For a mere 15k gold (average price, give or take some depending on server pricing), you can own your very own eHarley: the Mechano-Hog or a Mekgineer's Chopper. By the numbers, these fantasy world cycles are essentially Engineering specific ground mounts, and they're BoE so anyone can have one. Another mount. Big deal, right?
Ah, but it's oh so much more than that.
See, unless Blizz changes these cycles, they're actually vehicles. Not a mounts.
Vehicles =/= Mounts.
The difference?
For one thing, a vehicle has Hit Points. So when you jump off a cliff or fall off Dalaran (who would do such a thing?!) the vehicle takes damage, not you. If you've ever jumped off a cliff while riding your mount, you'll notice that your faithful steed disappears upon impact if you've fallen a great distance. You'll also notice that you're probably dead and running back in spirit form.
Secondly, its nearly impossible to target the player driving the vehicle.
Thirdly, the vehicle is immune to almost all cc's and snares. Frost Nova, Sap, Crippling Poison, Hamstring all fail on this amazing piece of equipment.
Lastly, it can be used in the Arena.
By now, the little gears in your head should probably be whirring faster and faster, with the thought process going something like this:
"So basically, its a mount that I can use in the arena, will protect me from many forms of cc/snares, will protect me from damage until it's HP is reduced to zero, and it lets me kite people until I choose to get off and fight?"
Yeah, basically.
In one of our matches this weekend on the RoL map, the combat went like this:
I started this match on my Hawg and waited in the starting cubby for the go ahead to come out. As we only saw a Priest, we assumed Rogue/Priest and shortly after mounting up, I got Sapped. In response, I simply drove off. Mr. Rogue then tried to Cheap Shot me (still driving), Sprint to catch up (driving in circles around the Tomb at this point), Vanish and Cheap Shot again, (still driving). At this point, I got feared by the Priest and the Rogue was trying to get to me while being Chains of Ice'd by my DK buddy. Fear wore off and I drove all the way back to my starting cubby. The rogue, at this point, burned Prep to Vanish once again, to peel my DK buddy off his Priest, which in turn got me to come out to start healing. The opposing Priest was able to get a bit of distance from the DK as I couldn't dispel Crippling while he could dispel Chains of Ice and the Rogue turned to try to pressure me. Instead of using Sprint again, he popped Nitro Boosts... which saw me popping Nitro Boosts as well. I think I did 2 laps around the Tomb before he Stealthed and caught me (I should have used SW:Pain to tag him, but by then, his Priest was dead and he was quickly Death Gripped into a couple of RNG Death and Decay glyph fears.
The MVP for our run to Deadly boots?
Hog.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
IIIII'm Fifty!
Molly Shannon used to do this skit on SNL where she played a middle aged woman who would proclaim at various intervals "IIIII'm fifty!" while jumping around, doing splits, lunges and showing a lot of moose knuckle. Yeah, you probably tuned out that crazy amount of knuckle-age as did I, but a recent viewing of a Youtube clip made me do a deja vu shudder.
/Shudder
Anyways, this is post number fifty since I started the blog, and while fifty posts may not be anything phenomenal, seeing as though we have some hyper prolific writers out there with more posts in a single day than I'll generate in a week, to me, it seems like somewhat of a milestone. If only Blizzard gave out Proto Drakes for this literary Achievement...
I'd like to thank our readers for commenting on our posts, as they often give us more inspiration and insight to the various topics I post about. I've tried to keep the quality of writing up, and at the same time, tried to add a little bit of humor here and there. Hopefully, it's working, because I've enjoyed the challenge.
There have been some thoughts about trying harder to become a WoW blog for the masses, a la BRK or World of Matticus, and for a while I did try to get on people's blogrolls via commenting and such. At the same time there were also some thoughts about getting a co/guest writer to help broaden the scope of what I like to post about. However, I truly think that our style of writing is a bit different from the other mainstream WoW blogs out and that many of the people reading and posting commentary on those blogs wouldn't enjoy our content. I also like being in control of what's posted under our header, so for the forseeable future, its just you, me and my sultry words of bromance.
