicly thank those who chose to spend their time with me (in any capacity) at Argent Dawn. Time, unlike any other commodity, can be spent, but never be earned. I shun those who take my time, am entertained by those who share it, and cherish those who contribute to it.

There are friends on Argent Dawn I shall ever cherish. :)

So, onwards and upwards. A couple of announcements should be expected by the weekend. o/

Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.

2011-09-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

And, there it is - my very first legendary weapon is complete after finally seeing Garr drop that damn second binding I was missing.

I'll admit, it must have been more awesome in Vanilla. I'll also admit that the quest "chain" is notably weak in comparison to nowadays. But there's still something strangely hypnotic about blasting a dummy with this puppy.

"Dance" encounters Vs "Output" encounters.

2011-09-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about encounter and raid design recently, and this week's news of 4.3 really got me thinking. Due to my disappointment with the raid content in Cataclysm, particularly in 4.2, it worries me that future fights may well be more complex than they already are, excluding ever more people as a result. If you can stick a pin in the "we wunt challengezor" cry that booms from the rooftops for a moment, I'll try to explain why.

I recently got reading this entry from Greedy Goblin talking about "the dance" and how an encounter's mechanics now dictate success as opposed to how well you can play your class. Of course, that doesn't imply that there aren't rough DPS checks to be found; there absolutely are. But the point is that classes are now easy enough to play that you cannot necessarily show skill simply by being good at it. Everyone is.

Now, I should quickly point out that I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the linked post. It actually makes a muddled attempt at indicting voice communications for some reason, while also managing to subversively insult those of us who use it. But the fact remains that playing your class has gotten significantly easier over time, while playing an encounter has gotten significantly harder. Statistically, these "dance" fights see far fewer successful pulls than those where perfecting your rotation (henceforth known as output) yields best results and the reason is probably pretty obvious. Take a look at these two differing "parses", assuming a ten-man raid with two tanks and two healers:

Parse 1

Fury warrior: 12k.
Retribution paladin: 12k.
Survival hunter: 12k.
Frost death knight: 12k.
Affliction warlock: 12k.
Feral druid: 12k.

Parse 2

Fury warrior: 14k.
Survival hunter: 13k.
Feral druid: 12k.
Affliction warlock: 12k.
Frost death knight: 11k.
Retribution paladin: 10k.

The difference in raid DPS is nothing - exactly the same damage is being done. However, parse 2 is seeing two people being carried by stronger players and this is why "output" fights are always going to be more casual friendly. At the very bottom line of it, worse players can be safely carried by better ones when there is no real risk of dying to a dance. Conversely, in dance-orientated fights, should players die off then even excellent colleagues cannot make up the difference.

TL, DR?

Plummeting raid success in Cataclysm is thanks to personal responsibility being flunked in dance-heavy content.

It's impossible to be sure, but I would imagine this isn't lost on the developers - yet 4.3 has got a lot more dance-content in the pipeline from what I've read. To counteract this, the LFR tool will be coming in to provide dumbed down versions of main raids so that the more casual or less skilled can get involved a lot more easily, and be more expectant of success. My problem with this is that it shifts emphasis further away from playing your class well (which I find unpalatable) and can potentially create other problems with progression, achievement-demands and, worst of all, gearing. Zarhym has already alluded to LFR tier being used to complete 4-pieces, so is it supposed to be used as a viable method for normal raiding guilds to fill out any slots?

As far as I see it, the distinction between output content and dance content could easily be where the casual and not-so-casual raiders differentiate. I support the introduction of the LFR tool, just not the fact it's being used to counteract a problem with a more sophisticated solution. Namely, why not make the normal raid the output raid and then introduce the dance as part of the heroic content? From what we've seen in the Firelands, very little actually changes from normal to heroic in most cases other than more damage and health to deal with. As a result, why couldn't normal raids be the more output based encounters of WotLK that encourage casual play, while heroic encounters introduce the dance that separates those more committed?In this way, we can keep the two difficulty settings while adding in the LFR tool for cross-realm raid matching. Not only does this mean less development and maintenance work, it deals with all the other logistical problems that would accompany three settings.

Moving on, though, Gevlon does make a very interesting point that should be borne in mind. Currently, the idea of personal progression is diluted because it only lasts as long as an individual boss survives. They're all sufficiently different enough to cause raids to pretty much need to start again once they've downed one encounter and moved onto the next to start the learning process. I must admit I'm totally with him here, as I'd like to see something that links the encounters in a raid zone intelligently and provides that "raid progressive" feeling that comes with killing associated bosses.

Unashamedly, I'm in love with the idea of shared mechanics where it makes sense. Something that happens across every encounter in a zone and ties them all together. This could be in the form of a bar, such as Cho'gall's corruption mechanic being applied to every fight in the Bastion of Twilight, or a buff/debuff that persists and has a similar impact depending on the mechanics of the fight. I'll try to paint an example of what I mean and I might as well use the aforementioned Bastion of Twilight and the current Firelands.

Cho'gall's corruption bar is present in all four encounters in the zone. Against Halfus Wyrmbreaker, players stack corruption when hit by Shadow Nova, meaning there ain't much that can impact them. While fighting Valiona and Theralion we could see Dazzling Destruction, Deep Breath and Fabulous Flames increasing corruption. Imagine also a heroic version where Blackout is added to the list, giving a little corruption to everyone or a lot to one person... With that person getting 100 being quite deliberate as was often seen in heroic Cho'gall strategies. We then get to the Ascendant Council where there are a myriad of avoidable sources of corruption for you to avoid. In this scenario, the mechanic is introduced slowly at first but ramps up throughout the raid and links it all together.

As another idea, take Ragnaros' Burning Wound and put it into every other fight. Replace Jagged Tear for Shannox, Widow's Kiss for Beth'tilac, replace the stacking damage from Sparks of Rhyolith, use it for Inferno Blades on Baleroc, give the ability to Voracious Hatchlings who throw a Tantrum against Alysrazor and have Staghelm applying it when scorpion cleaving or using Leaping Flames. It would replace the abilities that have similar effects while, once again, tying the whole instance together.In both cases, not only does it make the bosses in a zone "feel" more linked to one another, it also gives players a chance to learn how certain mechanics work throughout a raid and know what to look for. Heck, in the Bastion of Twilight example, it could potentially see new and compelling strategies being worked out.

All told, as a raider, the content I play in will dictate how much I enjoy playing the game. And because subscriptions are falling in Cataclysm, it's reasonable to assume that the change in standard of the largest hook for players is the cause. I'm not arguing that the new dance heavy direction is wrong, merely that it doesn't look to be popular and it's not hard to figure out why. More importantly, I think it's important that we as a player base try to highlight what we think isn't working as well as it could be, then try to suggest potential ways to improve it.

Of course... It's not as if I'm known for keeping quiet. :)

Warrior: Feedback.

2011-09-13T03:32:00.000-07:00

[Posted on the official forums, as requested.]

I'm a career Protection warrior, focusing on heroic raids and heroic dungeons. I also play DPS occasionally, as well as some PvP; but I'll leave commentary on that to those of more experience. This is all personal opinion based on my own musings.

1) The talent revamp for Protection was an overwhelming success. There are meaningful choices throughout the Protection tree which have an impact on performance and playstyle, with compelling talents to be found in the Fury and Arms trees depending on the content you're running.

2) Sentinel should provide expertise as well as its current effects, similar to Veteran of the Third War.

2) Incite is too good. The additional critical strike chance to Heroic Strike is in line, but the guaranteed follow-up makes the talent incredibly strong and the biggest contributor to single-target threat. While my preference of nerfing this talent to let other attacks hit harder is a personal preference, it doesn't alter how powerful Incite really is.

3) Toughness, Shield Mastery, Last Stand, Bastion of Defence, Devastate, Sword and Board, Shockwave and Field Dressing are not optional talents. I understand getting rid of them all would make the tree very strange, but nobody is skipping these.

4) The difference between a warrior picking up Blood and Thunder/Thunderstruck, and a warrior not picking them up, is possibly too large. Blood and Thunder, however, is a great talent and I'd hate to see it changed or chopped. I think working the effects of Thunderstruck into it would make warrior AoE less punitive than the current four-point asking price, though I appreciate the impact this could have for Arms PvE which is already very powerful on AoE fights.

5) There is no longer a valid reason for Warbringer being unable to break roots using Charge and Intercept.

6) Impending Victory, though stylish, is awkward. A much smaller chance to proc, with a significantly higher window of opportunity, would see it more widely used.

7) Vigilance is horribly weak, and only contributes to conventional offtanking that Sentinel deals with. Due to the situational nature of the taunt refresh, it's essentially a dead talent.

8) Blood Craze gives a dreadful return for a hefty three-point investment. Even for Arms and Fury, it's sorely in need of a buff.

9) Mastery (both block and critical block) is too strong. Looking to 4.3, warriors are going to be significantly overpowered if this doesn't change.

10) Out of our rotational trio of Shield Slam, Revenge and Devastate, Revenge is sorely underperforming due to it's abnormally low critical strike chance. It's the only one of our main attacks that sports a baseline less than 20% and this works out to make Devastate always better on a single target.

11) Heroic Strike, as a non-rotational resource dump, is too powerful and damage should be shifted from Heroic Strike to Revenge and Devastate. Shield Slam already hits hard enough thanks to Sword and Board, but Revenge and Devastate should look more like Avenger's Shield and Crusader Strike accordingly.

12) Warriors still lack a proper damage cooldown such as Berserk, Dancing Rune Weapon or Avenging Wrath. Recklessness can only reliably be used once per fight (and is unappealing when tank damage is high).

13) Heroic Leap needs some of the coding restrictions removed, it's too unreliable. Colossus Smash is fine despite the DPS balance problems that have dogged it, but Inner Rage is a design failure. Cataclysm set out to remove Heroic Strike spam, then reintroduced it two months later. Also, I just can't see where it fits into the "active mitigation" model.

What are your biggest QoL issues?

Most of the above covers this, but Heroic Leap and Inner Rage are the biggest culprits. Low rage generation when levelling is also a pain.

What makes playing your class more fun?

Compelling talent choices not on offer elsewhere, mobility other melee dream about and unique utility that can change the face of an encounter.

What makes playing your class less fun?

Spiky rage generation and the reliance on Heroic Strike for competitive damage when we were promised the back of it in Cataclysm.

How do you feel about your “rotation”?

Heroic Strike is too strong, Revenge is too weak. The role of Concussion Blow, Shockwave and Rend is also confusing, but compelling. The Sword and Board mechanic, however, is what makes playing a Protection warrior the absolute blast that it is, while keeping the "rotation" fresh.

What’s on your wish list for your class?

Less passive mitigation, better self-healing, more damage AND THE RETURN OF WARBRINGER.

What spells do you use the least?

Concussion Blow and Rend. Due to the aforementioned Sword and Board, I almost always prefer Devastate to both (Rend particularly).

The future of hit and expertise rating.

2011-09-08T02:07:00.000-07:00

Looks pretty bleak, if you ask me.

I don't mean to be a scaremonger, or throw around statements that insinuate a large amount of arm-waving (even though I often do), but I concede that I have to get this off my chest. What better place to do so than in my very own blog?

Essentially, I'm going to start with a very simple premise that's generally accepted; hit and expertise are not attractive stats for tanks, to the point where they'll commonly be reforged out of entirely. For healers, it's even more simple - nothing you wear will ever sport hit or expertise. Hell, even the pseudo-shockadin has a talent that directly converts their spirit into hit. Therefore, for two out of the three roles in the game, stats that essentially allow you to land attacks are unattractive to the point of being completely avoided. For tanks, the upcoming direction of "active mitigation" is probably going to end our long affair with hit and expertise because, despite my large post detailing what might happen, I tend to agree with other commentators that the likely route is using attacks to build resources that allow use of mitigation abilities.

In such a world, hit and expertise will essentially plummet to the point of being completely obsolete for tanks. Of course, it wasn't always like that.

During Wrath of the Lich King, I loved expertise; it was one of my favourite stats. In the days before vengeance, a tight rotation and decent expertise was needed to build threat that didn't unfairly throttle skilled team mates. Hit rating I ignored, as it was only half as good until the dodge cap at 26 and building beyond that was essentially pointless. Sure, there was the argument about a missed taunt but we had a glyph to cover that eventuality. During The Burning Crusade, threat throttling was a far more significant issue and warriors would spam Shield Block to avoid being crushed. This meant that, in general, both hit and expertise were more fashionable but not necessarily any more attractive than they are now.

In short, our interest in threat stats has gotten smaller as time has went on and I cannot see what role hit and expertise will fill beyond 5.0. I appreciate the notion of things like Shield Block missing has been touted, but there's very little chance we'll see that because of the outcry that would accompany such a change.

But here's the kick.

I don't think the developers will be done there. There is still one more role that values hit and expertise, but does not find it compelling whatsoever. As a result I believe 5.0 will see the removal of hit and expertise rating as we know them altogether. Of course, I need to justify myself.

There was recently (since the start of Cataclysm) a gnome mage who asked if hit rating was going to be removed due to it being a "fun tax". At the time, such a ludicrous notion seemed unthinkable. A wild blue poster appeared, I think Daxxarri, and commented that hit rating was the skeleton upon which your DPS was built. It took a bit of imagination to come up with the right amount of hit before piling on the haste, critical strike or mastery rating you liked more. Fair enough, I thought at the time. Then I started to think about it again recently in light of the new direction for tanks.

It's established tanks and healers won't want hit or expertise in the near future. For DPS, these stats can be a horrible nuisance because of the wild variations among specs that require it, as well as the amount available. I had to reforge hit rating onto every single one of my warlock's slots in order to get hit-capped; a full 17%. If only the story stopped there. Enter the hunter who is laughing all the way to the bank as he hits his measly 8% hit cap and starts pumping in as much agility as he can find. Mr. Retribution does the same, but then realises he needs to find 26 expertise to accompany it in order to avoid parries and dodges. A peal of thunder reveals an Enhancement shaman who also wants that expertise, but likely wants to shoot far beyond 8% hit to get more out of his offhand attacks. His Elemental brother laughs at expertise, but will need more than double the hit rating our mail-sharing hunter needs.

You see the point.

Making sure you can hit things is neither fun, nor compelling - especially when the stats can be terribly punitive and don't actually do anything else. In their effort to get people away from outside sources, Blizzard have actually shoved people right into things like Mr. Robot or WoWReforger so that they can hit their cap with nothing spared. We already have things like haste, critical strike, mastery and spell power considerations to make and even that is purely dependent on spec. When you toss in the variable hit required for a Fury warrior that you're supposed to "get a feel for", I'm often glad I play a tank and don't have to be bothered by it.

Of course, let's not forget that Blizzard does have previous with this. The removal of defence rating was the most blatant example that the developers don't think caps are particularly fun. I understand that defence rating wasn't really a "cap", but it fulfilled exactly the same function - it provided the baseline skeleton previously mentioned and allowed tanks to perform their job at the most fundamental level. The thing is, defence rating was actually MORE compelling if you ask me. Yes, it made you avoid critical strikes which was important, but it was still valuable beyond the minimum. It still made your avoidance higher so you couldn't technically waste it, something that the same cannot be said for regarding a great many specs out there when piling on their hit rating.

For me, I recall having a conversation in guild about the removal of defence rating. I said at the time that it was a bad idea, because it was removing the need to actually wear tanking gear with which to tank in. Blizzard going that route deliberately wasn't unknown to me, but I've seen essentially Arms warriors, Retribution paladins and Frost death knights trying to tank heroic dungeons and they've been absolutely terrible. At least with defence rating, you knew they were in tanking gear that gave them avoidance and stopped them being critically struck; a decent parallel with hit/expertise where you know that, at the least, someone's attacks are landing.

There are really only two directions to go here.

1) If Blizzard are determined to keep hit and expertise rating in the game, they need to actually do something beyond the yellow cap. This would mean that they wouldn't automatically be reforged out of because there would still be a benefit to having more than the 8% you need. Sure, duel-wielders are still looking for more; but those playing Arms or Retribution might like more hit being converted into critical strike or the implementation of "heavy blows" that do a small percentage more damage than normal.

2) Hit and expertise could entirely bite the dust. Not only would a restrictive part of the game be removed (something that would assist both endgame players and those levelling through), balance would actually be EASIER for the developers to find because you would have to assume player abilities are always landing. Naturally, this would impact the active mitigation plans for tanks but that needn't be negative if it's handled intelligently... In a world where they won't be attractive for tanks, anyway.

I must admit, a lot of this makes me shut my eyes and shake my head while writing it. But the more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that the role of hit and expertise as compelling stats is long gone. As a tank, I absolutely DREAD the idea that hit and expertise are going to be important for me because I already have enough to juggle with mastery, parry, dodge, stamina and armour. Toss in hit, expertise and haste (which has been touted /shudder) and you're looking at a pot mess of things to think about that will even have tanks relying on Mr. Robot.

Much like things such as defence rating or threat, it was once unthinkable that they'd be killed off as viable considerations. Nowadays, I can no longer be sure that sweeping changes won't be made in order to further simplify and streamline concepts that are either punitive or restrictive.

Remember:

You heard it here first.

Insight for active mitigation.

2011-09-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting hugely excited about what the developers are planning for active mitigation.

Ghostcrawler's latest blog, Bloody Mitigation, goes into a little more detail about what they think the model might look like, but he's also happy to admit that some of the changes might be too big for even a major patch; the largest changes have "expansion" written all over them. The most compelling part of the whole blog, as a warrior, is that the language is familiar to us (further proof that warrior is the tanking class) and that they're looking at both the positive and negative aspects of what Blizzard considers the three most viable models.

Amazingly, this is high quality stuff from a development team that's floundered throughout Cataclysm. As a Protection warrior who occasionally plays Arms, I'm comfortable saying that I've been spoiled with high quality development; most of the other classes, however, simply haven't been as lucky and some examples are more glaring than others. But nevertheless, and despite some class weaknesses persisting, I'm still happy to report that playing a warrior is an absolute blast.

Despite the years put into Zell, I still love playing her (sometimes him).

But let's get to the meat and potatoes - here's the three models that the crafty crab has in store:

1) Tank DPS matters.

It's very rare these days where a DPS check factors tank damage into it. This was a significant problem back during WotLK because Protection warriors were an absolute mile behind the other classes, but it's potentially viable now (even though in 10 man content, warriors are still statistically propping up the other three). The problem, of course, is that it changes nothing; the letters "TPS" get changed to "DPS" and we proceed as we are now with very little changed.

2) DPS buttons provide mitigation.

This model makes buttons matter because they will provide mitigation. Revenge will give a short duration parry buff, Shield Slam a short duration block buff. This is being touted as "the" way and only a brave man would bet against it. Hell, it even brings back a point to hit and expertise rating. The problem, of course, is when you're not conventionally tanking - some kiting or picking up of adds, or generally moving from fire can hammer your mitigation.

3) DPS buttons build resources.

We already have this with the paladin to an extent, and the idea is the same. Your attacks build up Rage, Runic or Holy power and you use that resource for mitigation from things like Shield Block, Holy Shield, Savage Defence or Bone Shield. While this sounds good at first glance, the problem is that it could be both too formulaic (as paladins are seeing now) or simply too complicated and punitive on mistakes. There is also a huge risk of homogenisation.

And that's roughly it.

Now, predicting the way this is going to go in 5.0 is notoriously difficult because the developers themselves still seem on the fence about it. While there are strong reasons to go in each direction, we see the potential problems and pitfalls that can turn this positivity on its head and shove the number of tanks in the game down still further. While a percentage of tanks might really like the sound of model 2, for example, those who support model 3 might get horribly alienated by something they find too passive. The absolute key here is the Triforce (!) of game design; easy to pick up, hard to master, fun to play. Blizzard have to take the direction that carries the least risk, but will be the most enjoyable for both long term tanks and people picking up the role for the first time. That borne in mind, how the heck do they pick the right one?

Well... They don't.

They take all three.

If we lived in a world where tank damage mattered, your attacks gave you better survival and provided you with resources, just think of the repercussions. Hit and expertise become valuable to tanks, performing your rotation well is important to everyone, and intelligent use of resources will depend on the encounter while also separating the good tanks from the great tanks. The 5.0 talent tree revamp can continue to include DPS talents that will remain compelling instead of cutting them, and new tanks coming to the role will still be able to maintain a baseline of survival while they learn the ropes.

A warrior, therefore, would look a bit like this:

Our main rotational attacks are Shield Slam, Revenge and Devastate. As the latter already has a debuff attached, we'd be looking at our mitigation coming from Shield Slam and Revenge. Shield Slam will increase your block chance for 4 seconds in accordance with your mastery, while Revenge increases your parry for 6 seconds in accordance with your strength - this will ONLY apply if the attack hits, while also counting a boss parry (going for the expertise hard cap is unrealistic). I've deliberately chosen 6 seconds for Revenge to provide a bit of leeway in its application, as using it on cooldown isn't always practical. I've also deliberately chosen only 4 seconds of block, and this is for two reasons - good use of Sword and Board procs will have net benefit, but there will also be periods where you don't get a proc. This will make warriors permanently crushable again which, in my view, is a positive thing for balance.

All the while, your attacks are doing something else. They're generating rage. You know, that resource that causes it IRL? Well, this system FINALLY fixes the inherent problems with rage, at no cost. All we need is compelling choices regarding what to do with that rage... And we have them; Shield Block and Heroic Strike.

Naturally, I know what you're thinking. We've been through this with the "choice" between Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory. It didn't work then because smart tanks always chose the heal. But then again! We're now in a world where tank DPS matters, and it's not as if the model has to be identical. Let's say whichever ability you use, your entire rage pool is depleted; Heroic Strike would do more damage the more rage went into it, while the Shield Block duration is increased rather than its strength. That way, you can keep your shield up while also weaving in more damage when you manage the resource nicely.

Of course, this still presents the problem of being too formulaic. After all, it would be mathematically worked out when to use rage to refresh Shield Block, and then how many times you could Heroic Strike in between. But we have depth in the decision whether to get off lots of smaller strikes, or meaty big ones. And also don't forget, we also have other abilities that could consume rage rather than generating it. When AoE tanking, Thunderclap could generate rage while Shockwave or Cleave uses it up. If Concussion Blow and our buff shouts generate rage, we can spend it with Demoralizing Shout, Disarm and Spell Reflect. Hell, depending on what abilities are thrown into the mix warriors could be absolutely spoiled for choice on what we want to do outside of our basic rotation.

I fully appreciate that this may get complicated. But then again, I cannot see what would be wrong with that if I'm honest. The new or (I HAVE to say it) bad tank would still at least get most of their parry and block rating covered, while invariably using Shield Block when they remember their rage bar. The more skilled a tank becomes, the more abilities he'll fit in when weaving an intricate and beautiful web of well-chosen balance between defence and offence.

I'm romanticising.

Sorry.

But at the end of the day, we warriors can look on the future with renewed hope that we'll once again be the classic progenitor that our tanking sisters are all based around. The ingredients are already in the bowl for the most delicious cake; let's just hope we get the culinary treat of a Delicious Chocolate Cake and not the gristle of an Unidentifiable Meat Dish.

Easy to pick up; hard to master; fun to play.

Normal, heroic, and "drake" modes.

2011-08-26T03:18:00.001-07:00

As most of you know, I do tend to spend some time over at WoW Insider and I often find that some of the subjects brought up really do pique my interest. As encounter design is a particularly huge interest of mine, Allison Robert's Overachiever column resonated with me on almost as many levels as it annoyed me. I totally agree with some of the things she implies, totally disagree with others and am forlornly confused with the ability of some posters to utterly miss the point.

Essentially, what she's saying is that the raid model since Trial of the Crusader has been broken by the introduction of heroic modes and achievements - she further implies that it isn't good for the game as a whole because it creates an endless stream of content that you're never truly "done" with. The achievement/heroic mode system was never better than it was in Ulduar, and each iteration since has been the wrong iteration.

Many other conclusions Allison chooses to draw are flawed, but the above point is beyond my dispute; nothing in this game has ever been better than Ulduar (though, I'll still always adore Karazhan beyond compare). She also makes the point, however, that the raiding game is now worse than it was in The Burning Crusade because killing a boss just isn't the same achievement when you have two more versions to go through - having to do the same thing more than once dilutes the excitement of killing bosses.

On this point, she's inexplicably and utterly wrong. What makes a boss kill meaningful is the amount of collective effort that went into it, not which "mode" it was. And because this effort varies wildly from raid group to raid group, arguing that the excitement is somehow less than it once was is not only incorrect, it's very insulting to the vast majority of the playerbase.

With that out the way, though, her point stands and remains firm - the delta between normal modes, achievements and heroic modes is muddled and frustrating. It's impossible to determine exactly what role each is supposed to fulfil when there is so much crossover. The goal, of course, is to provide as much "available" content as possible, while satisfying the largest majority of people. Marginalising anyone is politically unpalatable and, as painful as it is, we're probably stuck with the current model.

We have three things to consider, here:

1) Normal mode kills.
2) Meta-achievements for mounts.
3) Heroic mode kills.

The best method of doing this, as Allison pointed out, was used in Ulduar; the hard modes were intrinsically linked with the meta-achievement, meaning that you completed both at once where applicable. Any other meta-achievements that were needed and didn't have an associated hard mode (such as Kologarn or Auriaya) were simply ways of making a hard mode when one didn't necessarily exist. Even tier seven was sophisticated in this application, as the meta-achievement there involved the "hard mode" of Sartharion, but added difficulty to Naxxramas by having the meta-achievements.

When we move to Icecrown Citadel, however, the meta-achievements and encounter modes became mutually exclusive. Absolutely nobody did "Full House" while fighting Lady Deathwhisper on heroic - it was suicide. So the decision came from having to do one or the other, grabbing heroic gear or taking another step toward your drake. What compounded this was the fact that you had to do BOTH in order to complete the meta-achievement. In one step, the drake meta-achievement became the realm of heroic raiders only and I think this is where the mistake was made.

It's important to note that this was also the case in Ulduar - the drakes bore only the top raiders of the tier due to having to complete achievements such as "One Light in the Darkness" or "Firefighter". What made it easier to digest was that you could, at least, do both at the same time. The problem, therefore, is that the achievements themselves do not serve a useful function at all. At best, they're an afterthought for raiders who, after completing the heroic achievements, decide to go back and round out whatever they're missing. At worst, they're a frustrating block on getting a new mount that are based more on RNG and bad luck than actual skill or execution.

At the moment, we're looking at raid content that isn't well aimed or streamlined and that's causing frustration. We currently have normal modes that are too tightly tuned for casual raiders, heroic modes that are either mechanically too lenient or compositionally too rough on 10 man raids, and meta-achievements that serve as an afterthought for the best of the best.

Amazingly, there is a solution that's almost TOO obvious.

a. Tune down normal modes so that casual raiders can see and enjoy content.
b. Tune up certain heroic modes so they provide the right challenge for world and server first guilds.
c. Remove the need to kill heroic bosses from drake meta-achievements.

Out of nowhere, we have content that far more people can enjoy, have built-in "hard modes" for competent guilds that want to be good at content, and heroic modes for those who want to devote serious amounts of their life to the game. Rather than needlessly excluding most players from content, you open up levels of achievement depending on what people are looking for from their raiding experience.

Active mitigation for Protection warriors.

2011-08-22T03:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, it would be fair to say I've had long enough to think about the mooted changes to tanking from Ghostcrawler's latest post. And let's make no mistake about this, the potential changes here could be absolutely massive for all tanks, not just for warriors. Boiled down, in case you haven't read the blog, threat is being designed to no longer matter, while tanking is all about actively mitigating damage that's coming in. The buttons you push will no longer be designed purely to build threat, they'll do that passively - no, the buttons you push will be to give your healers an easier time of it.

I'll start out by stating that I wholeheartedly endorse this direction. There are many reasons why, but I personally believe that threat being the defining factor between a good tank and a bad one is never going to work with such big discrepancies between a class's ability to generate it. Secondly, I think the fact that tanks essentially play like DPS these days is one of the things that contributes to less tanks all round; constructing a rotation is more fun as DPS, with far less responsibility to the group as a whole.

No, tanks should play differently and have different priorities. This change is positive.

But many are asking what this actually means, beyond Ghostcrawler's allusions. What exactly is this "active mitigation" caper that we're about to be subjected to? At time of writing, our chum the death knight is the only class really running anything like active mitigation and it's important to understand what that entails beyond the obvious "powerful self healing". At the end of the day, too many people don't actually understand how the DK model works beyond watching their health pool shoot up when you thought they were about to die. Just ask any healer the difference between a good and bad DK and they'll be able to tell you - one is strangely easy to keep up, the other is an absolute nightmare. And it's this fact that makes me firmly believe that the active mitigation model is going to work.

Let's look quickly at the DK toolkit for active mitigation.

First up, we have Death Strike. This attack essentially heals up a percentage of damage the DK has recently taken. Then we have Rune Tap, another heal on a 30 second cooldown (that heals the raid when glyphed). Outside of the major cooldowns Icebound Fortitude and Vampiric Blood, many people think this is about all there is to it. Not even close. Using all of your Blood runes creates a short duration Blade Barrier, reducing damage taken further. At the cost of an Unholy rune, you can pop up a Bone Shield that, again, reduces damage taken over a short duration. I already mentioned Vampiric Blood, but didn't mention that it actually increases the amount of self-healing you do, making it much more viable (again, depending on glyphs). Moving on to major debuffs, and DK's share the warrior duo of physical damage and attack speed reduction through Frost Fever and Blood Plague application. Lastly, there is the close-to-mandatory option to take the Lichborne talent and be able to Death Coil yourself.

So, here's the list in all its glory (ignoring mastery for the moment, as it's essentially passive):

Death Strike and Rune Tap are for general mitigative self healing.
Frost Fever and Blood Plague should see 100% uptime on the target.
Blade Barrier and Bone Shield should see as high uptime as possible.
Vampiric Blood has a short enough cooldown to be used very often.

Now clearly, there is a lot of self healing in there. But effective rune management (as well as runic power) accompanied by choice over which ability to use, means that our DK is pretty damn active and comfortably the most involved in his own survival. Moving on from that, then, where exactly does the warrior stand with regard to active mitigation following this basic premise?

Well first of all, what abilities do warriors have that play a part in mitigating damage? The list is long, and illustrious:

Demoralizing Shout, Intimidating Shout, Thunderclap, Shockwave, Concussion Blow, Spell Reflect, Disarm, Shield Block, Victory Rush and Pummel.

Now of course, things like Spell Reflect or Disarm are extremely situational, while Victory Rush is limited to a talent (and still limited). I also won't talk much about Pummel, as many classes have an equivalent. But all told, outside of major cooldowns, we have an array of stuns, silences, heals and debuffs to throw around, all of which play a part in making healers love us. This means that there's almost a free slate with which to work amongst abilities we already have on our bars and bound to our keys, something which is important to bear in mind - after all, there's very little chance that sweeping changes will be made prior to 5.0 and I'd imagine we'll be using abilities we already have.

I said I won't talk about Pummel, while our stuns will pretty much continue to do what they say on the tin. They'll stun things. Fortunately, Victory Rush isn't far from viable and only needs a tweak to the Impending Victory talent, something I've already discussed. Demoralizing Shout and Thunderclap are also unlikely to change much, as all tanks have an equivalent and are just as adept at applying these debuffs. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest stand outs for change are Disarm, Spell Reflect and Shield Block. The former need more common use so are prime candidates for a change, while the latter is the ideal choice to make our mastery (blocking with a shield... Who knew?) more active. I also consider the implications that any sweeping changes would have on PvP, so I'd imagine that deep Protection talents would be the place where these changes are implemented. Meanwhile, a flat nerf to the damage reduction of Defensive Stance would ensure that tanks pick up these talents, vice ignoring them and letting their healers take the strain.

So, Disarm then. To me, this is a good choice for the warrior version of Blade Barrier, reducing physical damage done and making it the default buff of choice for most encounters where physical damage predominates. A 12 second duration with a 10 second cooldown would probably be the way ahead (again, similar to the DK example), but keeping in mind when these changes are mooted to come in, the cooldown maybe wouldn't change and the duration would simply be longer to compensate. If Disarm is our physical damage reduction tool, it won't take too big a leap to figure out where Spell Reflect would fit in; as our magical mitigation. Once again, instead of reflecting spells, the ability would provide magical damage reduction for a period of time at a reasonable cooldown. If we assume that Disarm and Spell Reflect share a cooldown, there is a choice between which one of the two is better depending on what you're fighting. The reason I think the cooldowns would have to shorten, is because warriors would simply stick with physical damage reduction for the vast majority of the time as changing to reflection wouldn't be worth it for one shot of dragon breath that is continually preceded and succeeded by heavy melee hits (trinkets or major cooldowns would be used instead). Of course, the fact that most Firelands bosses end with increasing fire damage means that there is definitely a place for this model.

Shield Block, however, is hard to predict. For me, one way to make mastery a more active stat would be to revert Shield Block to the model of The Burning Crusade and have mastery only affect it while it's up. So, something like a ten second cooldown for three guaranteed blocks, with mastery increasing the chance of a critical block is what I'm thinking. Not only would this make Shield Block a more active ability, it would break the mastery monopoly that dominates warrior itemization and give the development team a block model that isn't hard to balance because full passive CTC wouldn't be possible.

If you're looking for a TL, DR, you know it's not my style by now. But for me, a threat rotation of Shield Slam, Devastate, Heroic Strike and Revenge being complimented by a mitigation rotation of Disarm, Spell Reflect, Victory Rush and Shield Block matches up to Ghostcrawler's "four ability" mantra, and gives warriors meaningful choices with regard to both abilities and gearing. The further reaching implications of class balance and encounter design are perhaps the bigger fish being fried, but they're beyond the scope of this entry. For now, I'm just getting the creative juices flowing regarding what warriors could possibly see in the active mitigation model, both for the remainder of Cataclysm and the larger changes (particularly to talent trees... That's another Wall 'o' Text) for future expansions.

