Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Patch 4.0.3

Not only is Azeroth being ripped apart by the shattering, some classes are as well.

So if you haven't already noticed here's a summary of what's going to happen with this patch.

Worgen and Goblins still not playable. (Duh) However, all the new race/class combos are now available. :D Human Huntards for example.

Some of the changes? to azeroth will happen now. Don't ask me, that's what the blue posted.

Classes getting nerfed~
Warlocks - -12% damage on every spell except bane of Havoc.

Warriors - Biggest nerf.I hope you enjoyed your past 3 weeks. :( I hate it but blizzard decided you were doing too much.

Druids got nerfed/buffed? See patch notes for more information.

Blood Death Knights - Rune tap to 5% down from 10%. Death strike mega downgraded.

Death Knights - Frost fever after 2 years finally does 2X crit damage as apposed to 1.5X Why in the unholy it took 2 years to fix that beats me. Icebound fortitude is now only a 20% damage reduction down from 30% and is now a 3 minute cool down while it was 2 minutes.

Mages - Arcane Blast now only does 10% down from 20%. (haha. Got so tired of being one shotted by them in pvp) However, the mana consumption went down. Basically, your now PVE versus PVP.

Many more changes but this is all I can remember. I'm at work so can't post a link to the changes.

All I can say, I’m glad I roll a Death Knight right now. I want to bring my Rogue back in but really, it's their energy and rotation that bugs me now.

Enjoy the changes. I hope you all said good bye to old azeroth. Some zones I'll miss. Some...I wish I could have shattered myself. And as always...STAY OUT THE FIRE.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Raid Leading : Can you do it?

Have you ever been in that PUG or that old guild run and just thought that the raid leader sucks or you could do it a million times better? This may be a indication that you’re a raid leader in the making OR your just tired of being in disorganized raids.

First off, always, always try to put yourself in that raid leader's shoes. The difference between you and that person is that at that moment, they had the Westfall eggs to stand up and "take charge". Regardless the outcome.

I've been a raid leader for about a year now. Has every raid I ever done been for the glory the Alliance? Absolutely. Do I feel like I made the right decision every time? No. Am I the greatest raid leader ever? No. But when I'm in charge, things happen fairly.

The thing is, when it comes to raid leading you need a couple things. First, a fair mindset. I don't care what anyone says, if you’re going to be a raid leader you better be fair to your raiders, and fair to yourself. Second, you need to have the heart to do it. Ask yourself. For the greater good, can I tell this person they need to step their game up? And if they can't can I be the one who asks them to leave? If you can't. You should stop reading here and keep on being a raider. Secondly, your going to need knowledge. Knowledge is power. Seriously. And the most important thing in my eyes. Communication.

"What type of raid leader do I r be?" Well, you’ll defiantly want to be one that uses somewhat correct grammar and "I r be" isn’t getting it. When deciding what kind of raid leader you have to be, generally, you have to look at your group and their goals. "What? I have to put other people before me?" Yeah. Rather it be 9 or 24. You do. If your not that selfless stop reading now. So. Say you have a 10 man team working ICC inside of your guild. Is the guild hard core? This means be there or be kicked. Or. Is it casual raiding? Meaning, let's set this up for Saturday and go with what we have. The more "hardcore" it is, the more stern you'll have to be. Does that mean you’re going to cuss every time you say something? No. But when you get someone stepping out of line you'll have to fluff their feathers. You'll also have to monitor performance and be on top of knowing what good performance is per class. For example. From a DPS perspective, not every class is going to be doing 13k DPS. If it's something more casual than being a Cartman and telling everyone to kill Boars for 3 months srait isn’t going to work. Chances are in casual you have a group of people who get on best they can and raid for the fun of it, not the blood, guts, and glory. So with these types you have to be slightly more patient but still assertive.

When it comes to raid leading, there is no "one size fits all" type of style. The only thing I can tell you is to be consistent. If you’re stern all the time, you can't go soft. As soon as you do. Chances are, they will start walking on you. And if you’re more laid back, don't turn into a Nazi warlord. Your outcome will not be beneficial. I assure you. If you are changing your raid leading style than let everyone know. Talk to your raiders and find out what’s working. After every raid I do a good and bad section. What went well, what went bad, and what can I personally do to improve.

"Well, I r pugging. What shall I be then's?"
This comes with experience. Me personally? I am always friendly, or try to be, (I’ve had to teach more than a couple of the all mighty king slayers what's what.) but realistic. If I'm recruiting for 8/12 in ICC 10 I talk to the people before hand to find out what kind of people they are. If I sense anything out of line they don't receive an invite. I rather wait 15 minutes for a good player who's nice than rush into ICC to have the one ass clown who says, "Well. When we downed the Lich King last week. This is how we are did it." Speaking of which...Before you ever step foot into a raid to lead it. KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. Do the research, know the fights, be prepared. If you don't. Than when Billy says, "nononono that's not how you do it. This is how you do it" Than you’re not going to have any ground to stand on.