All that being said, thanks, again, for swinging by!
Chu has earned the Achievement [50 Posts]!
/Shudder
Anyways, this is post number fifty since I started the blog, and while fifty posts may not be anything phenomenal, seeing as though we have some hyper prolific writers out there with more posts in a single day than I'll generate in a week, to me, it seems like somewhat of a milestone. If only Blizzard gave out Proto Drakes for this literary Achievement...
I'd like to thank our readers for commenting on our posts, as they often give us more inspiration and insight to the various topics I post about. I've tried to keep the quality of writing up, and at the same time, tried to add a little bit of humor here and there. Hopefully, it's working, because I've enjoyed the challenge.
There have been some thoughts about trying harder to become a WoW blog for the masses, a la BRK or World of Matticus, and for a while I did try to get on people's blogrolls via commenting and such. At the same time there were also some thoughts about getting a co/guest writer to help broaden the scope of what I like to post about. However, I truly think that our style of writing is a bit different from the other mainstream WoW blogs out and that many of the people reading and posting commentary on those blogs wouldn't enjoy our content. I also like being in control of what's posted under our header, so for the forseeable future, its just you, me and my sultry words of bromance.
All that being said, thanks, again, for swinging by!
Chu has earned the Achievement [50 Posts]!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Fun PvP moment in AV
Everyone has those days in a BG or a raid/heroic where someone does something amazingly smart, silly, stupid or just plain awesome and that action evokes a response; a laugh, a chuckle, or tirades over vent about why only bad players run to the wrong polarity on Thaddius. Every now and then, there's a scene that combines all four that just makes you stop and reflect on what just happened. This is one such event, and while I can't do it justice with my storytelling, I'll certainly try my best.
Location: Alterac Valley
Alterac Valley (AV) for Horde is often a fruitless endeavor that rarely ever succeeds without some strong defense at Frostwolf Relief Hut due to the layout of the stronghold and the lack of a Bridge of Death or other similar defensible passages. One such passage where the Alliance often has their last stand, is the deep channel pathway right before Stormpike Graveyard that the Horde, in their collective mental retardation, love to pile into, only to get stymied long enough for the Alliance Offense to casually take all 4 Horde towers and kill Drek'thar.
One of the more interesting terrain points is found while running up the slope to Stormpike. One can veer left and find themselves standing on a cliff overlooking Stormpike Graveyard (SP GY). The cool thing about this place is that there's no easy way for the Alliance to get into melee range, if you are standing up there and they're standing by the GY flag. If you're a ranged dps class or healer, you can essentially free cast, drink, and free cast again. ad infinitum.
At least until someone figures out what you're up to and decides to try to stop you.
In this particular AV, the Horde were, once again, completely jock-blocked at SP. I was up on the cliff overlooking SP, working my way towards 1 million healing done in a BG when I spot a Warlock also on the cliff stacking dots on anything that got into range. The thing about where he was positioning himself was that he wasn't standing far back and hiding behind the terrain, but he was right up against the edge of the cliff aggressively dotting. This was helpful against Warriors as they would Charge/Intercept him and then fall off the cliff since he was right up to the edge. I think he was Haunt specced and he managed to keep himself alive pretty well, primarily though the various HP restoring spells and his use of Demonic Circle, which was placed away from the action. Several times, he would jump down, pop an instant Howl and then 'port back up.
Cool.
I like playing with someone who understands using the terrain to their advantage.
I started focusing heals into this Lock and the Alliance began to notice that this particular agent of slow nasty death was burning through their defenses and not dying. Several Warriors and Rogues managed to get up to the cliff, where they were subsequently and unceremoniously Mind Controlled back down to ground level.
Then it happened. A little Gnome Frost Mage managed to get up on to the cliff and started working us over with snares and Shatters while an Arcane Mage pelted us with Barrages at the bottom of the cliff. After barely surviving back to back Improved Counterspells, I resolved to throw the offending midget off the cliff and into the ravenous masses of Horde. The moment my Mind Control hit, the Mind Controlled Gnome got Death Gripped by an Alliance Death Knight from max distance, creating this nice pretty flying Gnome effect. At the apex of his flight, fireworks appeared from the base of the cliff... in the form of Barrage + PoM Pyro, slamming into the flying Mage. Yep. The Alliance Arcane Mage that was working us over with mindless Barrage Spam, 2 shotted our little Frost assailant.
