Tuesday 29 September 2009

Wipes: We'll Need A Clean Up On Aisle TOC!

Wiping in WOW is never fun. Actually, I can't think of any time in real life where wiping is fun unless you're a cleaning freak or something. But on WOW, a wipe is never fun. Repeated wiping is even worse. I know what you're thinking now...why is Ninja going on about this? It's obvious. Well, I'm going to tell you about my recent experiences and then look to see if the wiping did me more good than harm. Now, gather around, it's time to tell you a story.

XXL (my guild) have decided to work their way towards raiding and therefore, heroics seem like a great idea to gear up (with badges and whatnot) as well as Trial Of The Champion. Three days ago, we were fine and we did Heroic Utgarde Keep, Nexus and Gundrak. We struggled a little with the Rhino boss at the end but generally, the runs were fine and I healed my first heroic by healing for Nexus! However, the next two days would be painful. Let me explain why.

Day One started off well by blitzing through Heroic UK in no time at all. I also got to heal it so yay for more healing experience. After that, we went to go do Heroic Gundrak and it all went horribly wrong. We just kept on dying at Slad'ran. For some reason, even though we had a better tank this time round, we just couldn't do Slad at all unlike the day before. The group had three of us from the day before and we were just amazingly puzzled at how we'd done this boss yesterday fine yet today, he was a horrible snake-infested monster. We called it a day and looked to tomorrow hoping it would be better. It wasn't.

Day Two was meant to be a day of Trial farming. It was only Normal difficulty so I figured it would all be fine even though Anun (our tank) didn't have much tank experience and his gear wasn't too brilliant. I didn't mind cause we all need to learn and it was a guild run (so a nice and supportive group). We did Faction Champs and Eadric fine and then it came to the Black Knight. The first two goes, we just couldn't get past Phase Two. Next two, we got to Phase Three but wiped without getting him down loads. Final try, we got him down to low health but couldn't seal the deal. With morale already low from the Gundrak failing, I think it was safe to say this dealt a crushing blow to us.

And that's my story but the article doesn't end here. I didn't do this just so I could tell you my woes. I could come up with logical reasons why we failed (gear, experience, tactics etc...) but I'm not going to go into that. Instead, I found that while wiping regularly was very depressing, it also helped me by making me determined to learn what went wrong, to look up boss tactics again and to memorise things. It made me want to improve and become a better player. So in the end, it might have cost me a lot of confidence (and gold...I'd hate to think what the tank repair bills were like) but it also gave me some more motivation and drive to do better and succeed. Wiping actually may have done some good for me and for all the other guild folk who went on the heroic runs with me.

Do you think wiping regularly can do some good? Or is it merely highlighting how bad a group are? Does it show you that you need to gear up or does it show you that you suck as a player? What are your thoughts on wiping?




Friday 25 September 2009

Hit Cap? Is That Some Sort Of Headwear?

Well, now Mr. Ingredients has been 80 for a while and my guild is looking towards Heroics and raiding, I've realised I need to work on my gear to actually do something useful. And as I did this, I realised I encountered a new confusing world...how do I increase my dps? How do I reach the hit cap? How do I make sure I'm good enough to heal?

I looked up things on other blogs and on websites like Wowhead to help me but I still felt a little bit overwhelmed. Thankfully, I asked a WOW playing friend and they helped me get to grips with it. So now, it's just a case of getting the right gear and enchants really. However, I was still somewhat taken aback by how I felt when I first knew I'd have to improve everything since my dps was too low when I checked Recount on a heroic training dummy.

I managed to feel like a total "noob" again. It reminded me of my novice days when I wandered around Mulgore for the first time and everything was shiny new and exciting and a bit scary too. However, I have a question for anyone who reads this article.

Do you feel there's enough advice and info out there for fresh 80's who are trying to make the leap into heroics/raiding?

And that's this post done. It was a short one, I know...but that's because I didn't want a lengthy rant on my own personal stupidity/confusion. Feel free to leave comments telling me I'm a novice or giving me tips!

