Two new bosses last night: XT-002 Deconstructor (US) and Razorscale
(EU).
As usual detailed information on:
MMO champion - PTR Testing, Compiled Loot List, Blue Posts
World of Raids - 3.1 PTR: Razorscale Testing, 3.1 PTR: XT-002 Deconstructor Testing
Both have already been downed, Razorscale seemed to be suffering from
a large amount of bugs. Hopefully they won't be pushovers.
On addition you can find a large collection of the latest blue posts
on the MMO Champion PTR page, with some explanations on the reasons
behind the last class changes.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 09, 2009
10 or 25 men raids? Why there is something bad in this design.
I listened to Episode 20 of Blue Plz! this weekend. That reminded me of something I really wanted to discuss. So yet another small ranting post, completely and only my point of view on the game.
With the Ulduar tables appearing, Blizzard enforces the item loot level difference between 10 men and 25 men. There is a 13 Ilevel difference between 10 men loot and 25 men loot, in favor of the 25 men obviously.
The thing is, 10 men is not easier than 25 men. Some fights are actually easier in 25 men (Sartha + drakes, obviously).
I don't see why the loot should be better in 25 men "heroic" than 10 men. The only real "difficulty" of 25 men raiding, is having 25 people online at the same time for enough time.
As Total Biscuit is saying, 25 men raid is "logistically" harder, it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the raid encounter. As him, I'd like to see 10 men and 25 men raids "separate but equal" on the difficulty and the loot.
25 men Naxx is as easily pugable than 10 men, it's just all about finding enough people.
I encourage you to listen to Blue Plz! podcast, on the links below:
Forums: http://forums.wcradio.com/index.php?board=39.0
RSS: http://wcradio.com/shows/6-Blue-Plz-.rss
With the Ulduar tables appearing, Blizzard enforces the item loot level difference between 10 men and 25 men. There is a 13 Ilevel difference between 10 men loot and 25 men loot, in favor of the 25 men obviously.
The thing is, 10 men is not easier than 25 men. Some fights are actually easier in 25 men (Sartha + drakes, obviously).
I don't see why the loot should be better in 25 men "heroic" than 10 men. The only real "difficulty" of 25 men raiding, is having 25 people online at the same time for enough time.
As Total Biscuit is saying, 25 men raid is "logistically" harder, it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the raid encounter. As him, I'd like to see 10 men and 25 men raids "separate but equal" on the difficulty and the loot.
25 men Naxx is as easily pugable than 10 men, it's just all about finding enough people.
I encourage you to listen to Blue Plz! podcast, on the links below:
Forums: http://forums.wcradio.com/index.php?board=39.0
RSS: http://wcradio.com/shows/6-Blue-Plz-.rss
Patch 3.1 Ulduar PTR testing, part 8
Some more testing on the PTR, the Flame Leviathan returns, a little more complete:
World of Raids : 3.1 PTR: Flame Leviathan Testing
MMO Champion : Ulduar and Emblems Loot, PTR Boss Testing (updated)
You'll also find a list of the first crafting patterns in Ulduar, all crafts will requite Runed Orbs (Ulduar Frozen Orbs) and a lot of HL components. Up to now all crafts are BoE, which for me is not a huge motivation to up a craft to 450.
On that last point, I'm strongly in favor of some (not all) BoP crafts, in all crafting professions. Hopefully not to the point of the cloth sets in BC, which were very badly balanced compared to their accessibility. But BoP crafts are a strong motivation to level a craft, and a reward for doing so. Most crafts are expensive to level, and too many don't offer much in the end, especially tailoring in WotLK. Backlash from BC, perhaps, but this is not good design.
World of Raids : 3.1 PTR: Flame Leviathan Testing
MMO Champion : Ulduar and Emblems Loot, PTR Boss Testing (updated)
You'll also find a list of the first crafting patterns in Ulduar, all crafts will requite Runed Orbs (Ulduar Frozen Orbs) and a lot of HL components. Up to now all crafts are BoE, which for me is not a huge motivation to up a craft to 450.
On that last point, I'm strongly in favor of some (not all) BoP crafts, in all crafting professions. Hopefully not to the point of the cloth sets in BC, which were very badly balanced compared to their accessibility. But BoP crafts are a strong motivation to level a craft, and a reward for doing so. Most crafts are expensive to level, and too many don't offer much in the end, especially tailoring in WotLK. Backlash from BC, perhaps, but this is not good design.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
More PTR news - Ulduar PTR part 7 - General Vezax & Kologarn Testing
So last night was time for more Ulduar boss testing on the PTR. As usual, your best source of information:
World of Raids - 3.1 PTR: General Vezax Testing, Kologarn Video and Encounter Details
MMO Champion - Ulduar and Emblems Loot, PTR Boss Testing (updated)
Kologarn looks quite gigantic and I can't wait to see it on live. It will be a strong nature damage encounter, and we'll have to fight his two arms & his body mmm ... massive :)
Vezax was killed on both 10 and 25 men by Ensidia, once again grats to them but if they're the only ones to down a boss, I'm not worrying about it's difficulty. It shall be a very heavy shadow damage fight.