We /cheer'd him and he /cheer'd us, and naturally, as it usually goes with Horde, we went on to lose AV.
Location: Alterac Valley
Alterac Valley (AV) for Horde is often a fruitless endeavor that rarely ever succeeds without some strong defense at Frostwolf Relief Hut due to the layout of the stronghold and the lack of a Bridge of Death or other similar defensible passages. One such passage where the Alliance often has their last stand, is the deep channel pathway right before Stormpike Graveyard that the Horde, in their collective mental retardation, love to pile into, only to get stymied long enough for the Alliance Offense to casually take all 4 Horde towers and kill Drek'thar.
One of the more interesting terrain points is found while running up the slope to Stormpike. One can veer left and find themselves standing on a cliff overlooking Stormpike Graveyard (SP GY). The cool thing about this place is that there's no easy way for the Alliance to get into melee range, if you are standing up there and they're standing by the GY flag. If you're a ranged dps class or healer, you can essentially free cast, drink, and free cast again. ad infinitum.
At least until someone figures out what you're up to and decides to try to stop you.
In this particular AV, the Horde were, once again, completely jock-blocked at SP. I was up on the cliff overlooking SP, working my way towards 1 million healing done in a BG when I spot a Warlock also on the cliff stacking dots on anything that got into range. The thing about where he was positioning himself was that he wasn't standing far back and hiding behind the terrain, but he was right up against the edge of the cliff aggressively dotting. This was helpful against Warriors as they would Charge/Intercept him and then fall off the cliff since he was right up to the edge. I think he was Haunt specced and he managed to keep himself alive pretty well, primarily though the various HP restoring spells and his use of Demonic Circle, which was placed away from the action. Several times, he would jump down, pop an instant Howl and then 'port back up.
Cool.
I like playing with someone who understands using the terrain to their advantage.
I started focusing heals into this Lock and the Alliance began to notice that this particular agent of slow nasty death was burning through their defenses and not dying. Several Warriors and Rogues managed to get up to the cliff, where they were subsequently and unceremoniously Mind Controlled back down to ground level.
Then it happened. A little Gnome Frost Mage managed to get up on to the cliff and started working us over with snares and Shatters while an Arcane Mage pelted us with Barrages at the bottom of the cliff. After barely surviving back to back Improved Counterspells, I resolved to throw the offending midget off the cliff and into the ravenous masses of Horde. The moment my Mind Control hit, the Mind Controlled Gnome got Death Gripped by an Alliance Death Knight from max distance, creating this nice pretty flying Gnome effect. At the apex of his flight, fireworks appeared from the base of the cliff... in the form of Barrage + PoM Pyro, slamming into the flying Mage. Yep. The Alliance Arcane Mage that was working us over with mindless Barrage Spam, 2 shotted our little Frost assailant.
We /cheer'd him and he /cheer'd us, and naturally, as it usually goes with Horde, we went on to lose AV.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Gearing Up - a Pseudo Guide for new PvP Priests
For the release of LK, the only real sources for post leveling PvE gear were Heroics and Raids. For raiders and non PvPers, this was an ideal situation, as badge gear was readily attainable and the gear requirements for the entry raids were not prohibitive. As mentioned in a prior post, if you make it easy enough, people will consume the content, en masse.
Unfortunately, for PvPers, the PvE-speed-badge/easy-raid-grind PvP equivalent, aka “Welfare (PvP) Epic Honor Grind” didn’t happen. What was the Welfare Epic grind that was so prevalent in Season 3 and 4 of Burning Crusade? That grind was when new 70’s would dive into a weekly Kara for badges for their cloak and trinket and PvP like mad for S2 gear and still be fairly well off in terms of PvP viability.
