The Burrow

For our Klingon overlords here planning their invasion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100727/od_nm/us_caves

Ruby Sanctum, it’s a filler raid, it exists to give a tiny piece of lore for the upcoming expansion and to stop players unsubscribing by giving us a whole new internet dragon to kill.  However in some respects it’s better than the content which has gone before.

The trash requires some thought, particularly from the tanks in how they position and manage the knockbacks, there’s nothing like picking up an extra pack or two due to a badly handled knockback to ruin your day, and repair bill.  Of the three minibosses, two are in the “loot pinata” category.  However one again requires thought, co-ordination and a bit of planning.

However, they’re all there as a starter course for the main event, Halion himself.  Big, ugly and let’s be honest, pink.

Normal dragon rules apply, tail does a swipe, the head has some serious bad breath and he cleaves.  Healers and DPS, you do know where you’re meant to stand and it’s not at either end.

Much like a baby bad things come from the head and tail.

Phase 1

Nuke, nuke, run away when the debuff lands on your head (hope your cleansers are up to speed) and drop the puddle of bad away from the raid, ideally towards the edge.  The tank needs to move the boss when the meteor strikes leave fire in the wrong place.  Easy.  (Note: Tank here is ‘Fire Tank’ or FT)

Phase 2

There’s a couple of things to watch, the Twilight tank (TT) has to go through the portal first and pick up the boss and turn him a bit so the rest of the raid isn’t nuked as they come through.  Popping a cooldown helps the healers a lot here.  FT and possibly a healer will remain in the Fire realm as this makes the P2 -> P3 transition easier.

Some description of the twilight realm is in order, as with the fire realm we have the circular arena bounded by the walls of fire, the portal spawn points for P3 are at 11 & 5 o’clock as seen from the instance portal.  The boss will remain in the center and around the edge of the arena some shadow orbs circle the raid and boss.  (Heroic mode there are four equally spaced).

The cutter is the key to this phase and realm, evey 30 seconds for 10 seconds a beam of shadow energy fires between the two orbs, don’t be in it (14-16k damage on 25-man normal every second you’re in it).

TT will initially get his position stablised and watch for the orbs around the circle, we’ve been going for a positioning where the cutter spawns to the right of the tank with the raid to his left (the dragon’s right).  This keeps the raid clear of his tail which can ruin everyone’s day.  The TT will start moving the boss, spinning him in position clockwise, keeping the far orb and the tail as the reference point.  It’s worth using the targeting circle as a guide, but do not be on top of it as this means there is very little room for error on the cutter, so back off a bit.

Keep the boss turning, announce clearly over vent when you’re going to start moving him and keep going, focusing on positioning and as much threat as is possible while being constantly on the move.  DPS will have to watch their threat and back off, with the movement there is a limit to how much threat the tank can throw out.

Phase 3

The raid splits and dps has to be balanced between the two realms, for both tanks this is pretty much a repeat of what they’ve been doing before, slightly easier for the TT as there are less in the raid in the twilight realm giving everyone more space to move.

That’s it.  Oh and if you’re anything like me have the cold pack for your shoulders ready.

Yes it is legal to buy gold, at least until the law (and I’m considering the UK here) is changedto formally acknowledge digital goods, particularly in game as property which opens up a whole can of worms around gold taken from hacked accounts, who owns it, proving that the gold bought was the same as the gold stolen etc etc.  Until then there isn’t a law being broken.

However, will it loose you your account, entirely possibly because what has been broken is the terms of the contract between you and Blizzard.  The ToS is clear on this, as is Blizzards interpretation of them, buying in-game items for real money is a no-no (unless it’s Blizzard sanctioned).  It’s very simple, you buy gold and your account could be heading for a perma-ban.

It’s also stupid, the gold sellers are hacking accounts en-mass to provide the gold reserves they need to sell onto players who either can’t work out how to get in-game gold, too stupid to work it out or just can’t be bothered.  Hacked accounts are a bad thing, let’s not beat about the bush here, recently one of our raiding guild’s tanks got his account hacked, which probably means his computer was compromised (In the EU this comes under the various computer misuse acts which incorporate EU directives on this matter), so there is illegal activity, he had to spend time chasing down Blizz to get the situation looked at (wasted time and effort), check his machine (wasted time and effort) and cost Blizz time in going through logs of activity, resetting account details and rolling his alts back to where they were.  That’s a direct cost on Blizzard.  On the plus side in his case everything was back to normal in 48 hours (damm good effort there).

There is very little detail on what the companies selling gold are doing with their cash, you can bet that getting it back from them if your account is terminated is going to be “difficult”, and given that we are dealing with people who are willing to compromise your machine are you happy giving them your bank details, remember, they’ve probably had a keylogger installed.

I would suggest that it is safe to assume dishonest intent when dealing with gold sellers, caveat emptor applies here with a large side order of “use your brain and don’t deal with gold sellers“.

We’re firmly in the “meh” period of WoW at the moment, a mix of summer hitting availability for raiding, we’ve been staring at the same bosses in ICC since December and the Cataclysm beta is well under way and general… what’s next?

