Grats to the Exiles

On Saturday we downed the Curator for the first time. Woo hoo!. We got to do the Chess event as well, which is very cool. Grats to everyone.

Arena Cheating

There have been a couple of posts on WowInsider on the practice of Win Trading. Basically, you setup a team of alts that you purposefully lose to. Then you arrange off hour matches so you can ensure that your teams will be matched against each other. You win 10 matches a week they lose 10. Then, simply buy a new charter for the losing team every week so you will always go up against a 1500 rated team. According to the second story, a player from my battlegroup (Vengeance) had the top rating in 5v5, 3v3, and 2v2 using this method. Here are the story links:

Arena Cheating 1
Arena Cheating 2

I have suspected for some time that something like this could be possible if you had enough time. That's why I think the whole season 3 rating requirements for certain rewards is such a joke. You want to reward the teams with the most "skill"? Skill at what, cheating? lol.

It is not the cheaters that bother me so much. Its that Blizzard keeps building systems that are so easy to exploit if you have the time to do it. You would think the AFKer problem in Alterac Valley would have made them look more closely at Arena and all BGs. But alas, they continually seem to stick their head in the sand and never acknowledge problems. After these stories circulate, the number of teams doing this is gonna skyrocket. lol.

Arena is a great way for casual players to have fun and get some decent gear. But the least Blizz can do is make it fair for everyone playing.

Down Moroes without a Priest

Grats to my guild, Exalted Exiles for downing Moroes this Saturday! As we are a new guild and new to Karazhan, we are still a bit thin when it comes to tanks and healers. We have 3 tanks including myself and one of the tank's main is a hunter that runs with us. We have a primary Pally(Kilena) healer, but have been rotating in Druids and another Pally as the 2nd healer. On Saturday, we had the Pally and a Druid.

We downed Attuneman with 9, picked up a DPS and then downed Maiden on the first try. So off to Moroes.

We have been told that Moroes is impossible to down without either 2 priests, or 3 healers. Well we don't have either and probably won't yet for a while. lol. So here is how we did it.

Group composition: Dwarf Warrior, Druid Tank(Me), Hunter, Hunter, Rogue, Warlock, Warlock, Mage, Pally, Resto Druid

Moroes Adds: Shadow Priest, Holy Pally, Retribution Pally, Prot Warrior

DPS Order: Shadow Priest, Holy Pally, Moroes

Our Strategy

• The dwarf warrior tank (Sythyr) took Moroes


• The two hunters (DubsTwo, Idril) grab the Ret Pally and alternate freeze traps on him. This worked great has he was frozen the whole time.


• Our main rogue (Erikes) jumps the Shadow Priest and keeps her from casting. This is very key as we have tried it without a rogue and she just mana drains the entire group. I don't think she got a spell off.


• The Druid tank picks up the protection warrior, builds a little agro, then drags him around like a pet. Then picks up the holy pally. Got a swipe or two on the priest, but the rest of the group downed her fast.

So basically, the priest and the pally go down fast and then the crowd control becomes easy. The hunters lay traps at a set interval and the prot warrior blunts his sword on my armor. Everyone can focus on Moroes. It worked great. The healers were awesome (Kilena and a druid who's name I forget), zero deaths from the fight.

Don't ever let anyone convince you that you must have X group to take down Y boss. All these encounters are a puzzle that you just need to figure out. It may take 10 or 12 attempts (about what it took us), but if you keep an open mind, talk to each other, and just have fun, you will succeed.

Alterac Valley and Patch 2.3, What a Rush!

Well when I first heard about the changes to Alterac Valley in patch 2.3, I thought the battleground would turn into a big slow turtle. Boy was I wrong. It's even more of a race than it was before.

Since there are no Commanders or Lieutenants guarding the graveyards and towers, you can really fly right to the enemy base. You still need to leave a few on defense to cap the towers, as this removes Warmasters defending Drek'thar. Most of the matches last night were around 12-15 minutes each! For the same honor! Seems like most matches were around 20-30 minutes before.

The biggest change you are gonna notice is that there is no more pulling. Drek'thar and his Warmasters are linked. They will not run out. So you have to fight them in the base. Thus the need to capture towers and eliminate as many Warmasters as possible. Trying to tank Drek and more than 1 warmaster would be pretty tough.

