Well it seems like everyone who has run a dungeon daily using the random dungeon LFG feature has found the terrible fail pick up group from time to time. And some of those transcend bad. They are so bad you tell all your friends about how awful this was, and how could this be? Well for those of us who PUG regularly, we get used to the normal bad that might send someone over the edge. However, there are still players out there who would top the incompetency charts if Recount kept track of that. I've probably even run into those before, but we've persevered in most cases and I've only ever been kicked from one group of spanish-speaking people who did not know how to do the fights in Pit of Saron and so blamed the english-speaking healer. Well I finally have a story, and it's only a week late for the contest my Horde guild ran to give away a Battered Hilt for the best fail PUG story. (Ok it's not THAT good, but it feels like it when it happens to you).
The other back note to the story is that after getting stuck with tons of Halls of Stone, my second hate hate hate instance is Nexus as it pops over 50% of the time for my daily LFG. It's ridiculous. I've never gotten Oculus at all, but Nexus, oh my all the time. Never thought I could grow to hate it, but sure enough, do it enough and you do. Going into this Sunday's LFG, I had done Nexus monday, dropped it Tuesday when tired, done it Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
So LFG pops and it is Pit of Saron in progress. Not a good sign. Well they were still on the trash leading up to the first boss, so I suppose it was a DC and not a fail group. We get up to Garfrost which requires basically one thing for your group. Stand behind saronite to get out of LOS so healers can keep up. If you do not and you are not a tank, you will die. Plain and simple. Well the first time the saronite fell in a bad place and the DPS never "found it" although the healer (me) was standing behind it. We tried again and same problem. I instructed the group of the strategy and the next pull, the saronite fell right beneath the boss. And the tank did not kite the boss away so we could get out of the AoE damage. Wipe wipe wipe. I had wanted to drop after the second wipe but I waited because my LFG timer was still high. At this point my timer was 2 minutes, so I dropped group.
After a requeue, the Nexus screen pops up. Somehow I'm not surprised. Karma bites me right in the tail. So we zone in and it's a beartank and some low-geared DPS. No big deal, I've had this group before plenty of times. Well despite the bear tank being nearly as well geared as me (which means likely ICC experience), this tank set a new record for failure of situational awareness. I don't think this bear could be nicknamed anything other than tunnel vision. Here's just a sample...
Scenario 1 - throughout the instance, there are patrolling packs of mobs around stationary ones. For some reason it seemed like every pack of patrolling mobs was completely ignored by the tank as he pulled a pack right as a pat approached. Hence, we had a ton of hard pulls. It did not matter because the tank and I were well geared, but still, it makes things a lot harder than it has to be.
Scenario 2 - a little later in the instance we are on the ramps and platforms in Anomalus's area. As every hunter knows or should know, jumping off the ramps is not what your pets do, so they always pull a pack of mobs behind the party if youd o not dismiss them. Over half the time we just deal with the mobs, but the hunter typically needs help if they are not overgeared. And we had a hunter who left his pet out. So while I trailed the group, I saw the hunter turn back to help his pet, I threw a couple heals and ran after the tank, who kept pulling. Then the hunter dies and the mobs come all the way up the platforms and catch up with us. Despite positioning myself on the other side of the platform, the tank somehow doesn't realize I've got aggro and runs up and pulls the boss. I end up having to fight off the mobs myself and we barely survive Anomalus.
Scenario 3 - After clearing Omorok, there is one big tree guy right at the doorway to Omorok's area that you can skip if you hug the wall. Well again the bear is charging ahead and the rest of us cleat except the hunter's pet. Well this time the hunter wises up and FEIGNS DEATH right next to me. So I get stunned and then pummeled to death. Meanwhile, the tank has engaged Keristraza the last boss.
As it turns out, one of the DPS saves the group because he was a paladin who knew how to use a healing spell. I ran back in and got to the boss just in time to cast 3 spells before she died, and the hunter DEMANDED A REZ. Needless to say, I dropped group having "earned" my frost emblems. How this tank ever gets through an instance with that level of tunnel vision I'll never know.
Protip #1 - If you feign death so a healer can die for your mistake, run back for goodness sake.
Protip #2 - If you are a tank and you don't understand the concept of situational awareness or keeping threat off the healer, you need to learn to play.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tier 10 Changes in Mid-Flight
When Tier gear is spoiled for a new raid patch, there's always tons of speculation and commentary on the new bonuses you get for collecting 2 or 4 of the 5 possible pieces of gear in the set. In fact, it is common for the masses and the theorycrafters to get the developers to change a Tier bonus before it goes live or tweak a bonus where the original bonus announced is not great or does not work well. For every single class and role within that class, Blizzard is challenged to come up with 2 new bonuses every single raid tier, and they try to mix in a lot more than just passive 5% buffs to a spell. So in my short time seeing the endgame, I've experienced firsthand the joys of Tier 7, 8, 9, and now 10. Now there were a lot of things grabbing my attention for frost emblems, including the tier 10 stuff. In fact, I started by saving up 95 emblems for the headpiece. But then I looked at the tier bonuses and it was just more efficient for me to make much more needed changes with my next emblems to the belt slot, although cape and trinket were also huge upgrade possibilities. I just could not justify even getting a second piece of tier 10 for the admittedly good Flash Heal bonus over the bigger bump in stats from the belt. So perhaps I'm not one to talk about Tier. However, this week Blizzard also let out on the PTR (public test realm) for Patch 3.3.3 a new 4-piece set bonus for healing priests. Here's the rundown currently.
OLD BONUS - Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.
NEW BONUS - Priest Tier-10 4-Piece Healing Set Bonus: This bonus now increases the effectiveness of the caster’s Power Word: Shield and Renew spells by 5%.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this proposed change. Why, you ask? Well because until the past two weekends, I had not been raiding. So when healing a 5-man heroic that you overgear usually, you get into habits to make things more convenient or easy. For me, it was running discipline spec with Power Word Shield, Renew, and Prayer of Mending as my main weapons with Penance when I need a big heal. Thus, I am not exactly efficient but I cover most damage coming in without needing to rely on being reactive. So if there's two spells I cast an absolute ton, it's PWS and Renew. If this change goes live, this set bonus would be a real boon to my play style in 5-mans, which is what I do most of the time.
