Features or Frills?

All is abuzz about the two most recently revealed changes for patch 3.2 to come: Raid lockout extension and Faction Change. Let’s look at a little depth what this means, so far…this information is parsed from the forums and MMO-Champion.com.

Raid Lockout Extension

It looks as if there will be the possibility to extend the lockout duration of a raid you are in by 1 week. By doing so, you will have the opportunity to spend more time on managing a certain hard-mode, or clear through a challenging dungeon longer. So far this is clear, but a few questions remain, which I will hope to answer here once it becomes more clear:

• Can only the Leader of a raid extend it?
• Does it apply to the whole raid at once? Must each member do it seperately?
• Can it be extended only once for 1 week, or repeated?

The problem is that I can see people griefing their pug members if the answer to points 2 and 3 is yes. They could theoretically extend it continually for weeks, blocking a group of people from actually finishing a raid or instance. It is clear that the screen to request the extension also allows you to remove it, but probably within the same restrictions as mentioned above.

Faction Change

Ever wanted to join the other side? Well now you can. With an upcoming paid feature Blizzard is planning (but not 100% sure if and when) you can change yourself from one faction to the other, choosing a new race. I can see how this is a benefit if you want to play with friends on the other side, or if there is a horrible faction imbalance on a  server.

Some people have stated that perhaps your faction allegiance changes, but not your race. This however is severly against the lore, plain silly, and more than a bit unbalancing to the game itself. On a PvP server you’d go nuts because even your friends could become your enemies. Besides addicted, I can see people becoming paranoid because of WoW now as well. ^_^

On the flip side, it’s also another way for known Ninja offenders to hide their trail. Even websites like wowprogress will no longer be able to connect the 80 Tauren Warrior from a ninja guild hopping servers and becoming an 80 Gnome Warrior. I think this is a small concern however, for it will allow you to switch sides if you had the idea you really wanted to play something else, but did not want to start all over again.

People have been wondering why it is not possible to change from Gnome to Human, for instance. Well, crudely you could do it by changing from Alliance to Horde and back to Alliance. I have to say I am curious how this will work out, especially with pets, achievements and reputations.

Fact is, the greatest cost is not even the money, but the realization you might be forced to grind all your faction rep again.

It does offer some interesting Roleplay options and PvP options. I will leave most of such philosophizing to the real PvP jockeys, but it allows them not only to reroll FotM classes, but also races now, and even factions. This might even slowly drain the life out of the “nerf it, reroll” discussions, and the like. In roleplay, it allows you to play an infiltrator (not that you couldn’t before, but now you actually are) or a Human who changed into a Forsaken.

Yogg-Saron parceled and packaged!

Elation and congratulations abound yesterday as we managed to finally close the curtains on Yogg-Saron. We had some good tries where we consistently reached phase 3, and then suddenly…click.

It is this special feeling when you get to the last few percents of a boss’ life, where the realization of just how close you are fades away into the chaos of violence. Like an orgy of destruction all I felt at that time was an extreme concentration as I was dotting Yogg-Saron, and burning down the adds along with everyone else. In fact, it almost did not register that he was down until the achievements started rolling in, like the end credits of some epic movie.

Patch 3.2 will still be a little way off, so I think there will be some weeks of Hardmode training that awaits us. With a bit of practice and luck, we may even get to burn down Algalon (or have him burn us down) before the patch goes live. That would be epic.

But for now, it’s a bit of time to bask in the glory of an awesome kill and a feeling of peace after a storm of raiding. Oh yes, added a screen shot. I am the floaty Draenei a little right of the middle. ^_^

A Shadow’s Crusade in Ulduar

Well, it’s about time to make a small recap for myself how I am doing in Ulduar, what progress we made together, and what still is on my “wishlist” from Ulduar. What with the new instance around the corner, I am imagining that Ulduar will soon become Hardmode territory, meaning a lot of learning and little loot, so this seems like the best time for it.

Progress

We’ve managed to reach phase-3 of Yogg-Saron so far, and while there’s a bit of refinement to be had on the General Vezax fight, it all seems to be going well. This week we hope to down Yogg-Saron, and that is when the Hardmode circus will begin, and we can start working on those fights.