The Maiden is Down

On Monday night my guild downed the Maiden for the first time. Grats everyone!

Pretty good a accomplishment for a new guild and only our second week in Kara.

Proof of the Blizz Warlock Conspiracy

In my third and final installment on why Undead Warlocks are Blizz developers favorite PVP class, I provide proof. The conspiracy in all its ugliness is laid bare for the world to see! :) Bwahhahahahahaha. You cannot hide the truth from me Blizz.

Here is my proof point by point

#1: Warrior Nerf
In the coming 2.3 patch, Blizzard is switching Sweeping Strings and Death Wish in the Warrior talent tree. This is a huge nerf to Mortal Strike Warriors. I play with one and he does do well against most cloth wearers. But by no means is victory assured in every match. And if our team is defeated, it is usually by a team with either a Warlock, a Pally or a Frost Mage. I would put MS Warriors 3rd or 4th on the overpowered list. But alas, some Warlocks might actually be killed so the Nerf must be made.

#2: Drain life "bug"
Warlocks can cast the Drain Life spell which damages their target and heals the Warlock. The spell has been "bugged" for quite some time and the healing effect has not been affected by mortal strike. Apparently, this is the only healing spell with this "bug". Blizz is grudgingly going to fix this in patch 2.3.

#3: Night Elf Cat Form Range Bug
Night Elf druids have a bug in catform where if your target runs, you basically can't hit it. Your supposed 5 yard range is effectively 1 yard. This bug has existed for over a year and Blizz has not fixed it. Supposedly it was fixed in 2.2, but it seems to be pretty much unfixed from what I can tell. Why no love on such a basic and important bug? Because Druids aren't Warlocks.

#4: Fear Ward Nerf
In patch 2.3, Blizzard will be "giving" the Fear Ward spell to all Priests. But the new spell will be severely nerfed. Instead of being able to put the 10 min duration spell on a toon every 30 seconds, you will only be able to put the spell on 1 toon every 3 minutes. So what class would be affected by Fear Ward? Hmmmm. The only class that Fear Ward provides any real protection from is Warlocks. That is the only class that can spam fear spells. All other classes fear spells have like a 5 minute cooldown. So why the nerf? Its obvious, too many Warlocks were being killed by Shadow Priests. Can't have that. Take away the spell. Warlocks must have easy mode.

#5: Big "DOTs" nerf
Blizz added this cool new stat called resilience to the game. Resilience reduces the chance that any attack will crit and then when the attack does crit, it reduces the damage taken from the crit. So resilience gear helps you stay alive in PVP. Except the Damage over Time spells (DoTs) were not affected by resilience. What is the only class that relies primarily on DoTs for the majority of their damage? Warlocks. Hmmmm.

So finally, after much complaining Blizz actually relented and allowed DoT's to be reduced by the crit rating from your resilience gear. So now instead of a Warlock's Dots killing me in 15 seconds. I got to die in 18 seconds. Woo hoo! Thanks Blizz.

Conclusion
The conclusion is obvious, Blizzard developers play Undead Warlocks.

No Respawns Please

My guild ran Karazhan for the first time this week. The first night we didn't get anyone down, but last night we got Attunemen down and almost got the Maiden down. After spending two nights in there, I was reminded of this post on respawns from the Blessing of Kings blog.

I completely agree with the post. Respawns are simply time wasters when you have a limited amount of play time. Most of our guildees only have a 2 or 3 hour window to play a night. Wasting 30-45 minutes clearing pointless trash 1 time in a raid is one thing. But having to do it repeatedly is just stupid. We had to do the scroll quest for several people so instead of being able to try the Maiden 3 times, we could only do it twice because of the trash respawns.

The reason I pay $15 a month for the game is to have fun. Cleaning trash repeatedly is NOT fun. Its boring and annoying and makes me want to stop playing the game.

Why are Warlocks Overpowered in PVP?

Simply put, they have the best player versus player (PVP) crowd control in the game combined with very effective and easy to cast damage over time spells (DOTS). Specifically, let's look at their crowd control spells.