To be fair, the most effective raid healing as discipline does not use renew. Hell, even holy spec priests do not use renew a lot, especially when a druid is around. Rejuvenation is more efficient on mana by saving overheals and is just plain better than renew, even with holy talents boosting renew. Thus, the key spell for both specs is Flash Heal. However, that has already been boosted in the two-piece bonus, so we have to have some placeholder match for PWS and it's renew. The upshot is that for regular raiders who maximize their healing output, the new four set bonus is actually a downgrade! This may be hard to believe, but the blog universe has pretty much confirmed that those who have the 4-set bonus now know it boosts them more than a passive 5% bonus to PWS and Renew. Of course healing is not always about thoroughput, but when it is, that's when you need to shine. Put bluntly, when you are at your best, the old bonus is better.
So why is blizzard proposing a change then? Well for one, a lot of people are not saavy with macros and add ons that would allow them to know every time the old 4 piece bonus procs. Thus, they waste a lot of golden opportunities to use the bonus and that indeed makes a passive bonus more appealing. I myself am just getting in the hang of using two very powerful trinkets with an equip benefit and a use benefit every 2 minutes or so. But with a simple addon, you can have some indication on par with the light flashes that happen when a holy-spec priest has a free Flash Heal proc waiting. So that's no excuse, but the masses appear to be complaining or like me, just not buying tier 10 with their emblems. Although I had other reasons for upgrading elsewhere in my own gear progression, I can see if Blizzard sees very few priests using the 4 piece healing bonus then there must be something wrong. So they make a change. Or at least propose to make a change.
So even though this change favors the casuals and my own playing strategy, in the week of commentary that has passed since the announcement, I've gone from excited to totally against this change. Part of this is principle. Sometimes Blizzard makes tweaks that do not work, but that does not mean we should get our way as a playerbase every single time something happens that is minor, such as a tier bonus flopping. If something truly flopped, maybe you revisit it in a future tier. To make a change halfway into the heat of the ICC raiding cycle that completely changes the Tier-buying game makes everyone in favor of the change throw up their arms in disgust as all their precious emblems to date have been spent elsewhere. And if the normal person plays about as much as I do, then they only have 2-3 pieces of frost emblem gear so far. In time, we will all get the gear we want with the frost emblems, but for some people this change makes them feel awful about choices they made on old information. Usually tier bonuses do not change except in drastic circumstances, and the priest nation is now dealing with the potential consequences of that drastic action.
This is like pulling the rug out from under someone, and not unlike the changes to frost orbs. However, where frost orbs were not a huge deal, the end tier gear in an expansion is a big deal. Plus it is actually a downgrade for the best priests in the game. While the masses rejoice, they rejoice for a change they never got to experience before the change. This is like catering to the uneducated masses in politics, which happens but leads to very bad results usually. So although it is just a tier bonus, priests just got nerfed. And the tier bonus that went live in 3.3 is in fact not the tier bonus that people will go away into Cataclysm with. This is a bad change any way you slice it, and one I hope does not hit priests or any other class in the future.
Priest Tier 10 Changes...yay or nay?
OLD BONUS - Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.
NEW BONUS - Priest Tier-10 4-Piece Healing Set Bonus: This bonus now increases the effectiveness of the caster’s Power Word: Shield and Renew spells by 5%.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this proposed change. Why, you ask? Well because until the past two weekends, I had not been raiding. So when healing a 5-man heroic that you overgear usually, you get into habits to make things more convenient or easy. For me, it was running discipline spec with Power Word Shield, Renew, and Prayer of Mending as my main weapons with Penance when I need a big heal. Thus, I am not exactly efficient but I cover most damage coming in without needing to rely on being reactive. So if there's two spells I cast an absolute ton, it's PWS and Renew. If this change goes live, this set bonus would be a real boon to my play style in 5-mans, which is what I do most of the time.
To be fair, the most effective raid healing as discipline does not use renew. Hell, even holy spec priests do not use renew a lot, especially when a druid is around. Rejuvenation is more efficient on mana by saving overheals and is just plain better than renew, even with holy talents boosting renew. Thus, the key spell for both specs is Flash Heal. However, that has already been boosted in the two-piece bonus, so we have to have some placeholder match for PWS and it's renew. The upshot is that for regular raiders who maximize their healing output, the new four set bonus is actually a downgrade! This may be hard to believe, but the blog universe has pretty much confirmed that those who have the 4-set bonus now know it boosts them more than a passive 5% bonus to PWS and Renew. Of course healing is not always about thoroughput, but when it is, that's when you need to shine. Put bluntly, when you are at your best, the old bonus is better.
So why is blizzard proposing a change then? Well for one, a lot of people are not saavy with macros and add ons that would allow them to know every time the old 4 piece bonus procs. Thus, they waste a lot of golden opportunities to use the bonus and that indeed makes a passive bonus more appealing. I myself am just getting in the hang of using two very powerful trinkets with an equip benefit and a use benefit every 2 minutes or so. But with a simple addon, you can have some indication on par with the light flashes that happen when a holy-spec priest has a free Flash Heal proc waiting. So that's no excuse, but the masses appear to be complaining or like me, just not buying tier 10 with their emblems. Although I had other reasons for upgrading elsewhere in my own gear progression, I can see if Blizzard sees very few priests using the 4 piece healing bonus then there must be something wrong. So they make a change. Or at least propose to make a change.
So even though this change favors the casuals and my own playing strategy, in the week of commentary that has passed since the announcement, I've gone from excited to totally against this change. Part of this is principle. Sometimes Blizzard makes tweaks that do not work, but that does not mean we should get our way as a playerbase every single time something happens that is minor, such as a tier bonus flopping. If something truly flopped, maybe you revisit it in a future tier. To make a change halfway into the heat of the ICC raiding cycle that completely changes the Tier-buying game makes everyone in favor of the change throw up their arms in disgust as all their precious emblems to date have been spent elsewhere. And if the normal person plays about as much as I do, then they only have 2-3 pieces of frost emblem gear so far. In time, we will all get the gear we want with the frost emblems, but for some people this change makes them feel awful about choices they made on old information. Usually tier bonuses do not change except in drastic circumstances, and the priest nation is now dealing with the potential consequences of that drastic action.