So why didn’t it happen? Well, due to various factors, it wasn’t quite repeatable here at the start of LK. Sure, one could sit in BG’s for days grinding honor for the buyable honor gear set (Savage Gladiator), but people for the most part didn’t. Why? It sucks. Which part? All of it. Becaaaauuusseee:
1) The honor based PvP gear is both exceedingly expensive as an honor purchase and still semi equivalent to the (cheap) crafted PvP set.
2) The honor gear, for some classes, is terrible for starter PvP. Equivalent Heroic instance and raid drops are often better until acquisition of top end PvP gear is possible. Sometimes even Deadly gear is eschewed for high end raid gear.
3) The current honor cap is 75k. This means you can usually only buy 1 piece of gear at a time, because each piece now costs over 35k honor/piece.
3a) The off set pieces (neck, back, bracer, belt, boot, ring) for both the Hateful and Deadly PvP sets all require a great deal of Honor, and one doesn’t want to be caught in the situation where they have just purchased a piece of Savage gear only to be forced to grind honor for a few days when the reach a milestone rating and get the privilege to buy a piece of Deadly gear.
Those reasons were enough for many people to not grind for PvP gear. To reiterate point 2, for some of the classes out there, the attainable PvP gear out there is a strict downgrade as their survivability and arena function doesn’t change whether or not they have 200 or 400 resilience, due to the resilience cap being upwards of 1200.
However, the flip side of this is that for other classes, Resilience and Stamina is everything to their survival and function in the arena. Sadly, the Priest is one of those classes and just looking at the possible avenues to getting gearing up for PvP, one can definitely start feeling overwhelmed very quickly.
To that end, this is somewhat of a guide for those who want to gear up quickly for PvP and are playing a class that has limited survivability such as a Priest. Each point, while listed by number is equally important. Just following a couple points of the list, while ignoring other points will not get you very far. Let’s reiterate the key point: This is for classes that have limited survivability. Classes with outs such as Iceblock, Vanish, Divine Shield, should move along.
1. Honor grind. Recognize that some pieces of PvP gear will require you to spend massive amounts of honor to obtain them. These are the Hateful and Deadly offset pieces (neck, back, bracer, belt, boot, ring). If you know you can hit the rating requirements for Deadly, don’t buy the Hateful gear. Hateful would only be a waste of your time. The only caveat is the scenario where you need some Hateful gear to be able to reach the Deadly ratings. This is more likely to occur towards the end of the season. If you plan on wearing 2 resilience rings, grab the Hateful ring first.
2. Craft. Craft as much PvP gear as possible. While Brutal Gladiator gear is reasonable for pieces that aren’t craftable, it will often have less Stamina and less Resilience than the new craftables, not to mention the new stuff will likely have more spellpower/strength/agility, etc. More resilience will allow you to use a playstyle more coherent with your final gear later down the road.
3. Wintergrasp. Wintergrasp is not only a huge source of easy honor, (I think I’ve only ever seen 1 successful defense, so it’s guaranteed honor if you’re on Offense) but it’s also a good source of PvP gear. Besides the fact that Wintergrasp Marks will soon be able to be used for some reasonable helms and boots, control of the zone allows you access to another raid instance: the Vault of Archavon. Vault (as it’s known) is basically 4 trash pulls and then an absurdly easy boss. The boss has a chance to drop both PvE and PvP gear, of Glove, Leg and Chest variety; Vault 10 drops Hateful/Heroic gear, Vault 25 drops Deadly/Valorous gear. You definitely want to run both every week. No question about it. However, many people run it incorrectly and in turn, screw themselves out of gear.
To run it optimally, make a 10 man raid (grab friends if you can) that contain 1 of each class, regardless of spec. To fill the spots, just spam /2 chat in a major city with something that reads like this “LFM 10 man Vault 1 of each class” and I guarantee that you will have people whispering you for spots. Why? Because people are greedy… And because the boss doesn’t drop tokens for gear like every other raid. It drops the actual piece of gear that’s restricted to a specific class. For example, on one raid, the Heroic Mooncloth Gloves of Faith (Priest T7.10) may drop and if you don’t have a Priest on hand, you’ve just wasted a piece of gear. Conversely, since you’re also as greedy as the next guy and you’ve constructed the raid with just one of each class, if any of your class’ gear drops, its all you, baybee. Just remember: 1 MT, 1 OT (often a melee plate DPS, not necessarily tank specced), 2 healers and 6 DPS.