Friday 18 September 2009

WTB Summary: Shaman Stuff

Well, it's been a while...I've been a bit of a busybee recently. But never fear, a blog post is here! Today, I'm introducting "WTB Summary". If you see this in the title, it means that it will be a post that gathers everything up of the lengthy posts I made with regards to changes I'd like to see or ideas I suggested and makes them clearly visible for you here.

That way, you are more likely to go "Nice idea!" or "That's the worst thing I've ever heard, noob" or if you're lazy/feel the posts were too long, this makes it easier for you. I'm too nice to my readers. The first "WTB Summary"
will be focused on the Shaman posts I've made. Time to do the summary magic then.

Elemental

Totem of Wrath-Put a temp buff on the party and the debuff on the enemies for a period of time that lasts even when you change to another fire totem.
Thunderstorm-Gives the enemies it hits a "Charged" debuff so they take more damage from Bolts and Chain Light or puts a "Charged" buff on the Shaman to increase lightning spell damage for 10 secs.
Earthquake-AoE to target the ground in front of the Shaman or area of Shaman's choice and reduces hit chance of all enemies on the ground by 10%.

Enhancement

Rockbiter Weapon-Remove it from the game.
Feral Spirit-Baseline spell to be given to all Shamans. However, the healing aspect they currently have when they hit enemies would be an Enhance tree talent.
Totem Strike-Shaman summons a totem pole to strike the enemy with. Could be done by sacrificing all four current totems and it could do more damage with the Earth Shock debuff on the enemy.

Restoration

Spirit Link-Distributes damage evenly between two targets. Only has 3 charges and once one of the linked duo loses the charges, the link is gone.

Totems

Earthbind Totem-Snare removal becomes standard. No longer an Enhance Shaman only thing.
Stoneclaw Totem-Forces players to attack the totem or at the very least, target it first to give the Shaman a tiny bit of breathing room.
Fire Nova Totem-Add a bit of Fire DoT damage at the end to those caught in the explosion.
Sentry Totem-We no longer auto-switch to Sentry's view and the totem comes with stealth detection too. If it's not too OP, have a "Spotted!" debuff when the Sentry detects someone that lowers movement speed by 10%.
Water Elemental Totem-Summons a water elemental that summons a pool of water which increases the healing allies recieve by 10% whilst on that pool. Could heal them over time instead of increase healing recieved.
Air Elemental Totem-Summons an air elemental that does good single-target dps melee damage. Could come with an air related knockback ability.
Earthgrab Totem-An AoE snare totem. Anyone near the totem gets trapped in roots for a couple of seconds.
Brainwash Totem-Controls an enemy for a period of time and forces them to fight their allies. However, it also heals them at the same time which renders it useless for 1 on 1 fights.

And there's the Shaman summary. If you have any thoughts/views, make a comment! I hope that the readers find "WTB Summary" useful!

Wednesday 9 September 2009

Belated Blizzcon Info Post: Better Late Than Never.

In case the title didn't give it away, this is a post I had intended on doing before my revision for resits and my laptop dying and going back to Notts and finding no Tinternet at my Uni house and enjoying the fun of a break-up and saving orphans from burning buildings and anything else ya can think of. All it's going to do is give my opinions on what we know so far. Let's see what I've got to say then.

Level cap to 85: When I first read this in the "spoiler", I was hoping it was wrong because 5 levels just feels really small. I enjoy questing and levelling just as much as I enjoy the other parts of WOW. However, I can see why Blizz did it and they have that Path Of The Titans system to try and make characters seem different. It's still a bit of a shame that there will be no new talents or anything and we're only getting 5 extra points. Personally, I love the feeling of getting the bottom talent and Cataclysm won't provide me with that. No "Yay, I finally have Feral Spirit/Beastial Wrath!" moments for moi. Generally though, I'm fine with 85 and I'll see if they make the levelling better since it's only 5 levels instead of 10.

Goblin and Worgen: I'm happy with the two races that Blizz gave each side. Worgen finally give the Ally a beast-race which makes things interesting and the Horde get Goblins so now they have a midget race to rival the Gnomes. From what I've seen of the levelling zones, I favour Gilneas over Lost Isles but I'll just have to wait and see how fun the questing is there.