• Death Coil (Instant Cast) - 3 second fear that returns health to the caster equal to damage inflicted. Technically this is considered horror not fear. So not included in diminishing returns for fear. 2 min cooldown.
• Howl of Terror (1.5 sec cast) - 8 second area of effect fear that affects 5 toons. 40 sec cooldown. Also considered terror or horror so not included in fear diminishing returns.
• Fear (1.5 sec cast) - 10 second fear in PVP. Can only be cast on 1 toon at a time. Diminishing returns. The first spell is 10 seconds, the second 5 seconds, the third 3 seconds. Then a toon is immune from your spell for 15 seconds. Then, everything is reset and you can be feared again.

This is a very powerful set of spells. Most classes have 2 or 3 crowd control spells. But because Warlocks spells are all fear based, this gives them an advantage.


What Makes Fear based Spells Different from Other Crowd Control?
There are a couple of things that set fear apart from other crowd control spells.

1. Complete control of your toon is lost.
   
2. Damage can be increased while the fear effect is in place.

When feared, your loss of control is total. Your current target is lost. The camera angle cannot be controlled or changed. Basically you cannot do anything for the duration of the Fear effect except sit back and watch. This differs from many crowd control effects like Roots, Frost Nova, Earthbind Totem, or Hamstring which allow you to maintain control of your toon even though your movement is impaired. The only counter for most classes is the PVP trinket you can earn in battlegrounds. The trinket will break a fear effect, but has a 2 minute cooldown this limiting its usefulness.

Many crowd control effects seem to have some limitation in regard to damage. Polymorph actually causes the affected toon to regenerate health and mana faster. Cyclone makes a toon immune to damage. A Freeze Trap breaks if the toon suffers any damage. Sap break with any damage.

Fear effects differ in that damage over time spells can be added without breaking the effect. In theory, at some magical threshold, damage from DOTS will break fear. But in practice this seems to be a very rare occurrence. Burst spell or melee damage has been changed and now breaks fear. But, only poor arena players would actually risk breaking fear in this way.

Thus, in many situaltions, a good Warlock can reduce your health by 50% without using any of their damage spells and without you having a chance to fight back. Add to this one of the warlock pets charming you, pounding on you with a large axe, or silencing your attempts to heal and the situation is grim indeed.

Nerf Warlocks?
The simplest solution would be to merely put all warlock spells on the same diminishing returns timer, just like every other class. At least with 15 seconds of immunity to fear effects, you would have more of a chance. Any solution should only affect PVP. Changing any classes overal abilities is a bad idea when only a PVP fix is needed.

Blizzard Developers Play Undead Warlocks

Overpowered warlocks in PVP has been a topic of much discussion amongst Warcraft players for some time. It is apparent to most players that Warlocks are overpowered compared to other classes, in 2v2 or 3v3 arena matches. Blizzard acknowledges the problem but refuses to do anything about it. So one begins to wonder, do all Blizzard developers play undead warlocks?

Here are my thoughts on the subject, broken into a couple of posts. In my next post, I will explain why I think warlocks are overpowered. And in a final post, I will provide evidence proving that warlocks are Blizzard's favorite class. This conspiracy shall not stand!!!! ;-)

Reactions to Fear Ward

I'm a little surprised at the muted reaction the Fear Ward nerf. It seems most priests just don't get the magnitude of the nerf. Or maybe, they are just happy that dwarf and draeni priests no longer have it. I don't know. One would think priests would want the original spell or something close to it?

Over at the Disciple of the Light blog, they see Fear Ward nerf clearly. Bruthah makes the argument the nerf is for PVP. If that is the case, there is really only 1 class that Fear Ward would affect in any big way, Warlocks. Obviously Blizzards favorite PVP class isn't overpowered enough. So now priests can join all the other non warrior classes as chain fear toys. Thanks Blizz.

Fear Ward is Now Useless

From the 2.3 PTR notes.
* Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes.

This one has got me speechless. A PVP trinket can do the same thing and only has a 2 minute cooldown. And now my dwarf priest gets a 2 second incapacitate, not a stun. Woo hoo!!!!