This is like pulling the rug out from under someone, and not unlike the changes to frost orbs. However, where frost orbs were not a huge deal, the end tier gear in an expansion is a big deal. Plus it is actually a downgrade for the best priests in the game. While the masses rejoice, they rejoice for a change they never got to experience before the change. This is like catering to the uneducated masses in politics, which happens but leads to very bad results usually. So although it is just a tier bonus, priests just got nerfed. And the tier bonus that went live in 3.3 is in fact not the tier bonus that people will go away into Cataclysm with. This is a bad change any way you slice it, and one I hope does not hit priests or any other class in the future.
Priest Tier 10 Changes...yay or nay?
Monday, March 1, 2010
An Interesting Twist of Fate
So I had a full weekend of bachelor time in the house this weekend without a honey-do list, which is probably an occurrence that will not repeat itself too often over the course of time. This was a well-needed chance to rest up and recharge the batteries for real without any guilt for being selfish with the me time. Did I accomplish anything over the weekend? Well I did some dishes and grocery shopping, but seriously, it was the just not caring that made things perfect. By a poor dash of luck, my guild was only running one raid this weekend because it was our 1.5 year anniversary and we promote veteran members to "knight" every 6 months for some very outstanding guildies. Or at least I like to think so as I was knighted 6 months ago! There were some fun events planned including a costume contest and a human dart contest (which I finished second in, argh!). Some very nifty outfits by the guild members, and a testament to all the detail that Blizzard puts into gear at all levels.
We also had a guild olympics event since seemingly half our guild is Canadian. The battle was to full clear Naxx in the quickest time. Just like the hockey game that ended the real Olympics, this battle was close right up to the end. Team Canada won by 20 seconds, which is astounding considering that we're talking about an 80-90 minute time window! I was a bit disappointed to be left out of the fun on that, but I was on team 2 for the 10-man ICC runs the next day so I consoled myself with a PUG VoA run since we finally won wintergrasp. This was my first look at the new boss, and while he is kind of healing intensive, there's nothing hard at all about this fight. Kind of disappointing really.
Well we get the boss down and the priest tier 10 DPS pants drop. Not PvP pants! Well there was another priest in the raid but obviously we both roll and I win with an 11. What a crappy winning roll! She asks if I want to sell it, but I cannot afford to with my first ICC coming up the next day. I also had accumulated just enough badges after VoA to buy a massive belt upgrade with frost badges. These two upgrades literally jumped my gearscore nearly 200 points in 10 minutes. Awesomeness!
The weird twist of fate comes in that we go to Icecrown Citadel and we do very well for the guild's second team. We downed all four bosses in the lower spire and made an attempt at Festergut after downing the two Gluth pets. We also downed a miniboss on the ramparts for the raid weekly quest, thereby racking up the emblems (like 16 or 18 total). However, absolutely zero cloth pieces dropped despite having 1 warlock and 3 priests in the raid! Normally I would be truly pissed because of wasting a bunch of gold on a progression raid with no benefit, but I was just on such a high after the raid. I think this was a confluence of four things.
1. It had been absolutely forever since I progression raided. After grinding out essentially two tier 10 level pieces by 2 badges per day (some days) and 5 badges per week (most weeks), to just immediately get 20 badges was thrilling. Plus I finally got to see past Lord Marrowgar, who is clearly the hardest boss in the lower spire in my humble opinion. I got to bring utility to the raid being the only real dedicated tank healer but also having the shadow spec back in the mix for the fourth boss when you need more DPS to knock down Blood Beasts. I think the last time I progression raided was ONE TIME in ToC-10. That's right, two raids ago for me was in Ulduar. Scary, no? Well there's just something fun about overcoming tough tasks together and progressing against the endgame, and I lost that feeling until yesterday.
2. I did get an upgrade, albeit a silly one. I blew through neutral and most of friendly in the Ashen Verdict rep grind, getting the first level of the awesome rings they give. So, while it's not a huge upgrade, I feel like I'm finally moving towards the best ring in the game right now.
3. The people. This is not a knock on Team A, but let's face it, Team A will always be more serious about progression raiding. And that's OK because I can take it seriously. But Team B has slightly less expectations and some really sweet personalities. Despite not raiding much for the past 4 months, I gelled with people I knew in the run and many people I did not know well. The main tank and I threw barbs in vent at each other for fun and we got along so well it's as if I've been running with him for ages. Furthermore, I was rusty...I made a mistake on gunship that wiped us and made a mistake and facepulled the third pull of the instance. Yet nobody yelled at me or told me to get my crap together, and others made mistakes as well, but it was no big deal. We kept at it and triumphed together. It made me truly proud to be a part of that group and makes me want to come back for more!
4. I got a chance to see a slight glimpse into the guild inner circle this past weekend (no, absolutely no details on how or substance...that's not proper). And let me just say I am thoroughly impressed with the guild officers and how they conduct business. It makes me feel very hopeful about the continued future of the guild that started right before I joined the game. It's just like the partners in my law firm. I have no idea how many tough decisions they have to deal with this this kind of economy, but I know if I did ever happen to be a fly on the wall (will never happen) I would probably find that we have the same kind of strong leaders in that group. Or at least I figure this is the case after seeing how we're still doing OK and hopefully starting to come out of the recession. One can be hopeful! But that's not here nor there. The point is, I saw a new side of our leaders that made me appreciate them even more.
So all in all, I never would have thought that I would luck into gear when I was out of ICC on the weekend, but that's how it goes sometimes. I sure hope I can find time to build some more relationships like this in the future. Of course helping Mikola run the Ulduar hard mode events is one way to keep this going, so let's hope that goes well.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Hunt Begins
(written from the perspective of Ekaterinae)
---------------------
Another long day of training done, I sat down at the fireside of the guild hall of The Illuminati. Although all I wanted to do was sleep, there's always work to be done when preparing to tackle the greatest menace Azeroth has ever seen in the Lich King. Tonight there's some stitching that needs to be done to repair my robe, as well as a few pieces of armor to enchant for my fellow warriors.