Deathwing as the Big Bad: Great move from Blizz to bring Deathwing back and to use him as the reason for the world being changed. I'm looking forward to seeing what the pre-event will be for Cataclysm and if it will involve Deathwing in some way. I have to admit that while the Lich King is a great bad guy to face, Deathwing looks much more intimidating based on the artwork I've seen of him.

Flying mounts in Azeroth: Well, this will make travelling around easier. We don't know if it will require "unlocking" or not yet...they might want you to explore the new zones on foot before you get to soar over them. Hopefully, they'll be used all over Azeroth and not only in certain areas/zones. However, this could lead to a lot of ganking issues since high levels could just fly over and make a low level person's life hell.

Underwater mounts: Erm, cool I guess? I can't say I've been dying to have an underwater mount but I'll see what mounts we get that will make our underwater travel better.

Old world being changed: We don't know how much is being changed but we can hope that every zone gets cleaned up in terms of questing. However, those that we do know about are getting pretty big changes. The one I'm most interested in is the Barrens change. I hated questing there after I'd done it twice with my Tauren Shaman and my Orc Warr. With the split, it will make it a much more bearable zone and hopefully, keep it interesting since I did enjoy Barrens questing the first time round. Also, it's interesting to see that it will change regardless of whether you buy the expansion or not. I guess it's time to start taking screenshots right?

New zones being added: On top of all the changes to current zones, we are lucky enough to still get new ones too! The place I most want to visit is Hyjal. I'm psyched to see Ragnaros make a return and to finally see Malfurion make his appearance. The only thing I'm unsure of is...how has he returned? I figured he was still stuck in the Emerald Dream. And if he has returned properly, does that mean he'll be leader of Darnassus one day? I hope there's some sort of interaction between him and Tyrande at some point while questing in Hyjal too. Otherwise, he's basically come back and not even bothered to contact her. That's just cold and Tyrande should dump him and find a better man. Girl power!

Archaeology: This profession sounds like an interesting secondary profession. Combine it with the Path Of The Titans concept and I'm really interested to see how this turns out. Hopefully, when we get more info on it and all that, I can make a blog post looking at this profession. Until then, I can't really say much else.

New forms for Troll and Worgen: Now, I had heard that the Troll/Worgen druids would be getting new forms and I had hoped that it would be new forms of everything. However, so far, it seems like they are only getting new Moonkin forms. There may also be an epic travel form for Druids to enjoy too but only time will tell. I still hope Trolls/Worgen get new forms to replace Bear and Cat but at least they get something.

Hunters use Focus now: Well, I'm happy they use something that makes more sense. Mana bugged me because Hunters are not magic users/casters. However, this raises a lot of questions too. Will it be exactly like a Rogue's energy bar? How will shot rotations work? Is this the pony that Ghostcrawler promised us? Also, ammo will be an equippable item. Bye bye, consumables.

Paladin mounts and Shaman totems: The Tauren and the Draenei are getting sexy Pala mounts! This is good because horses are not really a Tauren's ideal mount. Draenei look okay on a horse but I'm all for them getting something else. I'm glad to see that Shamans will be getting race-themed totems. Now, your Shaman will seem a little bit more unique to other Shaman when you plant those totems down.

Soul Shard revamp: Warlocks are finally getting a big revamp and this will really help to make Warlockies feel different to Mages. From what I can tell, Shards will feel much more useful and this will make the Warlock class feel more interesting in general.

Mastery stat: Blizz's way of trying to make the talent trees feel more unique. You put points in a tree, you get a passive bonus. Pretty simple really and it's a good way of getting rid of talents that already do that which will free points up to go into other talents. I'm quite interested in this because it should mean talent trees are better.

PvP: Battleground PvP'ers have rated Battlegrounds to look forward to which is great cause I quite enjoy BG's. There will also be a new Battle for Gilneas and a new Wintergrasp-like zone so things are looking pretty groovy for PvPer's. On a personal note, I'm happy that the old PvP ranks are making an apperance again.