This raid composition strategy is possible for 25 mans, but a little less so due to the number of available people at any given point.
4. PvE. Bwuh? Yep. To PvP, you’ve GOT to PvE. This is probably one of the biggest gripes I have with the current environment, but easily accessible raid instances have some of the best weapons out there. Titansteel Guardian/Prison Manifest have nothing on the Staff of Restraint from OS 25. Yet, many of these raids take minutes to run. Minutes. Not hours. In addition, just by PvEing, you can load up on badges, Badges of Heroism (Heroic/10 man badges) and Badges of Valor (25 man). For the Beginner, Naxx 10 gives 6 badges for the two easy wings, OS 10 gives 4 badges per clear, Vault 10 gives 1 and the daily Heroic dungeon is at minimum 5 badges. The same is true for the 25 man badges, sans the daily Heroic dungeon. At the least you should be getting 11 badges a week of both types. The kicker is that these badges aren’t just to buy PvE gear. For 30 Badges of Heroism you can buy the Savage Gladiator shoulders or gloves. For 45 badges, you’re looking at the Helm, Chest or Legs. The same applies to Badges of Valor and Hateful Gladiator gear. However, consider weekly Vault drops prior to gear purchases.
Unfortunately, for PvPers, the PvE-speed-badge/easy-raid-grind PvP equivalent, aka “Welfare (PvP) Epic Honor Grind” didn’t happen. What was the Welfare Epic grind that was so prevalent in Season 3 and 4 of Burning Crusade? That grind was when new 70’s would dive into a weekly Kara for badges for their cloak and trinket and PvP like mad for S2 gear and still be fairly well off in terms of PvP viability.
So why didn’t it happen? Well, due to various factors, it wasn’t quite repeatable here at the start of LK. Sure, one could sit in BG’s for days grinding honor for the buyable honor gear set (Savage Gladiator), but people for the most part didn’t. Why? It sucks. Which part? All of it. Becaaaauuusseee:
1) The honor based PvP gear is both exceedingly expensive as an honor purchase and still semi equivalent to the (cheap) crafted PvP set.
2) The honor gear, for some classes, is terrible for starter PvP. Equivalent Heroic instance and raid drops are often better until acquisition of top end PvP gear is possible. Sometimes even Deadly gear is eschewed for high end raid gear.
3) The current honor cap is 75k. This means you can usually only buy 1 piece of gear at a time, because each piece now costs over 35k honor/piece.
3a) The off set pieces (neck, back, bracer, belt, boot, ring) for both the Hateful and Deadly PvP sets all require a great deal of Honor, and one doesn’t want to be caught in the situation where they have just purchased a piece of Savage gear only to be forced to grind honor for a few days when the reach a milestone rating and get the privilege to buy a piece of Deadly gear.
Those reasons were enough for many people to not grind for PvP gear. To reiterate point 2, for some of the classes out there, the attainable PvP gear out there is a strict downgrade as their survivability and arena function doesn’t change whether or not they have 200 or 400 resilience, due to the resilience cap being upwards of 1200.
However, the flip side of this is that for other classes, Resilience and Stamina is everything to their survival and function in the arena. Sadly, the Priest is one of those classes and just looking at the possible avenues to getting gearing up for PvP, one can definitely start feeling overwhelmed very quickly.
To that end, this is somewhat of a guide for those who want to gear up quickly for PvP and are playing a class that has limited survivability such as a Priest. Each point, while listed by number is equally important. Just following a couple points of the list, while ignoring other points will not get you very far. Let’s reiterate the key point: This is for classes that have limited survivability. Classes with outs such as Iceblock, Vanish, Divine Shield, should move along.