Personal efficiency

I am not yet very pleased with how I am doing in terms of DPS. As a clarification, I use the following priorities to determine what I think is important in a raiding evening:

1. Don’t die from stupid stuff – healers can sometimes not be able to save you if they are very busy, but avoid the fires, use bandages and otherwise don’t be a burden on the raid.
2. DPS like mad – I am currently at 3.6-4k DPS sustained, but in my opinion this is still too low. I see our DKs and Mages run at upwards of 5-6k DPS, and even though they have better gear than me, I feel there is a lot of improvement on my side.
3. Secondary raid functions – Dispelling, abolishing disease, proper buffing and fight-specific tasks in some fights are more important than DPS. Even so, I sometimes will help out a little bit if the healers seem overwhelmed or there is not enough time to run dispels on everyone. In my opinion, it takes little effort to PW:Shield someone, so might as well do it if it can save someone’s life.

So, I manage to get #1 down well, in my opinion. It has happened sometimes (On Hodir or Mimiron) that I die avoidable deaths, but I try to minimize those. I generally allow myself one single “slip of concentration” death in an evening, and all my other deaths should have been wipe situations.

#2 is my issue at the moment. I think I should be able to push at least 4k DPS sustained, with my gear, so I am analyzing how I am running my priorities, and if I leave some slack open. For instance, I probably need to DoT up more adds. Especially in the beginning I did not do this, because I felt I may accidentally pull aggro from the tank in doing so, but after running with these folks, I am confident this will not happen. And for everything else, there’s Fade.

Dispelling and Abolishing Disease, #3,  I have covered so far with Mouse-over macros and Grid. It works reasonably well, but while it is easy to do while healing, I find myself a bit distracted while DPSing. For some reason running HoTs on my druid and cleansing is easier than doing the same while running HoTs. Anyway, a point I feel I can improve.

Every raiding night is my trial run again

This is probably my personal insecurity of running with a (relatively) new crew. They are great people and very nice to me, but being a junior member means I feel pushed to do my best every raid, even more so than normally. It causes me a bit of stress and frustration, to be honest, but I take every run as a trial run, and assume I am being watched.

Wishlist

But then I reward myself by checking out what things I would still like to haul out of Ulduar to pimp out my little Shadow. ^_^ Note that these are not in all cases Best-in-Slot items, it’s also about a bit of realism towards what I can gain in a few weeks.

• Conqueror’s Circlet of Sanctification (Head) – Thorim – I will buy these with Emblems of Conquest if needed
• Conqueror’s Mantle of Sanctification (Shoulders) – Yogg-Saron – Chances are limited, because this will spark bidding wars, or else I will have to go for the new badge shoulders or another equivalent piece.
• Shackles of the Odalisque (Wrist) – Razorscale – A bit of an upgrade, but I am willing to get it to get rid of the horrible Spirit on my wrist.
• Soulscribe (Yogg-Saron) or Guiding Star (Razorscale) – Not the best weapons that can be found, but considering I’d need to go Arena for them, or do Hard Modes, I think that these will be more than worthy upgrades.
• Ironmender (Offhand) – Kologarn
• Scepter of Lost Souls (Wand) – General Vezax – Light years ahead of my current wand
• Eye of the Broodmother (Trinket) – Razorscale – Because….<purr>
  
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To be honest, I think that with these (and maybe the Tier-8 legs to replace my Leggings of Lost Love) would be more than enough to make me ready for anything. And basically that’s what counts. I have been spending some DKP on items with Spirit on them, which few/no people wanted, mainly because it was an upgrade to my older gear. I would rather spend all my DKP on any form of upgrade than hoard them and have poor performance, only to be outbid the moment the really good things start to drop.

Also, the BoE tailoring patterns from Ulduar make for some really, really good belts and boots. But, each will cost 6 Runed Orbs or the like, so that means getting these will have to wait a bit. Once in 3.2 the Emblems of Conquest will be dropping from the sky, I will be able to get my hands on them all that much quicker, however.

