Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Alt update
Level 29.
6 levels away from Heart of the Wild.
11 away from Leader of the Pack.
21 painful levels away from Mangle.
But what I'm missing most right now, believe it or not, is Ferocious Bite. Rip is absolutely terrible as a finishing move whilst soloing. You've got basically two choices - rip at 2 or 3 combo points so that it ticks a decent number of times for insignificant damage, or rip at 4-5 combo points with better (but still rather insignificant damage) for very few ticks.
3 more levels until Ferocious bite. I expect a significant increase in DPS, and much more efficient utilization of combo points when I get this.
Special note: discovered a level 28-30 mob in the game that gives double XP. It's a bug. In my opinion, not worth exploiting due the relatively few number of such mobs and the increased quest XP from the 2.3 patch, but it was nice to discover that while doing a quest over the weekend. Bonus points to anyone if they can guess which mob it is.
6 levels away from Heart of the Wild.
11 away from Leader of the Pack.
21 painful levels away from Mangle.
But what I'm missing most right now, believe it or not, is Ferocious Bite. Rip is absolutely terrible as a finishing move whilst soloing. You've got basically two choices - rip at 2 or 3 combo points so that it ticks a decent number of times for insignificant damage, or rip at 4-5 combo points with better (but still rather insignificant damage) for very few ticks.
3 more levels until Ferocious bite. I expect a significant increase in DPS, and much more efficient utilization of combo points when I get this.
Special note: discovered a level 28-30 mob in the game that gives double XP. It's a bug. In my opinion, not worth exploiting due the relatively few number of such mobs and the increased quest XP from the 2.3 patch, but it was nice to discover that while doing a quest over the weekend. Bonus points to anyone if they can guess which mob it is.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Arena gear 4 piece set bonus changes
From mmo-champion, the latest change to the 2.4 PTR:
Druid
My take on this: Huge nerf to Resto, buff buff to Balance.
The movement speed buff is of enormous benefit to resto druids in 2v2, good benefit in 3v3 and largely useless in 5v5. A 2.75 second cast Healing Touch? Useless everywhere. Seriously, this is a mind boggling stupid change. If Blizzard wants to nerf the movement speed bonus due to the perceived advantage it gives druids in 2v2's, then at least replace it with something mildly useful - say +x healing to lifebloom. Maybe take the dodge rating bonus to rejuvenation from the Moonglade set. There's so much better Blizzard can do here.
The balance change, on the other hand, is a nice buff. The +15% move speed bonus was largely useless to moonkins. An occasional 1.5 sec cast Starfire is a nice bonus, especially considering any PVP specced moonkin is going to have the 15% chance to stun on Starfire. It's a good change.
Druid
- 4-piece bonus on Restoration-spec Arena and PvP sets has been changed to "The casting time on your Healing Touch spell is reduced by 0.25 sec." (Was a 15% increase to the outdoor movement speed before)
- 4-piece bonus on Balance-spec Arena and PvP sets has been changed to "Your Wrath casts have a chance to reduce the cast time on your next Starfire by 1.5 sec." (Was a 15% increase to the outdoor movement speed before)
My take on this: Huge nerf to Resto, buff buff to Balance.
The movement speed buff is of enormous benefit to resto druids in 2v2, good benefit in 3v3 and largely useless in 5v5. A 2.75 second cast Healing Touch? Useless everywhere. Seriously, this is a mind boggling stupid change. If Blizzard wants to nerf the movement speed bonus due to the perceived advantage it gives druids in 2v2's, then at least replace it with something mildly useful - say +x healing to lifebloom. Maybe take the dodge rating bonus to rejuvenation from the Moonglade set. There's so much better Blizzard can do here.
The balance change, on the other hand, is a nice buff. The +15% move speed bonus was largely useless to moonkins. An occasional 1.5 sec cast Starfire is a nice bonus, especially considering any PVP specced moonkin is going to have the 15% chance to stun on Starfire. It's a good change.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Whoa! Dreamstate rocks!
I respecced last night to the 37/0/24 Dreamstate build, and I've gotta say that I'm extremely pleased with it - at least when it comes to battlegrounds. Haven't tried arenas with it yet.
I'm wearing healing gear, so I only have about ~500 spell damage (~1500 healing). My survivability went way up, and my dps wasn't bad either - Moonfire hitting for ~500 (~1000 crits), wrath hitting for ~750 (~1500 crits) and starfire hitting for ~1200 (~2400 crits).