I rolled a Dwarf Priest because of Fear Ward. I wouldn't roll one for a 2 second incapacitate that isn't even an instant cast. More comments to come.

Avoid Nurturing Instinct

Just remembered this and thought I should share. When you are allocating points in the feral talent tree, do not put any points in the Nurturing Instinct talent. Why not? Well, since the first or second Burning Crusade patch, it doesn't do anything. Its broken. How do I know?

Well I had the talent before BC and it increases the healing you do by 25% of your strength after you shift out of bear or cat form. So when you use Lifebloom or Rejuvenation, there is a definite increase in healing per tick. After the 2nd or 3rd patch, I noticed the amount of healing per tick seemed lower.

If you have the talent and want to see if it has been fixed, its easy to test. Just jump off a building or something that causes you minor damage, then cast Lifebloom. Note the amount of healing per tick. Repeat the jump, but this time do it in Bear form. Shift out and cast Lifebloom. The amount of healing should be greater for the second cast. If the healing numbers are the same, it is still broken.

I reported the problem 2 or 3 separate times. Each time, I was assured that it was "known" problem and it would be fixed in the next patch. After 2 patches with no fix, I re-speced. Don't miss it much. It is really not worth the talent points for the amount of healing you get.

Got my Epic Flying Mount

It has been a busy week, so I forgot to mention a couple of important in game events. First on Tuesday, I finally got my arena helm! Then on Wednesday, I got my epic flying mount! Woo hoo!

The arena helm is awesome and have been working towards that for a numbers of weeks. But the epic mount has to be one of the tougher things to do in the game. Saving up 5200 gold is just freaking hard. So how did I do it? Well there was some mining, and there was some herbing, but I made most of the money fishing. Yes, that's right, fishing. On a good night, I made around 140 gold in about 1.5 hours. On an average night, about 80 gold.

I am not yet ready to reveal all my secrets, but I will share in a future post. The crazy thing to come out of all this is, I actually enjoy fishing now. I never thought I would be saying that. But I do. I like fishing.

A Little Feral Love for 2.3

WOW Insider has this story on a change to the Heart of the Wild feral druid ability. Basically, instead of buffing strength by +20% in cat form, it will buff attack power by +10%. This should be a nice boost if you have any sort of feral staff or mace as that is generally you biggest source of attack power.

Leveling Improvements for 2.3 Patch

Wow Insider has a nice post on the coming improvements for leveling from 30-60. Looks like if you are leveling alts, it would be best to wait on the patch.

It certainly changes, my strategy. I am leveling a gnome mage (52) and a dwarf priest (39) to 70. So instead of leveling both, I will leave the priest where he is, and focus on the mage as he is only 6 levels from 58 and burning crusade content.

I was surprised that Blizz seemed to be most concerned about quests from 30-40. Which seems kinda silly. The hardest leveling is from 40-60. Many of the quests, especially after 50, are focused on instances that are much harder to run than they used to be.

I have never been a huge instance person. You should be able to skip all the instances and still level fairly easily. I think Blizzard makes a mistake when they want people to play a certain way. The game is successful because of multiple play styles that are available. (raiding, questing, pvp)

Capturing Alterac Valley Towers and Removing Archers

There is one tip I would like share about Alterac Valley and the towers in each faction's base. On a number of occasions I have shared this information in the battleground, but it difficult to make things clear in chat.

If you can sneak into the horde or alliance base and capture the tower before an archer fires a shot, all the archers in that tower magically disappear. Yes that is right, you can take out all the archers in the tower without firing a shot.

Now the key here is the archer's can't fire a shot. This means the tower must be captured by a stealth toon, a rogue or a druid. Simply stealth in, climb the tower, and capture the flag. If you keep a reasonable distance from the archers, its a piece cake to take both.

Unfortunately, often there seems to be some unstealthed knucklehead who insists on riding in and messing the whole thing up. Please non stealthies, if there is a rogue or druid nearby, give them a couple minutes to do their thing before riding in.

Welcome

Welcome to this World of Warcraft blog. Having found the Official Warcraft forums less than adequate for airing grievances or sharing tips, I decided I should create this blog. Even if no one reads it, the cathartic value will be great.