What do you guys think?

"Mists of Pandaria" - WoW's 4th expansion?

2011-08-03T03:43:00.000-07:00

It's been brought up on MMO-Champion, it's been chatted about on the forums, and even the official WoW forums are now abuzz with the latest news. Amid all the humdrum, it'd be negligent of me not to talk about it as well, so here we go; today's blog is about the...

Mists of Pandaria.

Boubouille brought it up on MMO-Champion after one of his community members found that Blizzard had registered trademarks on the name. The dates on the trademarks, as well as the timing, wording and style of them, make it appear increasingly likely that this will be the next expansion for World of Warcraft. I do not believe that this is a patch as they're not patented in this way, and I find it unlikely that it would be Warcraft IV because I doubt Blizzard would tie such a game into a geographical niche like this.

No; for me, once we're done with Deathwing, we're off to the southern islands (of which Pandaria is one) and taking the fight down there because the Pandarens need help of some kind.

After getting over the initial mental cry of "wtf, PANDAS?!", I have to admit that I'm very intrigued by how this is going to develop. There is no reason to believe that the entire expansion will relate merely to the pandarens themselves, despite it being obvious that they would play a big part. Additionally, many commentators are forgetting that Pandaria itself could merely be the scene for the conflict itself and not necessarily the wheel which all spokes are attached to.

So, the pandarens need help from both the Horde and the Alliance. Easy enough to decipher. But why? From what enemy do this mysterious race run from, to the point they'll approach the other races for some muscle?

For me, this has got Azshara, the Naga and the southern Old God written all over it - and if that turns out to be true, you can sign me up for another expansion. For those with their tinfoil hat already donned, here's what I'm thinking:

1) Azshara is too big a character to shoe-horned into 4.3, and easily big enough to form an expansion around. Considering some of the pre-Cataclysm hype surrounded her, it's clear Blizzard want to deal with her at some point and the southern islands is the perfect place to set her centre stage.

2) The naga have played a bigger part in Cataclysm than expected, and not just in Vash'jir. When you also consider the overwhelming popularity of the Battle Maiden quests, it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard chose to develop them further in another expansion with more room.

3) We've been killing Old Gods since Vanilla, so there's nothing new here - especially if we consider that the "threat" would have to be substantial in order to force pandarens to seek aid. This Old God is also the most likely to be responsible for the Highborne mutation in the first place.

4) The links to the Burning Legion have yet to be tied up, and this could be one route. Sargeras himself spent time with Azshara, so a demonic presence in the southern islands is possible and could set the scene for a later expansion dominated by Sargeras (the ultimate end of WoW).

5) The southern islands themselves are utterly unexplored. If we go down there, Blizzard have almost got an entirely clean slate with which to create whatever they want, outside of the bounds they worked under during the development of Cataclysm. The only limit is their imagination.

If we remember back to the product slate, there were another three expansions after Cataclysm, so it's reasonable to assume that we won't be approaching level 100 anytime soon. As hinted above, I think that honour will be reserved for the fallen Titan himself. It's more likely that we'll see a set of entirely new zones, a new level cap of 90, a break from typically Azerothian adventuring, and some work to bring something new to the mix while tying up a few loose ends before that climactic push to 100. We know that Argus is already touted for future work so that will see the logical continuation from The Burning Crusade (remember, Kil'jaeden was merely banished), while the oft-mentioned Emerald Dream has been a recurring theme since Vanilla; it's likely we'll have to visit there to sort out a few nightmares.

Of course, this brings us roundly to the sticky topic of the playable pandaren.

Again, purely personal opinion, I think the expansion will release a new class. If we logically follow what's happened in the past, we've gotten an alternating release of race, then class, then race, then... Class? The pandarens are unlikely to pick Horde or Alliance wholesale, and while I like the idea of completing their opening zone before choosing a personal Alliance, I'm just not sure that's a very engaging choice.

But, Zell! Blizzard have said they won't release a new class without a good reason or a compelling role to fill! If we were to pick up "Brewmaster" or something similar, the possibility of a melee DPS/ranged DPS/healing class has already been very well mulled over. Sure, it would work but it would break the maxim mentioned above - nothing here is "new" or "compelling", so why would Blizzard go for it?

They wouldn't. Naturally.

So, say hello to World of Warcraft's first Support class.

Sounds a bit pie in the sky? Sure it does.

But if you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world. Blizzard as a company will not have ignored some of the innovation that Trion have brought about in Rift, and one of the major sticking points of Cataclysm is the lack of individuality amongst the classes. You either tank, heal or deal damage and while that model is tried and tested, a lot of the personality of raiding has gone by the wayside. A support class, let's say a Pandaren Monk (come on, you were waiting on me coming out with it), could have three specs that enhance either tanking, healing or DPS, while the player himself contributes whatever the raid requires at any given time. If adds come streaming in, he can pick a few up until the tanks can get them. If there's loads of raid damage, he can toss heals or damage reductions on the tank while the healers concentrate on the raid. And while there's nothing else really going on, they'll contribute a bit of damage and help out where best they can.

/doff triple-strength-double-sided-megatinfoil hat.

Let's round out this post of wild speculation by simply saying that very little, if anything, will be confirmed before Blizzcon. It wouldn't make fiscal sense to do so before then. But the very idea of an expansion such as this gets the creative juices flowing once you get over the initial revulsion of cartoon pandas running around, nastily accompanied by crap impressions of Jack Black.

For me, though, I have to admit... The gloom that has wrapped around me with Cataclysm has lifted, just a little, since thinking about what "Mists of Pandaria" could imply.

And don't lie.

We're ALL curious as to just how beautiful Azshara's model is going to be.

Desperately seeking Kadomi.

2011-08-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

Dates can be exciting, depending on who you are. The first time something happened, the date of a discovery, the date of a scientific breakthrough or a date with a girlie you like. In fact, the only dates that aren't that exciting are those of the dried fruit variety. I suppose even that depends. There are currently two dates that really make me sad, though. These dates are the month of April 2011, and the 28th of May 2011. The first was the last post to Tank Like A Girl, and the second was the last time Kadomi's character feed was updated.

It appears Kadomi has left World of Warcraft, as well as blogging about it, far behind her. Now of course, I could totally be wrong - it's possible she's just too busy (Live Like a Nerd hasn't been updated in a while) or a real life problem has taken over. But if Kadomi is indeed the latest in an ever increasing list of WoW absentees, then it really is a crying shame. I don't read many blogs, I really don't. They're either dry, badly written, dull or just simply regurgitated cuds where the original point was misunderstood. Not unlike mine, really.

But in Kadomi, we had a blogger that was good ol' fashioned fun to follow. As much of the fun surrounding WoW is eked away in favour of bland efficiency (I will NEVER forgive Blizzard for taking away my Master Swordsmithing), perhaps it's no surprise she's moved on from a world that doesn't welcome her style as much as it once did. As individuality is watered down, it's perhaps fitting Kadomi would take that sunset stroll with it.

Nay, I say. Nay.

If you've never read Kadomi's blog, you've missed out. It's not littered with maths, facts and figures and it's not from a tank that plays bleeding edge content in a top 1% guild. But it's a charming, witty, engaging and friendly piece of the blogosphere that always made you want to talk about tanking and WoW in general. This discourse would take place with a great many people who were all there for the same reasons you were, hosted by Kadomi herself; one of the most engaging personalities I've come across in my time blogging. Of course, it's easy to overlook some of her better posts that really did help out Protection warriors who needed it, via provision of concise and easy to follow discussions. It's a blog where you're part of the learning process, not just being spoken at like the world's biggest baddie.

I loved Kadomi's blog, and I never missed an update. If she has chosen to give up WoW I wouldn't blame her, but I really will miss her. And once more, if you've never come across her work, here's the link to Tank Like A Girl again so you can go and read some of it. Her later offerings unfortunately reflect a more bleak outlook, but skim back through the archive and I challenge you all to resist its charm.

I guarantee you won't.

Mastering mastery (again).

2011-07-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

Mastery, mastery, mastery.

Since the launch of Cataclysm, we tanks have been pretty lucky. While the value of mastery has fluctuated drastically for our Fury and Arms brethren, those strapping a shield to their backs have lived by pretty much one maxim - get as much as you can. The more mastery you find, the more you remove those horrid spikes when you continually get hit full in the face; and it's preferable to avoidance stacking, as it remains unaffected by diminishing returns.

The idea for T11 was to hit 73.4% combined dodge, parry and block in order to shove unmitigated (except by armour, of course) blows off the hit table when Shield Block goes up. Assuming you were gemming, reforging and enchanting correctly, while picking up gear pieces with mastery on them, this was easily achievable in full 359 gear, and without setting foot in heroic raids.

As my guild mate Felham likes to say, ezpz.

With T12 landing and all manner of new options opening up for gear, we're presented with more avoidance stats than are otherwise available and, obviously, plenty more mastery. This means that magic number of 73.4% becomes even easier to land on, while even factoring in threat stats like hit or expertise. Happy days, I hear you say - gearing remains easy for us tanks. But then you see this little puppy appear, and my synapses start firing:

Spidersilk Spindle.

I love my Mirror of Broken Images; it's a shiny mastery trinket, with an on-use that gives warriors the magical damage cooldown they've traditionally lacked. This offering from Beth'tilac is almost as good, as there's more mastery on it, but it lacks the on-use magical cooldown that I've grown to love. This made me think that it possibly remained weaker than our Tol Barad favourite, particularly in the Firelands where there is an awful lot of otherwise unavoidable magic damage flying around. But another look at the proc makes it actually pretty sweet, when you think about it. After all, the absorb is almost of the same value as the on-use from the Mirror, but applied passively for you when you need it. As a result, it's actually a pretty clear upgrade for our erstwhile mastery trinket so you should definitely be equipping it when you get the chance.

Marry it up with the Scales of Life and, lo and behold, your trinkets are updated for the tier. Awesome. Having a quick look around some of the other top warriors we know, this is quite common practice. I'm also quite happy with the way I've enhanced my gear, because I want a strong health pool that can cover me through the rest of the magical damage that is applied throughout the raid.

Right now, you're wondering why you've read something that's relatively obvious.

Well, take a look at Grafarion.

He's chosen not to replace his Mirror of Broken Images with the Spidersilk Spindle; he's combined the damn things. And in case constant tanking has numbed you to large and obvious blows to the face, the result is pretty staggering when you total it up.

He's about 3.5% away from the hard cap.

Not only does this mean that he's hardly ever taking an unmitigated blow, his critical block chance will be far higher than average and his Shield Block is essentially now a Holy Shield on steroids. He's reached that stage of being a mitigation powerhouse practically a full tier earlier than (your humble author) expected. The downside for me was always going to be the hammering his stamina has taken, especially considering the amount of unavoidable damage flying around. But in Grafarion, we're talking about a tank who's pushing cutting-edge content with a top class guild, something that surely implies that all this extra stamina I'm carrying around isn't necessary. It's worth bearing in mind that he's also playing with some of the best healers, but in normal content we're probably looking at a reasonable correlation between us working the normal Firelands bosses and Grafarion up there at the coalface.

Of course, let's not forget our overlooked friend the Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond. With the hard cap approaching, and warriors never being hit, this meta gem suddenly starts to look a whole lot more appealing. The tank in question hasn't gone for it himself, but it's hard to say if he's just waiting on actually hitting the hard cap prior to switching, or if the Austere version still beats it out.

This is not me telling all Protection warriors to go out there and bust a gut to hit the mastery hard cap in the Firelands. That would be silly. But it's well worth taking note that we're almost at the holy grail where warriors are never being struck, and that changes the game for us significantly.

We go from being the most fragile tank to the most durable, practically in the space of a trinket drop. The "stamina iz king lol" model appears busted beyond recognition.

May it rest in peace.

Protection warrior self-healing (or lack thereof).

2011-07-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

There is one thing that marks the role of a tank more than any other - the ability to grab, maintain and survive aggro. As a warrior, we have no shortage of tools with which to make ourselves take less damage. Thunderclap slows attack speed, Demoralizing Shout weakens blows landing on you, Disarm guts the physical output of an enemy and Spell Reflect is great for returning a blazing fireball from whence it came. When you toss in the fact that warriors are one of only two tank classes that can dodge, parry AND block, then you should be looking at a class that is very difficult to kill off.

Funnily enough, that's generally true; if a new warrior complains that he's taking too much damage, you'll invariably find that he's forgetting to use half of the arsenal available to him and merely assuming that all he has to do is turn up with plate armour and a shield. He's probably also omitting his mitigation cooldown Shield Block, or his major cooldowns of Shield Wall and Last Stand.

The problem, of course, is that warriors are now comparatively weak when our mitigation is compared to our shield-toting brother, the Protection paladin. Their attack speed and power debuffs are applied passively, saving precious GCD's, while our "flavour" abilities Disarm and Spell Reflect rarely work when it matters. Add this to weaker major cooldowns and one less mitigation cooldown, we're already at a disadvantage.

Our biggest problem, however, is our complete inability to heal ourselves outside of Enraged Regeneration.

Before moving on, I have to be careful. Warrior self-healing should never be equivalent to the death knight, or even the paladin when you consider his ability to hard cast. It's also worth being mindful of how horrendously unwieldy Word of Glory really is before calling for something roughly equivalent (just remove Holy Power, Blizzard... Seriously). The druid, on the other hand, has Frenzied Regeneration which is a direct equivalent, but gets significantly more healing from Improved Leader of the Pack than warriors will ever get from Blood Craze; and that's not mentioning the hefty investment of three talent points.

The good news, however, is that Blizzard have an open net with regards to a fix.

The talent Impending Victory can be reworked to provide more widely available access to Victory Rush. The talent, as it stands, is one I stood up for at the launch of Cataclysm - in a game that had started to lack "feel", the idea of a warrior becoming harder to kill as victory beckoned was something I could relate to. As for the utility of the talent itself, I thoroughly supported the idea of two points that could help the healers when they were running on fumes during the hardest part of most encounters.

Alas, that's just not how it turned out. The talent has been widely ignored because healers have other tools to avoid running out of mana, not least powerful raid cooldowns that have almost become mandatory for execute phases. As a result, Impending Victory has pretty much bitten the dust as two talent points that can be better spent elsewhere.

Essentially, there are two directions the talent could be taken:

a) It buffs Blood Craze by 7/15% (or something similar).
b) It causes Victory Rush to be available outside of the execute phase.

Buffing Blood Craze is something that would make that particular talent more enticing for tanks, while ensuring it's out of reach for DPS warriors. It would be easy to balance. The most significant problem with it, however, is that five points is a MASSIVE investment just for some passive self-healing, which is hardly compelling gameplay anyway.

Making Victory Rush more available is something I'd love to see, though. As it does less damage and threat than Devastate, it becomes something of a trade off if hit and due to no blood shield mechanic, decision making becomes a part of its successful use - hitting it when it lights up is rarely going to be the best strategic use. On the other hand, saving procs for when you're getting lower or the healer is otherwise tied up, marks a far more interesting gameplay dynamic that addresses a major weakness with Protection warrior survival as it currently stands. This is how I'd like to see it lining up in a talent tree of the future:

"Enduring Victory

Using Devastate or Revenge on a target has a 2/5% chance to allow the use of Victory Rush, but that Victory Rush only heals for 5% of your health."

There's no real reason why they couldn't buff Blood Craze via the talent too, because going for as many survival orientated talents as you want would be fun. I would just like to see something that a warrior can make a serious consideration out of with regard to talents, playstyle and glyph choice (there are two that have an effect on Victory Rush).

Warriors struggle with self healing at the moment which contributes to their perception of fragility, something that could relatively easily be addressed through talents at no wider cost to balance. At the moment, Impending Victory is treated with neglect by the vast majority of warriors and Blood Craze is simply too weak for a three point investment. In a set of talents that are otherwise pretty damn sweet, these are the only two red-herrings for tanks.

"Casual" Vs "Hardcore" and instance design.

2011-07-12T03:02:00.000-07:00

Following on from last week's somewhat lacklustre effort (I had intended it to be far bigger, but I ended up editing a lot of it out because it didn't add anything), it's time to post what I've been thinking about for a long time. Essentially, there are many terms that the average MMO gamer has to come to terms with and it's to two of those terms that I turn today. Because game, encounter and class design are all facets of a consumer product that has to consider "the consumer", said consumer base will be comprised of a great many people that the company wishes to keep happy. And with something as big as WoW, we're looking at a heck of a lot of people that have diverse wishes regarding what they want from a game.

But for me, distilling these two types of player into casual and hardcore is horrendously misleading.

I know, I know - why would you bother reading yet another diatribe about who falls into what category? But I'm working from the knowledge that the same could be applied to EVERYTHING I write, so I'll continue safe in the knowledge this piece is no better or worse than my usual offerings. :)

The problem here, of course, is that Cataclysm has blurred the lines to quite a significant degree. Previously, a "casual raider" was someone that didn't put a lot of time and effort into the raiding game (particularly with outside sources), yet still managed to be relatively successful in low-pressure content. At this stage, the word "casual" has become synonymous with "bad" and this is an unfortunate development when even community patriarchs such as Lore are failing to make the distinction. Funnily enough, the assumption that being a good player makes you hardcore isn't quite so widely held.

The problem here is that there is a huge difference between people who are casual with their time, or merely casual with the amount of effort they're willing to put in. There are players who spend ten hours a day on WoW, but do little more than level alts, farm dailies, play the AH or do a few dungeons and random battlegrounds. On the other hand, there are people who play four hours per day every second night but all of that time is spent in guild-sponsored rated battlegrounds or heroic raids. When you then consider the fact that skill and time investment are entirely separate considerations when judging a player, the terms become practically meaningless outside of the two extremes:

1) The top 100 raid guilds who raid upwards of 50 hours a week when progressing and are committed to being the best player they can be. We can safely call them hardcore.
2) The player who has a subscription, but logs in every few nights to do a bit of questing, dungeoneering or levelling, and not much else. We can safely call them casual.

The reason this is important in the wake of 4.2 is because it ties directly into what type of player certain content is aimed at.

With only seven available bosses, it's fair to say the Firelands is... Short. Yet, PuG groups are only willing to clear trash and not willing to actually have a go at any of the bosses. It's fairly obvious that this will change as the patch moves on, but seven bosses is a very short demand on time when guilds such as my own managed four out of the seven in one imperfect reset. Of course, difficulty is subjective - those not used to raiding to any standard will find the bosses extremely tough, while those who notched 13/13 for tier 11 will have gotten through all seven bosses in no time.

If we follow some of the commentary from the top guilds regarding tier 11, the common theme is that the time demands to remain competitive were absolutely brutal. Sco from the EU's Method was shocked to see people raiding over Yuletide and would have appreciated a gated system that allowed for some time off. Paragon and Premonition agreed. When the lifeless few willing to put the most time into WoW complain that it's taking too much of it, it's worth paying attention and we can only assume that the developers did so.

In saying that, this has an impact on everyone. If we say (tinfoil hat) that the Firelands was deliberately small so that hardcore raiders weren't at it for months, while more casual players can consider one boss a week to be progressive, then where does that leave the guilds like my own who will likely clear it next week and who aren't necessarily bothered about heroic modes? Yet again, we're shoved into the heroic "obligation" because there simply isn't enough content for us. What purpose do the heroic modes serve this time around, anyway? Are they the separators for the best guilds in the world such as many were in tier 11, or are they the "real" content just as Trial of the Grand Crusader was back in the days of yore?

To be blunt, decent guilds clearing the Firelands in a single reset implies the latter - is that the direction we want the game to go? Considering the fact Trial of the Crusader ended up reviled before long, I find it hard to believe that's the direction Blizzard want to go. I'm an educated man, but I honestly cannot say what type of player T12 encounters are aimed at and I've yet to read a lucid explanation from anyone else. The problem is finding a way to keep progression competitive, while keeping the content accessible and interesting for a larger percentage of the player base, for longer. More and more, I'm coming around to an idea that I strongly disliked when it was previously implemented:

Gated raids are the way to go.

The problem, of course, is that people will cite the examples of Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel as cases in point where gating didn't work. However, both of those models were imperfect and also very different from one another. I totally agree, Trial of the Crusader was ridiculous - one boss a week was a ludicrous way to gate progression but, like everything else to do with that raid, Blizzard had to "try" it and I don't think they'll go there again. Icecrown Citadel actually did it largely correct in my opinion, with the only exception being that each gate was potentially closed for too long before opening. In saying that, did it successfully elongate the content to the point where players were truly ready for the next gate to open (rather than rushing into content you're undergeared for and exploiting it instead)?

Absolutely.

Of course, there is another aspect to gating that should be considered - it has the potential to make the content more readily available to EVERYONE. I shuddered at the recent blue post insinuation that "casual" players are expected to be a tier behind more organised raiders. Frankly, I think that type of thinking contributes to a lot of the ill feeling that is around these days and a lot of cancelled subscriptions. By gating instances, as was the case in Icecrown, less organised raid groups are given some time to gear up a bit before hitting the first few bosses, hopefully clearing them, and then grabbing more gear before the next gate opens. Of course, they could easily do that without gates implemented and it would be silly to suggest otherwise. But there is more excitement when you can consider yourself geared for that next set of bosses to arrive and you can get right in there and have a go. Frankly, I fail to see what would excite a more casual raider about getting into content that was binned by others months ago.

But then we have the hardcore raiders, don't we? Those that race one another to claim world first kills and will spend inordinate amounts of time raiding if they have to. What about the challenges they want to come up against in order to prove themselves against one another? Well, why not release the heroic modes for each gate prior to the opening of the others? Sticking with the Icecrown example, the initial killing of Deathbringer Saurfang could have unlocked the heroic modes for Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, the Gunship Battle and Saurfang himself. This would have been easily enough content for the hardcore progression guilds, while also allowing them breaks between each burst and a chance to catch up should they have fallen behind. This would potentially make the esport fans more interested in what's going on, as one guild falling behind wouldn't bedevil their efforts for the rest of the race.

Lastly, you could use gating to make gear more exciting. The most sought after pieces of gear are typically weapons and trinkets, as they're the biggest contributors to whatever it is you happen to be doing. You could use the gate system to stagger gear so that weapons won't drop from the early bosses, while being more common from end bosses. This could ease the frustration of big loot tables not dropping what you want, while also implying the act of "earning" your most identifiable purples. Heck, when you think about it, this could even make class scaling issues easier to balance for the developers. Let me paint it like this, with a three gate system for tier 11:

Gate One

Halfus Wyrmbreaker, Valiona & Theralion, the Conclave of Wind, Magmaw and the Omnotron Defence System. All major armour types, no weapons or trinkets.

Gate Two

The Elementium Monstrosity, Chimaeron, Atramedes and Maloriak. Very small chance of weapon or trinket, potential random tier (as in, Baradin Hold).

Gate Three

Cho'gall (Sinestra), Al'Akir and Nefarian. Small to medium chance of weapon or trinket, tier token guaranteed.

In this example, I've slotted in random chance of random tier gear and am assuming that weapons and trinkets for most specs will be available from end bosses.

In any event, I've waxed enough lyrical to last a lifetime on this topic. We all want content that is compelling, accessible, challenging and durable - we also want enough content to last us so that we're not bored stupid with it after a month (which is where Firelands is heading). The two main options, as I see it, is for Blizzard to continually release new content more quickly, which they've proven incapable of doing, or making current content last longer without frustrating everyone. I've come around to thinking that gating would be the best way of doing this, while keeping content relevant for longer as people chase down the gear they really want for challenging heroic modes.

What do you guys think?

The "top 100" and race for world firsts.

2011-07-11T03:59:00.000-07:00

[From the WoW Europe forums.]

It's very sad to see what the raiding game has devolved into, and what it takes to be the most successful at it; stacking more powerful classes, and giving up the rest of your life. We have absolutely no idea who the best players in the world are, all we know is that certain guilds will lock themselves in the basement for 15 hours a day and aren't above bugging/exploiting encounters just so that they can be first. The frankly laughable excuse that none of them raided with their "Fraps man" for heroic Atramedes testifies to this. Let's be honest, it wasn't exactly hard to do it properly.

My girlfriend made a toon on Lightning's Blade to see what were doing and they had nine druids, with seven paladins - 64% of their raid made up from two classes, with three classes (warrior, rogue and mage) missing completely. If that doesn't tell Blizzard what a hash they've made of PvE class balance, nothing will. Baseline spells like Tranquility and Holy Radiance are simply too powerful cross-spec and other classes have nothing like them, excepting maybe Divine Hymn but priests are behind druids on raid healing.

Go on. Tell me to cry more and point out how bad I am, thus invalidating my opinion. Remind me that I'm not on heroic Ragnaros, therefore, I shouldn't care. But these no-life trend setters prompt others to follow in their wake, eventually causing classes that are not overpowered in and of themselves to get nerfed thanks to "intelligent exploitation" of game mechanics, while weaker classes just get left behind because they don't bring certain utility that:

a) Trumps everything else.
b) Encounter designers assume everyone has.

Unfortunately, the problem is exasperated when we're dealing with developers who think Innervate and Divine Guardian are roughly equivalent (see the tanking Q&A for this particular gem) as utility, who think it's perfectly fine for a Protection paladin to be better than a Protection warrior in just about every meaningful way, and believe that a one-button spec (Arcane) should be competitive in damage with far more complicated specs.

Don't be naive; this has an impact on everyone down the road. The haemorrhage of subscribers is going to continue whilst developers turn a blind eye to behaviour that they claim "has no impact on 99% of the playing population".

News flash.

It does.

Mind how you go.

Quickly reviewing Tier 11.

2011-07-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

So, THAT was tier 11?

Okay, cool. Despite it taking over six months to get seven (/sigh) new bosses, it's still fairly easy to comment about how I felt tier 11 went and how much I enjoyed it. All told? It was good fun. Personally, I still abhor heroic modes because I can't figure out who they're actually aimed at beyond the top 1%. Alas, 4.2 has muddied the waters on this further which is a shame.

However, it's no exaggeration to say that tier 11 did a very good job of introducing post-Northrend raid content and providing compelling and innovative ways to conduct raid encounters. Yes, some of the heroic encounters were horribly punishing on 10 man groups in particular when a certain spec was unavailable, but most of this was fixed throughout the tier and didn't hold people up too long.

So, let's break it down via instance and start with the Bastion of Twilight.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker was an interesting start, but deeply frustrating depending on the set up of drakes you got. Some compositions were really very easy, whereas others complicated the encounter hugely. All told though, it was essentially a gear check with little to actually master.

Moving on to Valiona and Theralion shifted the perspective, though. This wasn't a gear check and, in fact, was very much an "idiot check". The mechanics were simple enough, but hugely unforgiving when they were done incorrectly. It also introduced importance to positioning, thus forming part of the learning cycle.

The Ascendent Council is one of those fights that are designed to annoy people. Agonising 2% wipes are no fun for anyone, meaning that DPS really had to be on the ball in the final burn phase. In addition to this, control became a large factor for our damage dealers, making them directly responsible for success.

Finally, the last boss in the Bastion, was Cho'gall. Probably the simplest of the end bosses, this didn't mean he was a pushover. High tank damage was good to see, as tanks could concentrate more on mitigation. But the corruption mechanic also taught that spatial awareness was very important to avoid early mistakes costing you late on.

All told, I thought the Bastion of Twilight was a damn fine raid. My only real complaint about it was the trash; some of it was frankly pointless. You could easily have removed one of the patrols from the first room, and binned four of the elementals prior to pulling the Ascendent Council.

Next up was the Throne of the Four Winds.

The Conclave of Wind was generally a very forgiving fight which required strong raid coordination and was actually a lot of fun. Raiders like spending time running around, and this encounter demands a lot of exactly that. Not only that, unforgiving mechanics meant general awareness was very important for the vast majority of people.

Alas, most of the people I've raided with hate Al'Akir. Phase one, though short, can see an otherwise drilled raid group wipe to crap RNG. Again, though, DPS control is the key to phase 2 and this is a welcome shift in responsibility. I'm not honestly sure what to make of phase three, but I suppose it rounded out the encounter nicely enough.

Giving the Throne marks out of five would give it probably a two. No trash, random loot and the gap in difficulty between the Conclave and Al'Akir was a bit ridiculous. Still, as a stand alone instance, it did its job.

Blackwing Descent house a familiar foe in the shape of Nefarian, but some otherwise fun bosses to play around with.

Magmaw was the gear check for this raid, with on-demand burst DPS, constant need for lots of heals and a good level of tank control all being asked for here. A bit of general awareness is also required along with target switching which is never a bad thing, but Magmaw wasn't a bad start to the content at all.

If Magmaw was the gear check, the Omnotron Defence System provided the idiot check. As the order of the combatants was random, it was a fight that forced raiders to think on the fly and react accordingly. Nothing too dangerous assuming people had their eyes open, but you had to keep them open.

Moving on to the never-ending failure of Maloriak brought an encounter that really introduced nothing we haven't seen before. Round up adds, kill them off, spank the boss and deal with a few debuffs. All told, this encounter was pretty disappointing despite some of the best loot falling from his corpse.

Atramedes was fun, though. The sound mechanic, similar to Cho'gall's corruption, adds an extra dimension to the fight, but it's unfortunately ruined by the encounter just not feeling "quiet", if you know what I mean. Still an interesting enough fight, even if he'll go down in history as the heroic encounter every top guild exploited.

Our penultimate fight was against the abomination named Chimaeron, and this fight was hugely imaginative. The different aspect to healing made this a fight you couldn't do conventionally, bringing something new to the table in a way the Faction Champions failed to. Inevitable deaths in phase 2 weren't cool, but the fight itself was very well thought out.

For most people, the last fight of the tier was Nefarian and with good reason. With three distinct phases, high demands of control, damage and healing, it was well tuned. The only problem? It was Nefarian (and Onyxia) again, and it brought nothing new to the table from a mechanic point of view.

Overall, the instance was very enjoyable. It had that nefarious "feel" about it, clearly marked progression and a decent number of bosses. Personally, though, I feel the trash was much too sparse. One pull per boss? Bit too slight for me.

And that was tier 11 from my point of view. I haven't spoken about the heroic modes as many didn't change all that much, but the major difference between Cataclysm raids and WotLK was the change in emphasis. The margin for error attached to major fight mechanics was drastically reduced, while DPS became a VERY important job in a great many encounters. The more strategic slant on healing has also made for a more interesting playstyle for most healers if they're honest.

A good start to the expansion, and a good first step for progression.

Desperately seeking Ghostcrawler.

2011-06-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure about all of you guys, but I personally loved the recent blog from Ghostcrawler regarding the 4.2 changes to class balance. While some of the change reasons are a bit questionable, the very fact that the Lead Systems Designer is willing to discuss these reasons is a huge step in the right direction. The developer Q&A series, though well intended, ended up becoming something of a laughing stock because of both the format and the work that went into it. The tanking one was a very sloppy, ill-informed and infuriating piece of work, but proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the back of patience.

Additionally, the stated intention to continue these balancing explanations for future patches is something I find really, really positive; I hope everyone feels the same way and I hope the community can take the intention into account when judging these posts and be supportive of the format.

Despite being positive about these plans, I do still wonder why it came to this. Looking around the forums, most of the blue posts are either gags or attempts to squash threads that are living on the wild side of the "rules". Particularly in Europe, Vaneras must have the rule-breaking quote on a macro. It's quite disheartening, really. While I can accept that the community is so poisonous in some examples that it needs more managing than ever, their actual contribution to worthwhile debates is possibly at an all time low.

It's not that they don't try. They're just in a position where they can't win, no matter what they do. Any insert of light-heartedness is scowled upon for "making fun of my serious problem". And even when they do address a serious issue, they get pilloried for attending to the wrong issue. It's little wonder they're becoming more insular as time passes, only willing to step in when things are getting out of hand. There just seemed to be a decent "feel" when Ghostcrawler posted, as it was understood that he dealt with issues that saw good discussion and he didn't mindlessly recite what he'd been told or what the latest parse proved. He engaged the community as part tester, part theorycrafter, part player and he did so in a pretty fair fashion, all things considered.

Unfortunately, when Ghostcrawler left the forums, he left behind blue posters who were (with all due respect) nobodies. Without the executive authority to enact change in any meaningful way, people like Bashiok or Zarhym were essentially relegated to middle men between the community and the development team. With Mr. Street around, they fed from him and were confident of the development stance when engaging with frequently irate players. There was always something current to refer to and their own views and assertions would be backed up by what Ghostcrawler himself said. Now, it's a case of checking and double-checking that what they're saying is acceptable and palatable to a development team who'll end up having to defend it.

In short, the absence of Ghostcrawler left a hole that the other blues couldn't fill and the community has felt the pain of his absence ever since.

That direct link to developer thinking is something that no amount of Q&A can replace because speaking to Ghostcrawler gave you the opportunity to question the party line. And despite what many claim, there are an absolute myriad of examples where exactly this has happened; he's started with a point of view, and well-reasoned debate saw him change it on many occasions. This really helped the community to focus on issues properly because it was worth arguing with the person who could enact the change you wanted. Now... No matter what you ask, a middle man is going to forward (and probably filter) your question/concern/complaint and you'll get the response via that same middle man.

The only problem is that these balance posts have the same "last word" problem. The dialogue can't happen when it ends up one sided. And while I totally champion the plan to continue them as a thoroughly worthwhile exercise, I just get the feeling they're going to end up leaving us all flat because they're almost, but not quite, what we really want.

Return to your forums, oh crab of calamity; all is forgiven.

Zellviren Revisited.

2011-06-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

It's no secret I've been down on my class recently. My berth as a skilled Protection warrior was never in question, but it started to weigh on me that playing a class designed to be weaker (by developers happy with that) was less fun than it used to be. Prior to this, it wasn't so bad - I remained ahead of my other guild tanks in Wrath of the Lich King by virtue of being a better player, something that provides a rather obstinate comfort that ironically suits the class if you think about it. My current tanking partner, Vexien, is easily as good a player as I am, however, so the differences started to show up. Outside of gimmick fights or off-tanking duty, death knights, druids and (particularly) paladins are technically better raid tanks than warriors.