After yet another called progression raid thanks to lack of numbers, I decided to nuke the Cow druid and re-roll as a warrior gnome.  The last attempt at a warrior failed dismally, I simply couldn’t get my head around the class mechanics, the lack of in-built healing, having my arse handed to me on a more than regular basis, it just made levelling her a pain, zero fun.  I even tried boosting her to 60 via granted levels on RAF, nothing worked and a six months or so ago she was consigned to the data archive in the sky after handing over bank alt duties to the rogue (like I trust him with my pile of gold).

Anyway, a new gnomelette was rolled and she’s nuking through the levels, tanking instances, getting pretty blue gear and generally being more fun to play by far than my previous attempt.  After the first few days of levelling alone she’s been joined by SWMBO’s priest alt and they’re now rolling through Duskwood like a spiked wrecking ball.  The only death since partying up was when my tanklette took on Stitches at level 28, to help out some other players who were about to be mashed into the ground (thanks for running away guys, much appreciated, I’ll let him munch on your bones next time).

So, why is it so much better this time?  Well the nerfs and BoE heirloom gear can’t be discounted, she’s got a definite boost to her output, this helps in getting mobs down which means less munching on the floor.  However the other part of it is down to me simply being a better player than I was before, I’m a better tank than when Wrath dropped, I’m a better tank than I was before I started raiding seriously.  Moving mobs, pulling them round to avoid aggroing the extra pack, or indeed moving them to deliberately taunt in the next pack.  I’ve a better idea on how I like my keybindings setup, on all the tanking alts I have the taunts in the same place, same for the major rotation attacks, the defensive cooldowns etc.  So while the details of what they do are different the broad effect of me mashing alt-Q remains the same for example.

Assuming all goes as I expect tonight I think she’ll hit 30.  Northrend watch out, there’s a new tank on the block and she wants shinies!

and by that I mean, the slackers who can’t be arsed to sign for the reduced schedule, cancel at the last minute because you find it impossible to keep track of your game cards and so on.

The kicker comment came from one of the dps “what’s the point in killing the Lich King again”, yes I know you were in on our only kill.  You have the full achievement set, you’ve seen him dead, you don’t need to go through fight again.  Now here’s the thing, I was standby that night, my main was blocked from doing anything else because I kept him sat outside the instance doing nothing all night ready to fill in a hole if needed.

I therefore missed the kill.

I’ve been making sure I keep my other lock for another group, this is not a problem but it means I’ve not been farming the content on both locks for six months.

I’ve not killed this bastard and I want him down.

So remember the raiding guild only works because there is a suitably large pool of players who are happy or willing to cycle around and sit out where needed.  If we’re going to go down the route of “I’m not willing to do that again once I have my kill” then you’re heading to a dangerous place where only the interests of the individual are important, the other players only exist as a method by which you can get what you want.

Of course this will cut both ways in the end.

This topic has been floating around in my idea pit for a while, from when the new pets and the sparkle pony popped up on the wow store.  I admit to buying both the original pets and the pony for SWMBO.  So, my flag is firmly planted in the “I don’t see these as a problem” camp.  So let’s have a look at some of the arguments against these items.

• They take development effort away from the game as a whole
  Unlikely in my view, given that we have now had several rounds of these items appearing I think it’s safe to say that there is a dedicated sub-team which is tasked with generating virtual items for sale on the Blizz site.  So we have a couple of coders, some artists and sound engineers creating the content.  Some test time, probably rolled up on their normal process.  Self funding and feeding, unless I’m getting my mental estimates very very wrong, cash into the business as a whole some of which will be pure profit and some will be going to support the ongoing development of the game.Removing the sale of the items from the plan would not necessarily mean the staff are kept on wow, remain employed by Blizz or indeed have any impact on the game.
• Blizzard said they would never sell items
  They also said that race change, faction change, changing the look of your toon would also never happen.  They’re a company, in this business to make money by keeping their player base happy.They also have sold items via the gaming cards for some time now, they’re not as obvious because they’re only a chance to get the mount / pet / item but it’s the same principle.
• It’s pets now, it’ll be armour next
  I don’t think so, everything which has been done to date has no practical effect in game.  Unless you count the approx 250g saved in game for each toon leveled from 1 – 80 on purchasing mounts.  Moving to a model where game affecting items are available for money would be a major shift from them, I’m not saying they’re going to do this, I am saying I think it’s unlikely.  However if you had asked me last month if they were aiming to make my name public I would have said “not a chance, they’re not that stupid”.
• They’re going to start selling gold
  Again I doubt it, there is a big enough problem with inflation within the game already, to the point where it can be seen that they’re deliberately breaking certain markets up because the prices those materials can hold are significantly above the norm.  Letting players buy gold would reduce the amount people are playing, it would remove the desire to keep renewing while grinding gold to get the current must have mount.

So on balance I do not think that the RMT that Blizz has brought into the game so far is a killer, everything is optional, even the slight gold saving on the mount over time is nothing compared with the gold a level 80 can grind in an hour on dailies.  As always I’m watching with interest to see where this is going, Blizz have seen a massive level of interest in these items which has probably surpassed their expectations (estimations have put the gross from the steed at millions of dollars).