In one AV, I had 16 killing blows and 123 HK's to my 1 death - and we lost that AV.
Let's talk about healing - my lifebloom ticks went from around 170 to 159. My rejuv ticks went from around 710 to 680. Regrowth crit for much less, but healed for approximately the same.
Let's talk about mana - whoa! Running out, even while spamming wrath/moonfire/insect swarm and/or healing was never a problem. Amazing.
So let's summarize: much better survivability, much better dps, much better mana regen and slightly lower healing.
I'm a huge fan.
I'm wearing healing gear, so I only have about ~500 spell damage (~1500 healing). My survivability went way up, and my dps wasn't bad either - Moonfire hitting for ~500 (~1000 crits), wrath hitting for ~750 (~1500 crits) and starfire hitting for ~1200 (~2400 crits).
In one AV, I had 16 killing blows and 123 HK's to my 1 death - and we lost that AV.
Let's talk about healing - my lifebloom ticks went from around 170 to 159. My rejuv ticks went from around 710 to 680. Regrowth crit for much less, but healed for approximately the same.
Let's talk about mana - whoa! Running out, even while spamming wrath/moonfire/insect swarm and/or healing was never a problem. Amazing.
So let's summarize: much better survivability, much better dps, much better mana regen and slightly lower healing.
I'm a huge fan.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Dreamstate FTW?
Our 5v5 team has had a couple of good weeks - going from a 1430 rating (328 points) to a 1605 rating (471 points!). We've all managed to get some better gear, learned to play better and learned to coordinate better.
I've been going with the standard 8/11/42 resto build for these matches, but I'm thinking of changing it up to a Dreamstate build like this one (37/0/24).
I find that my role in 5v5 is to keep someone perpetually cycloned. I'll hit 1 person up for 9 seconds (6 seconds initial, 3 seconds 2nd cast). I'll switch targets for another 9 seconds of CC, then usually back to the first target. In between cyclone casts, I'm either throwing a hot or two on whatever people on our team may need some spot healing. Often, no healing is necessary (because our disc/holy priest has everything under control), and I'm not doing anything.
I feel that my 8/11/42 build is suboptimal for 5v5 - it's really more geared to 2v2's and to a lesser extent, 3v3's. In 5v5's, mobility is almost unimportant - you can get away and hide from 2 people, maybe 3. You're not hiding from 5, and you can't get away when you're the target of focus fire from 3-4 people.
So let's take a look at pros vs. cons to the Dreamstate build over 8/11/42
Pros:
- Insect swarm - 2% hit reduction and a dot? Yes please.
- Nature's reach - 20% extra range on cyclone? Yes please.
- Improved DPS through focused starlight, improved moonfire, vengeance, celestial focus.
- Improved healing and DPS through lunar guidance.
- Higher survivability through moonkin form (+400% armor) and balance of power.
- Great MP5 through dreamstate.
Cons:
- No feral charge. Not a big loss for 5v5.
- No swiftmend. A significant loss, but not so important in 5v5.
- No natural perfection. Ouch - but does 400% bonus armor make up for this?
- No empowered rejuvenation. Ouch - but does lunar guidance make up for this?
- No improved regrowth. Significant, but less so for 5v5.
Seems like almost a no brainer. Anyone had any experience with this build?
I've been going with the standard 8/11/42 resto build for these matches, but I'm thinking of changing it up to a Dreamstate build like this one (37/0/24).
I find that my role in 5v5 is to keep someone perpetually cycloned. I'll hit 1 person up for 9 seconds (6 seconds initial, 3 seconds 2nd cast). I'll switch targets for another 9 seconds of CC, then usually back to the first target. In between cyclone casts, I'm either throwing a hot or two on whatever people on our team may need some spot healing. Often, no healing is necessary (because our disc/holy priest has everything under control), and I'm not doing anything.
I feel that my 8/11/42 build is suboptimal for 5v5 - it's really more geared to 2v2's and to a lesser extent, 3v3's. In 5v5's, mobility is almost unimportant - you can get away and hide from 2 people, maybe 3. You're not hiding from 5, and you can't get away when you're the target of focus fire from 3-4 people.
So let's take a look at pros vs. cons to the Dreamstate build over 8/11/42
Pros:
- Insect swarm - 2% hit reduction and a dot? Yes please.