Was I really looking at yet another expansion where I had to be better geared and a better player, just to keep up?

In any event, I broke with convention and posted my concerns on a forum that is rife with trolling, bickering, petty elitism and stupidity; the WoW Europe community forums. And despite my writing being a clear case of "baddie inspired QQ", the relatively tiny amount of negative responses my post saw was actually a stronger indicator that something is up than anything else. I totally appreciate the comments on my own blog, particularly the ones that highlighted where I'd misunderstood something or omitted it in my comparisons. But ultimately, the fact that even those who spend their time waiting on a chance to post asinine level 1 insults didn't do so, was the unofficial confirmation that my worries weren't a case of me playing poorly.

It was time to play Arms.

Fortunately for me, there are another two players in our raid group who could take up the mantle; a Fury warrior and a Feral, who both easily have the gear for tanking the opening encounters in 4.2. Whenever I play offspec Arms, I'm always competitive on damage because I really enjoy the spec and find that I'm pretty good at it. Plus, there are a few encounters that actually favour Arms quite nicely despite it not being so good on the "Patchwerk" simulations.

Then of course you come across the tuning adjustments planned in 4.2 and you realise playing Arms isn't going to be so hot, after all. A whopping set of nerfs essentially relegate Arms to rock bottom of the DPS charts, while both Feral Combat and Retribution (the other melee in my raid group) are seeing deserved buffs to haul them up a bit. All things considered, I'm not going to be so competitive because I'm outgeared by players who are as good as I am and playing specs that are simply going to be more powerful.

Great. Back to the drawing board.

It's at this point in the tale, dear readers, when your humble author is at his lowest ebb. Fed up playing second fiddle through no fault of his own and unable to turn to the other crumbs of comfort on offer, he became very similar to poor Bruce Wayne after his mansion was burned down by the League of Shadows. With no Alfred in sight, was it time to just jump to PvP, grind honour and leave the raiding game behind until warriors were hauled up a bit? Was it time to leave the glorifying destruction of bosses to those luckier on the character selection screen?

Was it time to ditch the class that was the most fun to play in the game by a mile?

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, return your chairs to their upright positions and read that again:

Was it time to ditch the class that was the most fun to play in the game by a mile?

That's why I play this game. It's not to be competitive in all things, it's not to be the greatest tank the world has ever seen and it's not to flip-flop between one thing and another while hoping I'll be FotM soon. I play this game because I enjoy it, and I play a warrior because it's the absolute pinnacle of game design.

How did Veneretio put it again...?

"Easy to pick up, hard to master, fun to play".

I love raiding. I love raiding with my guild mates. I love raiding with my guild mates as a tank. I love raiding with my guild mates as a Protection warrior. Damn it, I love showing everyone why Protection warriors are in raids when all else points to their exclusion. Enter Zellviren.

After some gear soul-searching, some gear-swapping, some reforge-changing, some gem-altering and a couple of slaps to save myself from the whiny bitch I'd become, it was time to do what I do best; play the game's most sophisticated class to the highest of my ability. I found that with a few gear changes I could factor in some threat stats, while still managing to actually increase my combined parry, dodge and block. I also found that I was STILL struggling to pick the right talent spec after sorting my gear, yet another indication that I have so many good options. There's no doubt that other tanks are just the watered down copies of what warriors are - kind of like the fourth version of Michael Keaton in Multiplicity.

Sure, they might look shiny. But underneath, they're just the same wannabe wimps with some bells and whistles thrown on to entertain the children.

My talent tree was starting to fill up nicely, now. I again realised the elegance of Blood and Thunder; I smiled at the stubbornness of Hold the Line; I positively beamed at the wonder that is Warbringer; I coursed with the desperation of a Last Stand; I yelled at the defiance of Concussion Blow and Shockwave; my ears pricked at the sound of my Drums of War. And perhaps most tellingly, I groaned at the omission of Vigilance, Impending Victory, Safeguard, Piercing Howl and Deep Wounds.

I'm not ashamed to admit this was like waking up from a dream. While my gearing and talent choices might look restrictive, they're a kaleidoscope of colour compared to the blandness offered by other classes. And while paladins, death knights and bears can sneer about doing many things better than I can, I can laugh at the fact that I can still do everything they can, while there are things I can do that they simply cannot ever do, at any stage, or under any circumstances.

Class balance should always be aimed at. Respective of my reawakening, there is never a reason why one class should be better than another. If the tanking Q&A wasn't so worryingly clueless, it would have been funny (Innervate as good as Divine Guardian? What, really?). But at the end of the day, what you enjoy most is easily what should remain at the heart of why you play the game or the class that you do.

True, warriors are a bit behind - but that won't be forever. And we all know being "fine" doesn't mean "competitive". But when push comes to shove, I play a class that can transform an encounter by virtue of its adaptability. And in addition to that, I play a class that will ever remain popular due to it being more fun (ish) than sharing a sleeping bag with that school teacher you fancied.

Don't ditch your warriors, tanking or otherwise.

They're still the original, and best.

Threat frustrations.

2011-06-08T03:44:00.001-07:00

I must admit, my self-assurance wobbled a bit the other night in Baradin Hold. After my usual Commanding Shout, Shield Block, Heroic Throw, Charge, Shield Slam and Heroic Strike, I was ready to settle into showing this PuG just how awesome a tank I was - despite the fact Heroic Strike missed.

One Feral Charge, Mangle and Maul later, and I wasn't tanking at all.

I quickly consulted the ever trusty combat log, expecting an uncommon (but possible) occurrence of both that Mangle and Maul critically striking but, alas, that's not what happened. All those two attacks did was hit their target, and it was enough for a bear in significantly worse gear than me to reduce my proudly constructed warrior to a 2nd rate threat generator.

I'm not kidding when I tell you it stung.

The backdrop here is that I play with a death knight when tanking raids. It's long since been established that, all things equal, a DK will generate more threat than a warrior on both single targets and multiple ones. I also totally understand that my love for Revenge encourages me to use it far more than I need to, and that my use of Inner Rage (or general lack of) is far from strong. I'm also rubbish at remembering Rend despite the presence of a Feral in our raids, and I don't spec into Deep Wounds because I like the utility of other talents. In short, I'm totally aware that my threat output isn't as high as it could be. Of course I'd also heard the whispers that warriors were sub-par in the threat stakes but, as usual, I decided this wasn't worth serious consideration until it started to bother me.

Well, now it bothers me. Is warrior threat so astonishingly poor that a worse geared druid will pull off by default? Is this another case of having to pay the fiddler for the extra utility a warrior brings? Have Blizzard gone overboard with nerfs to Protection warriors? Am I personally just doing it horribly wrong?

I think this boils down to three issues that I need to address:

Burst threat, class balance and sustained threat.

Burst threat is an easy thing to identify problems with, and not something I'm generally that worried about. If it's burst threat I want, I'll do exactly what I did in the pull erstwhile described, but slot Concussion Blow in on my 3rd GCD (after Shield Slam and Devastate). If I'm being pulled off under those circumstances, assuming the attacks land, then I can't be held accountable for it and it's a balancing problem.

Balance is a bigger concern for me right now. Since 4.0, warriors have seen three significant changes to their threat generation mechanics and all play their part.

1) First of all, the great Heroic Strike nerf hit Protection warriors very hard - particularly if, like me, you were a fan of Revenge. This nerf was nowhere near made up for in the Devastate buff we got as a trade, as I was using Heroic Strike FAR more than I was using Devastate and it was contributing far more damage. I'm not 100% sure how much damage and threat I lost as a result of this, but we're talking about one Hell of a lot.

2) The removal of the additional threat component from Shield Slam has contributed. I simply assumed that the threat from Shield Slam must have been overpowered, hence the 100% nerf we got to the additional threat it generated. If its damage was fine but its threat was out of kilter, then it's fair enough to remove the threat. I also read that the warrior reliance on Shield Slam was a bit too heavy, thus spreading the load seemed sensible.

Those two combined make up for a substantial threat loss that I assumed was being made up for elsewhere. Warriors were not out-performing their tanking counterparts in either threat or DPS, certainly not significantly, so a flat nerf of such dizzying magnitude would have been unquestionably brutal. But looking back outside of the Devastate buff, it does appear to be exactly what happened. This brings me onto my third point.

3) The face of Inner Rage changed completely. From consuming more rage per ability to simply lowering the cooldown on our rage dumps, the developers basically admitted that the ability itself was practically useless in its original form and needed updating. So bad was the idea all told, however, they even threw it into the doldrums of the levelling experience, while replacing its Cataclysm plateau with an entirely new ability.

Here's where my eyes narrow and I focus on the issue.

In reality, the nerf to Heroic Strike hasn't shaken out as a nerf at all - what's actually happened is a cut to the damage of each swing, but an increase in the frequency of them. The damage buff to Devastate roughly equates with the threat nerf to Shield Slam if we want to really simplify it, so I'm left at the end of this napkin musing with a blood-boiling question:

Is warrior sustained threat now balanced around a mechanic that the developers vowed to get rid of?

I cannot comment on the overall output regarding comparable values of tank threat. I can't say for certain if warriors are indeed bottom of the pile all things equal, just as I can't comment on the real time impact of any threat nerfs the other tanks have seen. But if the developers really think it's acceptable for my spec to be relegated to something they admitted was a deplorable chore, then it calls for a pretty immediate explanation from them and might give a clue as to why the "Ask the Devs - Tanking" answers are taking so long.

This, of course, is a reactionary thought flow that is laced with frustration. It could be way off mark, the whole problem could be my playstyle/spec and it's much ado about nothing. But I simply cannot reconcile the problems I've been having recently with what's going on between chair and screen, so I'd really appreciate some input as to what is going on with my spec. Please, just put it to me if I'm being stupid here.

But if I'm seriously expected to be the tank that's routinely lowest on threat, while also being the most fragile, then it may finally be time to reroll to DPS. This has gone on since The Burning Crusade and "bezt tankz vanilla lol" is no longer a viable reason for it; nor is the spurious "utility" that is typically only of value in five-man dungeons.

If I'm the problem, I can work on it. If I'm not the problem, playing a class that's weaker by design is just not fun anymore.

Promoting community content.

2011-06-01T03:45:00.000-07:00

An MMO, for the most part, is indelibly linked to the quality of its community. At a stage where complaints about WoW are constant, I find it most unfortunate that the community (now at its largest) is also at its most poisonous. One need only look over the official forums to see the miasma of bullying, rudeness, elitism and trolling that blights it. Despite these people (typically hiding behind level one alts), though, the community has always promoted groups that are more than willing to contribute their time, experience and expertise for their own personal enjoyment, but also for the benefit of others. Be it blogs, podcasts, videos, guides, theorycrafting or machinima, these people give a great deal of pleasure to a great many people.

But I'm beginning to wonder where they're going.

There is enough commentary about the WoW community and where it's headed, even some of my own from these very pages. But it does seem as if a lot of the people who make the game fun are departing for pastures new. From the blogosphere, some of my favourites are either dead or dying; you'll remember my post about Veneretio from TankingTips, and I've waxed lyrical about Kadomi more than once. That same quirky charm can be applied to Linedan too, another who's output has slowed to a crawl and, judging by his armoury, I can't be sure if he's even playing much anymore.

But other noteworthy departures are more universally worrying.

Most everyone who cares will now be aware that Kungen has quit the game. I recall a couple of posts going up on MMO-Champion and the official forums, all accompanied by bile and trolling. What most people don't realise is that players such as Kungen lead guilds that are effectively playtesters of the hardest content. They are making a huge contribution to our top end PvE play by getting there and ironing out the kinks. While other guilds are all up there now, Ensidia (and its past incarnations) has been doing it for far longer and Kungen has been at the helm.

Then we get to TotalBiscuit. You can watch the last Azeroth Daily episode to hear his explanation if you like, or weren't aware of him cancelling his subscription. Once more, we're talking about someone who made his name to many with his Cataclysm beta videos, but some of us have been listening to Blue Plz almost as long as we've been playing. A fun and engaging host, also with the Azeroth Daily show, he's another charismatic (though naturally disagreeable) loss to a community that perhaps needs these players more than ever.

Lastly, I should comment on TankSpot. It could just be me, but the quality of their video guides has plummeted since the launch of Cataclysm. Luckily, Kinaesthesia over at L2R has picked up the baton as far as guides go, but people like Aliena and Papapaint (despite being good players) simply lack the charisma to make their guides engaging and their entries have seen quality jettisoned for speed. Perhaps this is a more ironic development than I'm giving it credit for, but the increase in content quantity has saw the quality fall away.

Why this is happening is, really, another topic. What I'm asking is how we replace well thought-of community members who give up a lot of their free time to make the game more enjoyable for us. Let's not beat about the bush; WoW is more than just a game. The social ties that are created within it, as well as the multitude of activities that revolve around it, make it more than a game by default. I'm often found describing WoW as a hobby as I feel that's a more fitting title for it. Hobbyists want to create an atmosphere that benefits everyone, acutely understanding that what benefits the whole will benefit the individual. A game designed around the spurious notion of "community" should surely see the virtue in that. Perhaps the departure is due to the smaller requirement for a more encompassing community?

I suppose, essentially, I'm calling for my readers (as few as you might be) to be more supportive of the community as a whole. If you see a blog, podcast or video that you dislike, don't troll or insult the author; they may well be giving it their first go and just need some good advice and encouragement. Positive reinforcement is always a good way to promote people to get involved, as is constructive criticism on their content. Many times recently I've planned on creating a podcast or machinima, only to decide against it because I can't be bothered arguing with trolls about how good or bad it is.

Personally, I play on an RP server and this type of positivity is more commonplace than it is on, say, a PvP server. The creation of stories, videos and backgrounds for characters can easily form a nucleus of creativity that can extend to other activities around our hobby. This type of thing is a good vehicle for getting more high quality content that many, many people can enjoy. And I'm not talking about replacing those community heavyweights who are departing, as that's disingenuous to the whole point. What I'm getting at is the support for any project that contributes to the playing and aesthetic enjoyment of the WoW community.

How else can we contribute?

Reviewing PvE performance.

2011-05-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

Constructing a raid group is all about synergy, understanding and trust. For success, you really need to ensure that your 10 or 25 people are adding up to more than the sum of their parts and that they will act or react in a way that is considerate to the rest of the group. In most efforts to cover this topic, commentators will attempt to follow this statement with either a dressing down or a staunch defence of how important "output" is. Bearing in mind "output" is something of a subjective term, it's hard to establish just how important it is when variables throughout an encounter will considerably skew it one way or another. What I find frustrating is that a lot of the discussion devolves into the value of damage meters; even more frustrating is that many people seem to make terrible inferences from a very shaky grasp of logic.

1) If you like damage meters, you like spamming them in party and judging everyone's ability based upon them.
2) If you don't like damage meters, you're a casual baddie who isn't interested in improving your own performance.

Alas, human duality (and stupidity?) precludes people from getting beyond these two extremes and assessing the value of damage meters more objectively. I like damage meters, hate judgements based purely on them and am very interested in performance improvement. But in this world of "output" and raid-wide symbiosis, damage meters and parses are becoming an everyday part of the raiding experience. Whether you like them or not, their influence grows with each passing day. If you want to be a raider of progression content, it's best you accept that someone is going to be poring over what you're doing and trying to judge your performance accordingly.

Context here, is key - I've just come off the back of a raid last night that was, with no exaggeration, one of the most enjoyable I've had in a long time. We welcomed a new member into the fold, put together pretty much our strongest group, the composition in the raid was complementary and the person I asked to sit out for the night did so cheerily and with no argument. When you add that to a one-shotting of every boss we went for (heroic Halfus excepted - I always balls up a couple of pulls) and the inclusion of an achievement we didn't have before, we all had an absolute blast and can't wait to raid again tonight.

A lot of people believe there is more value in a post-mortem after a bad raid night, and there is value in that opinion. When things are going badly, it's worth knowing who's knuckling down and, conversely, who's throwing in the towel. But when things have gone well, you get a glimpse of that hard-to-appreciate concept that every guild should be looking for, particularly when starting out:

Potential.

Last night, I saw a bucket load of potential. Not only in performance, but in attitude and raid... Togetherness. Last night was people playing for one another in a complementary fashion that saw everyone's "output" increase. Yes, our new warlock is now indoctrinated with the "Blame Zell" mantra; that's unfortunate. But we broke several of our own records, passed out some nice loot, got a new achievement and even recovered from three deaths against the Ascendant Council to one-shot it. Oh, and our warlock was new (slightly lower geared than most of us), while our Shadow priest was in a dud spec that put her way under the hit cap. The point it's worth coming on to is whether or not "output" matters in such an environment. The thing is, that's actually a bum question.

Last night went so well BECAUSE the output was generally high across the board.

Damage meters and parses are invariably used to haul people over performance related coals for no actual benefit. If the tank threat was a bit lousy, healing was slack or DPS was low, then I'm confident there was a reason other than laziness and I don't actually need a meter to tell me that. The way we do certain encounters doesn't necessarily help certain specs and, in some cases, will hinder them. Our Feral's DPS is always low on heroic Atramedes because he never spends any time behind the boss. Our Retribution paladin never does high damage on Al'Akir because he coordinates the stormling strategy. Our aforementioned Shadow priest often falls behind due to a willingness to throw out heals or go the extra mile in avoiding damage. And no matter who I ask to do a job that will impact their DPS negatively, they're always happy to do it because they're far more interested in raid DPS than their own.

The key to all this, and where meters play the biggest part, is in each player's self-evaluation. As Kripparrian likes to say, you shouldn't necessarily set a number on someone's output; "you need at least 12k for Cho'gall" can easily cause someone to get there and start slacking off. You should be turning up to every single raid, determined to do more damage or more healing than you did the week before. Your meter can tell you if you're improving your uptime, getting in more globals, choosing your abilities better or taking fuller advantage of your procs. Each week, you should be fighting against yourself and not necessarily the rest of your raid because an encounter simply may not be made for you, making cross-class comparison totally pointless. You're not just fighting to beat enrage timers (be they soft or hard), you're fighting to make the encounter easier, and thus more enjoyable, for everyone. The Raging Spirits when fighting Arthas played no part in the enrage timer, but the difference made to everyone by high DPS finishing them quickly was glaringly obvious.

Gear, spec, encounter specific tasks, latency and raid composition all mean that a straight one-for-one comparison has no value. Instead, use your meter to maximise your OWN performance and you'll start to see across the board improvement in "output", enjoyment and success.

If raiding had a holy trinity, that'd be it.

Output, enjoyment and success.

When to start the Firelands?

2011-05-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

With patch 4.2 on the PTR and guilds already in there testing raid encounters, it strikes me that the patch itself isn't too far away - probably within around 3 to 4 weeks. Roughly speaking, that means my guild has around four resets to catch up, as best as possible, with the progression of other guilds on the realm prior to the Firelands. This is a bit of a dilemma because, though we're 3/13, some of us are still missing gear slots that will make our transition into the next content a bit more difficult. It's no exaggeration to say that many guilds below ours on the progression chart are significantly better geared than we are due to a couple of re-rolls and a late start for our guild (we're 5th Horde on Argent Dawn at the minute, after only three resets and an imperfect set up).

The question for me as a GM is whether or not we keep working on the heroic modes to up our guild standing now, or simply farm the heck out of the current content to make sure we're ready for Firelands. Similar to this question is the one of direction; do we tear up the Firelands on release, or do we dedicate a reasonable amount of time going back to tier 11 to finish them off?

I distinctly remember Kadomi talking about this back when Trial of the Crusader launched. Her guild all wanted to get into the new raid for shiny purplez, but she herself was more interested in putting Ulduar to bed by killing Yogg-Saron. Now, ignoring the fact that Ulduar was an absolute belter of a raid and Yogg-Saron was an incredible encounter that anyone should be sad to have missed, "progression" is based off of current content because it's the most relevant and challenging. The problem now, however, is that heroic modes have muddied the waters of what is considered "finished" and "unfinished". Yes, we've finished the current normal content by becoming Defenders of a Shattered World. However, we've not grabbed the heroic achievements yet, nor the titles that go with them.

This is made all the more compelling by the fact that nobody on Argent Dawn has even come close to killing Sinestra yet.

It's totally understood that Argent Dawn is a very slowly progressed realm; it's to be expected from an RP realm, really. But on a server where realm firsts are a very real possibility for us, turning a blind eye to the prestige that would go with being the first to best the heroic versions of Al'Akir, Cho'gall, Nefarian and (particularly) Sinestra is tough. There can be no doubt that some of the other guilds up there will dive straight into the Firelands to gear up and cheese earlier heroic mode encounters, but I just don't know if it's wise to pursue such a strategy. And even if it is wise, is there actually a "strategy" that exists at all? It would be stupid to ignore the similar prestige that would go with being the first to kill Ragnaros or to construct Tarecgosa's Rest, so is that the better option?

I thought the heroic modes introduced in Cataclysm were designed specifically for the best of the best to race each other with. They weren't designed for the average raid group, even those who are above average or even better. The tiny percentage of players that have killed Sinestra to date are an obvious testimony to that fact. But heroic modes have also added a certain amount of frustration, because some are easily achievable by those outside the top 1% and this inclines me to think that they're perhaps more accessible than I previously thought. Therefore, the completionist in me wants to see the full complement of 13/13 heroic, with potentially a server first or two, while the competitor in me wants to be the first to kill Ragnaros and start work on a shiny staff for our Shadow priest.

I'm interested to know what you guys think; should we just move on, or should we keep an eye to the past while certain encounters remain undefeated? Obviously we're going to need some Firelands gear, but is running the risk of slowing progression on current (4.2) content worth the prestige of grabbing a server first Sinestra kill?

I honestly don't know.

600,000 vote with their feet.

2011-05-11T02:42:00.001-07:00

My previous entry this week was just a quick musing regarding something that's been in my head for a while and how a certain turn of events influenced my haste to write it. This entry is right off the bat, as I've read that Blizzard have just managed to "misplace" 600,000 World of Warcraft subscribers; and Mike Morhaime has attempted to explain why this is.

Essentially, the playerbase of an MMO doesn't decline in a linear fashion, according to Morhaime, but rather how quickly players consume content. The crux of his point lies in the fact players have nothing to do and, therefore, stop subscribing. Now, let's be realistic - I have no clue of the actual numbers, how the fluctuation appears over a period, what the Blizzard business model is or (to be frank) what I'd say/do even if I did know these things. But even if we ignore the lump of subscribers who have left to try Trion's Rift, or the time that's elapsed since launch, I think it's absolutely staggering that this drop would be blamed on a lack of content from a team that deliberately chose to postpone the 2nd raid tier of this expansion.

Too long, didn't read (or see the bizarre contradiction)?

Tier 12 was held back due to players still being busy with tier 11, yet over half a million people have supposedly ditched their subscription because they don't have enough content.

While I need to remind everyone that business speak is designed to cushion the blow to those with finance at stake, putting out a contradictory message like this is all the more remarkable considering the shaky application of logic that accompanies it. Even if we were to accept that players had consumed current content faster than ever before, that's hardly a cue to cancel a subscription; you're more likely to do other things in game, or play something else until the next major content patch. Call me old fashioned, but I'd only cancel my subscription if I didn't intend to come back.

Leaving aside those subscribers who are not playing because they're fed up or have nothing to do, Blizzard has to accept the possibility that well over half a million people have just left Azeroth for the last time, and a truckload are potentially about to follow them out the door.

If that does turn out to be the case, what exactly has Blizzard done wrong since December '10 that they did right previously?

I've waxed lyrically about my love for the PvE model during The Burning Crusade, but there can be little question that Wrath of the Lich King was our most successful expansion to date with getting players in. At launch we had seven new zones, 10 five-man heroic instances, three raid instances (potentially 20 encounters), a world PvP zone and all the battlegrounds/arenas you could want. Cataclysm launched with five new zones, 9 five-man heroic instances, three raid instances (potentially 25 encounters) and the obligatory PvP content. When you toss in rated battlegrounds, the complete revamp of the old world and an absolute mountain of new quests and achievements, the argument for "not enough content" barely seems credible because Northrend had a lot less to offer.

So why the drop?

I do consider things like shared raid lockouts and point caps. Only being able to run a raid once per week may be a contributing factor purely because raiders want to raid. The reason for having ANY cap on content-currency has still yet to be lucidly explained to me; why do I need my Justice Points capped, and why the paltry sum of 4,000?

For me, however, it's not a question of content - it's a question of accessible content. We can be in no doubt on this front, gentle readers. The content of Cataclysm, particularly in PvE, has never been more ostracising than it is now. Both heroic dungeons and raids have been created to keep a large percentage of people out of them, which in turn gives people less to do by default. I need not explain what this has done to the WoW community, a community that is now deeply segregated between the "can" and "can not" camps. In addition, the shared raid lockout seriously impacts on those in 10 man guilds who enjoyed creating PuG raids for the 25 man versions - yet another hammer to the sense of community that has been eroded so badly since the launch of Cataclysm.

This is not a cry for nerfs, by the way. Personally, I think five-man content should be challenging because it's endgame for many, many people. Blizzard clearly agrees with me here. But you cannot make something both endgame difficulty, yet also be part of the progression path into raids. All you're doing here is wasting a raiders time in content he has no wish to play and alienating those who find the going too tough.

Please, please, please bear in mind that this is only my opinion from what I've seen, read and experienced. I do not presume to tell Blizzard how to fix their game or placate an increasingly frustrated playerbase. But an addition to this frustration is the perception that the company itself doesn't care and won't step in when it should. Too often CM's do nothing other than lock or delete posts because of a spurious rule infraction, or flat out tell a poster with a concern or complaint that they're wrong. This is terrible customer service - yes, you can try and paint the scene from the perspective of the company. But when you say to someone who's taken the time to post on a forum (however unintelligible it may be) that his opinion or view is invalid or incorrect, you're basically telling him not to bother bringing the subject up. The complete unwillingness to police the community or deal with things like harassment or, particularly, rampant item theft merely reinforces this view.

I've got to be clear, this isn't a death knell for WoW at all. In fact, many will see it as a horrendous overreaction. But when half a million people ditch your game, with goodness knows how many more frustrated or hacked off, a far harsher look has to be taken at what's going on than simply blaming the decline on a lack of bosses.

In fact, such an assertion will surely see a lot of players resolved in their view that Blizzard is losing touch with them.

"LF3M rogues for heroic..."

2011-05-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

"Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction".

So saith Blizzard, so shall it be done.

It's been a wee while since my last blog and I reckon this topic is as good as any other to ease myself back in - I've been on vacation, after all!

Most of the commentary regarding this projected change revolves around two camps:

1) A nice quality of life change to smooth out and speed up dungeon runs.
2) A significant PvE nerf, caving in to the demands of "bads" everywhere.

Let me start off by clarifying what this change is actually going to do before commenting on how effectively it will do it. Roughly speaking, every crowd control listed above now works like Sap. That's literally it. Once applied, it will have no affect on nearby mobs, and there will be no effect on the mob itself once the CC wears off. Some people have moaned that CC isn't such a big thing in the Zandalari instances, so Blizzard are way off the mark again.

I disagree.

First of all, particularly in Zul'Aman, there are several pulls that are made markedly easier by controlling a couple of mobs. Secondly, and possibly more pertinent, is the change to those below the gear floor for the Zandalari instances. With those touting mainly raid gear now queuing exclusively for some action with the trolls, the lower dungeons of Cataclysm's launch are now robbed of their better geared players - bringing CC back to the fore again. Essentially, anyone running any heroic dungeon is going to benefit from this change.

The key word here is "benefit". I am overwhelmingly in favour of this change, and those against it have utterly missed the point if you ask me. If I can be blunt, this is only a very small mechanical change, subtly implemented, but is one of the most positive things I've seen from this development team. Perhaps this type of thing is a sign that the new team are growing into the job and "feeling" out solutions a bit better. Let's hope so.

There will be almost no alteration to those in guild groups coming across this change, while the lesser skilled and practiced (or those in PuG groups with less communication) will be able to learn the finer arts of CC at a more manageable pace. Not to mention, this will speed runs up significantly by players simply applying their CC and then dealing with the pulls more effectively.

The added benefit to me, of course, is the annoying "immune" message that sometimes pops up. For some reason that nobody can discern, certain mobs are immune to conventional CC and this can blight a run. Planning out a pull for five minutes, only to see it shot to ruins because a humanoid mob ended up immune to Polymorph is absolutely no fun whatsoever.

Alas, this change will not solve many problems encountered in a PuG.

- The tankadin that obliviously mashes his AoE buttons, breaking all the CC.
- The shaman who won't cast Hex as, according to him, there's "no need lol".
- The mage that continuously tries to Polymorph a scary elemental.
- The rogue that doesn't think kicking a healer is all that important, really.
- The warlock that DoT's up the caster that he feared less than 3 seconds ago.
- The warrior who forgets that auto-running into mobs WILL still aggro them all.
- The hunter that didn't potty train his pet, swearing blind it was on passive.
- The myriad of players that don't grasp why attacking before the tank is bad.

We've all seen them. Bad groups will remain bad, and nothing Blizzard do will ever change that. To wrap this up, I think Zarhym said it best:

"We promise that the average group will still wipe in dungeons even with this change. We have plenty of data to back that up that supposition".

Indeed.

Rise of the Zandalari.

2011-04-26T07:51:00.001-07:00

So, we think it's landing this week despite WoW Insider not being quite so certain due to a couple of interesting points. However, just to whet the appetite for those that haven't seen it, here's the trailer for patch 4.1.

So, what does the patch mean for Protection warriors? Here's a very basic list.

- Hit rating loses all of its raiding importance. Interrupts will no longer miss, so feel free to reforge it all away and concentrate on more defensive stats. Naturally, this affects everyone.
- Shield Bash is gone, so replace it on your bars with Pummel which can now be used in every stance. We shave a little time off of our interrupt, but we lose the blanket silence.
- Heroic Leap isn't on the GCD anymore, so that's a small quality of life change. Alas, it's still garbage because of the absurd restrictions placed on the ability, so don't assume it's now become useful.
- Rallying Cry, a new ability, is basically a raid-wide Last Stand. Get it on your bars and use it for any fight where the raid takes a chunk of damage; just don't forget it shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
- Spell Reflect got a 300% nerf. Ouch. Now, don't use it on cooldown with casters around, instead try to be more selective about when more than one caster is maybe lining you up.
- Shield Block will now reduce magical damage taken by 20%, assuming you take the full allocation of points in Shield Mastery (which you should). The trade off is that the talent no longer affects Spell Reflect.
- Gag Order sees Pummel replace Shield Bash due to the latter getting the bullet. It's still a useful talent for five-man heroics, but nothing to write home about if you're raiding.

Penultimately, the new Zandalari instances provide a veritable slew of tanking items - of particular interest is the ranged slot if you've not seen the Crossfire Carbine either drop or hit the AH with a reasonable price tag. All of the drops are iLevel 353, however, so while they're a step up from current heroic content, your raid gear will still best it.

Lastly, a few more things are going to be more readily available. Maelstrom Crystals will be in far more plentiful supply, your Valor Points will not be changed to Justice Points yet, and you can buy Honor Points for Justice points and vice versa.

And that's it.

Enjoy patch 4.1. :)

Wait and Bleed.

2011-04-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

In a complete jump from the norm, today I'm going to cover a topic I've yet to cover on The Dead Good Tanking Guide. The truth is, this particular entry is probably long overdue thanks to the raid content that Cataclysm has provided. As a result, I'm duty-bound to wax lyrical about the fact that warriors don't just tank and lead guilds. They also deal damage. And when a full 50% of the normal mode bosses can be safely completed with just a single tank, it's more likely than ever that you're going to be asked to play DPS.

So, dearest readers, here it is - your humble author presents his Guide to the Arms Warrior in Cataclysm.

First of all, I'll explain why I play Arms. Basically, it's both competitive and fun. I never really enjoyed Fury, not at any point in the game, because it's always "felt" a little mindless and lacking in methodology. I laughed at Ghostcrawler's description of the Fury warrior turning up late, half-clothed and drunk because that's how I've always seen them. On the other hand, I retain my borderline-OCD weapon collection and even have a seperate bank space for it so that my weapons are not contaminated by other, more mundane, hoardings.

There is another, more group related, reason for playing Arms. In raid content when you're only doing it occasionally, it's much easier to gear up for. The hit rating cap is fixed at an achievable level, while being slightly under the expertise cap isn't as bad as it would be for Fury.

So what does Arms bring to the table that Fury doesn't?

For me, it simply has a higher level of flexibility with only a small sacrifice in raw damage to pay for it. Planting and maintaining sunders is just as easy as it is in Fury, with better access to on-demand burst, crowd control and AoE damage potential. You're also bringing the Blood Frenzy buff, which is far rarer than you'd think. Granted, the Mortal Strike reduction in healing is far less worthwhile than its previous incarnations, but it's still a "nice-to-have" quirk that the Arms warrior gets passively.

As for playstyle, it's (for me) just an absolute country mile ahead. No frustrating "rage waits", an ever-available filler in the form of Slam and a more consistent rotation with which to construct your DPS in. While Arms remains a priority system, it's a far more fluid one thanks to the gaming potential of Overpower, the judgement on getting the most out of your Sudden Death procs and the rotation crutch that is Slam.

So, here's my spec.

As is always the case, many people will wonder just why I chose to leave out Incite for things like Blood and Thunder or Piercing Howl. Naturally, the answer is simple; Heroic Strike use is largely confined to periods of Battle Trance, while the added functionality of Piercing Howl and Blood and Thunder gives the Arms warrior that little X-Factor that can make him more useful than merely providing more damage. Yes, those points in Incite will unquestionably result in more single-target damage. But truthfully, I like the higher multitude of options provided by my own choices.