1. Honor grind. Recognize that some pieces of PvP gear will require you to spend massive amounts of honor to obtain them. These are the Hateful and Deadly offset pieces (neck, back, bracer, belt, boot, ring). If you know you can hit the rating requirements for Deadly, don’t buy the Hateful gear. Hateful would only be a waste of your time. The only caveat is the scenario where you need some Hateful gear to be able to reach the Deadly ratings. This is more likely to occur towards the end of the season. If you plan on wearing 2 resilience rings, grab the Hateful ring first.
2. Craft. Craft as much PvP gear as possible. While Brutal Gladiator gear is reasonable for pieces that aren’t craftable, it will often have less Stamina and less Resilience than the new craftables, not to mention the new stuff will likely have more spellpower/strength/agility, etc. More resilience will allow you to use a playstyle more coherent with your final gear later down the road.
3. Wintergrasp. Wintergrasp is not only a huge source of easy honor, (I think I’ve only ever seen 1 successful defense, so it’s guaranteed honor if you’re on Offense) but it’s also a good source of PvP gear. Besides the fact that Wintergrasp Marks will soon be able to be used for some reasonable helms and boots, control of the zone allows you access to another raid instance: the Vault of Archavon. Vault (as it’s known) is basically 4 trash pulls and then an absurdly easy boss. The boss has a chance to drop both PvE and PvP gear, of Glove, Leg and Chest variety; Vault 10 drops Hateful/Heroic gear, Vault 25 drops Deadly/Valorous gear. You definitely want to run both every week. No question about it. However, many people run it incorrectly and in turn, screw themselves out of gear.
To run it optimally, make a 10 man raid (grab friends if you can) that contain 1 of each class, regardless of spec. To fill the spots, just spam /2 chat in a major city with something that reads like this “LFM 10 man Vault 1 of each class” and I guarantee that you will have people whispering you for spots. Why? Because people are greedy… And because the boss doesn’t drop tokens for gear like every other raid. It drops the actual piece of gear that’s restricted to a specific class. For example, on one raid, the Heroic Mooncloth Gloves of Faith (Priest T7.10) may drop and if you don’t have a Priest on hand, you’ve just wasted a piece of gear. Conversely, since you’re also as greedy as the next guy and you’ve constructed the raid with just one of each class, if any of your class’ gear drops, its all you, baybee. Just remember: 1 MT, 1 OT (often a melee plate DPS, not necessarily tank specced), 2 healers and 6 DPS.
This raid composition strategy is possible for 25 mans, but a little less so due to the number of available people at any given point.
4. PvE. Bwuh? Yep. To PvP, you’ve GOT to PvE. This is probably one of the biggest gripes I have with the current environment, but easily accessible raid instances have some of the best weapons out there. Titansteel Guardian/Prison Manifest have nothing on the Staff of Restraint from OS 25. Yet, many of these raids take minutes to run. Minutes. Not hours. In addition, just by PvEing, you can load up on badges, Badges of Heroism (Heroic/10 man badges) and Badges of Valor (25 man). For the Beginner, Naxx 10 gives 6 badges for the two easy wings, OS 10 gives 4 badges per clear, Vault 10 gives 1 and the daily Heroic dungeon is at minimum 5 badges. The same is true for the 25 man badges, sans the daily Heroic dungeon. At the least you should be getting 11 badges a week of both types. The kicker is that these badges aren’t just to buy PvE gear. For 30 Badges of Heroism you can buy the Savage Gladiator shoulders or gloves. For 45 badges, you’re looking at the Helm, Chest or Legs. The same applies to Badges of Valor and Hateful Gladiator gear. However, consider weekly Vault drops prior to gear purchases.
There you go, that's how I've gotten to around 800 Resilience in a few weeks. It could have been faster, but, I imagine S5 will be long enough, so it shouldn't matter at all... Unless, of course, you're damn impatient, like me.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Did Blizzard Screw up? Malygos 10 Commentary
This is not a boast post, but at this point in the game, a month and a half after the release of WotLK, I, a casual raider and PvP enthusiast have completed 5/6 of the game's possible raids. With PuGs. I suppose that you could say that I haven't taken down 25 Naxx fully because I don't care to spend hours upon hours of playing 'lets wipe' with a rotating roster of PuGhhhhs, but really, Naxx 25 is so much easier than Naxx 10, just by virtue of having more DPS. The only hard part is herding the cats to actually start the pulls.