- Nature's reach - 20% extra range on cyclone? Yes please.
- Improved DPS through focused starlight, improved moonfire, vengeance, celestial focus.
- Improved healing and DPS through lunar guidance.
- Higher survivability through moonkin form (+400% armor) and balance of power.
- Great MP5 through dreamstate.
Cons:
- No feral charge. Not a big loss for 5v5.
- No swiftmend. A significant loss, but not so important in 5v5.
- No natural perfection. Ouch - but does 400% bonus armor make up for this?
- No empowered rejuvenation. Ouch - but does lunar guidance make up for this?
- No improved regrowth. Significant, but less so for 5v5.
Seems like almost a no brainer. Anyone had any experience with this build?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
2.4 on the PTR
As usual, hit up mmo-champion.com for all the latest updates.
Here's the druid changes:
Yawn. All those changes are good, although unexciting and really pretty minor. For those of us hoping for a feral arena buff, continue waiting. I suspect we won't see anything until Wrath of the Lich King is release (my bet is August for that).
Here's the druid changes:
- Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.
- Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.
- Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
- Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.
- Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0.
- Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent.
- When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.
Yawn. All those changes are good, although unexciting and really pretty minor. For those of us hoping for a feral arena buff, continue waiting. I suspect we won't see anything until Wrath of the Lich King is release (my bet is August for that).
Monday, February 11, 2008
Level 20 and loving it
Made it to level 20 and picked up cat form. The difference in how fast you can take down a mob is breathtaking. I would estimate that I kill mobs perhaps 3 times faster, and finish with much much higher health and mana.
And that's without any kind of opener. No Pounce (level 36) or Ravage (level 32). When I trained cat form, I tripled checked my spell book looking for either of those two spells. I had forgotten it's not until much later that you get them. At level 20, there is literally no combat reason to use your newly acquired stealth (prowl) skill. Only at level 22 when you learn Shred does Prowl become useful in a poor man's version of Ravage.
Speaking of cat form... Why does the Horde cat form look so horrible? The run animation looks (at best) weird and ungainly. The mane and horns look tacky. A night elf cat looks like a svelte killing machine. A horde cat looks like a freakshow animal escaped from the circus.
Here's some suggestions Blizzard:
- Make different female and male versions of both cat and bear forms. Perhaps make the female versions a bit slender and lose the mane for the horde version.
- Improve the run animation. I've seen excellent move animations in the game, I know they can do this. Less circus freakshow, more lithe killing machine please.
kthxbye.
And that's without any kind of opener. No Pounce (level 36) or Ravage (level 32). When I trained cat form, I tripled checked my spell book looking for either of those two spells. I had forgotten it's not until much later that you get them. At level 20, there is literally no combat reason to use your newly acquired stealth (prowl) skill. Only at level 22 when you learn Shred does Prowl become useful in a poor man's version of Ravage.
Speaking of cat form... Why does the Horde cat form look so horrible? The run animation looks (at best) weird and ungainly. The mane and horns look tacky. A night elf cat looks like a svelte killing machine. A horde cat looks like a freakshow animal escaped from the circus.
Here's some suggestions Blizzard:
- Make different female and male versions of both cat and bear forms. Perhaps make the female versions a bit slender and lose the mane for the horde version.
- Improve the run animation. I've seen excellent move animations in the game, I know they can do this. Less circus freakshow, more lithe killing machine please.
kthxbye.
Friday, February 8, 2008
More gear for lower levels
Up to level 20, rings and amulets are hard to come by.
Correction: prior to TBC, they were hard to come by. With the Jewel crafting profession, lots of people create lots of low level rings just to level up. You can find these on the AH for very cheap.
Check out a handy list here. The Bronze Band of Force, is pretty sweet. You should be able to pick one up for a couple of gold. Sure, that's a ton of money for that character level - but it's nothing for an alt. Plenty of green rings for 20-75s too. Here's a good list for amulets.
My update: level 18. So close to cat form, yet so far away....
Correction: prior to TBC, they were hard to come by. With the Jewel crafting profession, lots of people create lots of low level rings just to level up. You can find these on the AH for very cheap.
Check out a handy list here. The Bronze Band of Force, is pretty sweet. You should be able to pick one up for a couple of gold. Sure, that's a ton of money for that character level - but it's nothing for an alt. Plenty of green rings for 20-75s too. Here's a good list for amulets.
My update: level 18. So close to cat form, yet so far away....