Stats and constructing a "rotation"

This is slightly simplified, but you'll get the idea overall. Strength is your best stat as an Arms warrior, indeed as any plate DPS. After that, you want your 8% cap for hit rating and in or around 23/24 expertise at least. Due to the way Overpower works, hitting the big two-six for expertise isn't as important as it is for other melee specs but you should still go for it so long as you're not throwing away other stats to get there. Once there, you're looking at critical strike rating, mastery rating and then finally, your only junk stat, haste. Reforging off mastery and haste for hit, expertise or crit is a good place to start, thus saving your gems and enchantments for strength and critical strike rating.

Like most DPS specs, there is no longer a set rotation to worry about; just a priority list. At the top of it is Colossus Smash, while your bottom run is Slam. Essentially, starting with Charge is a good bet for three reasons; fast gap closure, some initial rage to work with, and the critical strike buff to your first Mortal Strike. Once in range, get your Rend off and then hit Colossus Smash - you're now under way. Mortal Strike will now land with the critical strike bonus, as well as bypassing all armour and giving your first stack of Lambs to the Slaughter. After that, you're looking at Overpower and then Slam before your next Mortal Strike.

Always prioritize Mortal Strike and avoid Slam unless nothing else is available. Use your Slam hits to instead refresh Rend and Colossus Smash if required, while also taking care not to waste Sudden Death procs by using Colossus Smash again while the armour debuff is still up from a previous swing. Lastly during your normal rotation, try to avoid refreshing Rend while the Colossus Smash debuff is up, as even another Slam will net you more DPS.

The main Arms cooldown is Battle Trance, and its impact can be loosely refined to your ability to use Heroic Strike. Arms warrior opening threat is a menace to tanks, as it's common to use all of your cooldowns at the start of a pull. This means that a possible five attacks are hammering in without any armour to cushion them, and I'm not even including trinkets or the effects of Juggernaut. As a result, you'll soon learn the benefit of counting to five. :)

And that's it for now. I'm no Arms expert; that much is obvious. But I play the spec relatively competitively, and really enjoy doing so when given the chance. I recommend the maintenance of a DPS spec in this content if you can safely assume you won't always be tanking, and Arms ticks all the boxes for me.

But how about you guys? Have you played DPS this expansion at all and, if so, have you tried Arms? What's your experience with it and how much fun are you having?

Answers on a postcard, please. o/

An alternative solution for LFD.

2011-04-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

A lot of the furore surrounding Blizzard's latest hair-brained scheme to address tank shortages in LFD has concentrated on the problems arising from the idea. While this type of analysis is all very well, it's easy to sneer from the passenger seat when you have nothing else to offer. It's my hope in this musing to provide an alternative solution to the tank shortage, while also addressing a large amount of the toxicity that revolves around using the dungeon finder. First and foremost, however, it's worth having a look at what the dungeon finder is supposed to do with the help of Bashiok:

"It's the intent of the Dungeon Finder as a tool to always present the most relevant content".

"... a tool which has a purpose to provide quick matching to facilitate progression".

I almost always enjoy Bashiok's offerings, as they tend to be both informative and witty. He (she?) also seems to inherently understand the developer thinking behind their decisions, and can honestly assess them with the community as his audience. This mix of often maniacal charm with blunt commentary gives us a rather perceptive look into what Blizzard expects the LFD tool to do.

To provide the fastest possible grouping within a level appropriate dungeon, where there are worthwhile rewards.

Nowhere in the description of LFD, neither in this pithy comment from Bashiok or from any other official source, does it state that the dungeon finder is designed to find well balanced groups, capable of working together to get through difficult five-man content. Unfortunately, that is EXACTLY what a tank is looking for when he signs up for a heroic that he doesn't outgear to the point of triviality. He wants the best group to help him, not the quickest group, and this is where the problem starts.

The LFD tool is not viable for heroic content because it cannot look for the most important factors.

Normal levelling dungeons, even level 85 ones, only need to account for the basics of character level and a crude gearscore mechanism - they're so easy they'll be completed with just a tank and a healer. Heroic dungeons, on the other hand, call for an awful lot more than that (good talent choices, well itemized gear, viable CC for the dungeon etc) and the dungeon finder doesn't filter for it whatsoever.

So, why exactly is the LFD available for the construction of heroic groups at all?

We can return to Bashiok for the answer; he talks about "relevant content" to "facilitate progression". That might seem like a swept up answer, but it doesn't explain what is meant by either "relevant" or "progression". To me, something is relevant when there is a good chance of success, not something that is almost entirely dependent on chance. And to me, progression should happen when individual players are ready for it between the chair and the screen, NOT when some arbitrary number says that their gear is ready. And I'm sorry, but expecting random players who are never going to run into each other again to routinely behave contributively is hopelessly naive. If you don't believe me, the proof is in the pudding.

Now, the erudite amongst you will have noticed that I have neglected to say anything that is exclusive to tanks. That's because the LFD tool is populated by THREE roles and not just one. No good player joining the queue, regardless of the role they play, is free of the concerns I'm discussing. And all too often in these discussions, the top quality healers and DPS are forgotten when descriptions of absolute asswipery are shared.

The most amazing act of skill I've witnessed in LFD wasn't one of my own, despite me being a tank; it was a warlock who killed four Stonecore mobs on his own after the group wiped due to the elemental AoE. He survived with Drain Life, and then proceeded to kill the mobs individually with intelligent use of Banish, Seduce, Fear and mega-kitage using Curse of Exhaustion.

Potentially rewarding bad players at the expense of better ones who carry them, is one of the most monumentally poor ideas I've ever heard, yet that's exactly what Blizzard is planning. Dishing out a goodie bag to someone purely by virtue of their role is the utter antithesis of "bring the player, not the class". What a tank wants when he joins the queue is a relatively high chance of success, in an instance that he can control. That was the case in Northrend, hence the LFD tool worked. It is not the case in Cataclysm, hence the LFD tool not working.

As far as I can see, if Blizzard want the Cataclysm LFD to work better for everyone, they have three options:

1) Make heroic dungeons easier. When you cannot possibly account for group makeup, group skill level, or what dungeon the group gets, you have to make all of the dungeons universally easier so as to accommodate. This was how it worked in WotLK, but we were promised a change in Cataclysm. This is a retrograde step that would cause an outcry.

2) Make the LFD tool more sophisticated. Ensure that it does not assign heroic Stonecore to a group with four warriors and a Holy paladin. Make sure badly itemized characters are grouped with strongly itemized ones to compensate. Ensure viable CC is in every group. This would lengthen queue times, but hopefully improve success rates as the trade.

3) Remove heroic instances from the dungeon finder altogether. Make heroic dungeons on the same difficulty as raids, while installing level-cap dungeons as the natural stepping stone into tier content; heroic dungeons should then provide the same rewards as raids. This is refining the superior dungeon model seen in The Burning Crusade.

Followers of my blog, or those who know me relatively well, will inherently know that I prefer option three; The Burning Crusade remains the pinnacle of PvE design as far as concerns me, but I appreciate its flaws and how Blizzard has tried to solve them. Not only would this step remove the horror show of trying to complete hard content with random, bad and difficult players in LFD, it would allow for faster raid preparation in the same way farming Tempest Keep instances used to during the GAP*. In addition, it would return the LFD tool to a state where the chances of success increase and more tanks would be willing to queue up to run with random players they likely won't come across again.

As always, many people will like this idea and many more will despise it. Some reasons will be good, others will be bad. But it's yet another piece that I submit to the developers of my favourite game in the hope that it will at least be considered as a viable alternative for running instances. I suppose the point of all this is to encourage people to view it in the same way I did by asking themselves what they'd do to solve the problem.

So there you have it.

What WOULD you do?

* The Golden Age of PvE.

Revitalising the "World" of Warcraft.

2011-04-13T00:39:00.000-07:00

Very short post today, merely a quick pointer to something that definitely requires your attention if you haven't already seen it. It's a post on the WoW Europe forums from a hunter named Dergas, and it talks about why the world has become dead and suggests some ideas for recreating it.

There are a couple of troll posts, but the vast majority of people have appreciated the OP and given their own ideas; many of which are very, VERY good.

It's rare when I come across something on the official WoW forums that pleases me, and this is the first time I've ever linked such a post on my blog - that's how good it is, and I cannot stress enough that you should read the entirety of the OP's offering as well as all of the commentary after it.

Here it is for your reading pleasure.

I suppose the only downside to this post is that it's on the European forums and, therefore, far less likely to actually get any developer attention. But such is life - that's why I recommend everyone try to put this particular contribution in as many places as possible.

"Call to Arms".

2011-04-11T02:18:00.000-07:00

Much like the RealID fiasco, the tinterwebz have been ablaze with commentary about Blizzard's new idea for LFD, "Call to Arms". If you haven't read it, the basic idea come 4.1 is to reward tanks with a goodie bag at the end of a heroic instance that they queued for, alone, using LFD. Said goodie bag will contain the following:

- Some more gold.
- A high chance at a gem or flask.
- A medium chance at a non-combat pet.
- A small chance at a dungeon ground mount (Deathcharger, Ravenlord, White Hawkstrider).

I'm ignoring the wording of the announcement which fudges around the "least represented role" because I think everyone knows that it's designed to get more tanks in the queue. The question, however, isn't simply a case of whether it'll work or not. The real question comes in two parts.

Will it make more tanks queue Versus will it improve the LFD tool?

The reason I've used the word versus is specifically because the respective answers are "yes" and "no". What's worrying, however, is that the questions are mutually inclusive; this idea is going to encourage inexperienced or bad tanks that will exponentially worsen the LFD experience for everyone else. This possibility has already been eloquently discussed by Kadomi and I won't comment further on it here.

Another point that's worth being borne in mind has also been made by the Aggronaut. Basically, it discusses what the LFD tool was designed to do and what the result was. Your humble author shall provide a resume for you because he's kind. The LFD tool was designed to allow people to farm their Frost emblems as quickly as possible, in content that wasn't remotely challenging. It did so at a point in the content where you were almost guaranteed to get an overgeared tank or healer that could cover for just about any mistake you made. In short, timing and intent worked in tandem to provide a tool that was very successful in what it was designed for. Communication was utterly unnecessary as every pull mirrored the last.

Fast forward to a world where very few people are going to be overgeared, accompanied by content that doesn't allow tanks or healers to make up for the mistakes of others. The icing on this particular bun is a significant percentage of kleptomaniacal players in the queue who are impatient, difficult, obnoxious and rude.

I've mentioned in previous writing the logistical reason tanks aren't queuing; Valor Points have less value than Frost Emblems did. You cannot purchase better gear than you can get in raids (which 10 man tanks used to get), while reputation grinds also yield high gearing rewards. We can then include crafted epics, a liberal sprinkling of BoE's found on the auction house and the ludicrous cap on the Justice Point total that your Valor Points are destined to become. Oh, yeah - I almost forgot the raiders who hit their weekly cap through tier 11 success and, therefore, don't queue, either.

The problem as I see it, therefore, is two fold: a bad community and bad value of rewards. What is most frustrating is that Blizzard can attend to both of these issues, yet choose to address neither. Instead, they haphazardly try to deal with the effects instead of the causes in a particularly adept impersonation of Great British government. To those of rational mind, the causes are obvious - and that's what makes the proposed solution so utterly baffling.

Incidentally, it's about to get a whole lot worse in 4.1 for two reasons.

1) Tanks will do their seven heroics in a burst with guild/friends, making them less numerous at any other given time.

OR

2) The tanks that DO simplify current heroic dungeons through gear may well solely queue for Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub.

So to be clear; Blizzard have identified a tank shortage in the LFD queue. They then try to alleviate the problem by encouraging tanks to queue with baubles, but miss the fact that their solution is actually going to increase the reason people don't queue (are impatient DPS players really expected to improve their attitude with a dose of crap tanks?). In the next step, they make the problem worse by encouraging the tanks they want to queue to just stack their dungeons over a weekend with guildies and friends. All of this is laden with a backdrop of insignificant reward for potentially significant hassle.

My last complaint is a personal one - namely, I'd like to know why I'm being ostracised for attempting to build up my server community. When I queue for a heroic, I always ask to pick people up in trade before hitting the button. It's rare when I don't get a full group and they're usually more pleasant as there are repercussions to being an absolute dolt while in the instance. So why am I NOT going to get the spurious reward for encouraging the server cooperation that the game is crying out for? And further, why are the excellent healers who constantly save a bad tank not up for a reward? Why are the excellent DPS who use all their tricks to cover several bad pulls not up for a reward? Yes, there are some horrible players out there; but not doffing your hat to those who do try to make the LFD a better place for everyone, regardless of role, is as big a slap in the face as you can give them.

Confused? You should be. After all, the direction from the top is hopelessly confused. And unfortunately, it's yet another example of the muddled thinking from a development team that is clearly floundering in the absence of those who've departed to work on project Titan.

The current team had better start actually listening to their players, or they'll end up with no players at all.

Here's hoping.

Protection warrior, LF Guild

2011-04-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

Yep, Zell the tank is guildless again. Over a month since leaving Kilrogg, and the path ahead just isn't as clear as it was before. I want to thank Emelia from The Flaming Ruby, as well as other members of the guild, for generally making me feel welcome throughout my time here; all told I'd say it was a positive experience and it grieves me to leave a raid after becoming an intrinsic part of it. Unfortunately, as it always is with these things, certain policies became unpalatable and it was time to move on. I wish them all the best of luck with the rest of Cataclysm.

But where does that leave me? Honestly, I'm not sure. For the second time in less than two months Zell has found himself homeless. Both of these times have been by choice, but for vastly different reasons. While I had to escape the oppression of tell-Hell leadership before I burned out entirely, I also gave up a lot of what I loved about the game for something I believed I wanted more. Did I make a mistake? I don't think so. But the largely passive route to raid success doesn't suit me entirely either, purely because I tend to like having the capacity to change things that don't work. I suppose the biggest frustration is not really knowing which priority comes first. Maybe if lady luck had just shone a little differently, I'd be in a different situation and feel totally differently.

At time of writing (though I enjoy raiding, socialising and role-playing) I can't shake a feeling that hit me very hard in April '10. I suspect for many people in my WoW generation, that same feeling still plagues them and shaking it is part of what is pulling them down in Cataclysm. Maybe my feeling has nothing to do with it and I'm speculating badly. But a year ago, almost to the day, the culmination of hard work from a very special set of people resulted in the fall of the Lich King - and I've never felt the same about WoW since then.

I think that was the date that I completed the game. I know that sounds ludicrous in a world with constantly evolving content, but that's how it feels to me. Arthas was the quintessential end boss in a game such as this - a character that spanned Blizzard's entire Warcraft history, transcended Horde and Alliance and was one of the best known and interesting characters in gaming history. Not only that, he was the first accessible end boss for a large part of the playerbase and was a very challenging encounter that tested everyone in the group.

All of this, of course, needs to include two facts:

1) My journey to Arthas can only be repeated. Questing through the new zones, farming up reputations, clearing tier raids to prepare for the next one, levelling an alt to support the work and finally defeating the end boss of the expansion. I'm just not sure I feel the same way about doing it again for Deathwing.

2) The Arthas kill was shared with a very important group of people. Not only were they long-term guild mates, WoW players and friends - that raid added up to more than the sum of its parts. The core group of Angelsky, Zack, Flamefury, Tarokan, Arabisan, Jernau, Pawny, Rottvomit and Roarzol was VERY special.

Am I looking for a new goal in WoW? Am I looking for that "feeling" when with a certain group again? Who knows. Maybe my disappointment comes from my failing to make it work with a new guild and this is the inevitable emotional fall out; I wouldn't really know because I've never been in this situation before. All I can say for certain is that I'm not sure which direction I'm going to pull in this morning, and it's hard to be objective when most of the issues I have are personal and can't be applied across the board.

As you can imagine, I'll be posting about it when I do know. I suppose I'm swinging toward an entirely new guild project, one that captures everything that was good about the Eye of Nerzhul but also incorporates the lessons learned from my time in The Flaming Ruby. I confess to looking at where the possibilities lie because, despite feeling like I completed the game in Icecrown Citadel, I still feel as though I have some unfinished business in WoW - something to do that I never really done.

As all, I'll keep you posted. And if you see Zellvirae running around Stormwind looking destitute, don't hesitate to toss her a couple of gold. She IS homeless, after all.

"Okay, I quit".

2011-03-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I'm not really - but there does seem to be a large number of posts these days where this exact statement is used.

It seems every man and his dog is departing WoW for pastures new these days, and certainly a cursory glance through my favourite blogs of yesteryear would concur - so many authors having left or stopped writing would clearly indicate that, for them, the game just doesn't inspire them as much anymore. For the most part with the "I quit" posts, there is a general level of commonality that extends beyond the main two groups of people; those who are content that their time has come to an end and express thanks to Blizzard for the effort, and those who blame Blizzard entirely for their loss of enjoyment and endeavour to make that fact abundantly clear.

One thing they almost all have in common, however, is their opening sentence (beyond the title, of course):

"I've been playing since vanilla...[insert post here]."

For me, this is where it all lies. I don't think it's to do with easy gameplay, I don't think it's to do with truncated levelling, I don't think it's to do with walkover dungeons, I don't think it's to do with social corrosion, I don't think it's to do with LFD, I don't think it's to do with cross-server battlegrounds, I don't think it's to do with easy loot, I don't think it's to do with prescriptive questing, I don't think it's to do with grinding/farming. Hell, I don't even think it's to do with unforgivably daft developers who "hate my class omg".

I think it's to do with the fact that everything has a shelf life. For many, that threshold has either passed or is fast approaching, and the current Blizzard outlook doesn't meet with their own. Forgive this xenophobic slur, but it wouldn't be entirely disingenuous to liken the player relationship with Blizzard to the British political situation of the noughties - people just made the best of a bad job (the Labour party) because there was no decent alternative.

Except now, in both examples, there is.

I should state here and now that I still enjoy WoW and will be playing for the indefinite future. I maintain the opinion that it's the best game of its kind, it gives me almost everything I want from an MMO and logging on is no chore. However, I also can't deny the very obvious realization that I just don't feel the way I used to about WoW. I had that feeling of magic during The Burning Crusade and most of Wrath of the Lich King, where everything I did in PvE was just good fun. I hadn't become bored with grinding, I loved doing challenging instances, I didn't know or play my class all that well and there was just so much that I didn't know.

Maybe what players "know" is the real culprit. The more you know, the less you have to discover and players with little to nothing to discover are not going to enjoy things as much as they did. Each new expansion brings more quests (I know how to do them), more levels (I know how to do them), more talent specializations (I know how to do them) more reputation grinds (I know how to do them) more instances (I know how to do them), more battlegrounds (I know how to do them), more arenas (I know how to do them) and more raids (I know how to do them). The sad truth is that Cataclysm hasn't brought anything new to players who've been with WoW for a long time. It's merely the Emperor's New Clothes and, in truth, that's all an expansion really can be until Blizzard come up with something totally new, fresh and different. The problem is that mucking with an inherently successful formula for MMO game design is fraught with needless danger.

Look at what Cataclysm has made WoW into. Dull and repetitive grinding is pretty much gone, the ludicrous search for your next quest hub has disappeared, access to dungeons is unprecedented, gearing up for harder content is much more convenient, travelling time is substantially reduced and talent selection is far more streamlined. It's also created casual PvP in the form of normal battlegrounds, with the competitive edge catered for in the arena and rated battlegrounds. Added to that there is end-game PvE content that caters for those willing to work at it, while also having a difficulty commensurate with the best players in the world. I know that many view some of the above as inherently negative, but it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that Cataclysm is Blizzard's best designed iteration of WoW to date if you're looking from the ground up. If you're a new or intermediate player, you're likely having an absolute ball while those more advanced in "WoW years" are feeling a little jaded. The only way us older statespeople can really appreciate how good WoW is these days is to view it from the lens of the beginner; and therein lies the issue.

The only way to do that is with a time machine.

Even if we deleted all our characters and started again, we still know how to group quests up and execute a good rotation. There are now more WoW veterans than ever before purely by virtue of the game's age, many of which utterly lacking in patience for those who are new to the game or simply not that good at it. Perhaps the magic of The Burning Crusade came from the larger percentage of intermediate players at the same standard as you both in skill and gear, married with a better server community. It's almost impossible for me to properly articulate what it is, because I now know what I know and cannot comment on what I don't know, when I do know it.

This is not a call for the end of WoW, nor a sandwich-board march about its death throes. WoW has more to offer new and intermediate players now than it ever has before, and by a distance. What I AM trying to say is that the time will come when you've gotten everything you can from a game and it's only ever going to be more of the same. We shouldn't suggest that the game has suddenly become awfully bad, more try and appreciate that you've done what you can with the product as it is. If Blizzard can come up with something totally new that utterly revamps our outlook of the game, then more power to them; perhaps it'll be something they implement for Titan.

But while every man and his dog seemingly heads for the door, I just wanted to get in and say something while I still love playing the game and appreciate what's great about it:

You've done a great job, Blizzard - thank you for the time you've invested, the time I've spent and the times I'll never forget.

P.S - Why do you hate warriors? Buff them omg.

The 4.0 Protection review.

2011-03-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

With 4.1 now not too far away, and with my having completed all of the normal tier 11 content, it's time for a resume of the Cataclysm Protection warrior in PvE. As always, this is merely my opinion and could well see resounding disagreement across the board; if that's the case, then Blizzard have succeeded in their plan by default and the player base is making decisions based on group composition and personal preference. That said, though, here's how I see it.

Executive Summary

The Cataclysm Protection warrior, in the main, has been a resounding success. His performance has been on par with the other tanks, the talent tree is full of compelling choices and the gameplay itself remains fun and engaging. If Blizzard want a good working model with which to design other specs, the Protection warrior would be a damn fine place to start.

Pros:

- Significant mobility advantage, both from and to a target area/enemy.
- The most wide ranging utility that can alter raid encounter plans.
- Particularly adept in any role given the right selection of talents.
- A solid and streamlined proc-based priority system, vice rotation.
- Strong personal cooldowns for both mitigation and emergency use.
- A working, normalised resource with ways to fill any gaps in it.
- Capable of providing four major simultaneous debuffs to a target.

Cons:

- Certain talents remain overly situational, or of severely limited value.
- No realistic use for a post level 80 ability (Colossus Smash).
- A significant reduction in damage when not conventionally tanking.
- The functionality of Heroic Leap (extant for all three specs).
- The class is still considered the most fragile of the tanking classes.

I have deliberately left out certain class-related ability comparisons (such as Divine Guardian) because they're not necessarily relevant, and I've not included marginal strengths or weaknesses (such as resistance to magical damage) as they have no significant impact. I've also left out any discussion relating to the devaluation of statistics such as hit/expertise rating or haste, as they are common to all four tanking classes and need no repetition.

Strengths of the Protection warrior

Nothing and nobody gets somewhere faster than a Protection warrior. Without doubt, Warbringer is up there with Lightwell and Divine Guardian as one of the best single-point investments in the game. Making intelligent use of Charge, Intercept and Intervene (which even breaks roots and snares) literally shocks people with how quickly a warrior gets around. When you add in the x-factor of Heroic Leap, we're looking at a veritable flea circus for a single talent point.

"Utility" is often considered a dirty word with warriors, but those wondering where tank utility lies need to look at the talent trees again. Piercing Howl mixed with Blood and Thunder makes you into one of the most capable kiters available, while still being able to tank effectively. Does your raid need a single-target damage reduction cooldown that is available often? Look no further than Safeguard. Perhaps your healers are literally running on empty at the end of an encounter and need all the help you can give them - say hello to Impending Victory. And while everyone swoons as Lord Fancypants absorbs failings with his raid-wall, you get to hit him with Vigilance and keep Nefarian's adds under more regimented control than the North Korean military. Add that to a selection of stuns, interrupts and Spell Reflect, and you come up with the most versatile tanking class by a distance.

The decision to make DPS classes much more proc-reliant was a good one; not only are set rotations boring, they can be overly punitive depending on spec and the complication of constructing said rotation. However, if you're one of those who plays a Fury warrior, Retribution paladin or Fire mage, then you'll potentially be less enthusiastic about your RNG world and can easily relate to the sheer frustration of simply having nothing to press. The proc-based priority system of the Protection warrior was, and still is, the benchmark of how this should be applied. That's because the basic principles are in line:

a) There are not too many procs to handle - namely, two (and Revenge isn't really a proc).
b) The normal cooldown of Shield Slam is short enough to be part of a conventional "rotation".
c) The relative priority of Shield Slam is high enough for it to be valuable, regardless of proc.
d) There are several other options when no proc is available, but ALWAYS a filler (Devastate).

If we compare Sword and Board to, say, Hot Streak, then we see why one is better than the other - the warrior is always looking for Shield Slam and the cooldown on it is short irrespective of the proc. The mage won't cast Pyroblast without his proc, and it's notoriously unreliable. In the case of the Fury warrior, having no filler can really ruin the fun of an encounter if you're unlucky and our chum the Retribution paladin sits somewhere in the middle with Crusader Strike only half of the solution.

Cooldowns are an important part of encounter design, and warriors are certainly not lacking in this regard. Shield Wall is as good a damage reduction cooldown as there is, and Last Stand is surprisingly easy to activate and surprisingly common in saving your life. Our mitigation toolkit is also pretty handy; Shield Block assists with both damage reduction and threat, while Enraged Regeneration is far more valuable in a world where being burst down in two blows isn't going to happen. Teaming it up with Last Stand or Battlemaster trinkets make it even better. Finally, don't forget your racials - though not class specific, the dwarven damage reduction, draenei self-heal and orcish stun resistance all form part of your ability to survive and shouldn't be underestimated.

Resource management is an interesting topic that sees a lot of coverage, and I confess to being terrified of what they were going to do to rage in Cataclysm. I'm happy to report, however, that my fears were in vain; they pretty much got it right. At no stage should the warrior be out of rage if he's using it intelligently and not hitting Heroic Strike/Cleave at an inopportune time. Yes, there are dry times - but the use of shouts as well as Berserker Rage limit these occurrences significantly. Personally, I find this infinitely better than the management of mana, runes or runic power. Of course, though, this is personal preference.

The debuffing of a target is a vital part of ensuring both damage dealt and damage received is as effective as possible. While other classes can apply the sundered armour effect, warriors manage it as part of their normal rotation and can maintain it easily without undue detriment to their performance otherwise. Reducing physical damage done with Demoralizing Shout and Thunderclap is another cornerstone of warrior tanking and, in fact, a vital part of your mitigation set up beyond enchanting your shield. Again, other classes can apply these debuffs - but the Protection warrior is perfectly placed to both initiate and sustain them with minimal effort. Oh, and I did say four major debuffs - the amount of people who forget about Shattering Throw never ceases to amaze me. Pop Shield Block when Bloodlust lands, switch stance, and apply this awesome debuff that your physical DPS classes will love you for.

Weaknesses of the Protection warrior

Despite the success of the talent tree choices for a warrior, some of the options are frankly lacklustre. To this point, it's difficult to find a place for Gag Order and that's going to be even harder come 4.1. I do understand the need to reduce beta levels of self-healing for PvP purposes, but Blood Craze is abnormally weak for the hefty investment of three talent points. Moving up the Protection tree, Impending Victory (which I like) sees limited use because of its... Limited use. Latterly we come to the infamous Safeguard which is still awesome, but still so uncommonly of any real value.

The main problem with levels 81, 83 and 85 are that the abilities you get are of severely limited use. Colossus Smash you can forget about entirely pretty much, while Inner Rage is simply unnecessary; the rage normalisation exercise worked just fine. In fact, the changes to Inner Rage mark a return to the button spamming the developers expressly stated they wanted to move away from; clearly, the ability is redundant and Blizzard don't want to simply remove it. Lastly, Heroic Leap is a mess - the fear of it being exploited has seen it hamstrung to the point of near uselessness. What's more frustrating is the insistence on "where and when" data when the problem isn't to do with environment coding; it's to do with the ability coding. If the next set of hotfixes were to remove all three of these abilities, most Protection warriors wouldn't even notice - that's a pretty damning indictment of these abilities.

Warrior DPS plummeting when not actually tanking has been a truism since The Burning Crusade. This was most notable in Northrend when our DPS was savagely poor in comparison with the other tanking classes, but we've at least seen something of a step in the right direction since 4.0. The Vengeance contribution from Vigilance as well as the extra rage from Sentinel mean we can hit a bit harder, a bit more often. The problem is that neither go far enough; the attack power buff from Vigilance is tragically weak, and the rage contribution from Sentinel is still too small to get away from Devastate spamming.

A lot of work was done by number-crunchers and theory-crafters to establish tank durability, but warriors still seem to be the most fragile of the four in a raiding environment. Unfortunately, being a shield tank frequently causes paladin comparison and warriors are comfortably behind them in terms of survivability. The way Shield Block works makes it more of a physical, short duration cooldown - as good as it is, it leads to spikier damage because warriors are still blocking less often than the paladin. Because our routine self healing is also non existent compared to the paladin, we can't smooth out the unlucky streaks where four or five blows land in a row. Lastly, the paladin set of cooldowns is significantly better than any other tanking class, so emergencies are also less catered for. All told, warriors still appear to take spikier damage and still seem to require the most healer attention.

Recommendations

There is not a lot of work to be done on Protection warriors - there really isn't. There are only a few shortfalls where some attention would make the spec almost entirely fit for purpose and, being blatantly honest, Protection is probably one of the top three specs in the game right now from a design perspective. That said, here is what I think would address some of the shortfalls (I'm not going to cover the problems with Heroic Leap, Colossus Smash and Inner Rage - frankly, I'm not sure how to make a compelling argument for replacing any of them).

I'd give Heroic Throw a base refresh of 30 seconds and replace Gag Order entirely with a new talent that buffs Blood Craze for tanks. Two talent points for a 7%/15% buff to Blood Craze would be worthwhile. Yes, DPS warriors could pick it up if they wanted it - but they'd have to give up significantly more impressive talents to do so. Impending Victory could also see a function change where the percentage to proc is significantly lower, but is in effect for the entire duration of a fight. Give it a 5% chance to proc from Devastate and it can eloquently fill the gap where warriors are struck several times in a row. Lastly with regard to talents, I'd also look at merging Vigilance and Safeguard, but appreciate that could be too powerful for a single talent point. Perhaps an investment of two points for all the benefits of Safeguard, while Vigilance provides 50%/100% chance to refresh Taunt and 10%/20% Vengeance from the person taking damage.

On the subject of warrior DPS hitting the skids while not tanking, there are two main reasons for this - the first is the scarcity of rage and the second is that Revenge, pretty much our best DPR attack, becomes entirely unavailable. Generally, I think Sentinel is in a good place; any more would be flooding and given good streaks of RNG, many a Shield Slam can be fitted in. What I would like to see, however, is a way for Revenge to be used outside of dodges, blocks or parries - and I'm a big fan of the Taste For Blood model. The new talent I suggested to buff Blood Craze could be married to a functionality, very similar to Taste For Blood, that allows Revenge to be used on a bleeding target. Not only would this get Revenge working again, it would see better value for rage on our off-tanking attacks that would also allow Heroic Strike to see more liberal use. In all honesty, if this worked well then the AP contribution of Vigilance (small as it is) could be removed entirely.

Summary

Yep. That's it. Essentially, all of my observations can be synthesised into two paragraphs (one for survival, one for damage) that would solve pretty much every single problem Protection warriors have; that's how close to perfection the spec really is. It's very easy to grossly inflate problems while baking them into fundamental errors that are horrendously hampering your favourite spec. The change to Shield Block that is being touted is one such example; sure, warriors don't have much resistance to magical damage and this is considered a horrendous oversight - but it simply isn't that important with the content designed as it is. This is the difference between a theoretical problem and a practical one. In this review, I've simply tried to stick to practical problems that are coming up in the content as it is and are likely to remain extant in the future.

Thanks to all for reading and, please, feel free to dispute anything I've written. There is more than a big chance that I've viewed something differently to others and a lucid conversation is the only way to break those points out.

Enjoy.

A potentially touchy subject.

2011-03-15T03:54:00.000-07:00

Before I get onto today's topic, I thought I'd give a bit of an update on how it's going in my new guild... And it's going well! I'm fitting into the raid group nicely, enjoying the social interaction - though slightly less than I'm used to - and generally having a blast while online. My trial is essentially complete and the GM/RL is very happy with how I've been performing, so that's really positive (though, I reckon I could be doing better). He's also pleased with how I've generally fitted into the guild and we both hope for more to come.

Now, onto the actual topic - and I start with a warning.

What I'm going to write about is relatively sensitive and some people will perhaps not appreciate my bringing it up. That's why it's sat on my hard drive for the better part of five months, as it's a difficult thing to introduce meaningfully while giving the subject its due deference. Not bringing it up, though, would be doing a disservice to those who confided in me during my time as GM of the Eye of Nerzhul and I really feel it's something I'd hope to have a worthwhile discussion about. So, without further ado:

I'm going to write about psychological disorders, specifically those on the autism spectrum.

Don't worry, I heard the resounding "WTF?!"

Allow me to explain why I'm talking about this subject. Essentially, disorders on the autism spectrum are characterized by symptoms that effect the ability of sufferers to interact socially or communicate effectively; the other most obvious symptoms are the adherence to repetitive behaviour and poor linguistic or cognitive development. Now, please accept my sincerest apologies for any misunderstanding or misrepresentation because I'm not a qualified expert on this subject at all. But the key point for me, in the World of Warcraft context, is the aspects of communication and social interaction, and why this could make online games a welcome respite from awkward situations in the real world.

And while that last point is purely speculative, the number of guild members who informed me that they were indeed sufferers would possibly mete it out.

As responsible players, community leaders and people, it's worth understanding what may be going on with your guild mates when they try to honestly relate a problem to you.

When seeking an escape from social difficulty, it's no help at all to be faced with online ostracism for something you can't do anything about. Of course, you should never single anyone out due to a condition they may or may not have, but trying to understand necessary limitations on a player (limitations they possibly cannot overcome) will assist you in making a better environment for your guild mates, your realm mates and for the game itself.