They’re going to want more of this, but will they get greedy?

Sapphiron : Mages, please do not iceblock when the dragon goes up, as confusion can occur when everyone goes to hide behind iceblocks, and then die because you decided to add an extra one into the mix.  Use your legs like everyone else.

Sartharion : Ubergeared warrior dps, if you’re going to wallop the boss so hard during a 3D zerg attempt please be standing on the other side of the boss to everyone else, so when the big ugly dragon turns to you and burps we don’t end up with the entire raid being cooked.

The summer is getting to the guild quite significantly, there’s a general air of “Meh”, we have lack of numbers even for the Wednesday raid (Team Tank filled the dps gaps again), and one of the core dps has announced an intention to leave the game / greatly reduce this play time (external to wow reasons).

This week’s raiding has been juggled so we get to see Arthas again given that we’ve only killed him twice as a group, I’ve not been in on either which combined with keeping the 10-man lock for Team Pirate means no achivement OCD satisfaction for me or title.  Hopefully this gets resolved tonight and we go for another dragon kill down at the Sanctum, possible some heroic training.

So, with Cataclysm coming where does this leave things?

It’s clear from the realm itself that things are very very quiet.

EO is having problems getting enough players online, even for the reduced summer schedule (Saturday is on hiatus for the moment), typically from the dps team which tends to mean we have a player or two from team tank filling in the gaps (just as well I didn’t keep the healing off spec).

Very few pugs for the weekly raid, whereas a couple of months ago /trade was spammed with them all week, the heroic queues for healers are up (4 minutes or so), though slightly perversely the queue times for dps are actually down, but I guess that’s also a sign of the number of players who are just not in the system at the moment.  I’m seeing a lot of activity down in the levelling zones, so a stack of players are off getting an alt or two levelled up and shedloads more RP (I play on an RP PvE realm).

What’s coming which will bring the players back?

• Dragon lead destruction and the lead up event (that’s a no brainer)
• Reclaiming Gnomer and the Troll homeland (I’ll be playing on my horde alt for that as well)
• Cataclysm itself
• Nothing else I can think of

So enjoy the quiet while it lasts.

Westboro Baptist Church has decided to add to it’s list of hate targets, the LGBT community is no longer alone it is joined by the Geeks as they’ve decided to picket Comic-Con, that well known pool of human depravity.  So here’s the thing, these comic geeks, they’re not raising Batman up as an Idol, or worshipping him, some of them will be regular church/mosque/temple/stone ring in the forest goers, no not all of them worship your version of reglion.

Get over it.

They’re not asking you to start worshiping Hobbits, or fear the second coming of Felix the Cat, they’re wanting to get together, have a good few days meeting up with old friends, new friends, random people they meet in the bar and generally doing the things done at large fan conventions.

So, again, get over it, get over yourselves and go check your own behaviour.

[Edit: while I’m at it…]

The nutters are out in force at the moment, Ursula Vernon (got some of her stuff on the wall at home) has been identified by this bunch of loonies (http://www.watchmanscry.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11338)

The concensus within WoW is that there is a tank shortage, the designers built wrath around a tank shortage (enter the DK), there is also a shortage of healers, not as huge but it’s there.

I disagree, there is no shortage of players who play healing and tanking toons, who spend a lot of time on them.

Let us look at two guilds, firstly Team Pirate.  This is a small guild of 10 active players, we manage to get into some 10-man content.  Currently the guild has access to three tanks who are geared enough for ICC10 (a total of 6 players with tanking alts capable of at least all the Wrath 5-man heroic content) and five ICC10 geared healers (I think seven players with healing alts capable of Wrath 5-man heroic content).  We are at the point where there’s rotation going on to bring in the alts on ICC10 runs just for fun and frolics.

Secondly there’s the 25-man raiding guild.  I’m not sure about alts but we’re running with a 6-man tanking team and a 8-man healing team.  Team tank has an almost 100% attendance record.  We’re there, we’re tanking boss and we’re sitting standby / filling in as dps where needed.

What is the problem?

PUGs, it’s as simple as that.

Pugging is brutal on tanks, there are some runs which are a breeze, but then there are the others, the horrible runs.  The runs where the DPS are yelling “gogogogooo” the instant the tank zones in, the runs where the dps are already pulling or ripping aggro with suicide storm (or other aoe of choice) on trash packs, “helping” the tank by pulling the next trash ready for the tank to speed things up.

All the while complaining, about the speed, about why the tank isn’t keeping aggro.

These aren’t the bottom of the pile but personally I’ve not encountered “puggus insultinus” in any of my runs yet but the likes of dear_gnome are full of stories of complete fail where the only responses are insulting at best and worryingly abusive at worst.

So, everyone in dpsland, we understand your queue times are horrible (I’ve sat there as well on my caster alts) but if you want more tanks to queue make it less of a pain for them to do so.

A bit of balance

To all elitist “you need me more than I need you” tanks, please go die in a fire, a big one.  You are entitlement morons of the first order.  Just because we’re a role which is in demand doesn’t make us “better” than the other players.  Stop giving us a bad name.