Two of my closest friends joined me at the fireside. Cazaldora curled up next to her favorite companion Cicero, while Gaurin popped into the chair next to me after another shapeshift. As Cazaldora worked on some gemstones with her simple grinder, Gaurin began sharing tales of taking on all the trials of our latest triumph in the Trial of the Crusader. Although the primary lieutenant of the Lich King Anub'Arak had finally been dealt with once and for all, I knew Gaurin was just trying to cheer us up from the days of drudgery since that triumph. However, all that will change as the newly formed Ashen Verdict is poised to lead us into Icecrown Citadel for the final battle.
Just then, a hooded figure veiled in shadow came bursting through the doors of the guild hall. "I come seeking The Illuminati."
Ruach, a fellow healer and one of the leaders of our guild stepped forward. "Aye, you have found The Illuminati. What is so important that brings you to our halls?"
The mysterious figure paused briefly, "The Leadership of the Alliance has a special assignment that must be completed, and they believe The Illuminati is the right group for the task. You must go back into the mighty halls of Ulduar and..."
Ruach interrupted the visitor - "Ulduar? But we are making final preparations for the most important battle in the history of Azeroth! We cannot turn our backs once more to the Lich King and play with the keepers of the old gods. And who are you to order us away from our destiny?"
Although you couldn't see her face, I could read the frustration growing in the visitor's voice: "Well to be honest I don't know that you are up to the task, but when the kings of the Alliance insist, you do not say no. While the Lich King is a grave threat, the entire existence of Azeroth is at risk from a far greater enemy."
Cazaldora looked up from her newly cut rubies to say "A far greater enemy? This whole time we have been tracking down and eliminating all the agents and friends of the Lich King. The first minion Kel'Thuzad and his necropolis Naxxramas have fallen. Arthas's closest ally Anub'Arak has been slain. And even the old god Yogg-Saron has been killed, cutting off the endless supply of corruption and Saronite Ore for the Scourge. Why would we ever need to go back into the prison of a dead old god who poses no threat?"
The visitor snapped back "You are supremely arrogant if you think you've killed an old god for good. but that's neither here nor there. The entire world may be destroyed thanks to the careless actions of your group in taking down Loken, and although your own stupidity is to blame"
Cazaldora jumped into action with Cicero bounding towards the visitor...
"SILENCE!" The room fell as quiet as death as Vowain, the esteemed leader of the guild stepped into the front of the room. "While you shall not come into our halls and insult us, please explain what the leaders would have us do."
Continuing on, the visitor explained: "Although Loken was indeed the Watcher of Yogg-Saron who became corrupted and allowed Ulduar to fall, he also served a more important role than any of the other watchers. You see, Loken was in constant communication with the Titans who imprisoned Yogg-Saron. The Titans allow us to inhabit Azeroth and keep any corruption in check. When Loken was slain in the Halls of Lightning, that connection with the Titans was severed, and they have sent Algalon the Observer to determine if Azeroth has been overcome with corruption. With the Lich King's minions all over this continent, Algalon will certainly re-originate Azeroth to remove the corruption forever unless we can stop him."
Cazaldora, having calmed down slightly, now looked upon the visitor with genuine curiosity. "By re-originating Azeroth, do you mean wiping all life off the planet?"
"Yes" the visitor answered sharply. "As you can see, there is just slightly more on the line than the battle we face in Icecrown."
Vowain inquired "so Algalon is residing in Ulduar?"
The visitor shook her head. "Not exactly...Algalon has set himself up in the Celestial Planetarium, which is only accessible with the blessing and sigils of the remaining Keepers Freya, Mimiron, Thorim, and Hodir. Unlike when you faced these Watchers before, now you must convince them you are worthy of the task of taking on Algalon. To do so, you will need to defeat the bosses of Ulduar again, this time in such a way that impresses them."
Ruach stepped in "But how do we know you are not just making this story up and working for Arthas instead of our kings?"
With a heavy sigh, the hooded visitor slowly pulled back the hood covering her visage. A hushed gasp filled the room as the light revealed the face of Averlaine, a holy paladin who previously joined and left the ranks of The Illuminati.
"You? How can we trust you who left us on the steps of the Crusader's Coliseum?" whispered Vowain.
"I do what I must for the improvement of Azeroth, whether that is directly assisting the kings of the Alliance or leading warriors of the Horde into battle. The Light does not discriminate about the means to the end, and you of all people should understand that Vow."
Although Vowain was clearly hesitant to commit himself to the words of Averlaine, some of us were quite a bit closer to the paladin and could tell the honesty in her voice. With a quick glance at Gaurin and myself, Cazaldora stepped forward once again. "I trust you as always Averlaine. I will lead this battle on behalf of the the Alliance and The Illuminati, and I am certain we will be proud to lend some of our very best warriors for this highly important task while Vowain continues to prepare for the siege upon Icecrown Citadel."
With a surge of pride and renewed purpose, I jumped up from my stitchwork at the fireside. "I indeed will join Cazaldora in this battle to save Azeroth. I know with the power of the light and the holy spirit, we will prevail over this Algalon."
If only I could be so sure in my heart of hearts. But putting on a good face to support my close ally was crucial. I turned and prayed for support from other members of the guild. Sure enough, a few other proud and strong warriors stepped up immediately behind Cazaldora and myself. Among them were Arturias the warrior, Graystreak the mage, Atleen the paladin, Rhodaria the shaman, Lucivelle the mage, Miraelle the druid, Sihnon the hunter, Allastra the warlock, and Eukari the death knight. All of a sudden, I knew we could succeed.
With another quick nod to Gaurin, I turned and gave a quick wink to Cazaldora.
The Hunt Is On...
---------------------
Another long day of training done, I sat down at the fireside of the guild hall of The Illuminati. Although all I wanted to do was sleep, there's always work to be done when preparing to tackle the greatest menace Azeroth has ever seen in the Lich King. Tonight there's some stitching that needs to be done to repair my robe, as well as a few pieces of armor to enchant for my fellow warriors.