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Absolutely Fake Patch Notes
2.4 is coming. Everyone knows it; Blue has been parceling out tidbits of information over the forums. With an impending patch comes fake patch notes! The latest I've seen are posted here at mmo-champion.com.
They list the probability that the patch notes are real at 50%. I put the probability at 0.00%.
Let's look at a couple of the best druid notes:
Force of Nature: How often have you heard balance druids complaining about how much Treants suck? Oh right. Never. Well maybe you have, but I haven't. I don't know what the attack speed of the treants is, but let's say it's 2.0. 3 treats x 0.15% chance to proc Entangling Roots x 2.0 attack speed = roughly a 22.5% chance to be rooted every second. Double that for a 1.0 attack speed. I really don't see this as plausible.
Other druid notes pretty much nerf resto druids. A bit more plausible, but unlikely in my opinion.
They list the probability that the patch notes are real at 50%. I put the probability at 0.00%.
Let's look at a couple of the best druid notes:
- Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 25/50% of your Attack Power.
- Force of Nature: Treants now have a 15% chance to proc Entangling Roots on the target.
Force of Nature: How often have you heard balance druids complaining about how much Treants suck? Oh right. Never. Well maybe you have, but I haven't. I don't know what the attack speed of the treants is, but let's say it's 2.0. 3 treats x 0.15% chance to proc Entangling Roots x 2.0 attack speed = roughly a 22.5% chance to be rooted every second. Double that for a 1.0 attack speed. I really don't see this as plausible.
Other druid notes pretty much nerf resto druids. A bit more plausible, but unlikely in my opinion.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Life as an Alt
WTB Cat Form. Will pay hefty price. PST.
Levels 1-19 suck - when you know what you're missing. Sure, they go by pretty fast - but wrath, wrath, wrath (maybe), moonfire, whack on target with large stick for a while is not my idea of fun.
After flying around with swift flight form, walking around everywhere is pure pain. Arrrrrgggghhhh. Why, oh why, can't I play Blizzard $25 for a premade level 60 character once I've hit 70 with a normal character? It's a win for everyone, and it would not be that hard to develop.
I'm pretty much playing my horde druid now, unless a ZA or KZ run is happening, or some short queue arenas.
Levels 1-19 suck - when you know what you're missing. Sure, they go by pretty fast - but wrath, wrath, wrath (maybe), moonfire, whack on target with large stick for a while is not my idea of fun.
After flying around with swift flight form, walking around everywhere is pure pain. Arrrrrgggghhhh. Why, oh why, can't I play Blizzard $25 for a premade level 60 character once I've hit 70 with a normal character? It's a win for everyone, and it would not be that hard to develop.
I'm pretty much playing my horde druid now, unless a ZA or KZ run is happening, or some short queue arenas.
Monday, February 4, 2008
To Reroll or Not to Reroll, that is the question
The friends & coworkers I play with are convinced that rerolling Horde is the way to go. They're probably right - but - with so much time invested in my current Alliance characters (that I continue to enjoy playing), I'm finding it unappealing to reroll and level 1-70 all over again.
I could level my 46 Shaman and save myself 46 levels. But Shaman suck. I find them boring to play, so screw that. I've played long enough with enough alts to realize that I enjoy druids and warlocks; the rest of the classes don't appeal to me.
Well, I decided to create a horde druid and see if I can stomache the leveling process all over again. Whimzy, currently level 11, let's see if you hold my interest.
Notes so far: I enjoy a NE character model over a Cow. Shocking, I know.
I could level my 46 Shaman and save myself 46 levels. But Shaman suck. I find them boring to play, so screw that. I've played long enough with enough alts to realize that I enjoy druids and warlocks; the rest of the classes don't appeal to me.
Well, I decided to create a horde druid and see if I can stomache the leveling process all over again. Whimzy, currently level 11, let's see if you hold my interest.
Notes so far: I enjoy a NE character model over a Cow. Shocking, I know.
Friday, February 1, 2008
2.4 Patch Notes.... Sorta
Blue forum posters have been posting bits of info on upcoming 2.4 changes today. I'm not going to bother listing all of them; just go to mmo-champion for the latest and greatest.
However, he's two of my favorite upcoming changes:
- We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch.
- What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then.
Good stuff. I really hated the difference between the "estimated honor" and what you actually got. Seemed to be that you received anywhere from 10-20% less than what was estimated, likely due to the diminishing returns on honor kills.