A very interesting part of Vezax fight is that (from MMO Champion) :
World of Raids - 3.1 PTR: General Vezax Testing, Kologarn Video and Encounter Details
MMO Champion - Ulduar and Emblems Loot, PTR Boss Testing (updated)
Kologarn looks quite gigantic and I can't wait to see it on live. It will be a strong nature damage encounter, and we'll have to fight his two arms & his body mmm ... massive :)
Vezax was killed on both 10 and 25 men by Ensidia, once again grats to them but if they're the only ones to down a boss, I'm not worrying about it's difficulty. It shall be a very heavy shadow damage fight.
A very interesting part of Vezax fight is that (from MMO Champion) :
Aura of Despair (Prevents mana regeneration from nearly all natural sources. Aspect of the Viper, Judgements of the Wise, Shamanistic Rage, and Spiritual Attunement remain at least partially effective.) is active throughout the whole fight, the only "normal" way to regain mana is to use potions. You can also destroy the crystals flying in the room, they will drop a green cloud on the ground and will restore your mana, they will also damage you for an equal amount of health points (1000 Mana regen = 1000 Damage), this buff stacks and will regen more and more mana (and deal more damage as well) over time. The hard mode version of the encounter require you to not use these clouds.It seems that "overpowered" mana regen will be a real issue in this fight, no ability seem to be able to regen mana, but potions. I'm eager to see what difficulty it adds to the fight and how these clouds are needed.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Build 9658 and more Arena Holy Paladin nerfs
Now a small rant, for holy paladins, especially in the Arena.
You can read the section about paladins in the new build on MMO Champion : PTR Patch 3.1.0 - Build 9658
You probably all know that paladins were dominating the arena healing for the beginning of the first season. The reason is simple, and everyone with more than half a brain know it. Burst damage was too high, and everyone being in nax25 gear was strongly in favor of dps over healers that need resilience to survive. So paladins, having plate and the holy bubble were the only one to be able to survive the initial burst damage of all these arena matches played in less than 30s. Retribution paladins, DKs, rogues, arcane mages, all the biggest dpsers were already nerfed hard or are going to be on the burst side.
Now resilience is increasing, and they gave a lot of survival tool to the "poor druids". No pun intended but they were already the kings of the arena for nearly 1 year, and their innate mobility and adaptability granted by the basic design of the class clearly give them a huge edge in small scale pvp, aka, the arena.
Anyone playing there already started to see increasing healers survival, and that will go even more that way with the increase of the resilience.
So well, clearly holy paladins dominance was only going to last until priests/shaman & more than anyone else druids caught up with enough resilience to survive the burst. But we're going to get nerfed anyway. You can read the details in the new build, I'm just sick about them, but clearly they are intended at the arena. For exemple the reduction of Enlightened Judgements: "No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice.", aims at removing our main judgement from the Arena play (don't make me laugh about judging 15m away from a dpser).
Holy paladins in the arena are soon going to be as ineffective and bad in the arena as they were during Season 4, not able to move, bad at avoiding mana drains ... etc, and without that edge of a "really needed" survivability.
Say hello to the mighty druids again, you're soon going to see only them all around the place.
(end of sad ranting about Blizzard "overnerfing/overbuffing since patch3.0", especially paladins)
You can read the section about paladins in the new build on MMO Champion : PTR Patch 3.1.0 - Build 9658
You probably all know that paladins were dominating the arena healing for the beginning of the first season. The reason is simple, and everyone with more than half a brain know it. Burst damage was too high, and everyone being in nax25 gear was strongly in favor of dps over healers that need resilience to survive. So paladins, having plate and the holy bubble were the only one to be able to survive the initial burst damage of all these arena matches played in less than 30s. Retribution paladins, DKs, rogues, arcane mages, all the biggest dpsers were already nerfed hard or are going to be on the burst side.
Now resilience is increasing, and they gave a lot of survival tool to the "poor druids". No pun intended but they were already the kings of the arena for nearly 1 year, and their innate mobility and adaptability granted by the basic design of the class clearly give them a huge edge in small scale pvp, aka, the arena.