Two of my closest friends joined me at the fireside. Cazaldora curled up next to her favorite companion Cicero, while Gaurin popped into the chair next to me after another shapeshift. As Cazaldora worked on some gemstones with her simple grinder, Gaurin began sharing tales of taking on all the trials of our latest triumph in the Trial of the Crusader. Although the primary lieutenant of the Lich King Anub'Arak had finally been dealt with once and for all, I knew Gaurin was just trying to cheer us up from the days of drudgery since that triumph. However, all that will change as the newly formed Ashen Verdict is poised to lead us into Icecrown Citadel for the final battle.
Just then, a hooded figure veiled in shadow came bursting through the doors of the guild hall. "I come seeking The Illuminati."
Ruach, a fellow healer and one of the leaders of our guild stepped forward. "Aye, you have found The Illuminati. What is so important that brings you to our halls?"
The mysterious figure paused briefly, "The Leadership of the Alliance has a special assignment that must be completed, and they believe The Illuminati is the right group for the task. You must go back into the mighty halls of Ulduar and..."
Ruach interrupted the visitor - "Ulduar? But we are making final preparations for the most important battle in the history of Azeroth! We cannot turn our backs once more to the Lich King and play with the keepers of the old gods. And who are you to order us away from our destiny?"
Although you couldn't see her face, I could read the frustration growing in the visitor's voice: "Well to be honest I don't know that you are up to the task, but when the kings of the Alliance insist, you do not say no. While the Lich King is a grave threat, the entire existence of Azeroth is at risk from a far greater enemy."
Cazaldora looked up from her newly cut rubies to say "A far greater enemy? This whole time we have been tracking down and eliminating all the agents and friends of the Lich King. The first minion Kel'Thuzad and his necropolis Naxxramas have fallen. Arthas's closest ally Anub'Arak has been slain. And even the old god Yogg-Saron has been killed, cutting off the endless supply of corruption and Saronite Ore for the Scourge. Why would we ever need to go back into the prison of a dead old god who poses no threat?"
The visitor snapped back "You are supremely arrogant if you think you've killed an old god for good. but that's neither here nor there. The entire world may be destroyed thanks to the careless actions of your group in taking down Loken, and although your own stupidity is to blame"
Cazaldora jumped into action with Cicero bounding towards the visitor...
"SILENCE!" The room fell as quiet as death as Vowain, the esteemed leader of the guild stepped into the front of the room. "While you shall not come into our halls and insult us, please explain what the leaders would have us do."
Continuing on, the visitor explained: "Although Loken was indeed the Watcher of Yogg-Saron who became corrupted and allowed Ulduar to fall, he also served a more important role than any of the other watchers. You see, Loken was in constant communication with the Titans who imprisoned Yogg-Saron. The Titans allow us to inhabit Azeroth and keep any corruption in check. When Loken was slain in the Halls of Lightning, that connection with the Titans was severed, and they have sent Algalon the Observer to determine if Azeroth has been overcome with corruption. With the Lich King's minions all over this continent, Algalon will certainly re-originate Azeroth to remove the corruption forever unless we can stop him."
Cazaldora, having calmed down slightly, now looked upon the visitor with genuine curiosity. "By re-originating Azeroth, do you mean wiping all life off the planet?"
"Yes" the visitor answered sharply. "As you can see, there is just slightly more on the line than the battle we face in Icecrown."
Vowain inquired "so Algalon is residing in Ulduar?"
The visitor shook her head. "Not exactly...Algalon has set himself up in the Celestial Planetarium, which is only accessible with the blessing and sigils of the remaining Keepers Freya, Mimiron, Thorim, and Hodir. Unlike when you faced these Watchers before, now you must convince them you are worthy of the task of taking on Algalon. To do so, you will need to defeat the bosses of Ulduar again, this time in such a way that impresses them."
Ruach stepped in "But how do we know you are not just making this story up and working for Arthas instead of our kings?"
With a heavy sigh, the hooded visitor slowly pulled back the hood covering her visage. A hushed gasp filled the room as the light revealed the face of Averlaine, a holy paladin who previously joined and left the ranks of The Illuminati.
"You? How can we trust you who left us on the steps of the Crusader's Coliseum?" whispered Vowain.
"I do what I must for the improvement of Azeroth, whether that is directly assisting the kings of the Alliance or leading warriors of the Horde into battle. The Light does not discriminate about the means to the end, and you of all people should understand that Vow."
Although Vowain was clearly hesitant to commit himself to the words of Averlaine, some of us were quite a bit closer to the paladin and could tell the honesty in her voice. With a quick glance at Gaurin and myself, Cazaldora stepped forward once again. "I trust you as always Averlaine. I will lead this battle on behalf of the the Alliance and The Illuminati, and I am certain we will be proud to lend some of our very best warriors for this highly important task while Vowain continues to prepare for the siege upon Icecrown Citadel."
With a surge of pride and renewed purpose, I jumped up from my stitchwork at the fireside. "I indeed will join Cazaldora in this battle to save Azeroth. I know with the power of the light and the holy spirit, we will prevail over this Algalon."
If only I could be so sure in my heart of hearts. But putting on a good face to support my close ally was crucial. I turned and prayed for support from other members of the guild. Sure enough, a few other proud and strong warriors stepped up immediately behind Cazaldora and myself. Among them were Arturias the warrior, Graystreak the mage, Atleen the paladin, Rhodaria the shaman, Lucivelle the mage, Miraelle the druid, Sihnon the hunter, Allastra the warlock, and Eukari the death knight. All of a sudden, I knew we could succeed.
With another quick nod to Gaurin, I turned and gave a quick wink to Cazaldora.
The Hunt Is On...
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Money-Making Game Changes
Patch 3.3.3 surprisingly jumped onto the PTR (public test realms) this week, and there are quite a few spicy changes. None of these will come as a huge shock to those who've been around long enough to see a full expansion cycle through, but many people like myself jumped in right before WOTLK and so this is new to us. Basically, towards the end of an expansion many things which required rep grinds or many craftable items that had big cooldowns on them lose these rep requirements and cooldowns. This happens because not only are these items very outclassed by the gear you can grind up quickly at the end of an expansion, but also we are preparing the crafting professions for being powerleveled through by new artisans. After all, can you imagine the grind of having to wait on cooldown cloth to level the last bit of vanilla tailoring, and the same for BC, and the same for WOTLK, before you ever got to Catacylsm tailoring? Well that is what is going on.