However, he's two of my favorite upcoming changes:
- We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch.
- What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then.
Good stuff. I really hated the difference between the "estimated honor" and what you actually got. Seemed to be that you received anywhere from 10-20% less than what was estimated, likely due to the diminishing returns on honor kills.
dgks
dG Killshot Notifier - It was Dusky the other night who said over Ventrillo, "If I had to have only one addon, this would be it".
There's no other addon that I've found that adds so much fun to the game.
I'm at a loss for words on how awesome it is. It's really, really simple. For everyone who runs the addon, you get a voice notification and big text notification whenever someone gets a killing blow. The Unreal Tournament sounds are used.
It adds so much fun to any premade group as you hear "Killing spree!", "Unstoppable!", "Double kill!" and "GODLIKE!" amongst others. While as a healer, you rarely get killing blows yourself, it's still fun hearing others in your group get the kills.
BUT WAIT! There's more!!!! If you act now...
I've found that besides being fun, the mod actually helps me in arenas (especially 5v5), by increasing my situational awareness. I'm running around trying to keep opponents cycloned, rooted and teammates healed. I'm paying little, if any, attention to enemy health bars. When I hear the killshot notification go off, I get an update on how we're progressing, I get a heads up that DPS is looking for a new target. It's surprisingly useful.
You can get different voice packs here. I recommend sticking with the original voicepack.
There's no other addon that I've found that adds so much fun to the game.
I'm at a loss for words on how awesome it is. It's really, really simple. For everyone who runs the addon, you get a voice notification and big text notification whenever someone gets a killing blow. The Unreal Tournament sounds are used.
It adds so much fun to any premade group as you hear "Killing spree!", "Unstoppable!", "Double kill!" and "GODLIKE!" amongst others. While as a healer, you rarely get killing blows yourself, it's still fun hearing others in your group get the kills.
BUT WAIT! There's more!!!! If you act now...
I've found that besides being fun, the mod actually helps me in arenas (especially 5v5), by increasing my situational awareness. I'm running around trying to keep opponents cycloned, rooted and teammates healed. I'm paying little, if any, attention to enemy health bars. When I hear the killshot notification go off, I get an update on how we're progressing, I get a heads up that DPS is looking for a new target. It's surprisingly useful.
You can get different voice packs here. I recommend sticking with the original voicepack.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
5v5 FTW?
New 5v5 team makeup: warrior x 2 (arms - no mace spec), elemental shammy, disc/holy priest and myself.
Wow, what a change. We went 8-2 for the night before it got too late and we stopped.
What worked:
- The priest main healed; this freed me up to always keep someone cycloned, helping spot heal between cyclone casts.
- The other team focused fire on the Shammy (~350 resilience, tons of armor w/ shield) or on the Priest (~350 resilience, pain suppression, fear). Those two can taking quite a bit of a beating.
What could be better:
- Mace spec! Mace spec! Two warriors and no mace spec, WTF? Those mace spec stuns, are in the words of the dgks mod, GODLIKE! (note to self: write post on DGKS). It's really because neither of them has a halfway decent mace or the honor points or arena points to buy one.
- Roots! I should cast roots in addition to cyclone. More CC ftw.
Wow, what a change. We went 8-2 for the night before it got too late and we stopped.
What worked:
- The priest main healed; this freed me up to always keep someone cycloned, helping spot heal between cyclone casts.
- The other team focused fire on the Shammy (~350 resilience, tons of armor w/ shield) or on the Priest (~350 resilience, pain suppression, fear). Those two can taking quite a bit of a beating.
What could be better:
- Mace spec! Mace spec! Two warriors and no mace spec, WTF? Those mace spec stuns, are in the words of the dgks mod, GODLIKE! (note to self: write post on DGKS). It's really because neither of them has a halfway decent mace or the honor points or arena points to buy one.
- Roots! I should cast roots in addition to cyclone. More CC ftw.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday night blues
I posted a few days ago, pondering if Arena queue times are fixed. They're not.
Note to self: get at least 10 arena games in BEFORE Monday night.
13 minute 2v2 queues. 4 minute 5v5 queues.
However, if you're stuck trying to squeeze some games in on Monday night to earn some points, see if you can wait until 11pm Pacific Time. 5v5 queue times dropped from 4 minutes down to 1 minute in pretty short order. I'm sure 2v2 times were still north of 5 minutes at that time, but I was fortunate this last Monday to get 4 others for 5v5 action.
