Did hell just freeze over?

We scoffed when Blizzard stated that SW:P would not be affected by Haste due to our DPS being fine. We laughed as we remembered the calculations giving us about 10%-15% increase in DPS. We stood and watched as Boomkins, Paladins and Death Knights rode the 8K DPS train while we were waiting at 5K station. But now? Now we burn in hell.

Yesterday Unity ran Ulduar to get more people some drakes. Some hard modes, but I joined mostly to help my friends. I hardly had gotten used to reapplying my DoTs this fast, and I was rather messy at it. I will improve with time. But then the numbers hit me: 8K on Vezax. I was salved twice on that fight. I usually managed about 5K. And the rest of the run was like that too. Never before was I hit with the elation of hitting 1oK on Freya trash.

I was not only keeping up with the others with my sub-par “rotations” and fumbling with my Hasted DoTs, I was beating them. And it wasn’t me, some of the healers went to Shadow on easy fights and they had similar numbers. On Yogg-Saron two Shadowpriests led the pack by an arm’s length. I felt like a freight train.

Imagine going to sleep with an itch at the back of your neck and adrenalin in your brain – that was me yesterday. The guilty pleasure of Shadowpriests finally being with the pack instead of mopping up behind them. Full Saronite Shadowpriest coming through!

But there´s this little itching, this cautionary whisper in my mind. Somehow I feel we will get nerfed for this. I cross my fingers this fun´s meant to last…

How are you guys doing? Getting used to the Haste yet?

Preparations for 3.3

Well, here it is. The final chapter of the Wrath of the Lich King. Before facing Arthas, we have a final few days to catch our breaths, re-arrange our armory and gather supplies. So what can or must we do before venturing forth into the depths of Icecrown’s frozen heart?

• Tailoring patterns ahoy! – with the new Deathfrost Boots and Leggings of Woven Death, we have some good pieces to combine with our shiny T10, assuming you weren’t walking in BiS items already. The good news is that they are vendored by the Ashen Verdict, but this also means a lot of raids before you can make them. Why prepare? Well, they require 16 Spellweave and 16 Ebonweave in addition to the Primordial Saronite. Start crafting them now to make sure you have a stash for once you reach that reputation level. They are BoE as well, so this way you can cash in quicker as well, once you are done with your Emblems of Frost for Tier.
• Saronite or Titanium? – Rumours are (still unfounded I think) that the cooldown on Transmute Titanium will be removed. If this is the case, expect the price of Titanium Bars to drop – and Titanium Ore to rise. Why? Because the miners will be better off selling the ore to Jewelcrafters rather than smelting them, and Alchemists will have more Titanium bars to put on the AH. Because this change is not clear, or confirmed, it may still be worth it to keep your Titanium in ores and save it to see what the market will do.
• Crusader Orbs – I have an alt (my warrior) that I am leveling to 80, and I plan to gear her with the plate crafted from ToC patterns. They are 6 and 8 Crusader orbs, which is quite an investment. However, since everything will drop Triumph badges after 3.3, I expect prices to plummet, and I also have much easier access to them. So I am putting them on the AH for higher than average prices. Putting them on costs me less than 20s each, and I put them up for 700-750 gold. If they sell, more money to me. If they don’t, I was just saving them for crafting. Win-win! Strange strategy? Sure, but one already sold for that amount, even though it was 100g+ over the AH price of the other Crusader Orbs.
• Raid Consumables – Expect heavy raiding and instancing right after patch 3.3, as guilds scramble to get things started. Since the raids will have a timed release, like ToC, this will be limited at the beginning. This is also the time that guilds make last-ditch attempts at whatever Hard Modes they had left to finish it all up before Arthas comes into sight, so be prepared.
• Enchanting mats – With the new disenchantment loot option, you can bet that people will greed on those mats they used to leave to you. Many times the other party members wanted me to keep the mats, because a single shard or crystal is just a single one. Expect that to be a lot less due to having to only click a button and be awarded enchanting mats. This means less mats for the enchanter, and more on the AH, driving down the price a bit. You could choose to sell them now (when they’re hot) or store them up for rainy days. I try to keep around 2 stacks of dust, 2 stacks of Essences, 1 stack of shards and some crystals close at hand for when I absolutely have to enchant that new piece of gear.
• Research! - New 5mans and raids means a lot of learning to do. First off, check the 5-man loot and raid loot on MMO-Champion to see what would be an upgrade for you. Forewarned is forearmed! Second, make sure to keep an eye on the strategies (say, Lord Marrowgar), and watch some videos once available. It may be second nature to you by now, but it’s highly embarassing to enter the raid and discover you have no idea what you’re supposed to do (or not!).
• Spending emblems – With new gear on the horizon, it may feel like a waste to buy any new gear. I mean, that new loot will drop soon right? Maybe, but you may be unlucky with the drops, or now have the DKP for them. So make sure your kit’s in raiding order for Icecrown. And if it is, consider some PvP gear to try out your new hasted PewPew in arenas and BGs (before everyone catches up with the easier-to-get Emblems), or buy yourself a shiny set of tier/offset items for your offspec.
• Winter cleanup – After another season of raiding and PvP, you could find yourself with an awfully cluttered bag/bank filled with stuff you don’t really need. Try and keep it clean. Send food and semi-useful items to a bank alt (you can always return them when needed) and get rid of stuff that is just junk (you’d be surprised how often grey loot manages to find some empty slot in bag #3 after using a potion for instance) before heading off to 3.3.
• Relax! – With bosses being released in stages, and hardmodes out of the way, take some time to relax and have fun. Level that alt you never had the time to, do some old instances, get some of those previously uninteresting reputations to Exalted. This game’s still about having fun, so be sure to take the time to enjoy it.