Now, I have to start by asking everyone who's got this far to do the first thing I had to do when approaching the subject; forget the movie Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman as the autistic Raymond. While this form of autism obviously exists, it is extremely rare and you're unlikely to come across a person of this type while playing. What you will undoubtedly come across, however, are those who have very mild forms of autism with the accompanying symptoms mentioned earlier, as well as specific disorders on the scale such as Asperger syndrome, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Tourette syndrome. All of these have psychological implications that will potentially pull people to online gaming to escape social stigma, but also make them perform in certain ways while playing. And, yes - I have a clear example.

One of my core raiders back in the Eye of Nerzhul was a Retribution paladin who suffers from Asperger syndrome. Asperger has the same general symptoms as other autism spectrum disorders, but doesn't have the stunting to cognitive or lingual development. What it does cause, however, is very intense and restrictive concentration on specific tasks. With the launch of Cataclysm, this player deigned that his main class and spec was going to focus on melee DPS; the prime candidate for the interrupting that tier 11 seems to love so much. During our fights with Halfus and the Omnotron Defence Council, I was naturally asking him to get stuck in and interrupt the nasty things that were going to hit the raid.

He was awful.

Not only was he missing his interrupt a large percentage of the time, his DPS was very poor in these encounters. This issue cascaded into the obligatory criticism which made him feel even worse, as his confidence got shot to bits after originally being so happy at getting his chance to do some progression raiding. As you can imagine, I shortly had a very unhappy raider on my hands. But what was actually going on?

Males are notoriously incapable of multi-tasking at the best of times, let's face it; far be it from me to argue with sex-specific genetic disposition. In this case, however, I also had a player who can only really concentrate intensely on one thing and it's extremely difficult to snap his attention away. By requesting him to focus on two things instead of one, I was severely hampering his ability to do either. As he wasn't capable of doing what was required of him, I had to remove him from the raid group and get someone who could do the job.

Right?

I took the pressure off him but kept him in the raid group. I passed the interrupting responsibility to a shaman, hit-capped myself to help out with it, and just let him get on with his DPS and staying out of fire. The net loss to the raid group was negligible - the shaman in question was one of the best players in the guild anyway, and the impact to him was zero. The raid as a whole benefited greatly as the interrupting was being done, taking away the choice to slow DPS and consider self-healing more. But what of the melee DPS in question? Why was I choosing to carry a player who could do no more than lousy damage?

Because that wasn't all he could do.

As soon as his focus was set, his DPS shot up. In a tier that strongly favoured ranged DPS, he was suddenly competing and his damage was going up with every single raid. Not only did this manifest in basic numbers, he fine-tuned his rotation to the point where it was done subconsciously and allowed him to focus on other things. Healing intensive phases saw him using Word of Glory quite liberally to help out the healers. Adds all over the place saw him hitting Divine Protection to pick up anything loose while the tank got sorted. His liberal use of Lay on Hands saved several wipes and he rarely made a bad decision with it.

In short, the person in question who was being "carried" became a damn fine raider once we recognised the problem and addressed it. He enjoyed his place in the group, it made him feel much better about himself and the impact it had on his presence in the guild was also overwhelmingly positive. A point of failure became an unequivocal point of strength.

I appreciate I've gone off topic slightly and have crossed into the realms of assessing basic strengths and weaknesses. But identifying effects is always inferior to identifying the cause. And in an online world free of basic social difficulties, you may find that more players than you ever realise suffer from autism spectrum disorders that will impact on their ability to do things for you. Once you've attributed the cause, handling the effects becomes far easier and you can remove the added anxiety you've unwittingly placed on your guild mates.

I know I'm fabled for walls of text, so I suppose I should make the point clear.

When it comes to performance, psychological conditions may be the cause of negative effects - recognising them will help you to work around them.

This can only be good for your raid group, your guild and the community at large. People are not always open about personal issues, nor should they be; they perhaps play online games to escape ignorant social stigma. But trying to notice certain types of behaviour might illuminate what's going on with your players. I already mentioned Asperser syndrome and that could manifest itself with a sufferer only engaging in very streamlined and rigid in-game pursuits. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) causes repetitive action and thoughts, so that could easily see a player doing the same thing repeatedly and becoming anxious or angry when things change. I've no shame in admitting to a little of this myself - to the point when I used to count my footsteps as a young nipper to ensure I took the same number of left and right foot paces. Tourette's syndrome, though not on the autism spectrum, is something that can cause involuntary verbal "tics" that are normally expletive. Got a member who doesn't like being on ventrilo? No doubt it could be considered embarrassing for a sufferer of Tourette's to have to suffer it.

I'm going to wrap this up. At the end of the day, everyone should be aware of any number of issues, problems or concerns that the player base could have. The reason I'm bringing this up specifically is because I've had numerous discussions with guild members who suffer from these issues and the impact that it can have on them. These things obviously effect both performance in game and has an impact in real life. If we as a community can recognise these things and increase our general awareness, we can perhaps foster a better community for everyone.

Threatening behaviour.

2011-03-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

After joining my new guild and becoming the small fish in the bigger pond, I've had the chance to re-evaluate many things. I'll post an update on the guild move once my trial is over but, in the meantime, here's a topic that's been bothering me since the launch of Cataclysm.

I remember when the developers explicitly stated that threat is supposed to matter to tanks. I remember it because I disagreed then and I disagree now; allow me to explain why.

To start with, it should be borne in mind that threat wasn't a tank consideration throughout The Burning Crusade and, to a greater extent, classic WoW. That might sound backward, but it was a DPS consideration; tanks couldn't produce more than their 100% threat and the tank was much more concerned with survival than he was high levels of threat and/or damage. Top quality DPS players were the ones who could construct their damage from the ground up, without producing too much threat so that the tank couldn't hold on. The development plan since WotLK is to avoid DPS being "throttled" and having to consider things that are not obviously improving their DPS. Who remembers the trinkets that reduce threat? They're now considered "boring" because they don't directly increase DPS in the eyes of the playerbase majority. The sad fact is that these trinkets WERE a DPS increase, because you could use more powerful abilities without pulling off the tank.

I'm not going to go as far as saying this is "dumbing down", but it is an indication that the developers don't think their DPS players can properly grasp the function of a basic threat table, or at the very least don't find it "fun". The logical conclusion of this belief leads us down a slippery slope.

What strikes me as odd is the fact that healers are now being asked to develop a more strategic view of their gameplay (the right spell at the right time) with regard to finite mana pools, while damage dealers are simply looking for their best button. Like the threat example above, healer mana conservation shouldn't be the concern of the healer himself - it should be the concern of the tank and the DPS. If, therefore, we want our tanks to be more heavily considering damage mitigation, it stands to reason that they'll be less concerned with threat - less threat leads to the DPS "throttle" that the developers desperately want to avoid.

Tanks cannot stack threat while considering healer mana, and they cannot stack mitigation while considering the DPS throttle. One of the two has to give. What compounds this foggy thinking is the assertion that healers find picking the right spell at the right time fun, as opposed to just their best spell. On the other hand, damage dealers are supposed to always find their best button fun, and no situational or strategic consideration takes place because, if you pull aggro, the tank is to blame; you're not supposed to be "throttled".

In short, at its most basic level, the design intent for PvE role interaction is contradictory.

Cue the entry of Vengeance.

While the stated desire for Vengeance was for it to be a scaling solution with regard to final tier DPS/threat, what it's actually doing is solving the mitigation versus threat dilemma on the part of the tank. In raid content, you simply don't have to worry about threat generation because it's taken care of on your behalf assuming you're actually bothering to press buttons. Yes, heroic dungeons provide less Vengeance and, therefore, hit and expertise will have value - but the second you hit raid content, unless you're interrupting (as I am), your hit and expertise cease being legitimate considerations.

Let's assume that Vengeance is going to do what it says on the tin, and scale well enough for tanks to not have to worry about threat later in the content. We've permanently solved the threat versus mitigation issue, but tanks have lost three gearing considerations in the space of one expansion (hit, expertise and defence rating). Fine. What this doesn't answer is the question as to why DPS players are spared strategic considerations when healers and tanks are not. I'll rephrase the question, I suppose:

Why is it fun for DPS players to always want their best button and not fun for healers?

The whole set up is horribly lopsided.

It could be argued that DPS players have to deal with encounter mechanics, not standing in fire and crowd control. But tanks and healers are also dealing with all of these, often instead of DPS players when it comes to CC such as interrupting. In fact, with the paladin spell Rebuke becoming baseline, all tanks can interrupt and they are soon never going to miss which further devalues threat stats.

What else are DPS players worrying about? It's in the consideration of this fundamental question that we note where the imbalance lies. Ignore the facets of tactics, mechanics and crowd control because all three roles can fulfil those jobs.

The tank: Responsible for threat management (damage), positioning and damage mitigation.
The healer: Responsible for tank health, unavoidable raid damage and their mana pool.
The DPS: Responsible for dealing damage.

The tank and the healer are weighing up one thing against another and making the best choice for that moment - a strategic decision. In the case of the tank, does he need more threat or have to consider mitigation? The healer has to choose the best spell for the situation, without ploughing through his mana pool too quickly. The DPS... Waits on his best buttons lighting up.

Pointing out where this doesn't add up is one thing. Coming up with a potential solution is quite another. I'm not saying sweeping changes need to be made, I don't think the game is horribly broken. But at the moment, the entire pantheon of success is resting on the shoulders of tanks and healers because the developers are determined to make it as easy as possible on DPS players.

There are two options:

1) The use of best spell "procs" for healers, rather than micro-managing mana.

If looking for a proc is considered fun, why is this not a gameplay style adopted more liberally with healers? A good way of implementing a proc is the synergy of Sword and Board; lovely to get procs from it, but the cooldown is short enough to make it work well, anyway. My only concern would be making sure the proc wasn't so sparse as to be unavailable at time of need (Surge of Light), but the implementation of Word of Glory shows how successful this type of thing can be. And what's the class with the least mana issues?

2) The splitting of responsibility between roles.

Tanks and healers managing everything is fine, but it is engaging for the DPS themselves? We're continually told that strategic decisions and triage are "fun", so let's see more of that from our DPS players. But thinking about the same types of things as another role is tiresome, as an over performer in one role can cover for a lack of ability in the other. How about this:

Tank: Positioning and damage mitigation.
Healer: Unavoidable damage and mana.
DPS: Threat and crowd control.

Obviously the tank will still have to attack the target for baseline threat, but how about taking away the 200% threat bonus to Defensive Stance/Blood Presence/Dire Bear Form/Righteous Fury and baking in 100%? The creation of a decent threat UI wouldn't be too hard (Omen/Skada are very light) and, all of a sudden, proper decision-making is introduced to DPS players. Ensure that all DPS specs get a sustainable form of crowd control in their talent tree, as well as an interrupt (baseline for pure DPS), and this silly request for "lf dps no war/dk" goes away.

As already hinted, I don't think the game is busted - I really don't. I just find it utterly bizarre that DPS being throttled isn't fun, yet throttling healers IS fun. According to whom? Based on what? And perhaps if everyone had to show a greater level of attention, and couldn't merely be carried by team mates, raiding experiences would go up. Yes, certain specs would need things added so that they could do what they're required to do, but I also think this could be a good first step to something that's worried me for a long time:

What is the aim of each role in a raid group, and what are they there to do?

The end of the beginning.

2011-02-28T03:54:00.001-08:00

Yep, it happened. Those who've looked for my armoury recently will not have found it because it's no longer there; I'm now a horrid Alliance player who packed up from Kilrogg and joined The Flaming Ruby on the Argent Dawn RP server. This, to many, will be a shock - I ran the Eye of Nerzhul for two and a half years, very successfully, and I loved the people I had around me. Unfortunately, though, such a long period of single-handed leadership takes its toll and when I found myself pulling in a direction that the membership at large didn't want, then something had to give.

As gut-wrenching as it was, I had to pass my guild on to people who were more in tune with the social roots the guild should perhaps never have left, and that most of my members hoped the guild could maintain. I cannot thank enough all of those who have supported both the guild and myself over the last two and a half years, especially those responsible for giving me some of the most wonderful memories to take with me. The Eye of Nerzhul will always hold a very special place in my heart and, at its peak, it embodied the very best aspects of what a guild should be; a community of friends enjoying the game together.

But we move on. I should thank Emelia, the GM of The Flaming Ruby, for inviting me into what looks to be a great choice for my new home. I was lucky enough to be invited for their first kill of Nefarian last night, and it was wonderful to just be able to raid without having to worry about how people were playing. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy leading raids and think I'm pretty good at it; but it's absolutely no fun having to moan at your friends who you know for certain are trying their best.

And it's on that subject that we find today's topic:

How does one best fit into a new guild?

This is, in truth, the second time I've done it. The first was on my priest alt who I wanted the chance to raid with back during Icecrown, so I jumped to the Alliance side of Kilrogg and joined a guild that had a decent enough 10 man team. I didn't do it so well. I behaved like a bit of a child, truth be told - as I wasn't on my main, I ended up picking faults with the guild tanks instead of just being the supportive player that I should have been. While this was supposed to be constructive, it must have come out as incredibly obnoxious and unhelpful. I suppose I hid behind the fact that I was playing on an alt, and used that as an excuse for not bothering to compete with the other healers and picking on the tanks. Ultimately, I wasn't looking for a new home and was selfishly trying to complete some content. What I thought was "constructive criticism" was, to them, elitist snobbery that they didn't have to put up with. To their eternal credit, they did put up with it and I cannot be more humbled by their choice to do so.

This time, however, is completely different. I AM looking for a new home, one where I want to be popular and be a valuable contributor to a successful raid team. There is no hiding place whatsoever as I'm on my main character, the one I play best, and will be judged on my ability to tank and to fit into an already successful raid. This, to my amazement, is nerve-wracking; I've no idea how good their normal tanks are, so cannot gauge how I'm performing in comparison. Often, tanks are the best players in a guild, so it's a lot to live up to. This is especially true when you consider that tanks are also usually long-term servants of the guild who've spent a long time building both rapport and trust with their fellow raiders.

And this is the key point; if you're joining a new guild, especially to raid as a tank, what is most important is how you come across to your guildmates and NOT how they come across to you.

You are going to be compared to their normal/current tanks.
You are going to have to potentially fit in with a new system.
You are going to have to accept that your way is less important than their way.
You are going to have to accept that your reputation hangs on how you play.

But more than anything else:

You are going to have to accept that how YOU view your behaviour may not be how your new guild views it.

A new raid will probably hold trust and friendship with their tanks, something it takes time to build. No matter how good a player you are, the new people you're playing with will need time to properly get to know you and how you do things. It's more important that the new guy works around his new team mates, but I'm talking more about how you personally perform as a tank, with all your little idioms and idiosyncrasies in tow. If you consider at all times how you look to your guild mates and always try to play your best (NO COASTING!), then you can hopefully get a positive response.

At time of writing, I cannot tell you how this will all pan out for me. I'll be providing updates no doubt, but we'll have to wait and see if my new guild think I'm cutting it. At the end of the day I'm just trying to be as helpful, reliable, honest and available as I can be, and trying to perform as highly as possible when I'm "in the chair".

Wish me luck. :)

The value of "threat stats".

2011-02-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

"Expertise is twice as good as hit up until the soft cap at 26; at that point, their relative value is the same until their respective hard caps."

Remember that mantra from Wrath of the Lich King? I do. I also remember expertise being our best threat stat by a mile and always making sure I was at the soft cap of 26 to avoid my attacks being dodged. If you want to know what's changed, the short answer is this:

Nothing.

But on the other hand, the debate about whether or not it's worth stacking hit and/or expertise at the expense of damage mitigation still abounds. For that reason, it's worth revisiting the value of reforging/gemming/enchanting for threat stats and pointing out a couple of things that actually have changed since our days at the foot of the Citadel.

To start with, here's rule number one.

Forget about expertise.

There, I said it - and while people will be choking back on whatever they were eating or drinking, it's worth repeating.

Forget about expertise.

Expertise is by far and away your best threat stat. However, no warrior should be having even the slightest issue with threat in current raid content because of Vengeance. Essentially, the point in stacking expertise is nullified altogether. Yes, you will do more threat if you soft cap out your expertise but there is literally no point in doing so because your threat concerns are taken care of and other stats will be better. At this point in the game, stacking expertise has only slightly more point than the ridiculous practice of trying to stack strength. And, yes - I've seen some tanks gemming for strength.

Next up, then, is the other threat stat; hit rating. Were hit rating purely another threat stat, then we'd be viewing it the same way we do expertise - Vengeance is taking care of your threat issues, so you don't need help there. Add that to the fact that taunts can no longer miss and you're running straight into an alley where hit rating has no real value.

Except for the fact that hit rating is not purely another threat stat; it serves another purpose. That purpose, namely, is to interrupt via the use of Shield Bash and, if you're running in a 10 man guild, you may well find that such utility is absolutely invaluable in current content. Numerous encounters are made significantly easier by having the tank himself deal with interrupts, thus releasing your DPS players from the responsibility. Halfus Wyrmbreaker, the Elementium Monstrosity, Cho'gall, the Omnotron Defence Council, Maloriak and Nefarian (a full 50% of the raid bosses in this tier) are just some examples of where the ability to interrupt on the part of the tank is unbelievably helpful. Even on 25 man content, being able to rely on your tank to do some interrupting can make planning out an encounter a far simpler task. Naturally, the addition of the talent Drums of War makes this even easier as it costs you the sum total of nothing to bash your way to a cleaner kill.

TL;DR?

If you're in a 25 man guild, your priority on stats should look like this:

Mastery, parry, dodge, hit rating, expertise.

If you're in a 10 man guild, give serious consideration to:

Hit rating, mastery, parry, dodge, expertise.

It's totally understood that this will not be the fit for everyone. Your 25 man raid may want you to interrupt to make things easier, just as your 10 man raid may always have a DPS shaman that can do the job for you; a shaman can... Well... Do pretty much everything. Equally, it's worth noting that this is a warrior inclined post because death knights, for example, value things differently when considering Death Strike.

But it's more than worth stating the clear value of hit rating in content where taunts can't miss and threat isn't an issue, because such an unfair evaluation could be the difference between you being the tank everyone wants, and being the tank that negatively impacts on another team mate.

Utility is good. Make the most of it.

Zellviren "the Exalted".

2011-02-10T01:40:00.001-08:00

This topic is inspired by this blue post and the repercussions of it. Yes, what I'm talking about today was intended by Blizzard.

In short, if you earned the title "the Exalted" during Wrath of the Lich King you may well have had it removed because the requirements have changed.

Let me start by saying that this is an absolutely reprehensible decision, and I can find no justification for it whatsoever. Does it affect me because I had 50 reputations at Exalted anyway? Directly, no. But indirectly, it has upset several of my guild members who loved the title very much. Also, it affects me because it is a very worrying development in the way Blizzard views things. The post is basically saying that, come next expansion, the bar is going to go up again and those who are under that threshold are (once again) going to lose their title.

I've no idea what the post means by "grandfathering", so someone will need to explain that to me. But if we're moving into a game where my rewards are going to be stripped away, I'm off. I can understand why the requirements would change over time; if there were 40 factions at launch with a threshold of 35, it's no achievement at all in a world with 80 available factions. Therefore, I can understand a raising of the bar for those coming to the game in its current state. However, what we have here is a complete disregard for the people who completed the feat while it was current content and, therefore, challenging.

I couldn't give a fig for how hard it is NOW. What I care about is the fact I completed the achievement when it was still challenging, required a significant time investment and half the work didn't come passively. Were I to have been on 49 reputations and lost the title yesterday (as one of my server chums was), that would have been enough to have me seriously considering giving the game up.

Because someone chose to grind reputations once for a title they thought was cool, does not necessarily mean they are willing to go through it again.

What's wrong with setting a percentage of available factions each expansion and leaving it at that?

In the original WoW, you needed 20 to get the title.
When TGA launched, you needed 30 to get the title.
When WotLK launched, you needed 40 to get the title.
When Cataclysm launched, you needed 50 to get the title.
When the next expansion lands, you need 60 to get the title.

The key word here is "get" - once you've got it, it's yours.

I reckon most people could get on board with the above being the case because the same amount of dedicated reputation grinding would be required each expansion. But the practice of taking away a title someone has already EARNED, and may not wish to earn again, has absolutely no defence. I've no doubt the usual claptrap will come out of the blues about the title meaning something, but does it mean any less when someone earned it when it was challenging? Of course not. The bottom line is that Blizzard want people to spend more time doing things they may not want to do, just to get something they've already earned. Good going.

And by the way:

If you've earned Loremaster, I'd have a nervous look over your shoulder. Don't think it's applicable? Read this:

"We think "Loremaster" is a really awesome title. With Cataclysm we added a bunch of new quests though, and we want the title to keep pace so that it's always representative of someone that's completed a considerable number of quests throughout the life of the game, even as we add more.

We did consider offering multiple titles for the various tiers, but "Loremaster" fits so perfectly and we wanted to avoid a potentially infinite string of titles like "the Fairly Loremaster", "the Nigh Loremaster", "the Mostly Loremaster", etc. We also considered grandfathering in those who had already earned it but think that this title can be a unique testament to the continued efforts of quest hunters and keep the same value as we introduce more quests and push the requirements up to match.

It's different than every other title in the way we're raising it with a new bar to meet, and I do apologize that it wasn't communicated clearly beforehand that it was going to be functioning this way."

All I did was change the titles around and substitute "rep" for "quest". In short, the exact same argument can be made for removing Loremaster. Something you may have spent a large amount of time earning previously will get removed because it happens to be easier in a later incarnation of the game.

I can't believe how much this bothers me. In the end, the entire canon of titles and achievements are cheapened by the fact Blizzard are happy to remove them without any justification.

Disgusting.

The point of heroic dungeons.

2011-02-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry, guys. It’s another long one. :(

A whole bunch has been made of heroic dungeons recently. Since the launch of Cataclsym, players have been quick to pass judgement on what they think the good or bad points are. In the main, it’s generally considered that the difference in difficulty between normal dungeons and their heroic counterparts is too large, with ultra-casual (or ultra-bad, depending on your view) players simply finding the going too tough. Naturally, players who got through them within a week simply can’t see what the fuss is all about and, in fact, think the content should be harder.

Personally, looking at heroics as a complete set, I just find there to be huge disparity amongst them; the Stonecore or Grim Batol, say, are much harder than the Vortex Pinnacle or Halls of Origination. If you’ve started doing the heroic achievements for the shiny drake, you’ll know that the problem is even more pronounced here – some achievements you get by accident, while others like Headed South or To the Ground! are a veritable nightmare.

Eventually, a blog post by Ghostcrawler tried to explain the design intent to a growingly restless community and this caused a backlash in and of itself. I don’t think Mr. Street was trying to placate people, I think he only wanted to express what he thought the role of the heroic dungeon was and how we, as players, fitted into that plan. Unfortunately, half the community (as in, the half who were struggling) took this as an insult and the forum fights began.

I’m going to pick up the discussion at my problem with all this; that Blizzard has created this problem from the outset; there is a problem with LFD; the role of the heroic dungeon is questionable. So, how did Blizzard cause this?

From the moment you pick a race, class, name and look, the “Risk/Reward” cycle is broken. Levelling is, quite simply, utterly unchallenging in any way, shape or form. The nonchalant removal of group quests has meant that soloing content is the norm, LFD has provided a way of getting a dungeon group you don’t have to socially interact with, and the dungeons themselves are an absolute dawdle to get through. By the time you hit Outland you could have been playing for a week, quite literally, and learned absolutely nothing about the wider game. Yes, the new questing zones are fun (the Forsaken lore is fantastic), but the “Risk/Reward” cycle has been entirely dispensed with; there is absolutely no risk, and rewards are thrown around like confetti. Outland can be gotten through quickly, as can Northrend, and the fact the new Cataclysm zones didn’t have a single quest line that required grouping up absolutely sickened me.

So what?

Consider you’re a new player levelling through the game and you’ve dinged 85, now looking to develop your character further and make him more powerful. Some quest rewards are okay, but you can hit up dungeons freely in order to plug any gaps. So far, so good. Maybe you’ve been alert throughout the process and paid attention to a crafting profession of some kind, and this gives you the opportunity of upgrading a few more pieces. Sounds awesome. Your next step is a heroic dungeon to fill out those slots with at least item level 346 gear.

A heroic dungeon that will require coordination, group members knowing their roles, communication, reliable output/performance, understanding of gear set up and an appreciation of how to deal with boss mechanics.

In short, it will require a lot of things that you know absolutely nothing about.

The game has told you what the next step is, but has utterly failed to prepare you to take that next step. What’s worse is that you’re being thrown into this miasma of difficulty with people who may well have wildly different expectations of what’s coming up and what is required from people.

This brings me nicely to the LFD tool.

In my view, the best thing Blizzard could do would be to either entirely revamp the LFD tool, or to remove it. The problems are manifold:

1) Long queues due to no tanks.
2) Anonymity, leading to behavioural issues.
3) An utterly stupid gear check.
4) The “Vote Kick” system doesn’t work.
5) Two vastly different types of player in the queue.

Due to the perceived difficulty with heroics at the moment, most tanks will avoid queuing if they possibly can. This makes for long queues, meaning DPS players will ask guild tanks to go with them where available and the problem is compounded. Players will often have sat around a long time before getting into a dungeon and are not in a great mood due to it. When you throw in the anonymity of the LFD, you’re looking at players who are either short on time thanks to the queue and want to move quickly, or desperately want to get the most out of the dungeon that they can due to it being their shot of the day and no guarantee of success. Ninja looting and “gogogogogogogo”, enter stage right; patience and consideration for new players to endgame, exit stage left.

We then arrive at the absurd gear check for entering heroics, and I for one cannot fathom who thought this was a cool idea. It doesn’t make an iota of sense. A Holy paladin with a mish-mash of healing, PvP and DPS gear (some mail or cloth) is going to perform better than someone who’s picked itemized lower level quest rewards intelligently, and gone to the trouble of enchanting and gemming them? Yeah, right. What would be so wrong with empowering the group itself to make a decision on someone when they zone in or see their first attempt at output? Oh, yeah – the vote kick option is a poorly implemented shambles, as is the dungeon finder cooldown that is applied carte blanche, with no consideration given to those who choose to leave for legitimate reasons.

Honestly, I can see where Blizzard wanted to go with the LFD. And let’s be honest; it’s a great notion to be able to avoid people missing dungeons because there aren’t enough people online on their server. But the whole thing has been executed very, very badly and, when accompanied by the lack of preparation for new players, makes the LFD tool an absolute hotbed of frustration, failure and contempt.

Lastly, though, we come to the role of the heroic dungeon. I’ve got to admit, I /facepalmed when I read what the point of heroic dungeons was because it was always going to cause anxiety. You can predict what I’m going to say, so I’ll waste no time:

What was wrong with the dungeon progression ideology during The Burning Crusade?

I honestly hoped for a return to the glory days of PvE but, alas, I was left disappointed. During the Golden Age of PvE (the “GAP” as I like to call it), heroic dungeons were designed so that those who hadn’t the time or inclination to raid could still play compelling PvE content that was engaging, challenging and rewarding. You moved from levelling dungeons, to level-cap dungeons, then to heroic dungeons and/or raids. In Wrath of the Lich King, the role of the heroic dungeon changed dramatically, and so the attitude of the playerbase changed with it. We were now confronted with a progression path that went from levelling dungeons that were far too easy, level-cap dungeons that were far too easy, heroic dungeons that became far too easy and then raids. Heroic dungeons became an extra step in the chain instead of viable endgame, something that meant the difficulty of them had to be retuned accordingly. This philosophy has continued into Cataclysm and has forced Blizzard into rather a contradictory corner.

You see, for better or for worse, Blizzard got it right in Wrath of the Lich King and they’re now turning their back on the customers they got during said expansion.

The argument now goes that normal level-cap dungeons shouldn’t be hard because they’re merely a gear stepping-stone for heroics; this is where the “challenge” should lie. You then transfer that to the WotLK raid application and see the same thing; raids shouldn’t be hard because they’re merely a gear stepping-stone for heroic raids. That’s okay, I can go with that. You were expected to complete normal dungeons to work on heroics, so you should be expected to complete normal raids before working on their heroic counterpart.

In Cataclysm, however, you are no longer expected to complete normal raids. Whether you like it or not, there is such a thing as a “casual raider” and in the main they simply won’t have a skilled enough roster to enjoy normal raid content. The reward (two epics per night, maybe four, that may not be better than your crafted/reputation ones) is simply not worth the risk of spending a night wiping and making everyone miserable. I know of many, many guilds (including my own) who have hit this wall and the overall atmosphere in them has changed – in some cases, quite abruptly. Guilds that once had an inclusive and vibrant roster that enjoyed playing content together have, in many cases, segregated into cliques of “cans” and “cannots”. I speak from personal experience here, and managing this is less fun than masturbating with a cheese grater.

Some readers will be thinking this is a tangent, but it’s not. The role of the heroic dungeon and the first tier raid are inexorably linked. You see, back during the GAP, heroic dungeon bosses were, in some cases, of raid difficulty – any warrior who tried tanking the Shattered Halls back then will know what I’m talking about. This meant that it wasn’t uncommon to see people in early Karazhan or Gruul gear that hadn’t killed Murmur or Kargath Bladefist. Because heroic dungeons were on a par with tier four raids, they were valid content up until you were pushing your way into the Serpentshrine Cavern or Tempest Keep.

Now, as soon as you hit that first raid, heroic dungeons are no longer relevant to you.

At this stage, there is absolutely no need whatsoever for me to go into a heroic dungeon. I’ve done them all multiple times, I cannot get any drops that would be an upgrade, I need no reputation gains from them and I’m at the cap for Justice Points. I would be much happier not doing heroics at all anymore, unless I was going in to help guildies. But alas. In order to falsely elongate content, Blizzard has made the continued grinding of pointless instances a necessity by giving us Valor Points for completing them. I’m extremely unlikely to hit the weekly cap from downing raid bosses, which means I’m stuck doing a heroic every day in order to stack up points. I don’t want to do them, I have no need for them, but I’m compelled to do it because it’s still valid character development.

Herein lies the rub:

Players with absolutely no business in heroic dungeons, and who do not want to be there, are being asked to queue with people who DO have a need for them and DO want to be there.

When the two are grouped together, is anyone honestly shocked that there is collision? What makes this even more maddening is that the developers themselves say they want to remove the grind from the game, but subversively enforce the worst kind of grinding there is. It’s frankly ludicrous.

Now, I’m at the stage where a guild that was sculpted in the furnace of Wrath of the Lich King is creaking because of the design intent in Cataclysm. I can accept the decisions, but the pressure on me as a GM to provide meaningful content for my whole guild is causing me to burn out and lose patience much too quickly. I love the game generally, I love the friendships I’ve made in it, I love the achievements we’ve marked and I love the guild I created and manage. I also completely appreciate that it’s too late for Cataclysm to see any changes as that particular ship has sailed.

However, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be my last expansion if these issues are not looked at seriously by the company that I, and many like me, are paying a lot of money to. I understand acutely that there are myriad problems involved, that my voice is only one from 13 million and that it’s very difficult to define “fun” when the term itself is subjective. But please, give the following points some consideration:

1) The levelling experience really needs toughening up in order to better prepare players for endgame. Quests are too easy to complete, there’s too many of them and the rewards for completing them are too good. Perhaps make it so that powerful blue quest rewards are only available for completing quest lines that require you to group up. There’s an incentive to engage socially there, but no requirement. Choice is good. Some of the most fun I ever had in this game was the Cipher of Damnation quest line in Shadowmoon Valley. You’ve no idea how much I pine for that level of quality to come up again.

2) Levelling dungeons need to be tuned so that they can actually kill players. Major mechanics need buffed so that they can’t be either ignored or simply laughed off by a healer. Giving bosses a bit more health just isn’t a solution. I would also be inclined to lower the experience income and remove the goody bag at the end; it’s just money for old rope.

3) Level cap dungeons could be made harder, with loot tuned up to recognise the fact. If you want to gear up for raids, you should be able to farm dungeons for the gear you need instead of relying on once-a-day RNG that can see you returning to the same instance for weeks on end. Also, build them like the Halls of Origination – plenty of bosses, but plenty of opportunities to skip.

4) Heroic dungeons could be harder, on level par with entry tier raids. At the very least, make the latter encounters steadily more difficult. Most can recall the Karazhan attunement that started in level-cap instances, but demanded the death of the early heroic bosses Darkweaver Syth and Grand Warlock Nethekurse. Separate loot tables should be used for levelling dungeons being dragged up (see Tempest Keep Vs, say, the Blood Furnace), with final bosses dropping raid quality loot that is specific and often difficult to come up with in raids themselves (examples could be Terrokk’s Shadowstaff or The Sun Eater).

5) Normal raids could be slightly easier and less punitive on imperfect raid set ups or more casual guilds. Later bosses should retain their difficulty as a marker for heroic raids. I don’t think the current tier is that hard, but the margin for error has been completely removed and I think more leeway should be given in earlier encounters. Obviously the loot would be better than dungeon loot and heroic loot, but on par with what you’ll find when defeating heroic dungeon final bosses.

6) Heroic raids are for the server first guilds and, of course, the top 100. Very few players will ever get involved in these while they’re current, so it’s okay to go wild (so to speak). Optional encounters with titles, such as Algalon the Observer or Lady Sinestra, are wonderful ways of recognising exceptional performance beyond what’s on the loot tables.

Anyway, I’m going to finish there – this will have taken up ten minutes of your time already.

I am completely onboard with much of the commentary I’ve seen since the launch of Cataclysm and, even if I disagree, I try to see both sides of the argument. For me, the content has left me feeling cold and a bit frustrated due to the impact on my guild, and I honestly hoped the bizarre practice of farming content I have no reason to farm had gone out with WotLK. I was also hoping for epic loot to be harder to come by, but that hasn’t really materialized either.