Note to self: get at least 10 arena games in BEFORE Monday night.
13 minute 2v2 queues. 4 minute 5v5 queues.
However, if you're stuck trying to squeeze some games in on Monday night to earn some points, see if you can wait until 11pm Pacific Time. 5v5 queue times dropped from 4 minutes down to 1 minute in pretty short order. I'm sure 2v2 times were still north of 5 minutes at that time, but I was fortunate this last Monday to get 4 others for 5v5 action.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Druid healing in 5v5's
Last night, I tried my hand at 5v5 as the only healer with 4 dps (warrior x 2, mage, hunter).
It did not work out well - 3 wins, 7 losses and about a 1450 rating.
A druid healer's strengths in 2v2 (and to a little bit lesser extent, 3v3) do not work well in 5v5. You can't play the LOS game in 5v5 - there's too many people, and you need to be constantly healing someone - especially if you're the only healer. HOTs take time to ramp up - 6 seconds for Rejuv + 3 x Lifebloom, plus another 2 seconds for Regrowth. Your healing target is long since dead by that point. Sure, you could skip a couple of lifeblooms and go straight for the Regrowth - but either way you're not going to outheal the combined DPS of 3 or 4 opponents.
I admit I did not play well in a number of the matches. I got caught out in the open and killed in seconds (even with 256 resilience & 9K HP). I did not cyclone nearly as much as I should have.
Our wins came when we adopted the following strategy:
- All DPS charges in, and tries to nuke the holy living hell out of a single target (preferably a healer)
- Mage attempts to sheep a DPS (then goes to nuking)
- I attempt to Cyclone a DPS, stay out of sight, and heal + cyclone.
I learned a lot on what NOT to do in 5v5's. That being said, I don't think that particular team makeup is sustainable beyond perhaps a 1600 rating. I'd prefer to swap out a DPS for a disc/holy priest. The priest could main heal, I could support heal and do a better job of keeping someone constantly cycloned.
It did not work out well - 3 wins, 7 losses and about a 1450 rating.
A druid healer's strengths in 2v2 (and to a little bit lesser extent, 3v3) do not work well in 5v5. You can't play the LOS game in 5v5 - there's too many people, and you need to be constantly healing someone - especially if you're the only healer. HOTs take time to ramp up - 6 seconds for Rejuv + 3 x Lifebloom, plus another 2 seconds for Regrowth. Your healing target is long since dead by that point. Sure, you could skip a couple of lifeblooms and go straight for the Regrowth - but either way you're not going to outheal the combined DPS of 3 or 4 opponents.
I admit I did not play well in a number of the matches. I got caught out in the open and killed in seconds (even with 256 resilience & 9K HP). I did not cyclone nearly as much as I should have.
Our wins came when we adopted the following strategy:
- All DPS charges in, and tries to nuke the holy living hell out of a single target (preferably a healer)
- Mage attempts to sheep a DPS (then goes to nuking)
- I attempt to Cyclone a DPS, stay out of sight, and heal + cyclone.
I learned a lot on what NOT to do in 5v5's. That being said, I don't think that particular team makeup is sustainable beyond perhaps a 1600 rating. I'd prefer to swap out a DPS for a disc/holy priest. The priest could main heal, I could support heal and do a better job of keeping someone constantly cycloned.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Epic WSG
I really wish I'd remembered to take a screenshot of the final score card.
Backing up a bit, we managed to scrape up 10 people for a premade WSG group for this WSG bonus weekend. We pretty much steamrolled through our first 2 games in short order. Our 3rd game turned into an epic 33 minute non-stop combat marathon. The first cap took 27 minutes. The 2nd and 3rd cap rapidly followed as the 1st cap broke the other team's morale.
Unfortunately, it was our morale that was broken.
When I say non-stop combat marathon, I'm not kidding. We grabbed their flag, they grabbed ours. We defended our flag in our flag room (for the most part) with about 6 people as the other 4 went off to try and grab their flag back. They mounted a 25 minute non-stop attack on us in a stalemate until our priest gave up.
We had 4 healers. Good thing too, because they had a warrior in 3/5 Season 3 gear (plus Season 3 2H mace) and 2/5 Season 2 gear. He put out over 800,000 damage over the course of the game (I think it was 830,000). The next closest (also Horde) put out over 400,000. Our top damage dealer came in about 350,000.