Many preparations, many things that are still assumptions as well. With all my alts covering many tradeskills, I will be following much of the abovementioned. What will you do to prepare for 3.3?

Nevermelting shards of doom I say!

Just a short post as an intermezzo about an interesting trinket mentioned at MMO-Champion: Nevermelting Ice Crystals. The reason for this is because of the current wording on the tooltip.

“Equip: Increases spell power by 111.
Use: Increases your critical strike rating by 920 for 20 sec. Every time one of your non-periodic spells deals a critical strike, the bonus is reduced by 184 critical strike rating. (3 Min Cooldown)”

What this would suggest, if you take the wording literally, is that this ability gives you 920 critical strike rating (about 30%) for 20 seconds, reducing it by 184 but not for our VT, SW:P and DP tick crits. There were more abilities that are worded this way, such as the Mage’s Combustion ability.

Why is this important?

Say that you macro this trinket in with your  Devouring Plague and that by doing so you get a 50% crit (a little low but it is to illustrate a point). The result will be the following:

Cast VE while tank gets aggro and you run into position
Vampiric TouchMind Blast
Mind Flay (To get 5 stacks of Shadow weaving)
Shadow Word: Pain
Devouring Plague (Trinket activates)

What happens now is that the trinket activates, and for the next 20 seconds you get that lovely 30% crit bonus on VT, SW:P and DP. Since in that time you will cast maybe 2 MB, 4 MF and a SW:D (more with haste, of course) you will see your crit go down, but the largest part of that crit bonus keeps applying to your DoTs for most of the time.

This is what we call a double-edged sword: Either the trinket will allow us to roll a massive string of crits (expending itself in the process) or we will crit not or only a little, during which time the crit bonus will continue to apply to our DoTs. And no matter what, our DoTs critting will not impact the trinket’s bonus. Win-win!

Conclusion

Seriously though, that will require a lot of theorycrafting. But with a 3-minute cooldown, tying it into your Devouring Plague will keep it up as much as possible. Don’t tie it to (for instance) SW:P, because the longer you keep it rolling, the less chance the trinket will be activated again, which means you are being penalized for being a good player.

I will have to see exactly how much use it is, and how the theorycrafting works, but I think I may finally have found a replacement for the Sundial of the Exiled, since the Illustration of the Dragon Soul never drops for me. With a base 34% crit chance today, I would get 64%+ crit when this trinket whirrs up. Let alone…after raid buffs!

Pssst. Mister Arcane Mage, need a target for your Focus Magic? [links trinket]

P.S. You may wonder why I would go through an entire start-up line of spells before activating the trinket with a DP at the end (traditional lineups would also put up the DP sooner). First off, you need 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving to make SW:P do its work properly, and Mind Flay, Mind Blast and a Shadow:Word Death are quick ways of doing it. However, if the trinket is active before then, this is likely to eat up a large portion of the crit bonus, which I want to save for the DoTs.

Also, you will pull aggro this way if you pop it so early in the pull. Your tanks will have your hides.

P.P.S How long do you want to wager we can use it before it will be nerfed? If it even comes off the PTR this way?

Astral Walker and nearly alone in the darkness

Yesterday was a torrent of activity, focus and determination as Unity managed to defeat Algalon during its one-hour stay on pittoresque Azeroth. It was the first time I was the soaker, meaning that during the Big Bang I stay outside, disperse 2 seconds before Big Bang finishes casting, and stay alive until the tank picks everything up again.

