Gone With the Wind

When I got on at lunchtime today for an instance run, I was surprised at the server names of my compatriots.

Norgannon?
Ysera?

I did a double take, and yes, I was on Neve, and by extension I was on A-52.

"Did the battlegroups change?" I asked out loud.

"No, Blizz is doing away with them entirely."

Cue Handel's Messiah.

You know what this means, don't you?  If I'm not careful, the next time I run a battleground as Quintalan I could be staring Ehna or Deftig in the face.  (Which probably explains the dramatic improvement of the Alliance in BGs lately.)

Or have Tam, Rhii, or Linedan as puggees in a 5-man.  And if some random toon tries to /lick me, I'll know who did it.  ("Tam?  Is that you?")

The possibilities are endless.

It could also make for an awkward moment in a BG, if I'm a member of more than one guild.  "Guild One, meet Guild Two.  Ouch, that had to hurt."

***

I have a confession to make:  I haven't pugged 5-mans much lately.  I'm not sure why, but I've found myself checking out a variety of different things on some of my toons.  Q is grinding Netherwing rep for the Nether Drake mount, and he's also getting in on some BGs when he can.  I've also been playing around with Q's rotation, and while I still don't like it much, I can live with it.  In a 5-man, Zealotry is almost guaranteed to draw aggro, so you don't get much of a chance to use it.  In a boss fight in a raid it'd come in handy, but for the non-raider I now see its utility limited to BGs for a big fat 20-second burst of damage.  Just proc Zealotry, then spam Crusader Strike and Templar's Verdict as soon as each one is off CD.

With Tomakan, I've been doing the Explorer routine so I can get used to where things are from an Ally point of view before the Cataclysm changes everything.

Now Neve...  I'm still trying to work out the Frost Mage routine, since I lost Blizzard as a low level AoE spell, but gained Ice Lance and the Water Elemental.  I wasn't planning on learning how to handle a pet until later, but now it's been kind of foisted on me.  Given the way that we're all kind of overpowered for the lower level instances, I don't get much of a chance to learn how to work a pet in a 5-man, because once I've set the elemental up to go do what I want it to I discover the mob fight is already finished.  And if there's one thing I've learned in pugs, everyone hates a pet that causes problems, so I've tried keeping the elemental pretty tame.  After a couple of instances of this, I said to hell with it and simply dismissed the elemental.

Right now, working out an acceptable rotation for a Frost mage is more important right now than dealing with a pet.  And from what I've experienced so far, it's a big juggling act.

Ice Lance:  Instant, hits for about the same (per second) as Frostbolt, but jacks up your threat very quickly.

Frostbolt:  Old standby, still on a regular casting time, but because of that not much of a threat multiplier.

Arcane Missiles:  Procs off of other spells, doesn't hit as hard as before, either.  Kind of a so-so spell right now.

Blizzard:  Gone until L52 (sob!), but given the increase in threat potential, have to be very careful in application.

Frost Nova:  Still good for freezing people in place in a run to the tank.  (Hey, Neve's got to get her exercise in, and pulling aggro is as good an excuse as any.)

Arcane Explosion:  Good for those "Oh $%#^!" moments and you're in the middle of all hell breaking loose.  Also good for finishing off weakened mobs.  The drawback is that you get within interrupt range.

Cone of Cold:  It's an okay spell, but I'm not convinced being within interrupt range is worth it.

Now, I have been able to put the crowd control aspect of the Mage to good use, keeping the ranged casters sheeped while we deal with the rest of the mob, for example.  (Works like a charm in the Jammalan the Prophet portion of Sunken Temple.)  But I can't help but get the feeling that something is missing in the Frost Mage setup, and don't exactly know why.

What do you think of your routine?  Is there something missing, but you can't figure out exactly what it is?

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

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You’ve seen them, all decked out in the latest tier gear whispering you for an invite into a PUG raid. Their numbers look good. They tell you how they’re the shiznits. And then you enter the raid...

The problem with the new heroic point system is that you get players who easily can gear up without the effort required to become proficient in one’s class. Yeah, big problem there. The disparity isn’t limited to inept Death Knights, though Lord knows there’s a fair share of them who couldn’t follow direction if you put up a light bulb that said, “DO NOT STAND IN THE FIRE!” This problem goes for such classes as a mage. And now with fire’s AOE insanity, this will prove the patience of every tank and healer out there come 85 end-game content. With all the CC that’s coming, this will require a lot of coordination by all players to ensure DPS actually waits for the tank to get enough threat and to focus fire on single targets, as well as maintain CC’s. To help all you healers and tanks out there, let me give you some hints on what to look out for when choosing a mage for a raid:

1) Do they have any end-game content trinkets, rings, and/or gear obtained ONLY through actual *10-man raiding;
2) The moment the tank pulls a mob, does the mage immediately unleash or pause the 5 to 10 seconds it takes for the tank to get enough threat; and
3) Make sure they know in advance they will be CC’ing and be sure to mark CC’s with a distinct Lucky Charm.