More specifically, the four day cooldown on specialty cloth (Spellweave, Moonshroud, and Ebonweave) is being removed. Also, the one day cooldown on Titansteel is being removed. To balance one item that would become too cheap otherwise, a SEVEN day cooldown is being added to Glacial Bag, which requires 4 Moonshroud and 4 Ebonweave to make. My initial reaction to these changes was kind of gut-wrenching, because I've been replenishing the gold pile I spent (probably 10-12k) on Navarionae with Titansteel and of course continued specialty cloth production. But on the other hand, these items have cooled down significantly since their high caused by the ICC Patch 3.3. So it is not like these were raking in ludicrous amounts of money anymore. In any event, if you have stockpiles of these items, there is absolutely no reason not to post them on the AH in moderate amounts over the next couple weeks to get your cooldown profits before they disappear.
For my own personal money-making game, I realized I had become too robotic again in relying on cooldowns. Now that those are going away, I started investigating what else I could do, other than the sporadic Netherweave Bag market. Well my handy dandy new 450 JC toon has a ton of options. He did wait until being able to buy the pattern for Chaotic Skyflare Diamond to level JC to 450, but he just exhausted his supply of those from leveling. Those bring in about 20 gold per cut on average, and they sell in decent amounts. I decided to take a shot at the moon with a caster skyflare diamond (Ember) that is really the best for casters. If it sells as the market indicates, it will be a monster 70-80 gold per cut.
Furthermore, I will keep on grinding the JC daily to get tokens for some recipes, but in my needs for Ekat and Navar I pretty much have two of the best selling epic patterns already bought (Solid blue for stam, which every tank stacks; and Runed red for spellpower, which many casters stack). Just by being in Dalaran yesterday at the right time, I was able to cut two Runed Cardinal Rubies for someone and they tipped 60 gold. I also have been trying to run WG on Ekat because Navar needs the last elder to open up for the Lunar Festival, and she always ends up staying for 10 minutes to fish afterwards. Fish Feasts sell like candy too. So in my own ways, I will continue to profit without the use of cooldowns and you should too.
Another 3.3.3 change that's coming is a Frozen Orb vendor. Yes, all those Frozen Orbs that have been useless for months now will be spent at a vendor for any eternal or upgraded to upper level orbs. I have vendored the vast majority of mine, which now turns out to be a mistake as 5 gold is less than what eternals are worth. On the bright side, this should crash the eternal market slightly on the more expensive eternals (sorry transmuting Alchemists). However, the dark side to this is that ninja need rolling on Frozen Orbs will jump significantly. It's already happened to me twice this weekend after only happening 2-4 times over the past few weeks. So be on your guard, because the greedy will be rolling need a lot more now.
On the team front, Arielae has now dinged 45 and Biancae 32, so the alts are back into play now that the first alt is pretty well-established as an 80 tank.
More specifically, the four day cooldown on specialty cloth (Spellweave, Moonshroud, and Ebonweave) is being removed. Also, the one day cooldown on Titansteel is being removed. To balance one item that would become too cheap otherwise, a SEVEN day cooldown is being added to Glacial Bag, which requires 4 Moonshroud and 4 Ebonweave to make. My initial reaction to these changes was kind of gut-wrenching, because I've been replenishing the gold pile I spent (probably 10-12k) on Navarionae with Titansteel and of course continued specialty cloth production. But on the other hand, these items have cooled down significantly since their high caused by the ICC Patch 3.3. So it is not like these were raking in ludicrous amounts of money anymore. In any event, if you have stockpiles of these items, there is absolutely no reason not to post them on the AH in moderate amounts over the next couple weeks to get your cooldown profits before they disappear.
For my own personal money-making game, I realized I had become too robotic again in relying on cooldowns. Now that those are going away, I started investigating what else I could do, other than the sporadic Netherweave Bag market. Well my handy dandy new 450 JC toon has a ton of options. He did wait until being able to buy the pattern for Chaotic Skyflare Diamond to level JC to 450, but he just exhausted his supply of those from leveling. Those bring in about 20 gold per cut on average, and they sell in decent amounts. I decided to take a shot at the moon with a caster skyflare diamond (Ember) that is really the best for casters. If it sells as the market indicates, it will be a monster 70-80 gold per cut.
Furthermore, I will keep on grinding the JC daily to get tokens for some recipes, but in my needs for Ekat and Navar I pretty much have two of the best selling epic patterns already bought (Solid blue for stam, which every tank stacks; and Runed red for spellpower, which many casters stack). Just by being in Dalaran yesterday at the right time, I was able to cut two Runed Cardinal Rubies for someone and they tipped 60 gold. I also have been trying to run WG on Ekat because Navar needs the last elder to open up for the Lunar Festival, and she always ends up staying for 10 minutes to fish afterwards. Fish Feasts sell like candy too. So in my own ways, I will continue to profit without the use of cooldowns and you should too.
Another 3.3.3 change that's coming is a Frozen Orb vendor. Yes, all those Frozen Orbs that have been useless for months now will be spent at a vendor for any eternal or upgraded to upper level orbs. I have vendored the vast majority of mine, which now turns out to be a mistake as 5 gold is less than what eternals are worth. On the bright side, this should crash the eternal market slightly on the more expensive eternals (sorry transmuting Alchemists). However, the dark side to this is that ninja need rolling on Frozen Orbs will jump significantly. It's already happened to me twice this weekend after only happening 2-4 times over the past few weeks. So be on your guard, because the greedy will be rolling need a lot more now.