"Wait...you said your friendly? That's not what good raid leaders are..."
Why not? I never said I can't lay down the law. (No I don't go around smiting people nor do I get the satisfaction from kicking raiders) If I’m friendly, than it opens two doors right off the bat. The first door, is that people are going to read that and reflect what they see. "Man, sure is nice to get into a friendly raid." The second door, "Ah man. This guys a push over. Time to start showing some ass." Yeah. Go ahead buddy, that clears you out before we clear the first trash. :)

"Ok. I have my raid and we're walking in...What now?"
Well first...you need to take a break from reading this and wait for me to finish in another post. :) Thanks. (To be continued.)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How to spice up your raid~

So. With Cata right around the corner, (You can actually see Death Wings tail poking out) if your guild is still raiding than you've probably noticed it's slightly drudged. My guild is on the Lich King (I'm proud of us :D) and wipe after wipe it's hard to keep moral up. So, here's a couple tips.

BREAK TIME
Be sure to encourage the occasionally break. If your on one boss or working on one, take the time to give your raiders a break. This keeps things organized by minimizing the BRB's. This also keeps people fresh and real. Don't make it a 30 minute break, keep it sweet and short. If it's too long of one some raiders will lose their mojo and other's will get angry.

Bring in the clowns
Pick on a couple of your raiders. (Only the ones you know you can) Make jokes about them and their job. Positive ones are always good, "Hey Billy. I'm going to need you to slow down the deeps. Leave some for the rest of us." Or a negative one (within reason)"Billy your making Paladin's look like huntards." (I know. Corny, but try them :D)

Sound Boards
When we were doing Onyxia every week just for fun and practice, I'd raid lead the entire thing using the Onyxia Raid Leader sound board. (More DOTS we need more DOTS) That type of thing. For ICC or anything, just pick a random one, but don't make it TOO loud to the point it hurts your ears. And not too annoying of a one just something simple and funny and if anyone starts whining cut it out.

Toys and Pets
The dreaded train. Believe it or not. Defiantly fun especially if you have the wrecker or lil XT. Paper Zephrils and Happy rocks and all that can defiantly break the simplicity. Pets...some of them interact. We all know the black cat and the skunk.
Here's a small list
Grunty (fights Zerg)
Lil' K.T. (shoots critters)
Mojo /kiss
Pengu or Mr. Chilly /sexy
etc.etc.(Google interactive wow pets for a list)

What not to do for fun
Kicking raiders. Don't do the kicky game. In times of stress they won't like it.
Death Contest. "Woa! Did you see how far I fell?" Not such a great idea because it's a waste of guild repairs and that can be testy to certain raiders.
Leeroy pulls. Don't. Just don’t...

That's about it. You know your guildies or your raiders. Just try to make these last couple of weeks fun for them and yourself.

Know something I don't? (Probably) Post any ideas below this.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Oh man...PVP last night

So I come back from vacation, clean house, watch a movie or two than decide to do some pvp on my Death Knight.

Ok, for every character I’ve played I still think that a Warrior's Blade storm has nothing on a Killing Machine Obliterate. It's my personal version of an LOL button. You get behind that Warlock nuking everyone down or the rogue who has your battle buddy on stun lock and WHAM. +1 Killing Blow. It never gets old to me.

Anyhow back to the story. So. In my battle group the alliance is notorious for not being aligned in a battle ground. Eh. No big deal I’m sure the horde feels the same way sometimes. But in 20 battles last night, we won one. The one we won had to be a new record on Strand of the Ancients I’m sure. Anyhow...no big deal on losing. I make it a personal goal to get on top of the alliance/horde chart. Not that it makes me feel like a god, just that it makes me feel like I had a good part of the battle. Whichever way it turned. Did top probably 15/20 battle for ally and horde but eh.

The point of what happened was the multi boxing Shaman of doom. 14. Count them. 14 linked Shamans in Altrec. I use an add on called Scrolling Combat Text. Had little icons of what's going on next to the text. I'm running through the field of strife and what do we have here? A Turtle. Now usually. 99% of the time. The horde will not turtle UNTIL the ally fails a zerg for Drek. I had only seen it one other time. Anyhow. I'm running up in the muck and all of a sudden I have a bunch of little flame shock icons on my screen and I’m dead. (Anti Magic Shield was up) I was like hmmm...Ok. I make my way back up there, (Along with the 10 other rested souls) and I turn my tidy plates on. All I see is something that looks like this...