This isn’t a threat post, or an “I quit” post – that’s not really my style. But for someone like me, who loves playing PvE content with my friends, I want to have the best possible experience, with content that is engaging and enjoyable. I didn’t raid the entirety of the GAP because I wasn’t good enough, but I still adored much of what Outland had to offer because of the gradual increase in difficulty and the design hopes for the content.

If you agree with any of this, I’m glad and I hope some of it’s borne in mind. If you disagree, that’s also fine and I’ll try to understand why if you talk about it sensibly and maturely.

Meantime, I’ll see ya – I’ve got Valor Points to grind.

Starting Cataclysm raids.

2011-01-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that our raiding start to this expansion has been unspectacular. That's not to say it hasn't been pleasing because, despite having a number of problems, we've actually made quite a solid start to the content and we've gotten through a lot more than the vast majority of guilds out there. We started late, we've not got a settled squad, we've lost some players we were counting on and the preparation simply hasn't been as good as we hoped. In saying all that, though, I now feel I'm in a position to comment on tier 11 and how I've been finding it.

Boy, have the goalposts moved.

Our time in Wrath of the Lich King taught us several things, most notable of which was the fact that good tanks and (particularly) good healers could rescue an otherwise mediocre raiding team and lead it to a modicum of success. Since those days we've seen as close to a complete one-eighty as you can get without actually performing one. All of a sudden, a huge percentage of responsibility for success has landed on the shoulders of your DPS players and that load has caught a significant number of them out. Taking unnecessary damage causes healers to run out of mana, failing to interrupt or CC properly causes tank deaths and taking too long to deal the necessary damage is seeing raids wipe to enrages.

But that's not all.

Sharing the load was one step in the right direction and it's one that really has separated the man guilds from the boy guilds. But more than anything else, one particular change in raid philosophy has caused the progression speed of the average guild to plummet.

The removal of the margin for error.

The content in Cataclysm isn't necessarily harder than it was in WotLK. People may think I'm kidding, but I'm not; the mechanics are no more complicated than they've ever been. But the fact that people can no longer coast along pressing buttons without much care is what's wiping raids left, right and centre. Missing an interrupt, standing in the wrong place or getting out of a void zone never used to matter that much to people, nor did things like healing priorities or threat - but a failure on any of these counts is almost certainly going to lead to wipe after wipe after wipe.

Now, I know what you're thinking - cut the chaff. But in a guild like mine, it's not so easy. And we're also at a point in the expansion where new guilds are popping up all over the place due to new players, returning players or players losing their guild home due to a disband or a falling out. Trust me, the content is stressing a lot of people. In such an environment recruitment is out of the question, you can't outgear what's wiping you and patience is going to be needed in spades.

Now, this may sound pretty bleak. But I'd like to make something clear.

This is some of Blizzard's greatest content.

The fact is, too much of WotLK was simply too easy and could be steamrolled much too quickly. This content is (sometimes painfully) forcing players to up their game and step up to the mark. Failure to do so is causing wipes, which nobody appreciates. Therefore, players are leaving raid groups because "they don't take the game so seriously" or they are working on the dummies and their gear to drag up their level of performance.

In short, Blizzard has created a duel-pronged attack on weaker raids groups. Those who don't really want to be in them are quitting, and those who DO are working harder to become better players. This is overwhelmingly positive.

But in the meantime, how can you give your raid the best chance of success? I have a few pointers, actually.

1) Understanding group roles is absolutely vital.

Tanks are supposed to establish, maintain and survive threat through damage mitigation;
Healers are there to keep the tank alive and to heal through unavoidable raid damage;
Damage dealers are there to manage encounter mechanics, avoid damage they don't have to take and deliver enough DPS to complete an encounter prior to the enrage.

Once your raid group has a grasp of these basic premises, they can start gearing and preparing accordingly.

2) Tanking and healing is inexorably entwined.

It used to be the case that a healer could simply keep healing until you were fine; no more. What the tank fails to mitigate, the healer must account for.

3) Some players deal with mechanics better than others.

ALWAYS assign your most capable players to the harder jobs. The most talented player in my guild is an Enhancement shaman and I know that he will do whatever I ask him to perfectly. When gear allows and as the progress moves on, you can start to develop the skills of your other players but when you're nose-to-the-grinder, use the talents at your disposal.

4) Appreciate that you're in for a slog.

As I said, we've had a solid start but haven't set the world alight - some nights have been really tough. Try to understand that this is going to be the case, and that as long as you're getting better on each pull and the same mistakes aren't merely being repeated then you're on the right track. No toys out of the pram, please.

I'll end this particular "Wall O' Text" here because you'll be getting bored. If you can just bear the above in mind while raiding, you'll start to see that the encounters are not actually that rough to start with if you go with a raid group that wants to learn, develop and put in the time required for both to happen. Loot won't fly your way immediately but trust me when I tell you that it makes it more pleasurable to earn.

Just raid with an open mind, don't throw blamecakes around at the second wipe and try to encourage everyone instead of discouraging them.

Honestly, it's worth it.

Changes in Patch 4.0.6.

2011-01-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

So, it seems our first large client-side patch is inbound relatively shortly as it's just hit the PTR. Though there are a raft of changes in it, there isn't an awful lot that is going to affect Protection warriors in either playstyle or output; it's been a pretty strong expansion for us so far and this patch isn't going to change that. So, what exactly is about to happen?

Well, Heroic Strike and Cleave are both seeing a reduction in damage by 20% while Charge is going to see its stun suffer from diminishing returns. For us tanks, this means we're losing DPS from the former and losing precisely nothing from the latter; it's an alteration aimed at PvP. The problem with this, of course, is that (despite promises to the contrary prior to launch) Protection warrior damage is still wholly dependent upon Heroic Strike - the difference between a warrior using it well and not using it at all is between 35% and 50% which is a staggering number. Ghostcrawler himself recently commented that warriors in any talent spec were seeing too much damage from Heroic Strike and it needed reined back a bit, so the nerfs to it are not unexpected. I happen to agree with his view, by the way. The question on most lips, however, is where do we get the damage back from? After all, it's not as if warriors are over-performing - a basic nerf to damage isn't warranted.

The answer:

War Academy no longer buffs Heroic Strike or Cleave. It now buffs Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, Devastate, Victory Rush and Slam.

In short, damage is being moved away from Heroic Strike and put onto Devastate. This is a totally unsurprising and relatively uninspiring change, but it's easy to implement and rebalances in arguably the best way. One is too strong, the other is too weak, so tipping the scales is the most logical way of doing things. Plus, War Academy is almost universally picked up by warriors in all three specializations which means it's a safe place to sit the buff.

But there's always a wee, back-of-the-mind, nagging concern.

This change implies that both the 20% flat nerf to Heroic Strike, added to the 15% loss from War Academy, is balanced out by buffing BOTH Mortal Strike/Raging Blow AND Slam for DPS warriors. For tanks, it's doubtful a mere buff to Devastate will make up the difference on its own, so I wonder where else tank damage will be accounted for. Shield Slam already contributes too much of our damage, while it's highly unlikely we'll see two talents that buff Revenge; especially considering it's fine as it is. Personally, I'd expect a flat buff to Devastate if our numbers start to come out undertuned. Oh, and before anyone asks, I've deliberately ignored Victory Rush because it's situational for everyone, other than those who choose to spec into Impending Victory. Even then, the only "contribution" it makes is to stop warrior damage plummeting if you opt for Devastate and Victory Rush spam for that last 20%. Amusingly, the alteration to War Academy looks even more enticing if you have gone for Impending Victory, though I'm not sure that's by design.

Too Long, Didn't Read?

The Protection warrior playstyle is not going to change with this patch, with some damage being moved from Heroic Strike to Devastate.

"But Zell, that's obvious; what do you want me to actually THINK about?"

The thing to consider regarding all of this is how the changes alter the value of Incite.

At the moment, Incite is the greatest talent a Protection warrior has for single-target damage. In fact, it's so good, warriors of any spec (Fury more so) are picking it up. The problem is that it changes the design intent for Heroic Strike due to the proc pushing it onto our priority queue, where it isn't actually supposed to be at all. If you've got a guaranteed critical strike in three seconds, particularly at higher levels of Vengeance, Heroic Strike starts to compete with Shield Slam, Shockwave and Revenge for your rage, while utterly blowing Devastate out of the water. In fact, I'd go as far to argue that it lands at the top of your list short of Sword and Board lighting up. For an attack that's only supposed to be used "during periods of high rage", that's frankly ludicrous and desperately needs to change. It sounds great, but it means warrior damage has to be tuned while taking the contribution of Incite into account - and as you can probably tell, that isn't much fun for those periods of low rage when you're barely getting the chance to use Heroic Strike at all.

In short, Incite (practically mandatory) and Heroic Strike (far too high a DPS/TPS contribution) are not fitting the design intent as they are currently, and these changes should address both.

Naturally, we're going to have to see how the numbers play out when the veritable mathematicians start messing about with the numbers thrown up by the PTR. But I would suggest that these changes are actually going to benefit warriors in the vast majority of instances, particularly at times of low rage where we traditionally struggle.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-04T00:42:00.000-08:00

I really mean it.

As a Scot, we're well renowned for our celebration of Hogmanay and our bizarre propensity for looking at all the positives worth taking into a new year. The blog has been quiet over the festive (and, thus, celebratory) period for that very reason; and I sincerely hope that everyone can kiss goodbye to what they didn't like from the last 12 months, while rigidly clinging to all that moved, cheered or inspired them.

Once again, let me wish you all a Happy New Year and share the hope that you can thoroughly look forward to what's coming up in 2011.

Lok'tar!

Tanking Cataclysm bosses.

2010-12-21T05:23:00.000-08:00

After a period of testing, talking, messing, trying, laughing, fighting, swearing and disagreeing, I reckon I've finally come up with what I think are my tanking specs for the Cataclysm warrior. In truth, not much has changed since my original assessment of the talents and I still believe that Protection warriors are absolutely spoiled in their options for this expansion. Additionally, and I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely LOVING the new content and how my warrior is performing in it. In a world where raw power and effective health is far from the be-all-and-end-all, Protection warriors that can play are absolutely shining when they put their fabled toolkit to use.

It's also uplifting to see that Blizzard have pretty much nailed incoming tank damage and how much healing each class needs over the course of a fight; nothing worried me more than being "the guy the healers hated" and I'm happy to reference Zarko's look at the facts regarding it.

Well done, Blizzard - all we wanted was balance and you've provided it. The fact warriors and death knights are still working harder to achieve the same results doesn't bother me one little bit; it just means we're having more fun.

So, with the congratulations out of the way let's look at the talent specialization I've settled on.

The Boss Tanking Specialization.

I've arrived at 5/5/31 when you're up against the meanest and nastiest. It sacrifices the majority of your AoE tools, while picking up single-target DPS/TPS options and tries to make the most of our endurance talents considering we're likely to be taking the biggest hits.

So, some reasoning then (staring with the Protection tree):

Incite is pretty close to the best single target threat talent we have. Heroic Strike remains our biggest difference maker with regards to threat, so you can't build a single-target spec without it. In fact, a guaranteed critical Heroic Strike almost takes priority over everything else.

Toughness... Really? You want me to explain?

Shield Specialization truly shines when you're tanking more than one mob, but it keeps the rage flowing when you block - and with at least 40% block through mastery, you're blocking a lot.

Shield Mastery lowers the cooldown on Shield Wall (major cooldown) and Shield Block (minor cooldown) significantly; what's not to love?

Hold the Line is fantastic and the reason warriors favour parry over dodge. 10% Critical Block may sound underwhelming when it's a chance of a chance, but 10% critical strike rating for 10 seconds after a parry? Awesome, with an awesome uptime and even better when you're tanking more than one mob. Two of the best points you can spend.

Last Stand is pretty mandatory - it's our second major cooldown and marries well with Enraged Regeneration which, in turn, marries well with Field Dressing. Take it.

Concussion Blow remains part of the warrior mitigation toolkit, but works on bosses surprisingly often.

Bastion of Defence provides your immunity to critical strikes. Good luck to you if you consider it in any way optional.

Warbringer is my favourite talent, ever. I've waxed lyrical about it more than once, but this is where our fabled PvE mobility comes from, and if I came across a tanking warrior without it I'd consider spending a number of years learning how to hack their account. Don't be that warrior, please.

Improved Revenge gives more damage to Revenge itself, practically your most rage-efficient attack. Optional, I suppose, but I've yet to see anyone without it.

Devastate is one of those "rite of passage" talents that mark your arrival to that point in the tree. It's your basic filler attack that scales with weapon damage and replaces your (by now) much used Sunder Armor.

Impending Victory is potentially the most controversial choice in the list. It's awkward, doesn't heal for all that much (even with the Major glyph you'd have to take) and only works for the last 20% of an opponents health; which, funnily enough, is when your healers will want it most. The execute phase is almost always the worst part of a fight due to encounter mechanics and the fact that large parts of your raid will be running on fumes. It's up to you, but this is one of those talents that you desperately miss when you don't have it anymore.

Vigilance is a talent I've questioned the validity of a couple of times recently but, for any raiding content, you're going to want to have it. Get it on your other tank and let the taunt mechanic and extra Vengeance work for you when he's taking any form of damage. It's not always great when boss tanking and I wouldn't necessarily criticize anyone for leaving it out of this spec, but it fits nicely enough with everything else.

Heavy Repercussions gives you more Shield Slam damage while Shield Block is up. Other than for specific mechanics, you want to be keeping both on cooldown so it's a fairly unambiguous upgrade to your single-target damage and, therefore, threat.

Sword and Board is another gimme, really, so take it. As the late, great Veneretio pointed out, it's not exactly compelling; you'd be hitting Shield Slam every time it's available, anyway. But it lets you get more of 'em in, so it's pretty much mandatory.

Shockwave is our 31 pointer and there isn't much choice here. Nice for filling a GCD when Shield Slam and Revenge is unavailable, or if you're possibly looking for an extra stun. It's also pretty awesome for those "oh f**k" moments when your other tank dies and it's your turn to be raid hero.

Next up is our usual second stop, the Arms talents.

War Academy is relatively far ranging in its ability to buff Heroic Strike, Cleave and Victory Rush. For us, Heroic Strike is bolstered further and Victory Rush gets a bit more bite for the execute phase. Unambiguous threat upgrade, really.

Field Dressing is a talent that I expect pretty much every raiding warrior will take. It saves on healer mana, but also gives Protection warriors help with Blood Craze, Enraged Regeneration and Victory Rush; well worth the points.

Finally, moving on to the Fury tree.

Blood Craze has been hit pretty savagely by the nerf bat, but still finds its place into my boss tanking spec. It's uptime remains very impressive and, over a prolonged battle, it's still going to save healers a fair amount of mana. Not mandatory by any stretch, but still definitely worth it.

Cruelty was a talent I originally underestimated. I was concentrating on what it didn't do under my first assessment, not on what it did do. Okay, so we get no benefit from the buffs to Mortal Strike or Bloodthirst - but an added 10% critical strike chance to Shield Slam is obviously attractive. Marry your baseline critical strike chance to Rampage/Leader of the Pack, then toss in Hold the Line with Cruelty and you're looking at a 30% chance for your Shield Slam to hit harder than a rejection from Cherie Blair.

And we're there.

Obviously, these are my choices and many disagree. If you look at warriors on the blogosphere (or Premonition's Xav, my personal favourite) you'll see so many choices it's unbelievable. But, that means the developers succeeded in something else; returning choice to the playerbase. Cookie cutters may well develop but, for now, we're at an almost unprecedented stage in warrior PvE - there are several choices and all are viable.

Next up I'll have a look at the off-tanking/heroic spec and share my thoughts on it. But this is enough for today - I'd hate my readership to get bored.

Before I go, though, use the comments to share your thoughts - what talents have surprised you with their relevance, or perhaps been an underwhelming let down?

The return of the Warbringer.

2010-12-02T05:29:00.000-08:00

The last expansion saw quite a few nerfs to Protection as a spec. We saw some pretty awesome buffs (Revenge being a particular highlight), but nerfs always get more emotional attention.

The most difficult nerf to accept over the last expansion, for me, was the nerf to Warbringer. It was a talent that was absolutely iconic to the Protection warrior and it was the "flavour" that truly distinguished the spec. Those who learned to love Warbringer (easy) and those who learned to get the most out of it (difficult) soon found themselves in a winter wonderland of mobility that other tanks couldn't touch.

Then the nerf bat came out again because of PvP and how Protection was performing in that environment - Warbringer no longer broke roots.

This was the lowest point of the expansion for me, I'd say. I could stomach the other changes and "re-balances" because I wasn't there to do damage or have the highest effective health; so long as I could do my job, which I could, I was content. But the nerf to Warbringer cut into our PvE utility so much it was rough to take. Yes, I can understand why it happened and that Protection warriors were doing too much damage while being too much of a nuisance in arena. The cut in Concussion Blow damage was another symptom. I can also appreciate that the use of Intervene mitigated the squeeze, as did the fact you didn't spend all that much time rooted. But the way the talent FELT was just so right for the Protection warrior; that last bastion who defends his comrades at all costs and is at his most dangerous when backed into a corner.

This is why I love talents such as Hold the Line or Impending Victory. For me, they eloquently capture what a Protection warrior is, and they're the reason I play the game. My DPS contribution and stamina are just numbers; they don't directly contribute to my enjoyment of the game. But talents or abilities that have feeling, tradition or the oft-maligned "flavour" are what keep me playing my warrior to the exclusion of all else.

There is another ability I played around with in beta and, despite its bad press, I loved it. Again, the relative strength of the ability concerns me less than what it does, how it looks and what it represents. There is nothing that fits a warrior more than seeing him hurtling through the air, risking life and limb, to defend his friends at all costs.

Of course, I'm talking about Heroic Leap.

Despite the mauling it received from sceptics and cynics who either took Ghostcrawler's words too literally or flat-out didn't understand them, Heroic Leap is FUN. It adds to the Protection warrior mobility repertoire, while also looking absolutely fantastic (and warrior-like) when it's used; heck, it also provides that extra boost to our AoE output during a pull. But it's an ability that absolutely screams "warrior" and for that reason alone, I'm destined to love it no matter its numerical relevance.

I have one problem with it, though. Your friends are under siege, you need to get there faster than a squirrel with diarrhoea, and you need to get there with purpose. You know, making a statement. This is where Heroic Leap shines for you as a Protection warrior, in feel and effect, but it's also potentially the most aggravating occasion.

"FFS, I'M ROOTED!"

This is where my beloved Warbringer comes in (and where, if you were smart, you might have started reading).

Why can't Warbringer break roots for both Intervene and Heroic Leap?

I understand it's a powerful point for any tanking warrior, but why can't Heroic Leap be freed up for warriors as that last ditch, final effort that lets them put it all on the line for comrades? Heroic Leap itself has a 60 second refresh which means such a thing couldn't be abused, and the Fury tree has Heroic Fury to get them out of a pickle on a similar cooldown. I don't think it would be overpowered to give tanks back their way of breaking roots via the use of an ability that hints at such use by its very name, and from a talent that Arms or Fury won't have access to in order to double dip it.

I want to bring war to all opponents who choose to attack my friends.
I want to heroically leap to their defence when they're in any danger.

Let's see Warbringer granting the root breaking power of Intervene to Heroic Leap.

Come on, Blizzard.

You know it makes sense.

Wrath of the Lich King Review.

2010-11-29T05:16:00.000-08:00

With the advent of 4.0.3a, the world has changed beyond recognition and Deathwing is out there somewhere, torching whatever he damn well pleases (unless he's in the Badlands). Bearing this in mind, it's now time for my review of Wrath of the Lich King despite it being a bit later than many other commentators. I've done this deliberately because it's always worth seeing another perspective on something I either loved or hated, purely out of a desire to see if I missed the developers intention and would have appreciated something differently had I scoped it from another lens. Also, with Cataclysm now firmly inbound, I feel it would be cathartic to say what I think about the past two years.

If one word was to sum up our adventures in Northrend, it would be access.

Blizzard clearly wanted Wrath of the Lich King to be the expansion where nobody was left out, no matter how much time and effort they were willing to put into the game. This was awesome for the super-casual because it meant they could raid current end-game content, grab gear, charge about in battlegrounds and get fast access to PvE instances. Even reputation grinds for mandatory gear enhancements were made simple by removing them from the "busy-work" pile and putting them on the "PvE" pile. For the more committed PvE player, this fast became a problem because there wasn't enough content for one character. Once you'd geared to a certain level, there ceased to be any worthwhile character development outside of your raid lock and we've seen an explosion of alts as a direct consequence. Heirlooms and talents not-designed for the old world or, indeed, Outland managed to trivialize much of what happened before you landed on Howling Fjord or the Borean Tundra. If you were a committed PvP player, well... You had a laundry list of issues that were all your own.

Bluntly put, the developers wanted as many people to see as much of their game as possible and evidence tells us that they went to admirable lengths to ensure it happened. For good or ill, that was the direction they took and that was how Wrath of the Lich King remained throughout. Being ultra-all inclusive sounds great on paper in a political sense, but it did cause some pretty significant wheels to come off the World of Warcraft jabberwocky in the meantime. For almost every good choice or implementation, it had a negative impact on those at the other side of the spectrum.

We'll look at a few.

Achievements.

The achievement system was a rip-roaring success, and it's only fair we start with it. The cynicism about it started before patch 3.0 went live and got shot to bits not long afterwards. Not only is it a way of developing your character in a myriad of ways by guiding you to what's available, it's a terrific way of showing off what your character is capable of. Titles and rewards are always nice and while it's easy to cheese a lot of achievements at this point, many of them are still a sign that you're looking at a skilled character. From the raiding perspective, it provided that middle ground between casual and hardcore, and it's for this main point that I appreciated it most. I'll let the reader decide what achievements he or she personally deem worthwhile. :)

Raid Access.

The move to create 10 man versions of all raids was a masterstroke. This created a huge opportunity for so many players who were skilled, but didn't want the hassle of dealing with 25 man raid issues. Essentially, this opened up end game content to a huge percentage of the player base and allowed for an explosion of new guilds ready to tackle the content. Conversely, it still caused certain stigma to be applied to 10 man raiders. Despite the fact that (to the erudite, anyway) 10 man strict rankings were generally a higher indication of skill, the lack of legendaries or certain achievements/titles made it look less desirable. Many "realm first" 10 man achievements were effectively stolen by 25 man guilds who significantly outgeared the content they were playing; this was frequently a bitter pill to swallow. Of course, it should also be noted that the "guild explosion" saw something like an 80% mortality rate. Lastly, it also made gear scaling an impossible equation to balance out, and leads onto our next point.

Improved Gear Scaling.

Giving people easy access to gear is good when you have alts that want to get involved in the latest content, or you're a player coming back from a break. It's bad for almost every other facet of the game. It removes the feeling of reward, it skews encounter progression, it obfuscates bad players, it dilutes individuality amongst the playerbase and it causes content to become obsolete far too quickly. Though rehashed, Naxxramas was a good enough raid instance for the 99% of present-day players that never tackled the original 40 man when it was current content and it is now utterly ignored, except for weekly raid quests. This is even more galling when you consider the fantastic Ulduar is also routinely skipped for the same reason. As if fate is trying to flip the bird at us, the first raid deemed mandatory (typically for weapons) was the awful Trial of the Crusader. For anyone who thoroughly dislikes the mindless zerg-fest that heroic instances have become, and especially those who long for the good old days of the Shadow Labyrinth or Magister's Terrace, this is your main reason why.

Class balance.

I need this one out of the way; trying to make all classes viable was a good move and one I wholeheartedly support. The problem, of course, was that balance became particularly difficult to establish. Blizzard eventually settled for "close enough" and that's the best you can ask for realistically, but it still sucks to be the one consistently at the bottom. For me, playing a Protection warrior was frustrating - doing everything you can to be the best possible, then being outperformed by someone putting in less effort due to virtue of his class, is not fun. Warrior utility was supposed to be the check against being benched, but the last expansion asked for brute strength and not sophistication. In the last tier of content, when everything mattered most, paladins and druids ended up being the best healers and the best tanks. If you were an Arms warrior, Frost mage or Subtlety rogue then you know what I'm talking about. Of course, that's PvE. PvP was where the problem really showed itself.

PvP balance.

What a mess. The few times I got involved in it, I was thoroughly discouraged by being blown up by an Elemental shaman or Retribution paladin without any chance of survival. Death knights? Really? The statistics for each bracket indicate, quite clearly, that seasons were dominated by composition and gear, not skill. Against that backdrop, the developers are going to have to accept that their attempts at PvP balance have utterly failed throughout WotLK. Not only that, but several balancing attempts had a significant, and horrible, impact on classes in PvE. No - I'm not going to forgive them for what happened to Warbringer. And in Cataclysm, this is one of the facets they're really going to have to fix. It's just a shame that they couldn't build in the margin for error we saw in PvE.

The "Margin for Error".

Time gone, several things used to kill you. Not interrupting; bad threat management; healers running out of mana; bad positioning; poor crowd control; ignorance of raid mechanics; standing in fire. Officially, the developers decided that they didn't want everyone punished for an unfortunate mistake - unofficially, it led to laziness and a dumbing down of the playerbase. Blizzard are dead right when they say that the players at the top are now better than they ever were. However, they fail to acknowledge that there is a higher percentage of flat-out bad players around the lower echelons of content who assume that a healer or tank can save them regardless of the situation. That belief follows on into behaviour that implies healers and tanks are responsible for everything. Luckily, this is being dealt with in Cataclysm.

Heroic Raids.

The idea of making raid encounters more difficult to get better gear or complete meta-achievements is a good one, and there are good ways to do it. There are also, however, bad ways to do it and we've seen both throughout Wrath of the Lich King. Once again, Ulduar absolutely shines in its production of hard modes. They were fun, interactive and, in most cases, saw a fight change almost completely. Sartharion is another wonderful example of how to stagger the difficulty of a fight. Of course, there are bad ways; entirely separate lock outs of the same instance with more damage coming in, more damage going out and not a lot else. And it's best we don't discuss the Faction Champion encounter. Blizzard is settling for the middle ground it reached in Icecrown Citadel, by allowing the players to toggle heroic modes on or off depending on the boss coming up. While not as fun or intuitive as Ulduar's hard modes, it's a country mile better than Trial of the Crusader.

Anyway, I'm going to wrap up there - this has gone on long enough and I suspect those who have sat it out to this point have blood coming out of their eyes. Let's sum this up with a top and bottom five:

Loves:

5. Achievements: A great way of keeping track of what you've been up to, and a chance to earn titles. Not only did it cater to every aspect of the game imaginable, it did it in a prescriptive way that didn't prescribe.
4. 10 man raiding: This made our guild "the" place to be and we really shined when all of our best players were available. Yes, we heard the comparisons; but no single action made the game more accessible.
3. Hard modes: We didn't get through all of these while current, but they added new dimensions to encounters. Not only that, they provided a way to separate the wheat from the chaff when comparisons are drawn.
2. Warbringer: THE signature talent for Protection warriors, and more fun than sharing a sleeping bag with Cheryl Cole. Yes, the nerf was hard to take - but that shouldn't detract from a great and unique talent.
1. Ulduar: The XT-002 Deconstructor. The Iron Council. Mimiron. Algalon the Observer. Yogg-Saron. Put simply, Ulduar was an absolutely magisterial example of a raid instance, and Blizzard's best ever PvE work.

Hates:

5. Player Versus Player: Nothing that happened in WotLK made me want to play PvP more than I did previously. Blown to bits in no time, with composition and gear determining winners - just not fun at all.
4. Five man instances: Alas, Blizzard just didn't get them right. Yes, they were steamrolled once outgeared (as it should be), but they weren't challenging enough to begin with as major mechanics could be ignored.
3. Gear similarity: I like earning gear as much as the next bloke, but "earning" is the key word. Gear became too easy to get a hold of, to the point it was practically being thrown at players for next to no effort.
2. Balance: As a warrior, it's frustrating when competitive becomes synonymous with "broken". The endless cycle of buffs and nerfs just hints at deeper problems they've taken six years to address properly.
1. Trial of the Crusader: Everything great about Ulduar was reversed. Old models, old mechanics, no trash, no epic scenery and no story; even the patch trailer was bog-awful. One to truly forget for Blizzard.

So, what did you love and what did you hate?

And it's okay to disagree. :)

Mastering Mastery and the Route to Reforging.

2010-11-15T03:00:00.000-08:00

The introduction of mastery in Cataclysm is having a pretty significant impact on how you, as a tank, will view gear. Simply put, mastery is something that every spec can put to good use because it's designed to be universally applicable. What this means is that the playerbase has a significantly larger pool of items from which to draw and that the pieces themselves need to be viewed on a stat-by-stat basis. Of course, this applies to pretty much every class but perhaps more to tanks than any other role due to the removal of defence rating. Sorry, but it's example time.

A pair of plate boots just dropped from a raid boss. They look like this:

Zellviren's Boots of Bluster
+2500 Armour
+300 Strength
+400 Stamina
+100 Hit Rating
+100 Mastery

Now, depending on what is being worn around the raid, these boots could well be attractive to both tanks and damage dealers. For me, I'm looking at hit rating and Critical Block; in my offspec, I'm looking at hit rating and Strikes of Opportunity. Both stats are things I want in either role, which equally means that Roarzol, my raid's Arms warrior, could be equally interested in the boots. Instead of merely looking at the iLevel and deciding that "they iz tank bootz" or they izn't, the playerbase is being forced into looking at what a piece of gear could potentially be giving them. Mastery is a tanking stat. It's also a DPS stat. In fact, it could easily be argued that hit rating, expertise rating and mastery (in any combination) could be considered viable tanking options in lieu of something more obvious.

Naturally, this point may be counter-weighted by an assertion that parry and dodge now become the new "defence rating"; if a piece of gear has one of those two stats it's a tank drop and, if it doesn't, it's a DPS drop. However, that line of argument only holds weight if it can be reasonably proven that hit rating, expertise or mastery are clearly undesirable for tanks - and no such proof will ever exist. This is especially true when we consider the other big change to gearing.

Reforging.

The ability to reforge gear cannot be understated. Basically, the ability to remove half of a less desired stat in order to gain an appropriate value of a stat you want more is huge. The argument that tanks should stick to gear with parry and dodge is blown to bits with one trip to the reforger. All of a sudden, our boots look like this:

Zellviren's Boots of Bluster
Reforged
+2500 Armour
+300 Strength
+400 Stamina
+50 Hit Rating
+50 Parry
+100 Mastery

Voila. Bona fide tanking stats.

Mastery really is all things to all men, while potentially opening up gearing avenues that were previously unheard of. The ability to reforge off slightly undesirable stats for something you like better just adds to the level of customisation. Parry and dodge on gear will stop your own items going up in smoke, while you can also start laying claim to things that are potentially decent upgrades despite not being perfectly itemized for you.

The implications here are (I'd say) threefold.

1) An upgrade is an upgrade is an upgrade is an upgrade.

We're back to where we were in vanilla. BiS lists won't go away, but players should start to look at upgrades with a far more open mind. The developers are using mastery and reforging as a means toward freedom in creating gear that doesn't need to be perfectly itemized. If a piece isn't perfect, you can look at the potential in it and then make an assessment of how you can juggle your other slots to make it fit in nicely. Those who like mindless and unambiguous upgrades are going to feel the pinch here, while those who enjoy gaming their gear to get the best out of it are going to have great fun.

2) Tanks are going to be spoiled for choice.

As hinted above, nobody other than a plate tank can lay claim to pieces with dodge or parry on them; they're yours and they're safe. However, anything else that has a mixture of hit, expertise or mastery is fair game if it's going to be good for you. A spec that has traditionally seen a very tight line on gearing up due to defence rating has now been freed to grab pieces that may not be perfect, but could well be very good while you wait on the ultimate upgrade. I'd even argue that haste isn't terribad if you reforge most of it off, but you're pushing it if a plate DPS also wants that drop.

3) The potential for drama has just shot up in PuG raids.

It's obvious that your loot system, whatever it is, should deal with this particular issue regarding guild raids. However, if you mainly attend the higher PvE content in a PuG, I would be ready for arguments. With tanks laying claim to a larger share of the loot table, and with said tanks having little to no interest in the rest of their raid, it's not a jump to suggest that they'll happily roll on drops that will agitate plate DPS players. We've already seen it in Icecrown Citadel when certain casters have argued over cloth that did or didn't have hit rating on it and who, as a result, was entitled to roll. Ouchy-ouchity-ouch.

I've already said that Cataclysm is changing how the players view the game in hugely significant ways and this is yet another that tanks, particularly, should be considering. As you're levelling, you'll be shocked at how often you say "hey, that quest reward could be okay". When you hit raids and you're juggling stats, that notion changes to "actually, I could fit that in nicely". Ultimately, the gearing spectrum just got a lot more colourful for tanks, and in a way that allows for a previously unthinkable level of customisation for the imaginative.

Ghostcrawler argued early on in development that removing stats didn't necessarily remove depth and that we'd have more choice than ever before.

Originally we scoffed, but it's just as we were promised; we're shaping up nicely.

The heavens burn.

2010-11-05T03:10:00.000-07:00

Looking past Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard have strongly hinted that we're going to see a significant number of new mechanics brought into the game. Those of you who recall Ciderhelm's post regarding how encounter development needs to evolve to keep the playerbase interested, will be happy to have heard Blizzard's statement on the topic. And don't forget, that those of us who've played through the last two years will be all too aware of how our developers chose to challenge players:

1) Hit them hard.
2) Hit them fast.

In this environment, we end up dealing with numerous implications that will force players into certain modes of behaviour. Tanking decisions such as stamina, avoidance or mitigation are taken away because one piece of the puzzle is significantly more effective than the others, while healer decisions receive similar treatment that skews healers into concentrating on raw throughput. It's no coincidence that druids and paladins, the raw output powerhouses, have dominated much of this expansion. It's also no coincidence that large swathes of content were trivialized by simply getting better gear.