...And of course making sure that the cats aren't brain dead zombie kitties who like to stand in the fire helps as well.
Again, not a boast post, but really, the question is, "What now?"
I'll be blunt here, and please do tell me if my reasoning is flawed.
Blizzard, from a long term financial point of view, did themselves a disservice with the introductory raids and because of this, probably cost them more long term subscribers.
The rationale is as such: Aside from Malygos 25 and OS with drakes up, all of the bosses in the introductory raids are easy execution fights. There are no high level gear checks and as such, there are no extreme DPS or Healer fights. Malygos 10 is somewhat of a gear check, but not entirely. At my current gear point, which is all Naxx 10 stuff with some 25 man stuff, I can easily heal through all of the content. As long as I have competent teammates, there is no overwhelming urge for gear so that I can 'save the raid'. Perhaps for other people, getting all super uber gear is the most important factor, but for me, the casual raider, this is enough.
As a healer, I'm probably seeing this effective cap phenomenon in a different light than most other roles, as my results are largely unmeasurable as compared to the 'damage taken' or the 'damage per second' statistics. However, if history is of any indicator and the stories of Raid participation declining after completing content is true, I'm probably not the only one to feel like there's not much more to shoot for. Ulduar coming out soon? I expect to be able to PuG that, too, on day one because healing Naxx 25 was a joke and if there's content that requires more than half my mana pool in a 25 man raid, I'll be surprisingly amused.
Here's the kicker: If I wasn't a PvPer at heart, I'd probably have quit by now out of sheer boredom, because jumping between the beams on top of Org bank is only fun for the first hundred thousand times. Not Horde? Ever square jump in Ironforge? Yeah, same thing. If I can feel this way, I'm sure there are many others who feel the same.
Scarily enough, this is the closest I've ever come to completing all available content, and it's not a good feeling. Keep in mind that I'm not a hard core raider, nor ever aspire to be, and nearly all of my raid experiences have been with PuGs. If I'm this apathetic about continuing to do completed content when it's not a challenge, I can't even begin to understand what the hardcore raiders are experiencing.
Although I'm all for discrediting Blizzard with their mistakes, I do have to commend them for the Malygos fight. It's incredibly fun and its one of the few fights that really highlights each and every class out there such that a 10 man raid with one of every class would actually do very well. Well, except for Warlocks, but I guess a healthstone is better than nothing. Sorry, Warlocks.
Simply, Malygos is a tank and spank DPS race. It is NOT a healer fight as people have claimed. Yes, there is a lot of damage to be healed in Phase 1 and 2, but its entirely predictable, unless Malygos eats a spark. Guild can't do Gluth? Forget about Malygos (besides that whole key issue). Vortex, for all its vaunted claims of being hard to heal through is only hard if people don't pre-heal with hots. Don't have a Priest and a Druid? Maybe it's time to recruit. Sorry, Pallies.
So if the fight isn't about healing, then what's the difficulty? Well, The key part of this fight is that DPS needs to be very high. 2.5k + DPS is probably the minimum that you want to be able to put out for this fight. That value isn't astronomical by any means, but the only reason why I give this number is because that's what our average DPS was we had an okay buffer for the Enrage timer.
Do you need all epiczzzz for this fight? I used to think so, from all the smack that was thrown about, but the answer is an emphatic "No!" The gear assumption was the amusing thing about my Malygos 10 PuG a few days ago. There were a few blues on most of our raid except for a few characters that had obviously (gear wise) completed this content and I initially thought were were headed to Fail City (population: Us). However, much like nearly every other LK raid boss, its all in the execution.
Our first attempt as a PuG? Phase 3 and we figured out the drakes a bit too slowly. Two more silly wipes in Phase 1 due to DK power spark mismanagement and the fourth pull was all she wrote. We even lost a healer towards the end of phase 2 (not me) and managed to pull out the W.