On the team front, Arielae has now dinged 45 and Biancae 32, so the alts are back into play now that the first alt is pretty well-established as an 80 tank.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Achievement Hunting Vol. 6: Lunar Festival
Well this is just a crazy time of year, with Love is in the Air running simultaneously with the Lunar Festival. However, last year was a lot worse as the last week of Lunar Festival coincided with the 6 day Love holiday, and people went crazy trying to finish both at the same time. Thankfully with the changes to Love is in the Air, you should have been able to clear that out in the first week. If not, a few more daily quests should get the job done over the last 4 days of that holiday. The Lunar Festival is bar none the most straightforward and time consuming holiday there is, even topping the travel fun in Hallow's End. The basic idea is going and respecting a bunch of Elders who appear in spotlights all over the world. Let's cover the achievements in our usual fashion.
The holiday can be started in any major capital of either faction. You will find an elder and a starter quest that asks you to set off some fireworks to celebrate the occasion. These cost a handful of silver, but not much for any toon, even low leveled. Then you will receive an invitation to Moonglade, normally the home of druids only. In Moonglade you will find a festival area and a festival vendor inside the town. You should head this way early in the holiday, espeically if you are low level for reasons set out below.
1. Frenzied Firecracker - you need to purchase 10 firecrackers for some silver from the vendors in the major cities and then set off the firecrackers within 30 seconds. You do need to target the ground somewhere for each one, so it is better if you put the firecrackers on your action bar. Still, very easy to do right away.
2. The Rocket's Red Glare - if you finished Love is in the Air, then this will be familiar. You buy 10 rockets and set them off in 25 seconds. The rockets just cost a few silver from the same city vendor you got the firecrackers from, so again, you should have this achievement in a minute.
3. Elune's Blessing - Although Omen is a level 80 dog in Moonglade with tons and tons of health, the first week of the festival is full of people summoning and killing him. All you have to do is be around when Omen is killed, as everyone in the vicinity can walk into the moonglow spotlight when he dies to receive Omen's blessing, finishing the quest and the achievement. Thus, go to Moonglade this week, as Omen is very hard to see killed in the last half of this very long holiday.
4. Elders of the Alliance - This is speaking from Alliance perspective, so if Horde just swap the factions. As mentioned above, there are elders all over the world you visit and each gives you a Coin of Ancestry. There coins can be used to buy firecracker packages and six colorful outfits in Moonglade, but you'll only need 30-35 for all that fun. However, there are 75 elders to find and the four in your faction's capital cities are the easiest.
5. Elders of Eastern Kingdoms - There are 17 elders hiding in nearly every zone of the Eastern Kingdoms. There are slightly fewer elders here than in Kalimdor and the flight paths for both factions generally put you in better position to get to these elders. Probably the hardest elder to get to in this lot is Moonstrike in Scholomance (outside the instance).
6. Lunar Festival Finery - You need to purchase a dress or suit for 5 Coins of Ancestry. It's probably a good time to take a break after doing Eastern Kingdoms and before tackling Kalimdor, as the grind of travel is easy to wear on you. Plus with the brightly colorful clothes you can be styling as you ride your ground mount all over the world.
7. Elders of Kalimdor - This is the same grind as Eastern Kingdoms, with 21 elders instead of 17. And a couple of these elders are incredibly hard to get to if you have never opened up the zones and flight paths. The most difficult is Elder Brightspear in Winterspring, as you need to have the tunnel opened to you in order to get there a first time. Hopefully you have enough time to get on this right away, as nothing should hold you back with three weeks to get things like this done.
8. 50 Coins of Ancestry - If you've been following along this path roughly and getting some instance coins as well, you will hit the last of the coin of ancestry achievements and the one you need for the meta, which is 50. This just happens by a function of you needing to get all 75 anyways, so this is a throwaway.
9. Elders of Northrend - There are 18 more elders in Northrend, and I guess elders don't visit Outland because it's not Azeroth proper. In any event, these are probably easier than the previous ones for high levels because you can use your flying mount. If nothing else, these will go quicker.
10. Elders of the Horde - This would be the opposite faction, which you should do during the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor runs. However, each of these are a real pain, especially early in the holiday where PvP players will be griefing those trying to get the elder coins. These are also right in the busy holiday sections of each city, so it will be hard to not run into people. Nevertheless, this is easier than most PvP holiday achievements overall.
11. Elders of the Dungeons - And now we come to the meat of the matter. As you travel around the world, you also need to drop into some instances and tear through them to find Elders hiding somewhere inside. Seven of these dungeons are in Northrend and you can run most of them on normal, and six more in the old world should be easy for level 80 characters. You will need to be level 80 anyways because one coin is in Utgarde Pinnacle and another is only available in heroic Gundrak. These will be the hardest two coins to get, and I have a friend who failed to get these coins last year, which led to them wiping out all his achievements this year and he's got to do it all over again. So beware, don't take on the task unless you are ready to commit the time to finish it.
And that's all there is! This is so straightforward it is hard to jazz up 7 straight entries about "go find coins". But nevertheless, you will not be alone. In fact, my two tips are these. First, you should travel with a buddy if possible to keep you company. If that person happens to be a hunter who can make you move faster, so be it. The second tip is although discovery on your own is fun, this holiday is really one you should follow a guide so that you don't waste time backtracking. The best online guide is Wowhead as usual: http://www.wowhead.com/?guide=lunar-festival. However, there are also a couple addons that can help as well. Use the guides, save some time, especially if you are crazy enough to run this holiday on more than one toon. I will be completing this on Navar, but it has not changed from when Ekat did it and I wish you the best of luck. Congrats to new Elders and to those who finish Long Strange Trip on this holiday for their drake.
Again, let me know if there are any non-holiday achievements you want me to speak about, especially considering we have a long break to Noblegarden. See you next time!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Building A Successful Guild Part 4: Secure Your Valuables!
Welcome back to the Successful Guild Building series! In part 1, I described how the foundation of a guild is the guild leadership, who must be strong or else everything else crumbles. In part 2, I looked at the parallels between framing the different rooms in a house and in a guild, setting up proper avenues for members to enjoy all the various aspects of the game. In part 3, I detailed how the outside appearances of your guild caused by your website and current member conduct affects recruitment and retention of guild members. Now we come to the fourth part of this five-part series on how to build a successful guild, and more specifically, securing the guild.