Anyone playing there already started to see increasing healers survival, and that will go even more that way with the increase of the resilience.
So well, clearly holy paladins dominance was only going to last until priests/shaman & more than anyone else druids caught up with enough resilience to survive the burst. But we're going to get nerfed anyway. You can read the details in the new build, I'm just sick about them, but clearly they are intended at the arena. For exemple the reduction of Enlightened Judgements: "No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice.", aims at removing our main judgement from the Arena play (don't make me laugh about judging 15m away from a dpser).
Holy paladins in the arena are soon going to be as ineffective and bad in the arena as they were during Season 4, not able to move, bad at avoiding mana drains ... etc, and without that edge of a "really needed" survivability.
Say hello to the mighty druids again, you're soon going to see only them all around the place.
(end of sad ranting about Blizzard "overnerfing/overbuffing since patch3.0", especially paladins)
Patch 3.1.0 - Build 9658 - more PTR testing
Some news about the new build 9658 for patch 3.1 on the PTR, on your usual news websites (if they're not your usual, they should) :
World of Raids : Updated Ulduar Testing Schedule, PTR Build 9658
MMO Champion : PTR Patch 3.1.0 - Build 9658, Ulduar and Emblem of Conquest Loot
You can find all what you want about new Ulduar badge: Emblem of Conquest, class changes and the first loot from Ulduar bosses there.
So it appears, as was expected, that Ulduar loot will be one scale higher than Naxxramas is. Ulduar 10 bosses will loot i213 level items, and Ulduar 25 bosses will loot i223 ones. The surprise is that weapons seem to be 9 i-level higher (232 for 25men items) and hard mode bosses give you one scale higher loot (i239 level items for Ulduar 25 bosses on hard mode, non weapon item).
This is still temporary, and could change until live, but it seems a fairly good scale.
Now about PTR testing planning:
World of Raids : Updated Ulduar Testing Schedule, PTR Build 9658
MMO Champion : PTR Patch 3.1.0 - Build 9658, Ulduar and Emblem of Conquest Loot
You can find all what you want about new Ulduar badge: Emblem of Conquest, class changes and the first loot from Ulduar bosses there.
So it appears, as was expected, that Ulduar loot will be one scale higher than Naxxramas is. Ulduar 10 bosses will loot i213 level items, and Ulduar 25 bosses will loot i223 ones. The surprise is that weapons seem to be 9 i-level higher (232 for 25men items) and hard mode bosses give you one scale higher loot (i239 level items for Ulduar 25 bosses on hard mode, non weapon item).
This is still temporary, and could change until live, but it seems a fairly good scale.
Now about PTR testing planning:
On the North American test realms:I hope "easy" bosses will have been tuned up a little, we'll have more info about that soon, I'm sure.
- Iron Council - Friday Night, March 6 at 7pm EST/4PM PST.
- Kologarn- Saturday Night, March 7, starting at 7pm EST/4pm PST.
- Flame Leviathan - Sunday, March 8, starting at 1pm EST/10am PST. Both 25 and 10 player versions are ready to be tested, and we'll leave Flame Leviathan up for an extended time.
- XT-002 Deconstructor - Monday, March 9, starting at 7pm EST/4PM PST.
On the European test realms:
- General Vezax - Saturday Night, March 7 at 19:00 CET.
- Flame Leviathan- Sunday Night, March 8 at 19:00 CET. Both 25 and 10 player versions are ready to be tested, and we'll leave Flame Leviathan up for an extended time.
- Razorscale - Monday, March 9 at 19:00 CET.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Paladins & Judgements
A very interesting article was published on Banana Shoulders (link on the right side of the page): Against Your Better Judgement: A Guide to Judging.
It details the different judgments that paladins can use, and which spec is better than the other to use each of them.
I encourage you to read the whole article, as it is very nicely written, I'll copy here the conclusions given to us by Siha:
A raid leader or healing leader not knowledgeable enough of the game to understand why meters are not everything about healing is just a bad leader. Point nothing more to say.
Siha goes by the same idea I put into my first post about Raiding as a Healing Paladin concerning the healing/overhealing meters, and I'm really happy to find a fellow paladin healer pushing that view. Thank you Siha :D
As a side note, Healing Paladin friends, try to keep JoW up at all time on the boss during a raid (judging each 20s) even if you only need to refresh it each minute for your Judgements of the Pure. If you have a hard time keeping it up, track the duration of JoW with an add-on such as Natur EnemyCastBar.
It details the different judgments that paladins can use, and which spec is better than the other to use each of them.