Something had to change.

Enter patch 3.3, Icecrown Citadel. Sunwell Radiance made its unwelcome return in order to deal with inflated avoidance, while allowing boss damage to be scaled down in order to remove the savage spikes that were killing people. Those who fought Gormok the Impaler on heroic difficulty will be only too aware of how frustrating it is to have to use a cooldown rotation (thus not having your cooldowns for the "oh, shoot" moments) or risk losing every hit point in less than a second. For the most part, the plan worked. Spike damage was lowered quite nicely, while healers were still challenged to react as quickly as they'd grown accustomed to in order to perform effectively. In most people's minds, Icecrown Citadel was a nice enough raid despite paling in comparison to the magnificent Ulduar. But there is another part of 3.3 that has seen precious little attention, and I think that's a crying shame.

I am, of course, discussing Halion the Twilight Destroyer.

As far as concerns me, Halion only had one real problem; his release date. We only got to see him at a time of the expansion where the main antagonist had been dealt with by the majority of guilds and many others were looking at a bit of time off or general relaxation. In addition to that, Halion's loot table wasn't impressive enough to see people get in there to grab items to help them with... Oh, yeah. Nothing. Halion was little more than a flavour boss at a point in the game where there was little else to be doing assuming you were in a guild of any genuine PvE quality. Perhaps if his loot table had more vanity items such as a mount, mini-pet, tabard or Twilight activator (eh?) then he'd have seen more raid groups visiting the Ruby Sanctum. But that's where my complaints about Halion end because I reckon, as a boss, he deserved far more than attention than he received.

First of all, we potentially got a peek into the future. There were mechanics here that hadn't been seen prior and they were mechanics that involved everyone in the raid; relatively uncommon. Of course, the major mechanic of the encounter (phase three) was entirely unique and saw a raid need to cooperate in a way they hadn't before. Splitting a raid into separate parts isn't a new idea - having one half directly impact on the other half, however, is. Not only was this an intriguing way of encouraging control over raw pew pew, it was done in a fashion that made a split raid still feel as though they were all fighting the same adversary. Put simply? It was very clever.

Halion was also really well tuned. The amount of damage he could take as well as mete out was about right for raids of either size, and the presence of Twilight Strikes allowed Blizzard to keep the damage at a bearable level. When this is added to the Twilight cutters, random positioning of fire spawns, careful removing of a quirky debuff and high levels of attention needed throughout, you end up with a boss that prioritises control over output, attention over ignorance and communication over silence. I should also mention that it was a damn fun encounter to boot.

In case it wasn't obvious by now, it's worth bearing in mind that the fight is really enjoyable to tank. In phase one you not only need to build threat and mitigate damage, you also have to pay attention to where you tank Halion in accordance with both your raid group and where the fire ends up; frequently, considering the two conjoined. In phase two, the real fun begins as you end up directly responsible for the group succeeding or failing. If you have a tank who cannot grasp the behaviour of the Twilight cutters, you have a tank that will wipe your raid again and again and again and again. I love encounters where what the tank does actually matters. Too many encounters require me to pretty much stand there, build threat and wait for heals. Tossing in a taunt rotation isn't compelling gameplay to me. But when you put me in a position where the whole plan is dependent on me not being a berk, I'm forced to switch on and make sure I'm contributing as much as I can. I've loved encounters like Heigan, Malygos, Hodir and Yogg-Saron because a good tank makes such a significant difference to your chances of success. I happily add Halion to that list.

I'll wrap up now. Suffice it to say, while Halion was the end of something (the Wrath of the Lich King expansion) he also represented a beginning. He's the harbinger of Deathwing's arrival from a lore perspective, but he's also a cunning insight into what we're likely to see more of in Cataclysm; non-spammy dispelling, steady damage with healers using their arsenal of spells, tanks paying attention to more than their hotbars and damage dealers paying attention full stop. It bodes well that Blizzard managed to fit what might look like a Cataclysm encounter into an expansion it wasn't made for, while also hitting the sweet spot between being both challenging, and fun.

Here's to more of the same in Cataclysm.

Shield Block changes!

2010-10-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

Wow.

The night (at least for those of us in the United Kingdom) has seen some pretty significant changes regarding the tanking outlook come Cataclysm. Forefront for us warriors were the changes to Shield Block, but there was a heap of other information pouring out of Ghostcrawler and Zarhym and all of it will require attention. And forgive me, but I'm going to put the changes here in my own inimitable way. Alas, this is a long one.

Shield Block is going to read:

"Increase your chance to block by 25% for 10 seconds."

So I'm saying we just lost 75% block chance on Shield Block, which is a horrible nerf?

No.

Shield Block has never granted 100% block, because you can't get any more passive avoidance than 100%. So, considering we're already sat at 25% block as baseline before adding avoidance (and, of course, mastery), let's say it's about 50% additional block chance nowadays; and we're about to lose half of that.

But there's more.

The reason Shield Block has changed is because it gets worse the better geared you are. As you gear up and grab more avoidance and mastery, the actual percentage required to make you passively unhittable goes down. At entry raids, let's say we're at 40% chance to be struck, painfully, in the face. Shield Block is giving us 40% block in order to make up the difference. If our chance to be struck goes to, say, 25% within another tier or two, then Shield Block will only give us 25% worth of block.

So... If we say that Shield Block gives an extra 100% block chance, you are "wasting" a higher percentage of that chance the more avoidance/mitigation you have.

a. If you have 40% combined parry, dodge and block, then 100% extra block puts you at 140% - 40% wasted.
b. If you have 60% combined parry, dodge and block, then 100% extra block puts you at 160% - 60% wasted.

Think of it in the same way as the old ArP soft cap with trinket procs. When you were over 52% passive armour penetration, some of the proc was wasted on a stat that was doing nothing. This is exactly how Shield Block has worked until now, punishing those of us with better gear and this is a design flaw that the developers want to move away from.

Of course, that's not the whole picture. If we consider only the fact that warriors can no longer be unhittable for any period of time, we're still looking at a pretty hard sell to a class that is renowned for taking the spikiest damage. On top of that flaw, it's very likely that we're going to be wasting block a bit later in the content again, because it's extremely unlikely we're always going to remain at or below 75% passive unhittable for the whole expansion. Surely, there has to be some other change that will see warriors actually gain something out of this.

Yep, there is.

When Shield Block is active, any block percentage that spills over the 100% passively unhittable mark will be directly converted into Critical Block chance instead. Give that another read (this blog is number-tastic >.<). What it's saying is that when your 25% is added, if that takes you over 100% unhittable then the remaining percentage will add to your chance to critically block. Let's go for the examples again: a. 15% dodge, 15% parry, 25% block (55% overall). Shield Block grants 25% block chance only.
b. 20% dodge, 20% parry, 40% block (80% overall). Shield Block grants 20% block chance and 5% Critical Block chance.
c. 25% dodge, 25% parry, 50% block (100% overall). Shield Block grants 25% Critical Block chance only.

TL, DR?

Shield Block can no longer be wasted.

This change is undoubtedly something of a nerf in lower content when warriors will no longer be able to attain a 100% passive unhittable state (unless aiming for it, which is a gearing choice). However, the value of Shield Block will no longer diminish as we gear up because any overflow will be directly translated into Critical Block chance instead. When you also consider that Critical Block chance increases with mastery as well as normal block chance, and at the same pace, come T12 and beyond I'd wager we're looking at mitigating a lot of damage.

This is not a negative change by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's a very positive buff for when the content becomes harder.

With that fact now established, we can pay a bit more attention to the role of Shield Block; something that still seems to cause a bit of confusion. There seems to be some confusion as to the role of Shield Block amongst the player base and, for the life of me, I can't figure out why.

Some quotes:

Zarhym:

"Shield Block is not intended to be a magic damage cooldown."

Ghostcrawler:

"[Shield Block] is for reducing damage taken over time so that healers expend less mana over the course of the fight and don't run out."

That's it wrapped up - I honestly don't see where the grey area is. You use Shield Block on cooldown as part of your rotation in order to mitigate more damage over the course of a fight. Too many people seem to think Shield Block is something it's not; a cooldown in the manner of Shield Wall or Last Stand that will save you when either all else goes wrong or there's a huge burst coming in. But the days of Shear are long gone, and encounters will not be designed to have warriors dying off when the other tanks don't due to a lack of cooldowns. Ghostcrawler did suggest the possible implementation of a glyph that converts Shield Block from flat block chance to magical damage reduction, but he believes (as I do) that the community are grossly overplaying the requirement. For large burst you use your major cooldowns Shield Wall or Last Stand, while Shield Block is for general mitigation. It's really very simple.

My only question at this stage is where the developers view Enraged Regeneration for tanks in all of this. I suppose it's another mitigating factor that will save healer mana, as well as a handy levelling ability to stop yourself from dying while out questing. But as an endgame ability, I find it a bit lacklustre for tanks. DPS warriors could use it quite handily when there's AoE/raid damage coming in, but tanks take too much damage too quickly for it to be of much proactive use. Perhaps a glyph to frontload the healing of it, or deep Protection talents that buff it in some way could be an option - but that's a discussion for another day.

I'll round out, now - what else did we learn last night?

1) Shield Wall is being buffed. It will now reduce damage by 50% instead of 40% with no other changes (50% less damage for 12 seconds, every two minutes). This is a flat buff, nothing else to say.

2) Glyph of Shield Wall will add 10% more damage reduction, with only one more minute added on the cooldown (60% less damage for 12 seconds, every three minutes). Half the effect for half the cooldown; seems logical, and in line. It will be interesting if warriors can handle those extra 60 seconds, but encounters will dictate that.

3) Vigilance will no longer reduce damage taken by 3%, nothing else will change. As this is now being put solely on tanks, it cleans up any additive/overwriting issues. Technically a nerf I suppose (and heavily dependent on healer/tank set up), but a very minor one that will affect very few raid groups.

My congratulations - you've reached the end. Your prize is...

Greater knowledge. :)

Rise of the Offtank

2010-10-27T01:05:00.000-07:00

Cataclysm is changing the world. That's no secret. In fact, if you weren't aware that Deathwing's coming was going to change everything we know and love, I daresay you've been living in a murloc community for the better part of a year. One of the more interesting changes, however, is the way classes are looking to be performing coming into our new content on December 7th. Things are, quite literally, upside down. Paladins are great raid healers. Druids are great tank healers. Warriors are fantastic off-tanks.

Yep, you read it correctly.

Warriors are fantastic off-tanks.

The new game is about to see a new warrior step up. And I must say, it's not before time. The tried and trusted set up of a warrior tanking the boss and [insert any other tank here] dealing with anything that's not the boss, are about to dissipate. Here's why.

It's not all about damage.

Though, admittedly, that certainly helps. And while warrior AoE output is low at the moment, it's sure to be buffed because we've been promised that either all tanks will struggle with it, or none will. Ignore that for a moment. Look at what else the Protection warrior is bringing to the table as an offtank.

1) Unparalleled mobility; you get around faster than anyone which puts you where you're needed, when you're needed there.
2) Significant control; stuns, interrupts, buffs and debuffs are yours to command. Don't underestimate the power of being a nuisance.
3) An external cooldown; in the form of the new Safeguard, we're literally life savers when everything else has capitulated.
4) Access to shiny utility; personally, I'm looking at going for Piercing Howl and abusing it whenever possible; but Deep Wounds isn't a bad choice.
5) Permanent Vengeance; unless I'm mistaken, warriors will be using Vigilance to be the only tank capable of stacking Vengeance while not taking damage.

Now, when you slot talents like Blood and Thunder into this rather potent mix you start to see the very real opportunities to shine in a role that warriors have traditionally been laughed at for considering themselves capable of filling.

The problem?

Naturally, this is leading a number of players to suggest that warriors are now going to become the de facto off tank for the coming expansion, taking the sideline and letting another class hog the boss-tanking glory. This is clearly a terrible thing, because they're taking our jobs.

Except... They're not. We're also in a world of talents such as Enduring Victory, Incite, Field Dressing and Blood Craze. These all add up to single-target potency, something that we can deliberately go for when we want to be the boss tank. And for those who say that it's up to the raid leader what you do and not necessarily the tank, I say this:

Is it going to affect you?

Too many people seem to be concentrating on what will happen in the top 1% of min-maxing guilds, and not what will be happening in their own guild. I think it's a pretty big leap to suggest that warriors will spend an expansion on adds just because they "can" do it, while also assuming that long-term boss tanks will suddenly be pushed aside. Even if this were the case, this is only going to have an impact on less than 1% of the player base.

For everyone else, and I daresay those in the top 1%, the boss tank will be the best person for the job and not the best class. This is as it should be, and I can't wait for it to finally happen.

In short, only one thing has changed.

If you want to be an off tank, you now have tools that would make other classes eyes water.

Enjoy them.

The passing of a Titan.

2010-10-25T03:23:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned something quite different for this post. I'll be returning to the topic tomorrow so don't think you're necessarily spared more of my misbegotten ramblings, but something quite large just got my attention and I've decided to pay attention to it for todays commentary as it's significant enough for me to have done so. And those who know me will know just how rarely I'm swayed from my intended course.

Basically, Veneretio has decided to quit both World of Warcraft, and blogging.

This, as far as concerns me, is disastrous. Not for the man himself as, put succinctly, he has other things to be getting on with. He's loved his time in Warcraft, he's thoroughly enjoyed his blog and he's always gotten a great deal from the conversations that he's instigated. But for the Protection warrior community as a whole, this is a blow that's pretty hard to take because Veneretio is one of those bloggers that is impossible to dislike.

Allow me to elaborate.

There are those on the Internet who can't see the wood (the truth) for the trees (their own self-importance). The web itself provides the perfect platform for anonymity that would encourage difficult and grandiose behaviour way off what the facts bear out. Let's be clear; the Internet is full of idiots. If World of Warcraft is the microcosm to that backdrop, it's little wonder that the game sticks to type so accurately. The game, unfortunately, is full of the same fools who use "anonymity" to further agendas of rudeness, elitism and trolling. Sometimes, youth is an excuse - however tenuous. Other times, there is no excuse other than tragically inadequate development of social skills that cause the person concerned to treat others with the same disdain in which they subconsciously treats themselves. Worse, they do so with an error-strewn linguistic online presence that offends far more than it could ever hope to inform.

"We just don't get it".

But then, you come across a refreshing oasis in this desert of ill-begotten claptrap. And Veneretio's blog is one such oasis. It's hard to pinpoint what makes a good blogger, particularly one dealing with a subject as diverse as World of Warcraft. But Veneretio managed to hit that line between raid leader and friend that created an authority, but one who welcomed debate. Most importantly for him, however, was the fact that this personality wasn't worked at, fostered or fabricated.

Reading Veneretio's blog is like speaking to a tanking chum who wants you to end up better than he is.

The only blogs I read frequently come from the digi-pen of Veneretio, Linedan and Kadomi - all of which are fun for similar reasons. They're all engaging with you as an equal as opposed to the Jedi master who passes down information. They all enjoy quips and jabs, they get involved with their community in a warm and approachable manner and none of them seem to believe they have it all figured out. This mixture is powerful in any format, but particularly in one where it's easy to be maligned just for saying what you think.

Veneretio and the others advocate that style of theory-crafting that I adore and, one day, aspire to achieve - trying things for yourself.

There's no mathematics that nobody understands. There's no dismissal of differing opinions. There's no elitism or belief that they're better than you. Put simply, their blogs are glorified chat rooms where everyone throws their view into the pot and the results come out. In Veneretio's case, more than the others (and no offence), he picks up topics that are vilified by the Protection warrior community and puts a positive slant on them. He tries to understand where the developers are trying to go with the class or their PvE content, then slots the warrior into the niche he believes everyone is aiming at. Sometimes, I disagree. Sometimes lots of people disagree. But when someone puts their thoughts into comprehensible prose (which I'm awful at) and encourages a discussion around what he thinks with humility and wit, it's very, VERY hard not to love it.

Veneretio helped to make me a better player, and he made me want to get into blogging about it. He's what I aspire to as an Internet persona and a person that, though modest, will be sorely missed by a group that always looked up his blog first to see what he was going to chat about today.

Take good care, Vene - I, and many others, are really going to miss you. Let me personally wish you all the best on your future endeavours and I sincerely hope to see you pick up that shield again one day and join us in a debate about how best to avoid the dramatic chin-cleaves we're about to be subjected to.

Peace. :')

Pain... Agony.

2010-10-18T02:11:00.000-07:00

So, the Cataclysm cinematic has landed and there is a huge amount of attention being given to it, much as you'd expect. For me, one word pretty much sums it up.

Wow.

The Cataclysm cinematic is some of Blizzard's finest set-piece graphical work which, for me, sets the scene perfectly for what's about to happen. Just as obviously, though, there is a significant amount of complaint about it because it doesn't tick the right box regarding what the complainant in question wanted to see. And because it wasn't what that individual wanted, it's clearly an abject failure in their mind and all who worked on the project should die in a fire.

It's a good thing WoW players aren't known for their reasoned and measured opinions.

To that end, though, let me tell you why I think the cinematic is awesome.

First of all, it's beautiful. The CGI rendering is beyond compare, with the visuals depicting the demolition of Auberdine, Booty Bay, the Barrens, Thousand Needles, Loch Modan and Stormwind illustrating the destructive power of Deathwing without overstating it in the monologue. It's all-out action; and while many have complained about that fact, we're witnessing the beginning of a new age and such things should be accompanied by visceral on-screen dynamics. The original classic cinematic fitted well as an introductory piece, much less prescriptive than those that followed. The Burning Crusade cinematic was designed around the conflicted personality of Illidan, introducing the new races that got involved directly as a result of the story arc (Kil'jaedan and Kael'thas, particularly). Of course, we then see the reflective job that was done for the character of Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King, something that was designed to encourage players to appreciate the tragedy of Arthas himself and his fall from grace; even the operatic music sets this cinematic apart as the end of something, as opposed to the beginning. And then we come to the Cataclysm, where we're actively confronted with the threat posed by Deathwing, practically the most powerful single being in Azeroth.

This is why a favourite is so hard to pick from the four we've seen to this point; they're all designed to convey something different. And while I can appreciate the disappointment that goblins and worgen aren't shown, they're not really a part of the Cataclysm "story" in the same way the blood elves and draenei were for their debut.

Of course, then we come to the monologue itself. It's commonly reviled, but something I think an awful lot of. It's understood that Deathwing is a massively powerful force of nature, one that can rip the world apart just by being, but the monologue itself is measured; it's the mercurial yin to the physical yang. It doesn't illustrate the immeasurable intellect held by the fallen Aspect himself, but it hints at it. This makes it all the more powerful, as it conveys the cerebral side of Deathwing while the words show how effing angry he is - significant intelligence, barely containing profound rage. This allows the imagination of the viewer to take centre stage in order to envision just how Deathwing views the world he's about to mangle.

And personally, I think the voice actor does this very well. While he's not responsible for the effect, he is responsible for the delivery and finding a voice actor that can depict absolute and primal fury with restrained cunning couldn't have been easy; I think he strikes the balance well.

In wrapping up, I'm not trying to convince those that don't like the cinematic to think otherwise. That would be undeniably arrogant. What I am trying to do, is highlight why I love it so much, and why I think the direction taken is the right one. Yes, I'd have liked to have seen the Greymane Wall or the city of Kezan being crushed and crumpled during the flight. But I wouldn't have supported seeing any other races because it would go against the overwhelming point in the visual.

Deathwing is everything. Consideration of anything else, no matter how large it may have been, is instantly eclipsed in the split-second of his arrival. Illidan and the Lich King were nothing compared to the threat the former Aspect of Earth poses, and that is the sole impression the designers want you to take away.

Death(wing) has arrived.

Uh-oh.

First Impressions of 4.0.1

2010-10-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

So, I've been getting through the initial testing cycle and here is what I've been finding:

1) Warrior threat, both single-target and AoE, seems fine to me.

I suspect that too many warriors are struggling with a few things. Perhaps they're having problems with rage because they haven't picked up points in Shield Specialization or grabbed the glyph for 'zerker rage. Maybe they're mixing up how Blood and Thunder is supposed to work. Potentially, the new use of Heroic Strike is annoying people because they're trying to spam it when they shouldn't be. Point number two.

2) Heroic Strike is pretty cool now, but easy to overuse.

In all seriousness, Heroic Strike doesn't make the same threat contribution that it used to and could, in all seriousness, be routinely ignored if your DPS are average to fair. My advice is to keep it ready when you're about to get either a Sword and Board or a Revenge in; you'll invariably have the rage for it after that. Additionally, it's not a bad idea to use it after Victory Rush should you get that puppy lighting up. It's free, after all. The standard "over 60 rage" rule still applies.

3) I've yet to hear a compelling argument for Vigilance.

A few people have asked why it's not in my spec after inspecting me. When I ask why it would be, the best I can hope for is "herp derp". Vigilance is now totally situational, so only spec for it if you're going to actually be off-tanking in a raid. The rest of the time, it's a waste of time and don't be fooled into thinking otherwise by those who use phrases such as "lol", "rofl", or even stretch to "retard". They just look stupid when they can't give you a reason beyond those extremes.

4) Victory Rush should be on your bars somewhere.

I know, I know. But during an instance, you're quite likely to be killing things and it's a nice healing boost while also doing respectable damage and costing no rage whatsoever, thus freeing some up for Heroic Strike. This is especially true if you've picked up Enduring Victory, but I've left that out of my spec for the time being.

5) Rend is fine as an opener on packs, and you should keep it up on single targets.

Trust me - it's worth it. When you get adds, or something simply bimbles along and annoys you, only having to Thunderclap to get it bleeding is really nice and, I think, part of the design. It costs you no damage really, a tiny amount of threat and some self respect; but it's worth it when there is more than one target around. Oh, yeah - and you've taken Blood and Thunder.

6) Reforging your dodge into parry is a good idea, as is using parry gems.

The talent Hold the Line makes parry better for warriors than dodge. Since the two are now practically identical in all ways that matter, warriors can get mitigation and threat from those two points, while the uptime is actually pretty impressive despite the relatively low levels of parry we all have. Add that to the fact that our mastery is being significantly buffed and Hold the Line starts to look better and better.

Anyway, that's all that springs to mind for the moment. I currently have a ticket in due to constant WoW errors causing crashes and I haven't gotten through everything, but I figured I'd quickly share how it's been going to this point and let you know that I have no idea what game the most vociferous of complainants are playing.

It's not this one.

My Cataclsym Protection glyphs.

2010-10-04T05:01:00.000-07:00

Following on from my last blog regarding the list of glyphs in Cataclysm for warriors, I figured I'd quickly point out which ones I'll be using for Cataclysm when I first hit raids at 85. I'm going to be boss-tanking with the following set of talents (as things stand, of course) so some of my choices will reflect that fact. And while the usual caveat of "things being subject to change" still exists, I'd imagine much of what is now up is going to form 90% of what we'll see when the expansion lands.

So then, let's get on with it.

My Prime glyphs will be Devastate, Revenge and Shield Slam. Nothing too elaborate here, and the developers are pretty honest about the fact that there isn't supposed to be. I'd like the choice of a more defensive Prime glyph but if not, these three are obvious and require no debate.

Moving on to Major glyphs, however, and the fun begins. Long Charge is interesting, I guess, but not worth the slot considering what else is available, while Shield Wall will also have its place for the more dire of boss mechanics but it's hard to gauge how often they'll pop up. Thunder Clap is another that's nice enough, but in a world with crowd control I don't reckon more range to an AoE attack is the best way to go. Cleaving will probably see common use amongst many warriors, but if I'm boss tanking it provides next to nothing additional. Heroic Throw could well be compelling if we consider the application of sunders from range, but I question how often that will be called for. Intercept simply isn't a PvE glyph in my view, while Intervene is one that you would possibly marry up with the talent Safeguard but, alas, it remains horribly situational. Rapid Charge is one I like, however, as it'll be useful almost anywhere and the rage saving value of Resonating Power makes it quite enticing, too - but lowering the cooldown of the namesake talent Shockwave is another that isn't likely to be earth shattering outside of AoE scenarios. Sunder Armor is another that'll see heavy use for the off tanks amongst us, while Victory Rush is solely for those talented into Impending Victory.

As for me, I'll be picking up Victory Rush, Shield Wall and Resonating Power. For my job of boss-tanking, and considering my spec, they're the ones that will yield the best results from what I can tell.

Lastly, the flavour; Minor glyphs.

While all have a certain amount of utility, it's really a choice between Berserker Rage, Command, Demoralizing Shout, Enduring Victory, Furious Sundering and Intimidating Shout. Once more, I want the most I can get out of Victory Rush, so I'll be taking Enduring Victory to complement that. Not having to use a GCD on Demoralizing Shout will also be quite nice on bosses, so Demoralizing Shout is my second slot. Finally, it's the choice between saving rage or longer duration buffs. With shouts now granting rage instead of costing it, it's unlikely Commanding Shout will be falling off (though the range is nice) so I'll be picking up Berserker Rage for those moments where I desperately need the rage.

So, what are you considering? :)

Cataclysm warrior glyphs.

2010-09-30T14:49:00.001-07:00

One of the largest changes for Cataclysm was going to be the glyph interface. Along with some cosmetic changes to the way they looked in your spellbook, many of the glyphs themselves were going to change quite dramatically to match the new abilities for the expansion. Some have been changed, some have been added and some have been gotten rid of outright.

And to keep my readers (are there any?) happy, here is a list of the Prime, Major and Minor warrior glyphs as they stand. Remember, you will be able to choose three of each glyph when you hit level 85.

Prime Glyphs

Bloodthirst: Increases the damage of Bloodthirst by 10%.
Devastate: Increases the critical strike chance of Devastate by 5%.
Mortal Strike: Increases the damage of Mortal Strike by 10%.
Slam: Increases the critical strike chance of Slam by 5%.
Bladestorm: Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 seconds.
Overpower: Increases the damage of Overpower by 10%.
Raging Blow: Increases the critical strike chance of Raging Blow by 5%.
Revenge: Increases the damage of Revenge by 10%.
Shield Slam: Increases the damage of Shield Slam by 10%.

Major Glyphs

Long Charge: Increases the range of your Charge ability by 5 yards.
Shield Wall: Shield Wall now reduces damage by 60%, but it’s cooldown is increased by 2 minutes.
Thunder Clap: Increases the range of your Thunder Clap by 2 yards.
Cleaving: Increases the number of targets your Cleave hits by 1.
Colossus Smash: Your Colossus Smash refreshes the stack of Sunder Armor on a target.
Death Wish: Death Wish no longer increases damage taken.
Heroic Throw: Your Heroic Throw applies a stack of Sunder Armor.
Intercept: Increases the duration of your Intercept stun by 1 (presumed) second.
Intervene: Increases the number of attacks you intercept on your Intervene target by 1.
Piercing Howl: Increases the radius of Piercing Howl by 50%.
Rapid Charge: Reduces the cooldown of your Charge ability by 7%.
Resonating Power: Reduces the rage cost of your Thunder Clap ability by 5.
Shockwave: Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 seconds.
Spell Reflection: Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflect by 1 second.
Sunder Armor: Your Sunder Armor ability affects a second nearby target.
Sweeping Strikes: Reduces the rage cost of your Sweeping Strikes ability by 100%.
Victory Rush: Increases the total healing provided by your Victory Rush by 50%.

Minor Glyphs

Battle: Increases the duration by 2 minutes, and area of effect by 50% of your Battle Shout.
Berserker Rage: Berserker Rage generates 5 rage when used.
Command: Increases the duration by 2 minutes, and area of effect by 50% of your Commanding Shout.
Bloody Healing: Increases the healing you receive from Bloodthirst by 100%.
Demoralizing Shout: Increases the duration by 15 seconds, and area of effect by 50% of your Demoralizing Shout.
Enduring Victory: Increases the window of opportunity in which you can use Victory Rush by 5 seconds.
Furious Sundering: Reduces the cost of Sunder Armor by 50%.
Intimidating Shout: Targets of your Intimidating Shout no longer move faster when feared.

And that’s your lot. As you know, all of this comes with the usual beta caveat of “subject to change” - but I’d imagine this is around 85% right for what we’re going to be seeing in Cataclysm.

As for Protection warriors, here’s what you’re looking at:

Prime: Revenge, Shield Slam and Devastate.
Major: Long Charge, Shield Wall, Thunder Clap, Cleaving, Heroic Throw, Intervene, Rapid Charge, Resonating Power, Shockwave, Spell Reflection, Sunder Armor and Victory Rush.
Minor: Command, Demoralizing Shout, Enduring Victory, Furious Sundering and Intimidating Shout.

Your Prime glyphs are no-brainers really, and there is no choice at the moment. As a result, I’d expect to see something else in the way of Prime glyphs. There is, however, a heap of choices when you start looking at Major glyphs and that’s where most of the customization is going to come in; much of it dependent on spec. Lastly, the Minor glyphs are “QoL” at best and will have very limited impact on how you play.

Enjoy. :)

Remaining Vigilant.

2010-09-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

One of the more subtle yet significant changes for Protection warriors in Cataclysm comes in the form of the revamped Vigilance. As a talent, it's been a staple for us throughout WotLK and was basically how the developers updated Defiance from it's terribly boring Outland incarnation.

Throughout the last couple of years, Vigilance has received a sort of love/hate kind of attention; warriors hated it, high-threat damage dealers universally loved it and it had numerous applications that made intelligent use of the Taunt refresh (starting with Gothik, finishing with Arthas himself). Getting 10% threat from another player was an unwanted crutch for a tank that comfortably did the least damage, while said damage dealer was free to go for it with no risk of pulling threat and probably being saved if they did. Of course, the 3% damage reduction was also helpful but tended toward the superfluous thanks to things like Blessing of Sanctuary or (in our case) Renewed Hope.

But here's the change:

Vigilance

"Focus your protective gaze on a group or raid target, reducing their damage taken by 3%. In addition, each time they are hit by an attack your Taunt cooldown is refreshed and you gain Vengeance as if 20% of the damage was done to you. Lasts 30 min. This effect can only be on one target at a time".

When 4.0 lands, Vigilance will go from an all-tank talent to a niche talent with very limited use.

Let me explain.

First of all, put yourself in the position of the heroic instance tank. There is no threat transfer, so putting it on any of your damage dealers is pointless. Yes, it may allow you to save them through taunting, but the enhanced health pools of Cataclysm are enough of a crutch to avoid that. Lastly, will the 3% damage reduction be of any benefit when lost aggro is nothing more than an uncommon accident? It also goes without saying that Vengeance won't be stacking, as they won't be getting hit.

Now let's say you're a boss tank.

Your problems are similar to those above. With no threat transfer, you're limited on who it's worth putting on. You'll be taking damage yourself, meaning the Vengeance contribution is also significantly hampered and you're not likely to be doing any taunting. Again, the damage reduction sounds okay but is 3% going to make much difference in the Cataclysm world of large health pools?

We then come to the conventional off-tank and we see why the talent was re-designed.

When you're not directly taking damage, your main tank can be building Vengeance for you so that you can open up high burst on adds when required, or the boss himself. The taunt refresh is also potentially very handy if you're going to be picking up streaming adds while in an encounter that calls for it. Lastly, assuming your main tank isn't a paladin, the 3% damage reduction will be hugely worthwhile... Once again, assuming the lack of a Discipline priest.

TL, DR?

Vigilance has been significantly altered in order to cover up a known, yet relatively unimportant, weakness with Protection warriors, but has lost the vast majority of its applicable function in the process. And while most tanks will probably keep picking it up in case the taunt refresh mechanic can be abused (or through habit), you certainly won't see me questioning warriors who choose to leave it out.

All told, it's very disappointing to see a "solution" come in the form of what is actually a pretty significant change for the worse.

A more elegant solution might have been making the talent add a percentage of damage dealt by the target (already suggested), or seeing critical strikes from the target give a 50% chance to proc Revenge; you could even buff Revenge itself slightly under these circumstances, or do something out of the box like also making it available in Battle Stance.

Considering the additional rage coming in from Sentinel, I consider the DPS contribution of a Protection warrior when not tanking to already have been given enough help without dismantling Vigilance, too.

Of course, my preferred option is potentially to make it an additional part of another talent that is a bit lacklustre. There are candidates for this, considering the Protection tree itself is badly flooded with talents that every tank is going to be awfully hard pressed to turn down. As luck would have it though, there is an elephant in the room that is going to see selection very rarely due to its lack of real utility. It also so happens that the talent concerned would have a lot in common with Vigilance from a "feel" perspective and it would make inherent sense to wrap up both talents instead, as opposed to the costly three it would otherwise sit at.

I am, of course, talking about the somewhat reviled Safeguard. One or two points for the Vigilance effect as well as a minor damage cooldown wouldn't be too much to ask at this stage.

Regardelss of how they may change it, I just sincerely hope its current beta version doesn't make it to live. I know it's a free point for choice, but it lacks any real utility and is more than likely to be relegated to the "bum talent" the developers are so desperate to avoid.

Ode to the new Warchief.

2010-09-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

I never liked Garrosh Hellscream. In truth, I viewed him as a character of limited depth, limited intelligence and limited mileage. As you can probably imagine, I was somewhat perplexed when the news hit that Garrosh was going to be the new Warchief of the Horde while Thrall did his best to deal with the world pulling itself apart as the new Guardian of Tirisfal. Not only was I "somewhat perplexed", I was deeply unhappy with Blizzard's choice and hoped they would reverse it. Then I saw the model for him and that simply confirmed my view that he was just a dumb, brutish ogre that would rip the Horde apart.

It's not difficult to pinpoint why I (and others) hated Garrosh. He personified the old version of the orc from time immemorial; a thick-headed and hot-blooded savage with little capacity for sound judgement or reason, and a personality that lent itself to easy manipulation due to an inherent inability to consider consequences beyond the next dust up. Blizzard had spent the best part of four years forging a shamanistic personality for the orcs, one that formed the bedrock for a stronger future of enlightenment that would be led by the ancestors.