Anyways, Happy New Years, everyone, and don't do anything that vaguely sounds like a Sons of Hodir daily quest all by your lonesome!
...And of course making sure that the cats aren't brain dead zombie kitties who like to stand in the fire helps as well.
Again, not a boast post, but really, the question is, "What now?"
I'll be blunt here, and please do tell me if my reasoning is flawed.
Blizzard, from a long term financial point of view, did themselves a disservice with the introductory raids and because of this, probably cost them more long term subscribers.
The rationale is as such: Aside from Malygos 25 and OS with drakes up, all of the bosses in the introductory raids are easy execution fights. There are no high level gear checks and as such, there are no extreme DPS or Healer fights. Malygos 10 is somewhat of a gear check, but not entirely. At my current gear point, which is all Naxx 10 stuff with some 25 man stuff, I can easily heal through all of the content. As long as I have competent teammates, there is no overwhelming urge for gear so that I can 'save the raid'. Perhaps for other people, getting all super uber gear is the most important factor, but for me, the casual raider, this is enough.
As a healer, I'm probably seeing this effective cap phenomenon in a different light than most other roles, as my results are largely unmeasurable as compared to the 'damage taken' or the 'damage per second' statistics. However, if history is of any indicator and the stories of Raid participation declining after completing content is true, I'm probably not the only one to feel like there's not much more to shoot for. Ulduar coming out soon? I expect to be able to PuG that, too, on day one because healing Naxx 25 was a joke and if there's content that requires more than half my mana pool in a 25 man raid, I'll be surprisingly amused.
Here's the kicker: If I wasn't a PvPer at heart, I'd probably have quit by now out of sheer boredom, because jumping between the beams on top of Org bank is only fun for the first hundred thousand times. Not Horde? Ever square jump in Ironforge? Yeah, same thing. If I can feel this way, I'm sure there are many others who feel the same.
Scarily enough, this is the closest I've ever come to completing all available content, and it's not a good feeling. Keep in mind that I'm not a hard core raider, nor ever aspire to be, and nearly all of my raid experiences have been with PuGs. If I'm this apathetic about continuing to do completed content when it's not a challenge, I can't even begin to understand what the hardcore raiders are experiencing.
Although I'm all for discrediting Blizzard with their mistakes, I do have to commend them for the Malygos fight. It's incredibly fun and its one of the few fights that really highlights each and every class out there such that a 10 man raid with one of every class would actually do very well. Well, except for Warlocks, but I guess a healthstone is better than nothing. Sorry, Warlocks.
Simply, Malygos is a tank and spank DPS race. It is NOT a healer fight as people have claimed. Yes, there is a lot of damage to be healed in Phase 1 and 2, but its entirely predictable, unless Malygos eats a spark. Guild can't do Gluth? Forget about Malygos (besides that whole key issue). Vortex, for all its vaunted claims of being hard to heal through is only hard if people don't pre-heal with hots. Don't have a Priest and a Druid? Maybe it's time to recruit. Sorry, Pallies.
So if the fight isn't about healing, then what's the difficulty? Well, The key part of this fight is that DPS needs to be very high. 2.5k + DPS is probably the minimum that you want to be able to put out for this fight. That value isn't astronomical by any means, but the only reason why I give this number is because that's what our average DPS was we had an okay buffer for the Enrage timer.
Do you need all epiczzzz for this fight? I used to think so, from all the smack that was thrown about, but the answer is an emphatic "No!" The gear assumption was the amusing thing about my Malygos 10 PuG a few days ago. There were a few blues on most of our raid except for a few characters that had obviously (gear wise) completed this content and I initially thought were were headed to Fail City (population: Us). However, much like nearly every other LK raid boss, its all in the execution.
Our first attempt as a PuG? Phase 3 and we figured out the drakes a bit too slowly. Two more silly wipes in Phase 1 due to DK power spark mismanagement and the fourth pull was all she wrote. We even lost a healer towards the end of phase 2 (not me) and managed to pull out the W.
Anyways, Happy New Years, everyone, and don't do anything that vaguely sounds like a Sons of Hodir daily quest all by your lonesome!
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