I encourage you to read the whole article, as it is very nicely written, I'll copy here the conclusions given to us by Siha:
I completely agree with this conclusion, but what I do really thank Siha for is that:If your raid has:
- Ret, Prot and Holy: Ret on Judgement of Light, Prot on Judgement of Wisdom, Holy on Judgement of Justice.
- Ret and Prot: Ret on Judgement of Light, Prot on Judgement of Wisdom.
- Ret and Holy: Ret on Judgement of Light, Holy on Judgement of Wisdom.
- Prot and Holy: Prot on Judgement of Light, Holy on Judgement of Wisdom.
- If all your group’s paladins are of the same spec, it doesn’t really matter who judges what. The best-geared paladin should judge Light, as it scales with gear, but it doesn’t really matter.
There are holy paladins out there who will claim they should be judging Light so they get credit for all that healing done on the meters. There are raid leaders out there who look at healing meters and get angry if the Retribution paladin is nearly outhealing the Holy paladin.
To both of you, I say: fie on you! Healing is not a competition; the raid group is a team. Do you really want to give bad assignments that waste peoples’ potential, just so the meters look “right”?
A Holy Paladin should never be judging light if there is a ret or prot paladin in the raid, he should be judging wisdom/justice and eat the loss on the heal meters. If your raid leader isn't happy with your healing, just try to explain, and if he can't understand, change guild.
A raid leader or healing leader not knowledgeable enough of the game to understand why meters are not everything about healing is just a bad leader. Point nothing more to say.
Siha goes by the same idea I put into my first post about Raiding as a Healing Paladin concerning the healing/overhealing meters, and I'm really happy to find a fellow paladin healer pushing that view. Thank you Siha :D
As a side note, Healing Paladin friends, try to keep JoW up at all time on the boss during a raid (judging each 20s) even if you only need to refresh it each minute for your Judgements of the Pure. If you have a hard time keeping it up, track the duration of JoW with an add-on such as Natur EnemyCastBar.
Patch 3.1 Ulduar PTR testing, part 5
Last night was more Hodir (US) & Thorim (EU) testing on the PTR. You can find detailed data on their abilities for build 9637 on MMO Champion and World of Raids, as usual (kudos to these great news sites):
MMO Champion
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=42521.0
World of Raid Hodir
http://www.worldofraids.com/news/493-3-1-ptr-hodir-testing.html
World of Raid Thorim
http://www.worldofraids.com/news/492-3-1-ptr-thorim-testing.html
On the plus side, Thorim seem much more complete now, two gauntlets before the fight, and the hard mode is enabled. Though the hard mode (Sif alive) has already been beaten, it has been by Ensidia ... so we could consider this fight still hard enough, I guess.
On the wrong side, worrying me a lot, is the nerf of Hodir. Last week he was hard, and a lot of guilds were not able to beat him. This week, as WoR says:
"Well, it looks like Hodir was summarily beaten into the ground by the nerf stick with build 9637. Lots of guilds beat the 25 player version, so I think it's safe to say this one will be changing again before the next time he's tested. Hopefully quite a bit after watching the streams."
I don't like that, I really don't, I don't want an easy Ulduar. It has nothing to do with the casual/hardcore everlasting debate, I just want some real challenge in WotLK for a change ...
Don't get me wrong, I'm positively exited about Ulduar, I can't wait it to be live. But I do really really hope it won't be as a joke as Naxxramas on the difficulty side. Please, please, give us some hard bosses, some real challenge, and a difficulty on pair on both 10 men and 25 men raids. I'm want to see wipe nights again ^.~
MMO Champion
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=42521.0
World of Raid Hodir
http://www.worldofraids.com/news/493-3-1-ptr-hodir-testing.html
World of Raid Thorim
http://www.worldofraids.com/news/492-3-1-ptr-thorim-testing.html
On the plus side, Thorim seem much more complete now, two gauntlets before the fight, and the hard mode is enabled. Though the hard mode (Sif alive) has already been beaten, it has been by Ensidia ... so we could consider this fight still hard enough, I guess.
On the wrong side, worrying me a lot, is the nerf of Hodir. Last week he was hard, and a lot of guilds were not able to beat him. This week, as WoR says:
"Well, it looks like Hodir was summarily beaten into the ground by the nerf stick with build 9637. Lots of guilds beat the 25 player version, so I think it's safe to say this one will be changing again before the next time he's tested. Hopefully quite a bit after watching the streams."
I don't like that, I really don't, I don't want an easy Ulduar. It has nothing to do with the casual/hardcore everlasting debate, I just want some real challenge in WotLK for a change ...