DPS classes are going to get a wakeup call, much like most of us did during Burning Crusade where mobs hit hard and actually require coordination by the team (i.e., CC’s, focus fire, health and mana bar awareness, etc.). That is a good thing. Players have become too complacent in their gameplay, frustrating or, worse, boring tanks and unnecessarily stressing healers out. Frankly, I think end-game Cataclysm will whittle down the incompetent players and bring back the efficacy in gameplay experience.

*Note: 10-man raiding is actually harder than 25-man, because a person can’t hide their incompetence. Though many argue that 25-man is harder, in truth its actually just more gimmicks and additional movement. In 10-man raids every player counts. If you screw up, it affects the whole team. So, there’s more pressure to perform than in 25-man where a single mistake won’t wipe a raid.

My Kingdom for a Tank

Last weekend was Call to Arms:  Alterac Valley, so I figured there was no time like the present to give that BG a whirl on Quintalan.  Forty players on a side meant that any screwups on my part would be minimized, so why not?

The first couple of runs on Friday night went pretty well.  We split 50/50 with the Alliance, while I learned a bit about staying with the pack.  Oh, and that Stormpike takes quite a licking to bring down.

Saturday night, I got on after having company over.  It was a bit late, so I figured that I'd play until the Horde got a victory.  Not a very high bar to jump over, so I figured I'd be in bed pretty soon.

The first indication that it wasn't going to be my night was that I ported into the middle of a run, and couldn't get more than maybe 10 seconds into the battleground before getting killed by a Lock and a DK that were corpse camping at the Horde's home graveyard.  Needless to say, that game ended about 2 minutes after I ported in with an Alliance victory.

So I queued again.

And again.

And again.

Surely, I thought, I have to get lucky sometime.

Not necessarily.  There was the run where a tank and a healer had a very public feud over who was to blame for the successive wipings on Stormpike.  In the meantime, the Alliance ran everyone up to Drek and killed him, which caused the tank to go spastic.

Then there was the run where a bunch of us --about 15 or so-- made it to Drek, and we all stood around looking at each other.  "You mean there's not a single tank here?" a Rogue asked.  "You have got to be @#$#-ing me.  We need a tank up here for the boss."  We waited for something like five minutes, and still no tank appeared.  "We need a tank up here!"  "WTB tank!"  Another five minutes, and the Alliance won.

I complained to Soul, who was running a few BGs of his own.  "Aren't BG's fun?" he replied.

I grumbled something and queued up again.  "How are we doing tonight?" someone asked.

"Lousy," came the reply.  "Haven't won yet tonight."

"Pfft.  This is easy.  You make sure you cut off their arms, and the rest falls into place."

While I didn't share his enthusiasm, I hoped there would be a semblance of strategy.  Lo and behold, this time there was.  Three of us took out one tower, another small group took out a second, and we defended our base.  Once the towers were down, it became a war of attrition.  No rush the boss strategy, no fast kill needed.  And it worked.

Alleluia.

A Few Musings on Cataclysm

I've been watching the blogs the past couple of weeks, and several thoughts have occurred to me about Cataclysm.

A lot of speculation --and the underlying assumption-- is that Deathwing will be the killable end boss in Cataclysm.  End boss?  Likely.  Killable?  I'm not so sure.

In Wrath, we got the chance to destroy one of the Dragon Aspects, Malygos.  He wasn't even the end boss in the expansion, just the end of one of the story chains in Wrath.  From this, we can go in two directions:  either Deathwing is more powerful than Malygos ever was, or Malygos isn't truly dead.  (A third possibility is that Malygos got nerfed by Blizz in a patch release and we caught him on a good day, but you never know.)

If Deathwing is truly more powerful than Malygos --and by extension, the other Dragon Aspects-- then there's very little stopping him from killing Ysera and Alexstrasza.  Also, if he is truly powerful enough to break the world, perhaps the best we can hope for is to beat him back and shut him out of Azeroth once more. 