We had the top 4 healers, each over 350,000 healing - and that doesn't count final lifebloom blooms or prayer of mending heals etc.
Nuts. It really sucked to lose that one.
Edit: Just for kicks I did the math - 830K damage over 33 minutes is 419dps for every single second of the match. Of course, he wasn't in combat every single second, so his actual dps was much much higher.
Backing up a bit, we managed to scrape up 10 people for a premade WSG group for this WSG bonus weekend. We pretty much steamrolled through our first 2 games in short order. Our 3rd game turned into an epic 33 minute non-stop combat marathon. The first cap took 27 minutes. The 2nd and 3rd cap rapidly followed as the 1st cap broke the other team's morale.
Unfortunately, it was our morale that was broken.
When I say non-stop combat marathon, I'm not kidding. We grabbed their flag, they grabbed ours. We defended our flag in our flag room (for the most part) with about 6 people as the other 4 went off to try and grab their flag back. They mounted a 25 minute non-stop attack on us in a stalemate until our priest gave up.
We had 4 healers. Good thing too, because they had a warrior in 3/5 Season 3 gear (plus Season 3 2H mace) and 2/5 Season 2 gear. He put out over 800,000 damage over the course of the game (I think it was 830,000). The next closest (also Horde) put out over 400,000. Our top damage dealer came in about 350,000.
We had the top 4 healers, each over 350,000 healing - and that doesn't count final lifebloom blooms or prayer of mending heals etc.
Nuts. It really sucked to lose that one.
Edit: Just for kicks I did the math - 830K damage over 33 minutes is 419dps for every single second of the match. Of course, he wasn't in combat every single second, so his actual dps was much much higher.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Don't do this at home. Or anywhere else. Really.
So... you're feral. You've run 5 mans, Kara and done some PVP. You've picked up a few healing pieces or hybrid pieces over time because no one else wanted them. You think, what the hell, I'll switch to resto for some crazy silly PVP success.
You think, how about a hybrid build that picks up Nurturing Instinct in the feral tree to better maximize the gear I've got? After all, with some pieces of Moonglade and Gladiator's Dragonhide, that's a lot of strength that's getting converted into +healing.
Word of advice: Don't do it. Don't, for the love of all that is holy, go with some variation of a x/23/x build.
Even if you have the best hybrid gear in the game, Nurturing Instinct still sucks (~+150 healing) and you lose way to much from either the balance or resto trees to make it worthwhile. By all means, go deep enough to pick up feral charge in the feral tree. Don't go any further. Having tried this build myself, I speak from experience. Your talent points are much better spent elsewhere.
You think, how about a hybrid build that picks up Nurturing Instinct in the feral tree to better maximize the gear I've got? After all, with some pieces of Moonglade and Gladiator's Dragonhide, that's a lot of strength that's getting converted into +healing.
Word of advice: Don't do it. Don't, for the love of all that is holy, go with some variation of a x/23/x build.
Even if you have the best hybrid gear in the game, Nurturing Instinct still sucks (~+150 healing) and you lose way to much from either the balance or resto trees to make it worthwhile. By all means, go deep enough to pick up feral charge in the feral tree. Don't go any further. Having tried this build myself, I speak from experience. Your talent points are much better spent elsewhere.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Preform AV Enabler
Download your Alliance enabled copy here. Note: use at your own risk. I've been using that copy of the mod for a number of days without any problems, but your mileage may vary.
And that obfuscation? Simple ASCII character set encoding. To be fair, there's really not much the guy could do. Since there's no compilation to a machine language binary (or, hell, even a machine agnostic intermediate language), the source code is wide open. Any competent programmer can reverse engineer the obfuscation without much difficulty, or even knowledge of Lua.
And that obfuscation? Simple ASCII character set encoding. To be fair, there's really not much the guy could do. Since there's no compilation to a machine language binary (or, hell, even a machine agnostic intermediate language), the source code is wide open. Any competent programmer can reverse engineer the obfuscation without much difficulty, or even knowledge of Lua.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Arena queues fixed?
< 1 minute 2v2 queues last night.
< 1 minute 2v2 queues 2 hours ago.
Is it too good to be true? Has Blizzard finally fixed it?
< 1 minute 2v2 queues 2 hours ago.
Is it too good to be true? Has Blizzard finally fixed it?
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