One of the most crucial details in constructing a house is figuring out what provisions you will make to secure the valuable possessions and people inside the house both when you are home and when you are away. You can have a beautiful house with well-sized rooms and a good foundation, but without some sort of security system, all of this can be for naught with just one bad guy. Continuing the metaphor, the same is true of your well-constructed guild in Warcraft. One only has to look on the major websites covering WoW or the official forums to see many tales of guild drama and people stealing loots from groups and guilds, also known as ninjas. Just like the robbers and burglars in real life, the ninjas are in your realm and they are always looking for a chance to strike at your weaknesses. So how do you keep them out?
The first step in securing a house is installing door sensors and window contacts to communicate with a security system controller. This way, you know when things are moving in and out of the house through all the possible entryways. In a similar fashion, guild leaders must set a framework for protecting guild assets, usually held in a guild bank. Thankfully blizzard has programmed in many ways to keep track of guild banks so that guild leaderships can implement security procedures easily. The first thing you will notice is the log tab on every bank tab the guild purchases. This is not a thing to be ignored, as you can check every day or two and see which members in the guild are removing items from the guild bank. Ideally, you will have an officer who takes care of keeping the bank organized, and that person needs to check the logs to ensure any suspicious activity (a toon always taking things out of the gbank every day, taking high-value things, etc.) is noticed and brought to the attention of the officers immediately.
Additionally, limits may be placed on how many items you can let a character remove from a guild tab per day. This can range all the way from unlimited to no access at all, thereby allowing you to tailor your level of security. Another method of protecting the guild bank is limiting access to trial or new members. Whenever a member joins a guild, they join at the lowest rank. You should, at a minimum, organize your guild into three ranks: officers, full members, and new/trial members. Full members have moderate or normal access to the guild bank, while new/trial members should have zero access. This can be set in the bank and guild settings for each membership level you have set up. Taking these simple steps when setting up your guild can stop most ninjas right in their tracks.
One example from my days with The Illuminati illustrates this point nicely. We had a new member come in on a Saturday morning a few months ago, and they were talkative and generally nice in gchat. The person even ran a couple instances that morning with other guild members to try and start building relationships. Then just a few hours later, he asks in gchat "why can't I pull these mana pots from the guild bank?" So I and a couple of officers explained the no access policy during the new member period, and the guy flipped out in gchat. "I don't want to be a part of a group that doesn't trust people...this is just not the right fit for me..." He then quit the guild shortly thereafter. It was so painfully clear that the whole time, he was hoping to loot the guild bank and run off with the generous contributions of many others. But just by putting the security system in place, it kept a disaster from happening.
Once you have the contacts and sensors installed in a house, the next important step is USING the system. You'd be surprised how many people forget to turn their security system on at the keypad before they leave the house. In fact, when my car was broken into in real life a few months ago, the cop was surprised that it was an actual break in because he had not had any thefts where the doors were locked in six months! For a guild, that enforcement is easy because once you set your guild bank security settings, they stay in place. However, the use of an officer to organize the guild bank and make sure items that need to stay in "Request Only" tabs do so. However, just like in my story above, you have to make it clear to your officers that these bank rules are to be strictly enforced at all times! There's a reason you went to all the hassle of protecting these digital goods in the first place, and you do not want to waste that effort.
There is another kind of ninja thief in Warcraft, and that is the account hacker. Whether by shoddy account-sharing or dealing with gold sellers, even your full-fledged members and officers can become prone to this hacking phenomenon. When it happens to an officer in a guild, the guild bank is just as vulnerable as the personal bank, AND Blizzard is less likely to replace an entire guild bank worth of goods because you failed to protect them. Malicious people may also try to take over your website and use your ventrilo server, so you need to be careful with who is entrusted with guild information. Thankfully blizzard has provided an easy solution to this problem as well.
This little guy here is a Corehound pet, and he is only active on accounts with active authenticators. The authenticator requires an owner to put in an extra 8-digit code while logging in, and this code changes continuously for each authenticator. This makes accounts with an authenticator nearly unhackable. Therefore, anybody with full access to the guild information and supplies (and the ability to invite members who may turn out to be ninjas) all can be secured from intrusion by requiring an authenticator on every office account. This is not much of a burden as the authenticators are cheap and the corehound can be checked every month to ensure the officers continue to use the authenticator. Full members may get hacked, but the damage they can cause is hopefully limited to a few stacks of items in the bank, and usually a hacked member will inform guild leadership within 1 day of the hacking. However, I highly recommend requiring officers to use authenticators to fully enable the security provisions you have put into place.
With the size of both of my guilds, the security systems are in place and working well to prevent an attack of the ninja. In AIE, the guild bank is not a huge focus of the guild because there are way more people in the guild than a practical guild bank can handle. However, to enter AIE you do have to go through a trial period where you have little access to guild chat and no access to the guild bank. AIE also purges the guild roster of inactive people after a period of time, and recently placed the Authenticator Requirement into place for all officers. Thus, even in a guild of thousands of members, AIE is protected from the smallest ninjas that may try to wreck the guild.
The Illuminati works on a much more reasonable scale of membership, but this guild is more than big enough to be a valuable thing to steal from. The Illuminati has a full six guild bank tabs, and the guild bankers organizes the items into those tabs from raw materials to pre-northrend to northrend and then to high-value raiding materials. Full members are allowed to take 3 stacks per day for the low level items, 1 stack per day of the northrend items, and must request any epic gems and eternals. New members have no access whatsoever, and this keeps the guild savings protected from any ninjas or hacked accounts. While I am currently unaware of any officer policy for authenticators, the guild roster and officer roster is maintained by removing inactive members in each field. Therefore, The Illuminati also deters the potential thieves from looting the guild's bounty.
So with just a few easy steps, all the hard work you have done as a guild building gold and materials to help raiders and new toons can be protected. Security might seem like something unimportant you can get around to, but you never know with people coming in and out of the guild when a ninja will arrive. Like the guy who tried to ninja the bank if The Illuminati, sometimes they are the nicest people and start off building relationships with guild members. Always stay vigilant and keep your officers vigilant as well. Keeping your guild out of the drama threads on the forums and news reporting websites will help ensure the continued success of your guild.
We only have one more installment of this Successful Guild series, and I hope to have that finished up very soon. Until next time, keep your guild safe and secure!
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