Guilds: There's a lot to look forward to that is Guild related. There's Guild levelling to give talents to be of use like reduced repair costs or a mass ressurection. There's Guild profs which lets members share purchased plans with one another. Finally, there's even a Looking For Guild interface to make finding a guild easier. This should be handy for my alts that are guildless.

Garrosh becoming Warchief: This info comes from a "spoiler" we had ages ago that turned out to be right about everything else. Therefore, there's a good chance of this happening which could be supported by the fact that the Horde take a fair bit of land in the upcoming expansion which shows aggressiveness that resembles a Horde that would be leaded by Garrosh. Now, it could just be that Thrall has decided to take the fight to them and that's good for those who complain that "Thrall is too soft/slow to act" but personally, I think it's more likely to be Garrosh related. If it is and he is Warchief, I have mixed feelings about this and I'll see how Blizz handle it.

Cairne's death: Another "spoiler" related bit. If this is true, I'll be very very saddened. Cairne was one of my fav WC3 characters and Blizz haven't really bothered to use him so far. I don't want the first big Cairne related event to be his death. I'd rather see him doing something awesome. But if he does die...how the hell will the Tauren stay with the Horde? It's been suggested that Cairne will be made to look like a traitor but I can't see everyone going "Oh well, must be true. Let's kill him then." and that's that. I can't see Thrall accepting Cairne as a traitor and if it's true that Garrosh kills Cairne, I can't see how Thrall or Cairne's son will accept that either. I'm hopeful that this is untrue but we'll wait and see.

And there's everything, I believe. There's a lot of info that we got and most of it's positive. The only downsides are ones that came from the "spoiler" we got ages ago before Blizzcon. While that does mean there's a chance of them being wrong, the rest of that "spoiler" was correct and therefore, we can't totally rule it out.

Here's a couple of questions for anyone who reads this: What are you most excited about Cataclysm wise? What are you least excited about?




Monday 7 September 2009

Aspect Of The Pet Tamer

Well, I was going to do a Blizzcon related post...but then my laptop seemed to die and I haven't got internet access really yet back at my uni house. That's why this has been a little stale and in that time, I found out two things. One...I missed the Tinternet greatly till right now where I have it at my fingertips and yet I have nothing to really do on it! Two...I'm not really in the mood to do a Blizzcon post currently due to various events in life and all that stuff. I will probably do one later on since I will have very little to do this week. However, for now, I am skipping to the Hunter post.

This post is going to look at the pets I have already or that I want to have and why. It's nothing complex really, it's just a bit of fun for me to relax and not have to think. I've done too much of that recently really. Let's put the real life drama to one side and focus on the pets.

Shinyspoon

My Dwarf Hunter. I have all the pets I want with him right now. Time to list those below. I'll also list the skins of each animal below the info paragraphs to show you what colours they are in case you want to know that.

Spork-Spork is Shiny's bear pet and I've had him since Loch Modan. He's my number one choice for a companion for Dwarves and is the main pet I'm using for levelling right now. I'll never get rid of Spork and if I could, I'd use him more. As a side note, he also seems to have done many entertaining glitches like teleporting, staying online and saving my friend whilst I disconnected, self-rezzing, saving a Horde player when I didn't direct Spork to do so and he even seemed to just self-heal once. Spork is a bear god...Hail Spork!

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_elderblackbear.html

Salami-Named after that lovely tasty meat, Salami was tamed in Dustwallow Marsh after I decided that I'd need a non-Exotic dps pet if I switched from BM to Survival with Shiny and so I set my sights on this lovely red raptor (which is the colour that gave him his name too) after checking the various colours on Petopia. A Raptor pet would have probably looked better with my Troll Huntard but I figured that it looked fine with my Dwarf and I didn't want 3 dps pets with my Troll.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_bloodfenraptor.html