Conclusion

I have the basics down, and we’re making good progress. Now comes the time to tweak tactics and make sure I am as efficient as possible. Also, I can be a bit more aggressive about DPS than I currently am. Also, I need to relax and enjoy the raids more, rather than seeing them as pay-per-performance.

A patch full of goodies

As you can see from the summary post at mmo-champion, there’s quite a lot of goodies being added to WoW next patch. Personally, I am a big fan of fun stuff to do, and there seems to be  a lot of it. I only feel for those people seeking to complete the “what a long, strange trip it has been” achievement, because 3 more holidays seem to be added – of course, it’s too early to tell if they will be required to get the violet protodrake.

It seems they also added an achievement for having a Jade Tiger pet (Useless, since it was a China-only promotion as far as I can tell, so it’s a bit rubbing it in to put this in US and EU servers) and an Onyx Panther pet (of which I have no idea where it comes from because it’s not on WoWHead or the like). Either way, I doubt this will impact us very much. Since these are Feats of Strength, chances are high that unless you have it, you will never see it.

Vault of Who?

Also: Emalon and Archavon had a sudden expansion of the family as Koralon the Flame Watcher moves into a new wing of the Wintergrasp vault. I think they should rename it to the Vault of Wintergrasp by now, because Vault of Archavon makes less sense with each new addition to the family…No word yet on tactics as far as I can tell, but I am sure that the PTR will provide all the info we need.

Tier 9

The current Tier-9 stats and those of the vendor/PvP items have also become available here. While it seems most models are re-use of Tier 8, it is mentioned they could just be placeholders. It also seems there will be different versions for Alliance and Horde. How this in any way is visible, or if it even is a worthwhile addition to the sets, remains to be seen.

Our Tier-9 Set bonus will be the following:

• (2): Increases the duration of your Devouring Plague by 6 seconds
• (4): Increases the Critical Strike chance of your Mind Flay by 5%

Let’s compare this to Tier 8:

• (2): Increases the damage on Devouring Plague by 15%
• (4): Your Mind Blast also grants you 240 Haste for 4 seconds

Some very simple napkin math on the first bonus works as follows, working with imaginary damage scores:

Base Damage on Devouring Plague: 4000 over 24 seconds = 167 DPS (500 per tick)

If this damage is increased by 15%: 4600 over 24 seconds = 191 DPS (575 per tick)

Now, if the duration is increased by 6 seconds, this is effectively 2 additional ticks of damage, meaning that it will now deal 5000 damage over 30 seconds, which is 500 per tick, or 167 DPS. Mana efficiency has increased, DPS remains the same.

Edit: Thanks to our Improved Devouring Plague talent, 15% of the total periodic damage is done instantly. This burst is also increased by the 2 additional ticks. In our example, 2 ticks are 1000 damage, 15% of which is 150. This has little impact on our DPS per se, but I felt it needed to be mentioned.

The second bonus is a lot harder to judge.

An average shadowpriest will have 5/5 Improved Mind Blast, meaning a Mind Blast every 5.5 seconds. Having 4 seconds of 240 Haste after each one is a killer, because it means that you will be using it mostly for Mind Flays and refresh dots as much as you can in the period where the Haste bonus does not apply.

I believe Haste rating becomes Haste% at a 32.79:1 ratio, this means about 7,32% Haste bonus (before Diminishing Returns). This would seem to be more Beneficial than 5% Crit bonus on Mind Flay alone, but after Diminishing Returns, and factoring in that Mind Flay is cast very, very often, I am not so sure.

Considering the damage and healing done by Devouring Plague, it could be more beneficial for now to have 2 pieces of T8 and T9, and gain both the 15% damage on Devouring Plague and a 6-second increase in its duration, but something inside me yells “Crazytalk!”. In the end, the increase in stats, spellpower, haste and crit on our T9 would force us to go for 4+ pieces or Best in Slot items anyway…

Edit: Also keep in mind that having 4pT8 allows for about 2 Mind Flays chained comfortably, which means that you get a bit of extra time so you have to rush less. Maybe only a psychological benefit, but worth keeping in mind.