In the space of one transition, the orcs had reverted to type and gone back to the days when their only consideration was the next opportunity to incite a bloodbath. The responsibility for this lay firmly at Garrosh's hearth which started in earnest by the killing of Cairne Bloodhoof and saw consolidation by the strained relationship with Vol'jin.

Honour good. Garrosh bad.

Of course, I then started playing the beta and spending a bit of time in Orgrimmar to chase down profession trainers and get access to places like Mount Hyjal, Deepholm and Vash'jir. The first thing that will hit anyone on entering the new Orgrimmar for the first time is the sheer volume of change that has hit it. The barest of bare bones in the layout are the same, but it's almost as if Garrosh razed the entirety of the city and started again in accordance with his own vision. The buildings are bigger, there are districts for the city, it's more fortified and the Warchief shows his personal preference by planting his throne in the Valley of Strength.

Then (assuming you play with sound) the music hits you. Music that's a bombastic mix of drums and horns, with the sound practically pounding you in the face as you move about. I have no shame in telling you that when I hear it, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, as if to attention, ready to hear the orders of the Warchief and then see me rush to follow them. It's spine-tingling, inspiring and boiling with orcish pride. Then you finally enter the throne room, with the music banging and the guards moving around, and you approach Warchief Garrosh and hear him loudly proclaim that you should "Live by these words; Lok'tar ogar - Victory or Death!"
It's here that it hits you. You realise the point in all of it. And you acutely grasp that Thrall was correct whilst speaking to Vol'jin.

Garrosh is the right choice.

In such a short space of time, he's recreated what Thrall spent an inordinate amount of time eroding.

Identity.

We're back in a world where the Horde no longer accepts tolerance or, at a stretch, equality. It's a Horde that demands superiority. Garrosh expects that every member will be their best, strive for the perfection we'd forgotten to chase, live in honour while defending our comrades and give our lives defending the principles that Garrosh's father, the late and great Grom Hellscream, gave his life to grant all orcs.

Garrosh sees the Horde as an absolute sovereignty, the only power to be reckoned with in the known world. And while Thrall practically begged the Alliance to look past the fact we were orcs, trolls, tauren and Forsaken in an effort to be accepted, Garrosh makes absolutely no apology for who he is and, by default, who we are; he is a savagely proud orc that viscerally demands the same patriotism from every man, woman and child under his stewardship. He personifies that stoic adoration we have for ourselves as members of our own race, while obliterating the flimsy notion that the Horde owes anyone anything just by virtue of being.

Not only is Garrosh the right choice, he's the perfect choice.

All of a sudden we're reminded of why we joined the Horde in the first place, why we're fighting for the expansion of our ideals and principles and why we're killing members of the Alliance in battlegrounds instead of trying to befriend them. The Horde stands for those who value honour, regardless of race, and will always strive to be unconditionally committed to brothers in arms and blood-curdlingly hateful of those who seek our humility.

I explicitly understand why people would hate or despise Garrosh. After all, killing Cairne and insulting Vol'jin aren't exactly the acts of someone you'd instantly fall in love with. But ask yourself; what is Garrosh doing to the Horde? Is he fracturing it? Destroying it? Harassing it? Or is he reforming it with a proud, honourable, powerful and wise identity that no enemy would go against willingly and that will never apologise for its nature?

You come to the Horde, you view its members as equals; not as a conglomerate amalgamation of misfits that deserve pity. The decision to do otherwise will soon see you lethally chastised.
In short, the Horde is back to what it was when I first joined and first loved it. So when you next enter the field in order to conduct your latest campaign into hostile or Alliance territory, and you can remember the last visit to Orgrimmar when you prepared for this battle while having those drums banging in your head, remember those words that will support you endlessly no matter what:

Hellscream's eyes are upon you.

LOK'TAR!

Solving the mana conundrum.

2010-09-13T02:51:00.000-07:00

This is a long one.

Much of the discussion on the Beta forums currently surrounds the wholly contentious issue of mana regeneration and the power of heals coming from those who swing the light to keep us all alive. It seems many people are not happy with the new model which (cutting a long story short) has nerfed regeneration considerably, and also lowered the output of each spell. The notion, basically, is that healing gameplay is more about the triage process of decision-making as opposed to the first-person-shooter version that we've had throughout Wrath of the Lich King.

I don't want to get into that discussion as, to be honest, it doesn't interest me that much. Good players will ever remain as such, so I'm not concerned that our guild healers are suddenly going to be bad when 4.0 hits. They'll learn to adapt. What I do wish to talk about, however, is how tanks should be approaching the issue with regard to level cap PvE content.

It breaks down like this:

1) Each spell will do less healing than it currently does in live (by percentage of your health).
2) Less spells can be cast on you due to mana constraints (in a given encounter).

Of course it's accepted that, if you're a healer, this appears to be a rather savage double whammy. Not only will heals themselves be weaker, less of them will be able to be cast. What this means for tanks, then, is pretty simple; we're going to have two jobs, too.

1) Make each spell as powerful as possible.
2) Ensure healers have to cast less spells.

Making each spell as powerful as possible.

The definition of more powerful is obvious - anything that we, as a class, can do to make a heal land for a higher number than it would normally. In this regard, warriors have a rather lovely talent entitled Field Dressing. For two points in the Arms tree, the warrior will see 6% added to any heal that lands on him (not including the other significant effect). This basically means that once you've got your 31 points in the Protection tree, your next stop should be Field Dressing as an absolute no-brainer. In addition, that 6% will scale with gear so that the talent will only get more powerful as your healer gets more powerful.

Get your hands on Field Dressing and never let it go. This part of the discussion is over.

Ensuring healers have to cast less spells.

Throughout Wrath of the Lich King, effective health has been all that mattered. The more spike damage you can survive, the better you are as a tank - something that has unnecessarily penalized warrior players in a regard they couldn't do anything about. Come Cataclysm, effective health is going to be far less important as a tank will not be taken down within three blows. This means that a part of tanking that has been told to go stand in the corner for two years is about to make a comeback.

Avoidance.

There. I said it. Avoidance is going to be good. But before I am befouled by a plague of frogs, or struck down with a nasty bout of dysentery, it's worth considering that avoidance is going to make the single biggest contribution to your healer not having to cast so many spells over the course of an encounter. In fact, if your sole consideration is going to be effective health then you're going to be a BAD tank for demanding 100% of your healers attention. But the emboldened part is important and worth taking note of; we are talking about a mana pool that has to last over an encounter, not a health pool that has to survive for three seconds. This change in priority is what has caused avoidance to be desirable again, and must be borne in mind.
Of course, warriors can do something else to lessen damage. They can block. Again, this is something that has been largely ignored for the last two years because its random nature and limited impact made for something that couldn't reliably be counted on to save a tank. Of course, that hasn't changed (as it hasn't for avoidance) but it's the shift in gameplay that makes these stats compelling once more.

Oh, and the fact a block will stop 30% of any physical blow.

Consider that for a second. 30% of a physical blow will be removed from any attack that you manage to block. Over the course of an encounter, that's extremely powerful especially when you consider the impact of Shield Block for periods when lots of physical damage is on the way in. The warrior mastery, Critical Block, makes this even more exciting when that block value can be doubled at higher levels of mastery.

In short, warriors can spend elongated periods of time without ever needing a heal by virtue of their gear alone. The change in gameplay means that healing will be reactive in Cataclysm, something that will directly enhance the benefit of avoidance and mitigation. But gear is only half of the equation we can consider. Assuming people are playing correctly, the talent choices are pretty awesome when we're looking to save the healers a job.

The self-healing warrior.

Once the domain solely of the death knight, all of a sudden warriors can spend a few talent points in healing themselves up lessening the healer migraine even more than gear allows. Our only heal to date, Enraged Regeneration, is actually being buffed by our old friend Field Dressing. Not only does it improve heals cast on us by 6%, it buffs our self-healing abilities by a whopping 20%. So, clicking Enraged Regeneration is going to see it heal us up for an additional 20% of what it normally does, including even more healing if we assume the glyph makes the cull.

40% of your health back over the period, with an additional 20% on top of that thanks to Field Dressing? Let's assume a health pool of 100k to keep things nice and simple. We're basically looking at being able to heal ourselves for 48k (almost half our health) every time Enraged Regeneration is up. That's actually hugely impressive, and becomes another cooldown that compares favourably to both Last Stand and Shield Wall.

But what else do we have going for us in the self-healing stakes?

Well, there's Blood Craze. Again, sticking with the 100k health theme, we're looking at potentially healing ourselves for 7.5k health every time we take damage. Well, whoopee doo. But Blood Craze could be up every 20 seconds or so, making it hugely attractive for a prolonged encounter. Plus, I forgot to add the 20% extra from good old Field Dressing, which rounds our number up to just under 10k health.

And we're still not done!

Impending Victory is another talent that looks fantastic to me, should a Protection warrior be tanking a raid boss. Every 2nd Devastate (on average) is going to allow the use of Victory Rush, granting a shiny heal worth 6k on the 100k health model, Field Dressing considered. This will also help to lessen the impact of additional damage in the execute phase of an encounter, the phase that is typically the most dangerous for everyone in the raid group.

And that's it.

TL, DR?

Mana matters in Cataclysm, and healers want to use it as sparingly as possible. As Protection warriors, we can actually have quite a significant impact on how much attention healers have to devote to us during an encounter of difficulty; how much of an impact is dependent on your talents and gear set up. But we can buff heals on us with Field Dressing, while that same talent will also increase our considerable self-healing capabilities through Enraged Regeneration, Blood Craze and Victory Rush. Heck, there's nothing stopping us from stacking Enraged Regeneration with Last Stand, as we tend to currently, for an absurd amount of self-healing through difficult phases. When you add all that to our mastery bonus and the fact that parry, dodge and block are all going to be worthwhile stats again, we can start to fully appreciate just how much fun we'll be for healers to work with when the proverbial hits the fan.

Warriors are back to being hard to kill.

It's about time.

Why I'll be playing through the Cataclysm.

2010-09-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

If you wish to follow the discussion that this post is centred around, then you can do so here.

However, I'll copy the text for easier reference. This one is from Ghostcrawler:

"You are correct that a lot of players moan about things being too easy without having seen the content personally. We definitely place less emphasis on their feedback than on people who have actually tried those encounters.

The hardest encounters of LK were harder than anything we've offered before. And honestly, that point isn't often in contention. I think what surprised players is say how far they got in Naxxramas on their very first night, without a lot of planning or gearing, or how they managed to kill 2-3 heroic bosses on their first night of a new heroic wing being opened in Icecrown (though to be honest, fighting a boss for weeks on normal mode first definitely exacerbates that phenomenon).

We'll continue to offer some content for the cutting-edge progression raider. There is an encounter in Bastion of Twilight for them. But we also think true pugs shouldn't be stumbling their way through encounters they've never seen before, at least without a very strong or experienced leader.

To use my own guild as an example, in say the Serpentshrine days, we'd take a few weeks to master a new boss. I could probably count the number of time we got two new bosses on one night. I think a progression rate like that feels better to a lot of players. You spend time in between raid nights discussing what you could do differently on a tough boss, but then celebrate each victory.

A heroic dungeon doesn't need to be quite so brutal, but it still doesn't seem bad if you wipe on a new boss 2-3 times before you figure out a solid stragegy and everything falls into place. A lot of players love that puzzle-solving aspect of the encounters. It lets them exercise their mind, creativity and knowledge of game mechanics. When you can just overpower the boss and ignore the encounter mechanics, then a lot of that is lost."

In one post, Ghostcrawler has summed up why I'm going to be playing Cataclysm and why most of the people I like, respect and enjoy playing with will be doing likewise.

Amid all the number crunching, buttonology and theorycrafting that swings to and fro with alarming regularity (and frequently based on incorrect assumptions), we've just been treated to an honest appraisal of where the lead systems designer thinks the game should be from a philosophical standpoint. In many ways, this is worth more than all of the mathematical equations surrounding the Beta combined; it's an opinion.

For the vast majority of Wrath of the Lich King, the PvE community have been bemused by the lack of enjoyable, challenging and engaging content offered at the level cap. A lot of that enjoyment comes from being able to use your head, not just push your buttons. Boss fights should be meaningful, something that requires all of the group to contribute to success instead of just getting stuck in and hoping that your tank uses a cooldown for some of the most horrible damage, and the healer manages to keep everyone up.

Here's the scores on the doors:

1) PvE content is being made more challenging across the board, while still containing the Algalon style fights for those who have the stomach for them.
2) Dungeon difficulty will be scaling properly - this will facilitate the introduction of a scaling level of encounter difficulty that creates better players.
3) The gameplay itself is changing, meaning that decision making is more important than button-mashing.
4) Gear is going to be harder to obtain, with raids being the only meaningful source of epic quality loot.
5) The entire lore content of the game, through quests, is being utterly dismantled and seeing replacement with an experience that is 1000% times more enjoyable.
6) So many quality of life issues, cross-class and UI wise, are being addressed intelligently and seeing thoughtful and innovative solutions.
7) Level cap character progression will be returned with Archaeology, something that is far larger in scope than was originally thought.

People are looking at Cataclysm through lenses that are tinted by what they want to see. For me, there were many things I hoped would make a return - mainly from the Golden Age of PvE content, The Burning Crusade. But while not everything I hoped for is going to see the light of day, I can accept that what the developers are trying to do is recreate the world we play in to be up to date and engaging, while not demanding ridiculous amounts of time to be viable. I want to see reputation grinds, specialized crafting and intelligent raid grouping. The fact that I won't see those three things shan't cloud what I am getting from Cataclysm (see the list above).

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is Blizzard redesigning their game from the ground up, with the lessons of six years learned and safely in tow. I had so many reservations about it throughout some of the early discussions and whilst looking back on how the admittedly abysmal Wrath of the Lich King turned out.

But I'm excited now. I genuinely believe that the upcoming expansion is going to be some of the most fun we've ever had in Azeroth, with a personal gameplay and communal strategic demand that will be compelling and fun for all.

This isn't today's topic, I'm about to write that. But this post is for anyone who's not "down with the Cataclysm" and is being waylaid by the fog of confusion and QQ that is blighting the Beta forums.

It's looking awesome and is going to be fun.

Don't miss it.

How good are the Guild Perks?

2010-09-07T04:31:00.001-07:00

In my last entry, I discussed how the guild levelling system is going to work in Cataclysm and what guild members should be aware of in regard to it. If you're not already familiar with how it's going to be implemented, I recommend going back and reading it.

This entry is going to concentrate on one of the main features, if not the bona fide main feature itself; guild perks.

Below, I've listed all of the perks and the descriptions of their maximum level effects. I've also written what guild level you need to be to unlock the perk, purely to be systematic and thorough. I've also said what I think about each one individually from (I hope) a rounded point of view.

Read on to learn what your guild could soon be offering to you!

Fast Track (Levels 1 and 5): Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%.

Pretty obvious upgrade here, both for levelling alts (goblins or worgen, particularly) and for levelling main characters; it's quickly unlocked to help that push to 85, but the 10% buff (plus heirlooms) will see alts levelled quicker than ever before. Better for social and/or levelling guilds, really, but always going to be relatively useful.

Mount Up (Level 2): Increases speed while mounted by 5%. Not active in Battlegrounds or Arena.

A convenience perk, not much more. Again, it'll see most benefit if you're lower level and getting yourself to 85. I'm unsure if this will apply to flying mounts, but I suspect not. Any guild will get use out of this, but it's not worth writing home about.

Mr. Popularity (Levels 3 and 11): Reputation gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%.

This is potentially a huge benefit to those who like grinding reputations, including guild reputation. It will also be of benefit when running instances with your reputation tabard, making it more of a level-cap perk. Of course, if you're chasing Insane in the Membrane! then it may be worth waiting on this to unlock to make it slightly less painful. Slightly. Very slightly. Raiding guilds will get good use from this while farming the reputations that provide character enhancements, while social guilds with reputation grinders will also see a lot in this one.

Cash Flow (Levels 4 and 15): Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank.

Guild taxes or gold generation for the guild bank, begone! At 10%, and in a large guild, this is quite possibly the biggest perk available. At no cost to the player, every member will be contributing to the guild itself simply by playing. Good for every guild out there.

Reinforce (Levels 6 and 8): Items take 10% less durability loss when you die.

A raiding guild perk. Those horribly costly nights of wiping will be a bit less of a drain on the bank and when considered over a period of a full tier, this could save your guild something in the region of tens of thousands of gold.

Hasty Hearth (Level 7): Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes.

Another one for the levellers amongst us. The Hearthstone cooldown isn't particularly restrictive, but Blizzard seem to be encouraging those of lower level to simply keep resetting their stone to the most convenient place and then using it liberally.

Chug-A-Lug (Levels 9 and 21): The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 100%.

At first sight, this seems a bit underwhelming. Feasts are usually refreshed after a wipe and the buffs rarely expire otherwise. However, this could potentially be a big one for those who are levelling using the dungeon finder as they can set it down and then see a two hour buff. Also, this could encourage group questing for more combat effectiveness and would also be good for farming raid content for those last bits of gear and/or alts. One that will probably be missed if you ever end up losing it.

Mobile Banking (Level 10): Summons your guild bank. Instant, 1 hour cooldown.

I would suggest this is a raiding guild perk, one that will see the bank summoned for flasks, feasts or BoE and item dumps. I can see few other uses for the level 10 milestone perk.

Honourable Mention (Levels 12 and 18): Increases honour points gained by 10%.

Clearly for PvP orientated guilds and players. 10% more honour sounds good to me, especially for those in Battlegrounds.

Working Overtime (Level 13): Increases the chance to get a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%.

This is a wide ranging perk and is nice for everyone. We all either need or like tradeskills, so increasing the chance to get a tradeskill point makes those pesky yellow options much more attractive.

The Quick and the Dead (Level 14): Increases health and mana gained when resurrected by a guild member by 50% and increases movement speed while dead by 100%. Does not function in combat or while in a Battleground or Arena.

Levellers and raiders this one. Faster corpse runs, particularly after a wipe, will soon be taken for granted. It's another that players will miss substantially should get used to it and lose it.

Guild Mail (Level 16): In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly.

Purely a convenience perk, pretty sad for such a high level. Sending things around guild will (obviously) be quicker, but I can't really think of an occasion where I was really annoyed at the waiting time.

Everyone's a Hero (Levels 17 and 24): Increases Heroism points gained by 10%.

This is one for the PvE players, pure and simple; and it's awesome. While some PvP folks may like the look of specific vendor gear and find this perk good for farming it, only those who really enjoy their dungeons are going to see the biggest benefit from this.

Happy Hour (Level 19): Increases the number of flasks gained when using a flask cauldron by 100%.

I suspect raid guilds will get the most out of this, as they're the ones most likely to be using flasks. In saying that, Battleground or arena players will get benefit, as will any leveller looking for a bit more bite.

Have Group, Will Travel (Level 20): Summons all raid or party members to the casters current location. Unlimited range, 6 second cast/channelled, 2 hour cooldown.

This is a bit of a mixed blessing for me; it's one of the trademark perks, but I suspect it will see little use. Nobody can doubt the utility of being able to summon your raid group to you, but the long cooldown means it's unlikely to be used for fear of "wasting it". This is particularly true when your raid is forming and is never all ready at the same time. I could see a niche being formed for it, mid-raid, when everyone goes away for ten minutes to grab flasks and get new gear enchanted. We shall see. Needless to say, only raiding guilds will get any tangible benefit from it.

Bountiful Bags (Level 22): Increases the quantity of material gained from Mining, Skinning, Herbalism and Disenchanting by 15%.

Awesome perk and, in my view, one of the best. Whether you're a gold farmer or a crafter, this one has the potential to provide you with a bucketload of free materials. Totally justifies its high level and is great for every type of guild.

Bartering (Level 23): Reduces the price of items from vendors by 5%.

Depending on how this pans out, it could be wonderful or lacklustre. If it applies to all vendors, including heroism or honour point vendors, it will be a great boon and will be completely worthy of a level 23 perk. If it only applies to gold related vendors, it loses practically all of its shine as vendor items are never prohibitively priced. One to wait on before judging, but will be relevant to any guild really.

Mass Resurrection (Level 25): Brings all dead party and raid members back to life with 35 life and 35 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. 64% of base mana, unlimited range, 10 second cast.

Another raiding guild perk, and a wonderful time saver assuming someone survives a wipe and can use mana (hai, huntardz - oh wait... Focus). Needless to say, this could be an excellent way of saving time and maintaining momentum while charging down Deathwing.

So, what does that mean?

Let me put it this way. The top five perks (in no particular order), as I see it, are:

1) Cashflow. You're generating more gold, what's not to like?
2) Reinforce. You're saving more gold - doh - but this saves you more the more you need it.
3) Working Overtime. This will undoubtedly lead to quicker profession levelling.
4) Bountiful Bags. As above, and can be used by gold farmers.
5) Everyone's a Hero/Honourable Mention. Farming points will simply feel less like "farming".

The least useful (again, in no particular order) are probably:

1) Hasty Hearth. 30 minutes isn't particularly prohibitive, shaving 15 from that isn't worth much.
2) Mobile Banking. With the proliferation of banking alts, as well as raiding groups being ready before the first pull, it's hard to see where this will be used.
3) Guild Mail. Players in guilds tend to only mail their alts, which is already instant.
4) Have Group, Will Travel. I just don't see this being as useful as it first appears, and the cooldown is a killer.
5) Chug-A-Lug. Nice enough, but a minimal benefit.

So, that's it - you've now read everything I think about the new guild levelling system - what do you think?

Guild Perks and Levelling.

2010-09-06T03:28:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting updates regarding Cataclysm as far as concerns me, isn't actually one related to Protection warriors or even raiding in a direct sense. As a guild leader, I have the hopes and dreams of an entire group of people looking up at me, praying I'll guide them into a shining future. As they chant my name, praise my deeds and long for the day my attention is undivided upon them, their visions of the future will be shaped by my foresight and omnipotence.

Okay, I'm giving my mind a treat. In fact, if most of my guild members were to read that statement then I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

But the topic of this post isn't my bordering-on-insanity delusions of grandeur. Nope, what I want to discuss is the way Guild Perks are going to alter the landscape for guilds of all shapes and sizes when a Mr. Grumpy Deathwing wakes up from the wrong side of the Deepholm bed.

Let me start by saying that I really love the idea of guild levelling and guild reputation. The guild talent tree notion was one that scared me, because it carried the very real likelihood to cause arguments, incite drama and see many people ditching guilds because they didn't like the way they were specced. In saying that, it did provide a level of customisability to a guild, something that could easily differentiate one group from another and let you choose how your guild progressed and chose its focus.

However, I don't see that as a good enough trade off for having a website theorycraft which talents would be best for a "raid guild", a "levelling guild", a "PvP guild" or a "social guild" - you can imagine the mockery if a guild claimed it was a raid guild, but had picked up levelling talents.

Sigh.

But before continuing, I'm going to expend both the time and effort to explain exactly how the new guild system is going to work in Cataclysm, as well as how it will affect members of that guild. I've struggled to find a concise description of how it works, so now is the time to provide one for my gentle readers.

Guild Levels.

Guilds will be able to level up, much the same way as characters. The level cap will be 25, with a perk being awarded for every level the guild increases. "Experience" is earned by guild members levelling professions, completing dungeons and raids, winning pre-made battlegrounds or being part of a successful guild arena team. Every member of the guild can gain experience through their activities and the cumulated experience is contributed to the guild level. All members of a guild, regardless of reputation, will make use of the guild perks obtained and they are largely non-combat orientated but can provide massive benefits over time.

Guild Reputation.

Guild reputation is farmed in a similar fashion to faction reputation, with the same type of rewards being doled out at the appropriate level. The guild vendor will offer players their wares depending on whether they are Neutral, Friendly, Honoured, Revered or Exalted with the guild and each individual character will have to gain reputation on an individual basis before having access to the best items. Items include mounts, vanity pets, profession recipes and battle standards with the guild logo. Further, anyone earning (for example) a mount for being Exalted with their guild, will lose the item should they choose to leave.

Be mindful here, though, and don't confuse guild perks with guild reputation. Perks are for every character in a guild, and all will get the benefit of them. Reputation is an individual thing that a character will have to earn themselves.

Before another sentence is typed, I should state that I think the new system is pretty awesome. For any guild of long standing reputation and with a strong member base, the levelling experience should be relatively painless. The farming of reputation may well be a longer grind, but any reputation farm requires a time investment for nicer rewards; guild reputation should be no different.

However...

Scott Andrews over at WoW.com has spent the last couple of weeks talking about the negative impact freeloaders can have on your guild. A freeloader is, basically, someone who takes advantages of all your guild perks, without actually contributing anything to it themselves. He tries to elaborate on certain examples, as well as how you can spot freeloaders and deal with them if they slip through the net. This caused a debate (as his posts always do) which circled around how a freeloader negatively impacts on your guild, especially relating to the definition of a "freeloader". One player who likes low-pressure questing and levelling in a bit of spare time could easily be identified as a freeloader by someone who's always running raids with the guild. Obviously, this can have serious implications depending on the type of guild you're in.

But Mr. Andrews, for once, seems to have missed the magic in the system.

While a player may well join a guild for the perks, it's impossible to play in any real fashion without contributing. Perks such as Cash Flow mean that any player, regardless of what they're doing, will be contributing in a material sense to a guild simply by playing. In addition to this, none of the perks are numerically limited which means they can't be "stolen" or abused in any way - they are continually available to everyone. It's only when you're dealing with the reputation rewards that more desirable items become an issue, but no player can get a hold of them without meaningfully contributing to the guild itself by increasing their reputation. Add to that the fact that someone might want to farm a guild mount, but has to be in the guild to keep it, and you have a system that is practically impossible to steal from.

In short, freeloading is a non-issue and Scott is making one from nothing.

If someone joins for guild perks, then becomes difficult or unmanageable in some way, you would deal with them the same way you would any other disruptive member; with disciplinary measures or, in extreme cases, guild removal. There is no specific crime for "freeloading", every other undesirable behaviour already covers it.

In the next blog, I'll discuss the guild perks and how I rate each one. In the meantime, just let me say that the system about to come in is all positive in my book; it provides easily tangible rewards, it can't be meaningfully abused by bad players and is both interesting and compelling enough to engender guild loyalty and improve behaviour while in a guild. Whether you're small or big, the new guild perk and reputation system provides strong reasons to want to stay in a guild and behave yourself accordingly.

I can't wait.

The Nerf Bat Survival Guide.

2010-08-27T02:40:00.000-07:00

We've all felt it. We all hate it. And if one thing is true amongst our community, it's this; we all fear it.

From the rustic first incarnation of the MMO to the latest and most sophisticated version, there is a term that inserts a shiver to the spine on every utterance.

Nerf bat.

Alas, it's a fact of life that our favourite characters are going to see attention from the nerf bat on occasion. Particularly as the PvP environment becomes harder to manage (Cataclysm will fix it!), we find our PvE strength and utility is maliciously cut into in the spurious name of "balance". What often makes the nerf bat bite particularly deep is the fact that we're being balanced around an aspect of the game many of us have absolutely no interest in. It can be painful.

However, this entry is a quick guide to surviving the largest trauma of the nerf bat and trying to avoid the nerf rage that invariably accompanies it. Yes, I've fallen victim to the wiles of arrowed hatred in the past. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to better myself with regard to nerf acceptance, especially considering the potentially global audience that now has to put up with my whines.

Anyway.

1) Try to look at the nerf in context.

Is it affecting something you're entirely dependent on? In the vast majority of cases, the developers won't gut a necessary PvE ability because it would drastically affect playstyle. If they have to, your set of patch notes will have a trade off in order to make up for the perceived loss in performance. Otherwise, the demolition of something you consider to be a dependent ability may well mean you're doing something wrong. Look at how you're playing and you may get a shock.

2) Consider the entire set of patch notes.

I mentioned it above, but it's worth mentioning in its own right. A nerf is almost always accompanied by a set of patch notes that will, in most cases, contain a buff to compensate. It's rare to see an ability shaved without sugar to go with the medicine. Therefore, make sure you read all of the notes and weigh up what you're losing in accordance with what you're gaining because it's hardly ever a lose-lose situation you'll find yourself in. You'll be surprised.

3) Be honest about the effects.

Very, very, VERY often, people will complain about a nerf that will barely effect them; the very fact that they're being nerfed is outrageous enough. But it's also common that a nerf itself will have very little bearing on a character's performance in PvE, so worrying about it becomes pointless. The 3.3.3 changes to Shield Slam, for example, barely affected end-game tanks, yet were covered in acid-coated scorn regardless. Be honest with yourself - if it doesn't affect you, don't sweat it.

4) Compare your notes with another class.

It's often the case that nerfs are applied across the board in order to bring the game more in line with the developers vision of how it should be. In which case, a scan over the classes that are performing the same role as you will often indicate a common theme that the developers wish to address. If that's the case, everyone's getting hit with the bat so (amusingly) that means, in real terms, that nobody is being nerfed. Remember; the developers don't have it in for your class.

5) Don't compare your character to another.

This is always true, but particularly when dealing with nerfs. The fact is, all classes are not supposed to play the same or have the same strengths and weaknesses. This means that a certain amount of differentiation should always exist, an implication that has a far-reaching and logical conclusion; your talents don't need to mirror those of another class. Around 90% of arguments are based on the "he has, so I should have" premise. The game doesn't work that way.

And finally...

6) Live with the Bat.

Yes, it happens. Occassionally, an ability will be nerfed out of recognition and nothing is done to soften the blow. The only real example of this for Protection warriors in WotLK was the change to Warbringer; an iconic ability that lost a significant amount of its charm when it stopped breaking roots. But these occasions are rare and all you can really do is try to accept the change stoically, and believe it happened for a good reason. Yes, it's hard. But it's also the key to living with nerfs.

And that's it.

Remember that the developers are making decisions based on what's good for the game, and not necessarily what's good for your character. Balance is a flimsy term, one that has a myriad of meanings and implications depending on who you speak to. But the developers often undercut player abilities to make for a more compelling game and the trick to dealing with the nerf bat is accepting this fact, and realising that the changes made are making more people enjoy the content to a greater degree.

We don't always live in zen, but we should try.

If not... There is only one option.

Accommodating "problem" players.

2010-08-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

I generally read Scott Andrews' Officer's Quarters over at wow.com because I generally find him interesting, helpful and clear. This week, however, I read one of his posts that resonated with me quite a bit and, truth be told, it's something I can relate to.

The post in question relates to a guild officer who had to deal with a player who was deaf, where the guild raid rules stipulated that everyone had to be on Ventrilo during a raid. No exceptions were to be made, so the deaf player logged into Ventrilo but, naturally, couldn't listen to the discussions. A few wipes later, something of a lynch mob developed and the player in question (a Restoration druid) was essentially blamed for the failures and chased out of the guild due to not being able to perform in a way that, to him, was physiologically impossible.

First of all, hold back the vomit.

The treatment of any person in such a shabby way (not withstanding the officer who contributed the letter to Scott explicitly stating that the druid was a very good player) is doubtlessly making people gag, but there is something else going on here and this is why I could relate to the problem. Basically, it is the projection of blame onto someone who was not in a position to deflect it and it occurs to me that this actually happens in my guild.

No, there are no deaf members. But we do have a Russian in the guild who have such a flimsy grasp of English, that it can often be extremely difficult to accurately convey what is required of him prior to a pull and, worse, getting him to switch during an encounter is close to impossible. On many occasions, this has seen wipes occur that could have been avoided and otherwise put more pressure on other players in the raid to cover what I can't request of our Russian.

Now, the more "hardcore" amongst us would likely say he's a liability and shouldn't be brought along for difficult content. But as soon as the penny drops and he does understand what's going on, he is absolutely on top of it and is far more reliable than others who can understand English perfectly. This has become apparent throughout the content, but never more clearly than when we were working on Firefighter. After a few mishaps, he got to grips with what was happening in each phase and knew exactly what he should be doing in order to complete the encounter successfully. After that, not a single shock blast, spin up, void zone, flame patch or frost bomb got anywhere near killing him. Heck, he even uses potions and health stones liberally when others are forgetting them.

In short, he is a very capable raider who can have serious problems with language.

The point here isn't how good a player is or isn't; it often boils down to how far the guild should go to accommodate someone. In the case of the Restoration druid, the guild had originally allowed for his inability to hear by typing the instructions in raid chat and he followed them no problem. As soon as he was asked to join Ventrilo, I'm guessing nobody told him what he should be doing prior to the pull because "he was on vent", thus leading to failures that were no fault of his own. Ostracism then ensued and the poor fellow, despite being talented, was chased away.

In our case, we're dealing with a player who puts in every scrap of effort to be the best he can be. Gear, enchants, gems and rotations are all paid attention to and he's continually available for raids. He is always fun to raid with as well, as he's a character on Ventrilo (yes, he enjoys being on) and never whines or bitches about loot - he's grateful for what he gets and is only really interested in playing with friends.

But due to language, he often holds up progression.

Here's the crux, though; how far should the guild go? I say:

The raid leader should understand the specific difficulty and attempt to work around it for the best net result. The guild should make every reasonable allowance for members with difficulties to be a part of the raid set up, but no unreasonable allowances.

What I'm saying here is that you should always try your hardest to get members playing to the best of their ability and not judge them on something that isn't necessarily their fault; this is especially true if they're otherwise a good raider and/or good member. If after you've gone that extra mile you still can't get the desired result, you should feel secure in asking that player to sit out so that someone else can help the raid progress.

I've opted to do this many times, and the individual concerned has understood perfectly why I've made the choice and has happily accepted it. The fact that he does so, because he believes in the guild and desires its success as a whole, makes me all the more determined to break my back and get him through the content he wants to play.

In truth, every guild would be a better place if it had more members like him.