Fluffy-My first Exotic pet that I tamed. I remember the excitement of finally getting the chance to tame Exotics and I knew that I always wanted to tame the Kurken ever since I had done the Draenei starting zone quests with my Drae Paladin. Once I tamed it, I was happy because it was the coolest looking thing ever to me. I wouldn't mind using Fluffy in instances if I was able to be BM spec and all.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_thekurken.html

Helicopter-While I do like the Bloc Party song that this pet shares a name with, I named it this just cause I thought it was funny to name a flying thing after a flying vechile. This pet is going to be my PvP pet fo sho...but I also enjoyed tinkering about with him in Outland and watching Carrion Feeder (pet talent) in action. I had a blue one from Winterspring but I decided that the ones from Shadowmoon looked cooler so I tamed one of those instead at 68.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_vilewingchimaera.html

Megazord-The final pet to add to my Shiny team. I really wanted one of these since Wrath and I was gutted to see the Stampede change which turned them from funky knockbackers to bleed effect increasers which gave them much more situation usage. However, with the way I arranged Mega's talents, he's useful for dealing with Elite mobs/group quests really. And yes, he is named after the Megazord from the original Power Ranger series. It's Stampedin' Time!

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_woolyrhinobull.html

Uglyunicorn

Let's take a look at my lowbie Troll. He's a mix of pets I own and pets I plan on owning.

Lag
-This turtle walks really really quickly....it's not at all laggy. However, Lag is still a better name than most of the others I had for this pet since Speedy is too obvious and I didn't have a huge urge to name it after any of the Ninja Turtles. I had a crab at first with Ugly but I want that with my Goblin so I'm having a Turtle now as my only tank pet since my friend has a Croc and we'll be questing together on our Huntards.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_lakesnapper.html

Fernando-Now, I wasn't going to have a saber cat. I saw too many and was not a fan. However, the lions and tigers were a different story. After having a look on Petopia, I decided to get the Echeyakee lion as a pet since you can only get that skin via him or another spawned pet at level 60. It was a wise choice and he'll probably be Ugly's main companion in the same way Spork is Shiny's.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_echeyakee.html

Taser-I don't have Taser yet but I will tame myself a Wind Serpent from Wailing Caverns at some point. I had a Wind Serp called Taser with Shiny at one point but I decided not to have it anymore so I was happy that Ugly could have him because it suits a Troll really well. I named it Taser for a very simple reason. Wind Serpents electrocute things. Tasers electrocute things. Not really rocket science now, is it? I will probably upgrade to the black and white one (76-77 Elite) from Zul'Drak once Ugly's high enough.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_deviatestinglash.html
http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_scionofquetzlun.html

Wolf-This is where we get on to the ones whose names I am yet to decide. However, I will possibly have two different wolf skins. For OL, I shall get myself a Warhound from Hellfire Ramps for the funky armoured wolf mob. After that, I may have a Blighthound from Zul'Drak. However, I'm not sure if I will change or keep the Warhound skin.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_shatteredhandwarhound.html
http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_vargulblighthound.html

Bird Of Prey-This will probably be my PvP pet. However, I have yet to really decide what skin I'll have or anything. I'm currently deciding between the Emerald Skytalons in Dragonblight and the Hawk Matriarchs from Howling Fjord. However, I'm hopeful that whichever one I choose, it serves me well in battlegrounds.

http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_emeraldskytalon.html
http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/mobs/mob_fjordhawkmatriarch.html

Goblin Hunter

Finally, we come to the Goblin Hunter who I do not have a name for as of yet. This will be a quick list to name the pets I am considering for him currently.

Crab
Worm
Spirit Beast (Skoll mainly)
Cat (Tiger/Leopard/Panther)
Silithid
Hyena
Devilsaur

There we go...a post on my Hunter characters that has a focus on both the pets I do own and the ones I'd like to own. This post was mainly a bit of harmless fun for me and I hope it was pleasant enough for you to read too.

Feel free to give any opinions in the comment sections about this post/the Goblin Hunter list of pets. Hopefully, I'll feel more in the mood to write so I can do that Blizzcon post that's been put on hold far too much. Keep your eyes peeled for the next post!