Conclusion

Set bonuses are a bit of a devilish thing; you don’t want to break them up for the loss of the DPS but some of them are too damn sexy to ignore. Don’t be afraid to share your view, it’s fun to find out which is the best!

Patch 3.2 sees Shadowpriests unchanged

Well, the first signs and steps for patch 3.2 have been made, and they are things to be really excited about; we get mounts earlier for our alts (yay riding through Stranglethorn) and a whole new instance/raid (Colliseum). Also, we get some very nice profession changes (basically all “ultimate bonuses” such as ring enchants, shoulder glyphs, dragon’s eye gems and the like will be buffed a bit).

Mages and Shamans get a bit of overhauling, other classes get nerfed, and lifebloom takes another hit with the big stick (I guess Druids were still using it too much).

In all of this, it seems the priest changes are rather minimal, with a slight increase in the coolodown on Penance. In other words, a slight nerf to Discipline priests, and nothing else. Us Shadowpriests, long the token providers of Replenishment, now have that system changed again. Rather than 0.25% of max mana per second, it now provides 1% of max mana per 5 seconds. A slight nerf (which is what people have been asking for in PvP as well) but a clearer system, since it is now effectively MP5 and easier to calculate.

Let’s just make a list of the most major things to come our way:

• The crusader’s colliseum, a series of instances and raids. There will be 5man, 10man and 25man instances, and each will offer the possibility of a “hard mode”. Using this hard mode allows for only a limited number of attempts, so players must choose between breezing through, or being blocked from making any appreciable progress.
• Tier 9 will drop in the raid instance. Too soon, according to a lot of people.
• The isle of conquest BG is added, which seems to be a cross between Wintergrasp and Alterac Valley; capture resources, and defend your keep and general to win.
• New daily quests, pets, tabards and mounts oh my!
• Cat and Bear forms are getting a make-over, and their appearance is determined by the appearance your character has in caster form. Taurens now get the ability to customize their fur color.
• Portals from Stormwind and Orgrimmar now lead to the Dark Portal, and the Flight Master there will connect directly to Shattrath. A new zeppelin is added between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff.
• All items that provide Block value have had it doubled; items that provide block value on use get an increase in the effect’s duration instead of a doubling of the value – seeing as how some Paladins already get Full Blocks, this should be…interesting.
• All “old” heroics, Naxxramas, Malygos and Sartharion will now drop Emblems of Conquest! The old Emblems will not drop anymore (but you can convert to them at the Emblem vendors in Dalaran).
• MP5 on gear is increased by 25%
• Resilience will now reduce all damage equally, as well as its old function of reducing Crit% and Crit damage, as well as mana drain. This replaces the old clunky system where DoTs were affected by two different systems and people got confused and angry.
• Death Knights are completely overhauled; check the list. I am not in the slightest aware of how a DK works aside of being a heavy cooldowns-based Melee class, so I cannot comment on them.
• Hunter traps now exists in three categories, and the hunter can have one of each active at any time. Something tells me this makes Survival an even greater threat (fun?) than before.
• Shamans will have the ability to place their totems in a small bar (totem baggy?) which they can dump on the ground all at once for the combined mana cost. This seems like a speed increase for preparation for heavy movement-based fights, as well as lessening frustration overall.
• Illumination is reduced in power so Holy paladins regain less mana for it; in combination with the 25% increase of MP5 on gear, it seems Blizzard is hellbent on getting Paladins off their crit habit, into rehab, and come out with MP5 gear.
• The Horde will get their long-awaited Ravasaur trainers in Un’goro…woohoo!

It seems as if this patch is less focused on adding actual content (basically a set of instances and some dailies) but more about smoothing the gameplay, and making the game more fun to play rather than a chore. I can see a lot of these changes making people breathing a sigh of relief, especially our totem-spawning brethren. Of course, there are still no definite notes on hunter ammo or warlock shards, but as this is only the first PTR active, a lot can still happen.