Don't get me wrong, I'm positively exited about Ulduar, I can't wait it to be live. But I do really really hope it won't be as a joke as Naxxramas on the difficulty side. Please, please, give us some hard bosses, some real challenge, and a difficulty on pair on both 10 men and 25 men raids. I'm want to see wipe nights again ^.~
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Tanking in WotLK and why it is currently broken.
I read a very good article on WoW Insider this morning, called:
Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, "Wrath," and crushing blows
I strongly encourage everyone to read it, that will give you a very good insight into one of the main problems of current tanking in WotLK ... in fact, the removal of crushing blows was a bad move.
I'll write a short sum-up of the very good article by Allison Robert, which despite being aimed at druids tanks covers the depth of the problem very well.
Crushing blows were 15% of the hits of any mob 3 levels more than you (hence raid bosses) that will hit you for 150% of the damage. Crushing blows were only affecting physical blows and never magical ones.
The 3 classic tanking classes dealt with them differently. Warriors and paladins with block/dodge/miss/parry were able to "remove" the crushing blows from the hit table (by achieving the famous 102% of total avoidance). Druids were not able to do that, so they just ate the crush with more armor and health pool.
Now Death Knights were added ... tanking without a shield, and with plate armor and a lot of abilities. They could not have the health pool of druids, so Blizzard decided to remove the crushing blows from the game to allow for the DK to tank. OK ...
And now look at the damage of WotLK: no physical crush, no physical big burst, the real hard points of tanking right now are magical bursts on Sartharion (+drakes) and Malygos.
Druids are still able to compete with DKs for tanking, but warriors and even less paladins are not. Block is a nearly useless ability in raid content right now, but for trash aoe tanking. And a tank that will only see trash tanking night after night, when he was promised "tanking equality" will not be having fun in this game.
Warrior tanks are rerolling, Paladin tanks are respecing healing (if they respeced to ret they will ahve to change in 3.1, ret being finally "nerfed to the ground" in that patch thx Ghostcrawler, all paladins love you dearly for that). Don't be surprised if the tank shortage went even worse than before LK ...
Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, "Wrath," and crushing blows
I strongly encourage everyone to read it, that will give you a very good insight into one of the main problems of current tanking in WotLK ... in fact, the removal of crushing blows was a bad move.
I'll write a short sum-up of the very good article by Allison Robert, which despite being aimed at druids tanks covers the depth of the problem very well.
Crushing blows were 15% of the hits of any mob 3 levels more than you (hence raid bosses) that will hit you for 150% of the damage. Crushing blows were only affecting physical blows and never magical ones.
The 3 classic tanking classes dealt with them differently. Warriors and paladins with block/dodge/miss/parry were able to "remove" the crushing blows from the hit table (by achieving the famous 102% of total avoidance). Druids were not able to do that, so they just ate the crush with more armor and health pool.
Now Death Knights were added ... tanking without a shield, and with plate armor and a lot of abilities. They could not have the health pool of druids, so Blizzard decided to remove the crushing blows from the game to allow for the DK to tank. OK ...
And now look at the damage of WotLK: no physical crush, no physical big burst, the real hard points of tanking right now are magical bursts on Sartharion (+drakes) and Malygos.
Druids are still able to compete with DKs for tanking, but warriors and even less paladins are not. Block is a nearly useless ability in raid content right now, but for trash aoe tanking. And a tank that will only see trash tanking night after night, when he was promised "tanking equality" will not be having fun in this game.
Warrior tanks are rerolling, Paladin tanks are respecing healing (if they respeced to ret they will ahve to change in 3.1, ret being finally "nerfed to the ground" in that patch thx Ghostcrawler, all paladins love you dearly for that). Don't be surprised if the tank shortage went even worse than before LK ...
Heroic: The Spellweaver's Downfall
I know, I know, we were slow :P
But we finally managed to get a full evening on Malygos heroic, and enough people that know what they should do on the same evening (usually the hardest part for us, small guild you know :P).
After a few wipes, he died to us nicely, despite being one short on healers to have a safe phase2 (quite bursty I should say, and having 3 paladins and one shaman on the 7 healers was not a plus for that fight ... stupid Blizzard).
Anyway, I'm just happy my guild finished all the WotLK content now, so despite being often not enough and a good bunch of us strong casual people. Grats everyone :)
The surprise was that, with this down my small semi-casual guild jumped on the WowJutsu guild ranking of my server (Dalaran EU). Even though it is a pure PvE server it's an old one with a lot of people. The proof that even non-hardcore small guilds can manage well if they really try to.
I hope the next content will be even more selective of the players more than of the size of guilds. The hardest part of heroic Nax right now is having 25 people, not cleaning it ... it is even easier than the 10 men version for most of the bosses >.<
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