The feeling of doing this is immensely rewarding; people might die left and right, but you just stand there like a Teflon Bishop, DPSing even as others scramble for the portals. As Algalon prepares an attack normally survivable only by Iceblocking mages and cooldown-burning tanks, you smirk. In comes this huge blast, as you disperse into shadows. “Did a fly just fart?” Before Algalon can retaliate, mean people with plate armor grabs his attention as you continue your shadowy assault.

This fight is awesome.

And, to top it all off I won the quest item to hand in the Reply Code Alpha in Dalaran (rewarding, and as much as I wanted to do it just once because it’s a cool thing to do, the ring from the quest will be a more than welcome addition to my arsenal) and urged on my guildies to come and watch.

But before handing it in, the rest of the evening would be spent on Yogg-Saron+1 attempts, leaving 3 watchers at the ringside, slugging it out with the Old God with only Thorim to finish off the Immortal Guardians. We took a few hours on that, but eventually managed to down him too.

That means two Unity-firsts in an evening, and also means 25 more people with the snazzy “Astral Walker” title. General elation ensued, and the feeling that Ulduar is now truly and well settled. We will run the hardmodes and Algalon for some time more (we still want our Protodrakes for Glory of the Ulduar raider, and not everyone got through all the hardmodes yet) to get more people a look at these awesome fights.

With the Trial of the Grand Crusader within grasp (only need Anub’Arak) it is almost feeling like the close of the last chapter of “The Two Towers”. I still have vague memories of the first book (Naxxramas, Sartharion) and my mind is still wrapped around the rhythm of this book (Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader), but my thoughts are already straying towards the last book. Here it all comes to a close – Icecrown Citadel.

Before the Cataclysm hits, I will be devouring every page, riveted until the end.

P.s. Checking our realm list, it seems we have the realm’s 2nd kill on both, just behind Damnation, which is the realm’s #1 raiding guild. *glows internally*

Countering “I am bored”

As part of the shared topic of BlogAzeroth and Twisted Nether regarding guild retention, I will be looking into various alternative ways of keeping your guild entertained. Yes, hard raids and PvP can keep your people occupied, but people might have to sit out raids, things can get cancelled, and sometimes evenings with nothing to do haunt the officers as people quote the overused “I am bored”.

What’s going on?

When people join a (casual) raiding guild or PvP guild, they expect a certain measure of “entertainment”. They expect to be able to join in the activities for honor, badges, loot and experience, and it usually falls on the guild leader and officers to arrange it. When people are not very active, some of them will find it difficult to get something going. Either they don’t want to PuG, do the daily heroic again, level yet another alt, farm another good or join another battleground without friends.

This is a sign that these people want companionship, and also that they are not very good at keeping themselves busy (other people, me included, are so busy and have so many pans in the fire we cry out for time rather than things to do). This is where it pays as an officer or active guildy to have some things in store that can entertain yourself and others.

This will make people feel valued, draws them closer to the guild, and makes time seem to fly.

Leveling Group

Get some people to make alts, and make an agreement to only level those alts when playing together. Keep a tight group, about 3 people seems right. Any more and you risk never playing due to conflicting agendas. Even more entertaining is to build a character with a different role than you usually would. Also set yourself a limit; for instance “Our characters will level together until level 20. After that we each go our own way until level 60, and we level together again in Outland. Whoever reaches 60 parks his toon until the others catch up.”

By setting such limits you give a clear goal, and prevent people lagging behind or never showing up.

Rep farming

Everyone loves to have factions at exalted, but no one wants to farm for it alone. Get some friends together and clear Strat and Scholo (+quests) for Argent Dawn rep (make sure to have an enchanter with you for the BoP items), or harass the Twilight Cultists in Silithus for Cenarion Circle rep. Help your Druid in farming the Anzu mount, and get everyone exalted with Lower City in the process. A solid run through Molten Core takes less than 5 people half an hour to an hour to complete, and gives nice-looking Tier sets for RP as well as rep.

Friendly boost

Something I have done is when one of my friends needs a boost (say, in Zul’Farrak which is a favorite) I always ask if any guildies want to come along. The loot is current for them, but having 3+ people in the group also gives a larger amount of XP. It takes half an hour of my time, and the people involved can get themselves in pretty hilarious situations. For those who say “I hate boosting” don’t forget that if you take turns, everyone profits. Both my warlock and my Warrior gained 3 levels in Strat and Scholo thanks to my friendly neighbourhood Paladin. When she was leveling her own Warlock, I returned the favor.