Now, if Deathwing is equivalent in power to Malygos, and his retreat from the other (pissed off) Dragon Aspects in the Second War implies as much, then the downing of Malygos (even with the Life Binder's aid) might not have been the end of him.  It won't be the first time that someone once thought dead makes a reappearance in a Fantasy environment.  ("What, Sauron is back again?  Just how many lives does this guy have, anyway?")

Another possibility is that Deathwing isn't the true last end boss in Cataclysm, but someone --or something-- else.  Possibilities abound:  another Old God or two, Azshara, Elemental Lords, or maybe even Sargeras.

***

I keep bringing this up, because I think it's going to be a very important theme for the Horde in Cataclysm:  the Cataclysm itself won't do as much to the Horde as the fight with the Alliance will.

From what I've seen so far, the Horde region that is hit the hardest will be The Barrens.  Sure, Cataclysm splits the region in half, but the greatest impact is on the Alliance's push into Southern Barrens and the hasty construction of barriers at the entrance to Mulgore.  Shenanigans with the Grimtotems will impact the Horde/Alliance war and will change the face of the Horde forever.  Ashenvale is going to change significantly as well, given all of those Horde victories in Warsong Gulch.  And that's not counting the Forsaken turning their attention to the Greymane Wall.

***

Speaking of Forsaken, whom do they turn their ire to?  Arthas is dead, and the Scourge will be (theoretically) more contained than before.  (Gee, I have no idea why...  The Lich King is dead, isn't he?  At least that's what the official stories say....)  So, who gets the brunt of the Undead's vengeance?  Or, will this lack of a major enemy be a major theme in the Forsaken story?

***

Although technically they are part of Outland, what about the Draenei and Blood Elf starting areas?  Will there be changes in Eversong and the Ghostlands given the current state of the Scourge lore?  How will the Draenei start off in an "unbroken" world that doesn't acknowledge that they were around for the Cataclysm?

Cinematics for the Alliance

When I first watched the WoW Cataclysm cinematic, my first thought was "Okay, that's technically well done."  My next thought was "Outside of the brief glimpse of Freewind Post and Grom'gol, I'd say that the Horde comes out of this better than the Alliance does."



The last thing I thought of probably dates me, but did anyone else notice that when Deathwing said "Pain! Agony!" he sounded remarkably like Bugs Bunny?

New Favorite thing to do (while bored)

Step 1 - Get shoe shine
Step 2 - go stand on statue out side of south bank and kill squirrel
Step 3 - Stand over squirrel's dead body
Step 4 - Watch how many people try to stop and loot the squirrel

OMG Warrior tanking...

... is pretty much the same as it was, with the addition of a few new abilities in the mix like victory rush and rend. 

Like Q in the post below, I also got DTK as first dungeon I did.  The first pull was a little shaky getting the mobs on me because I had some trouble generating rage right off the bat, but a quick shout fixed that.  The second pull was a little hairy as well because the DPS in the group got all antsy in their pantys and starting dpsing stuff before I could even get a thunderclap + shockwave off.  After that though, it was back to normal speed and we were done in there with no wipes or deaths in about 15 minutes.  There was, however, one noticible difference - I did the most damage done.  Muaahahahaha!  Watching vengeance scale is amazingly fun.  My attack power just goes up and up and up and up...

I'm definately noticing how aggro is going to be a little shaky.  I look forward to the cries of the dead dps.  They haven't quite learned how to assist the tank - but the current dungeons and design don't FORCE them too.... yet.

So much to learn and wrap my head around with all the changes.... so many new glyphs and a few new skills.  The new all plate armor bonus is sweet, as well as the mastery bonuses.  I'm up to 50k unbuffed HP, which makes me wonder if I should think about swapping out my one stam trinket for armor or avoidance.

I also noticed that dwaves get a +archaelogy bonus.  Which is OK, I guess.  It's still not enough to make me not want to race change to a worgen as soon as I can.  I mean, come on... a warrior with charge, intercept, intervene, heroic leap, AND a racial sprint - as well as a resto shaman arena partner who can now cleanse mage polymorphs and ice novas!?  Mmmmmmm.....  dead mages.

All in all, wonderful changes and it's fun to learn your class again.  And to all of the nay sayers out there... shut it.  We don't have the right gear (+mastery points) yet to make your spec shine.  It's all new and different and you don't like it.  I get it.  But shut up and give it a go and see if you like it.

Oh, and the new downloader is rather spiffy!  I loaded up while it was still downloading with out much issue and off I went.

Oh, and one last thing... I purchased my 310% flying speed last night which lets me give up on Yogg +1.

And there's finally someting NEW in the game again!

 *cue up Choir*