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If only I was exaggerating...
But yeah. So that was the last battle of the night. With 3 allied resources left and 400 horde. They magically kill our boss and score major honor.

Lesson Learned
It's ok to be a deserter. Deserters get dessert. 15 minutes of not being able to pvp is much better than 15 minutes of spawn death.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

My outlook on Patch 4.0

Changes. With each patch and expansion. Changes.
I remember coming across a quote. It isn't mine but it makes since.

"The burning crusade will be the end of WoW..."

"The Wrath of The Lich King will be the end of WoW..."

"Cata will be the end of WoW..."

So uh...when was WoW supposed to end?

I say it's like Final Fantasy. The Final one was the first of many with no end in site. Just saying.

Patch 4.0
I see so many complaints. "Eh. My class is are nerfed." (I agree if you’re a Rogue) "The new UI sucks." "The talents, glyphs, play style etc.etc.etc sucks."
Uh...if everything sucks so badly why are you in trade chat QQ'n about it? Shouldn’t you have cancelled your account and switched to FF14 or Halo Reach?

Let me say. I've played every class in every way except druids. With the new buff system, every class bringing about 2 raid buffs per spec? Awesomeness. (Hunters being able to pop hero? Really cool.) I just see people whining about how easy gear is to get, or how easy the game has gotten. Ok, if you want to spend 4 months raiding AQ 40 to see your piece of gear finally drop to see it ninja'd by the new guy? Yeah. Have fun with that. Me personally, I'll take grinding randoms and PVP to get the gear I want. That way I know what I’m getting. How about turning 65 and rolling against one million other people to get your social security? That's why we pay a certain amount each paycheck. Or PUGs. The reality is that pugs are a good way to meet new people and friends. It's also a good way to fill that empty ignore list. ;) The random dungeon finder is a great tool. I think too many people take for granted the ideal of being able to hit a button and eventually, you get to run through that dungeon. Back in the day you had to find a tank, a healer and the DPS convince 3 of them to go to the meeting stone, and hope like hell they know how to play. I'm sorry, but I’ll take clicking a button and meeting people from other areas over sitting in trade chat or waiting for five guildies wanting to get together to do the thing.
I'm just saying, at the current state. WoW is becoming very doable by most people. I think it's at the point now that you still do have to put in the work to get what you want but you don't have to make WoW your life. I got it. All the "Vanilla wow was best" people aren't very happy but what they need to know is, either A, get a life, or B, be happy with the fact you're in a game where people can succeed. If you feel like being top dog play Call of Duty or Halo and make rank.

So, I thank blizzard. I think they are making some changes for the greater of good. I feel sorry for my rogue but eh, he'll come back. Just stick around the game and enjoy what you can. It's gotten so much better than Vanilla. (Lest we forget 2 minute blessing of Might.)

Introduction

So. After redoing this blog three times. I finally decided what to do with it. I found a hard time picking where to start...but since it's the end WOTLK expansion and about to be Cata, i'll start now. This will be a journal type thing of me guild leading, raid leading, and my game play in generally. I'll also be tracking the changes of the characters I play and the experience of them.

Myself
Been playing wow since Christmas of 2006. I started of playing a Warrior mixing talents to become a 3 tree hybrid. I had no idea what I was doing, I just figured if I didn't die I was doing good. We've all been there. Wasn't feeling the Warrior so I made a hunter. Figured shooting stuff from afar while my pet wailed away on it was awesome but it felt too...huntarded. Bring in the Warlock. Instant love and alot of fun. Played my warlock to 60 and than the burning crusade came out. Unfortunatly I missed the entire expansion due to being deployed to Iraq and training up for it. Once I got back Wrath Of The Lich King had been out for nearly a year. At this point my wife and I set out to hit 80 and start playing the end game content. We do so and quickly find a guild raiding ICC. We've been in ICC every weekend since day one, minus vacations and such. (Too many times I feel like :P) Well after a couple months progressing, the deeper and deeper we got into ICC the more dramatic it got. So, in a decision my wife and I and start a new guild. Finally, today I have 6 level 80's, have done every job inside of raiding in every WOTLK raid and am very expereinced in guild leading, raid leading, and playing the game in every asspect except Arena.

My Characters
BanestLife the Frost/Unholy Death Knight
ReapestLife the Combat/Mutilation Rogue
DarkestLife the Destruction/Demonolgy Warlock
RunestLife the Pyro/Arcane Mage
LightestLife the Holy/Prot Paladin
StormestLife the Elemental/Restoration Shaman

Non 80
PurestLife the Holy/Disc Priest
NightestLife the Marksman/Survival Hunter
BladestLife the Fury/Prot Warrior