Roleplay

Get some guildies together (on alts, for instance) and set up some RP for yourselves. Avoid guard/criminal themes or the like, but getting some interaction going as mercenaries, priests, or having your local gnome do something zany can spark quite the reaction.

Foxhunt

Another interesting game I have seen played once is the classic “Fox Hunt”. You get a list of items to gather (grey items usually), and the first to return with all of those to the “host” wins. Make sure that these items are not found all over the world (Wowhead is a good source to find what drops per creature), and limiting the list to 5 items is the best. This is, because 5 items fits exactly into you trade window, so you can see instantly if the list is checked.

Make sure to have a small prize for the winner, and the runner up. This way there is some competition. Keep it small and fun, like a non-combat pet that is available from a common vendor, fireworks, maybe a stack of food or a “fun item” like the leather ball. It may seem childish, but hey, we’re already playing a game, right?

Naked Gnome race

Practiced on various servers and in various variations, this involves having a series of Level 1 Gnomes (any class) running from the starting area to Menethil Harbor in Wetlands. No equipment is allowed except what you pick up from mobs along the way. Whoever reaches there first wins. Usually the characters are deleted afterwards, but some have grown into ful-fledged and very loved toons for their players.

A variation of this is getting people with non-epic mounts complete the racing course over at Shimmering Flats. Booze and gratuitous starter girls are a bonus.

Pet show

Specific to hunters, announce that hunters have a week to tame what they consider the most beautiful pet. After the week, hold a pet show (for instance in the mining guild building at the northeast corner of Stormwind’s Dwarven District). Select three impartial judges to judge the pets and give them grades. People with a sense of humor are great for this (anyone seen “Groomer Has It?”) as well as having someone to announce the winner in some nice fashion.

Have the pets perform, which could include having it go through the typical pet actions and announce its emotes, or possessing it with their hunter abilities and making it do tricks themselves. The possibilities are legion.

Again, make sure to have some small prizes, although pet biscuits, food, snacks and similar “fun” items generally appeal the most to hunters.

Naxx Speed Run / Hard Boiled Run

Due to a lack of members, we often ran ToC, Onyxia and Ulduar with a team of 8 people instead of 10. This takes a bit of careful judging, but try and underman an instance that you have on farm, or if you do have enough peeps, announce a speed run. This involves power-pulling (pulling continuously until your healers cry in agony), AoE’ing trash packs and generally getting through an instance fast, without rezzing, without explanations.

The experience is awe-inspiring and can be loads of fun. To quote Eliya on the subject: “Powerpull, powerpull! If you die, you suck, and you have to corpse run!”

This can make a great time out of a Naxx badge farm run.

Alternative PvP

Yeps, with enough people you can make a Premade and roll over Battlegrounds. But there is more than one way to skin a cat. Get your people together and discuss alternative goals for your next BG. “Kill as many Trolls as you can, and count them on Vent. First to get to 50 wins” or “Whoever survives the longest against 2 or more foes next BG wins” can be valid suggestions. Make sure to have someone not busy killing on standby (over Vent, for instance) to keep score.

Old World Raids

Not just the indoor ones, you also have 4 dragons roaming around. Doomlord Kazzak and DoomWalker are still going strong, and the BoE epics dropped by them are good for alts. Trust me that some of those old Dragons are still tough at level 80. A breath that diseases you for 25% of your health over 10 seconds (or whatever it did) will still kill you quickly now. And no, they are raid bosses, so Resisting that ability is not guaranteed in any way. Good if you like a challenge.

Since the achievements are up, more raids are made on BT, Sunwell, SSC and TK than before. Everyone wants the achievement for clearing those raids, and the shiny phoenix mount from Kael’thas keeps bringing people back for more.

Nostalgic Runs

Level 60 raids can be fun, but how about actually doing that while wearing contemporary gear? Try and do Blackrock Spire and Molten Core wearing level 60 gear. You will see that despite being 20 levels higher, it will increase the difficulty rating by quite a margin (especially the hit rating one). I have no experience myself in this, but just the lack of Hit alone will make sure that your 8K DPS mage has to fight again for his damage.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do even if you have no raid that evening and want to try out something different. And when you keep the spice varied, the people continue eating. And when there are things like this as entertainment and relaxation in between raids, you will find people actually looking forward to it after they get used to the idea. And when people look forward to being with your guildies, you know they are keepers.