Druid Shift

Forum Reaction to Post

2009-09-01T00:24:00.003-06:00

The forum reaction to my post was interesting. Pretty hostile. Methinks I touched a nerve. :)

It's interesting that most of the comments were personal attacks instead of any sort of refutation of my comments. Bear tank AOE threat still sucks. DPS is still low. Itemization is still limited for nonraiding druids. The gear is fine if you run 25 man regularly, however, most people don't.

Most of the posters are either high end PVPers or high end Raiders. Most with complete 25 man sets. Saying they are pulling 2k dps with all that gear just makes my point . Pally tanks with only 10 man gear pull 2 to 2.5k dps. What are they pulling with 25 man gear? 3k? 3.5k?

But I can understand the reaction. Bear tanks are fun to play. If players feel threatened by other classes, then I shouldn't be surprised by negative comments. Oh well. So much for civil discourse. :)

Oh, almost forgot. There were many glowing comments about my first attempt at a Boomkin spec. lol. Quite humorous. Apparently I'm supposed to research my spec for 2 weeks before trying it, instead of spending 15 minutes picking what looks like fun. I'll take the 2nd option thanks.

A Bear Tank No More

2009-08-31T18:49:00.003-06:00

Posted this to the Druid forums earlier today:

After years as a Bear Tank, I have decided to respec to resto/boomkin from resto/feral. It was a tough decision, after main tanking my guild through Kara and much of Naxx one becomes attached to a toon and spec. But after some guildees leveled a Paladin and a DK tank, it is apparent to me its best for me to step aside. Here are my reasons for the change.

(1) Itemization - If you are a casual player, tanking gear is pretty much non-existent. I don't think there is a single good bear tanking item, besides the trinket, in 5 man and heroic ToC. PVP gear is ridiculously gimped for Ferals (very low AP). Unless your guild regularly gets tier badges, you have very few options. Rogue gear does not cut it without significant buffs to stamina.

(2) DPS - Our DPS is too low compared to Paladin and DK tanks. When those tanks are pulling 2000 to 2500 dps in Naxx, its hard to justify bringing a tank doing 1100 dps. Heck it just speeds up the run to have the higher DPS.

(3) AOE Aggro - AOE dps has become a big part of the game. A bear tank does not have the same amount of AOE threat that a Paladin or DK does.

So I am leveling a Paladin for tanking. Got her to level 20 and I will be back in the tanking game in a month or two. But I'm gonna miss my Bear.

I'm pretty sad about it. I really really like being a Bear tank. But it just doesn't make sense given how well the other tank classes perform. And, the gear thing is a real problem. Rogue gear does not make good tanking gear. It makes good feral kitty gear, but the stam is way too low for a bear.

So I am leveling a Paladin tank first. Maybe a DK after. Who knows, maybe Blizzard will like Bear tanks again in Cataclysm? But I'm hedging my bets.

Blizzcon Coverage

2009-08-21T10:04:00.002-06:00

Like me. Most folks are not able to make it to Blizzcon. However, there appears to be a number of options for following the event.

First off, we have a bunch of coverage from wow.com. First they have a wow.com blizzcon page for all blog posts Blizzcon. In addition, they will have multiple people tweeting at the conference. All their coverage is detailed in this post.

If you want to participate in the conversation, check out #blizzcon on twitter. The other day I stumbled across twubs.com which is a site that compiles all those hashtags into a nice easy to follow stream. Want to see what people are saying about #blizzcon? Check out the #blizzcon twitter feed here.

I spurlged on the Direct TV HD feed so my DVR will be happily recording everything. Yay!

Warcraft PVP Needs More Stuns

2009-07-10T20:16:00.001-06:00

Posted this suggestion on the PVP forums. I'm always amazed that someone will think I'm serious. lol.

Lately in battlegrounds I'm finding my toons are living far too long. All this running around, casting spells and fighting makes my fingers tired and gives me a headache. Who really wants to control their toons that much?

So instead of merely whining, one needs to offer solutions. The answer to this problem? More stuns. Not only should stun durations be increased, but area of effect stuns need to be introduced into the game. Here are just a few spells to consider:

Chained Kidney Shot - When your current target is stunned, the stun jumps to the 3 closest enemies.

Hammer Storm of Justice - All enemies in a 30 yard radius are stunned for 6 seconds.

Maim Frezy - The druid goes into a "stun" frenzy jumping from enemy to enemy and stunning up to 5 of them in a 30yd radius.

These are just a few ideas that would really enhance the PVP experience.

Resto Druid Pre-Naxx Gear - Part I

2009-06-05T10:38:00.022-06:00

Recently, I was able to purchase the dual spec option for my Feral druid. After trying Boomkin and being very disappointed with their PVP survivability, I tried a Restoration (Resto) spec and love it. So over the past few weeks the gearing up process is in full swing. Here is some of the information discovered during that process.

With the new season of arena, last season's arena gear is purchasable with honor. And given the gear's quality, there are a number of items in this list. If you are not a PVPer, I highly recommend doing the Wintergrasp weekly quests. Usually, there are so many people in there, no one will notice you aren't into PVP. Just stay near the action to complete the quests and you will have enough honor to purchase something in a few weeks.

There are are only a few good items for each slot. Not a lot of itemization for druids. If you have a weak item in a slot, check out the Overcast crafted set. It includes very solid pieces that can be used as a baseline for building your set. Many of those pieces are included in this list.

Update 6/6: Rearranged the data a little bit. Comments at top, made list more tabular.

Head
Helm of Anomalus would seem the best overall. But the PVP and vendor options are also good.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Helm - PVP Honor, 49600
Helm of Anomalus - Heroic Drop, 21%, Anomalus in The Nexus.
Helm of the Majestic Stag - Vendor, Honored with the Kirin Tor
Overcast Headguard - Leatherworking, AH

Shoulders
Not a lot of options for the shoulders.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders - PVP Honor, 31600
Silent Spectator Shoulderpads - Heroic Drop, 22%, Svala Sorrowgrave Utgarde Pinnacle.
Overcast Spaulders - Leatherworking, AH

Back
Really like the Deadly cloak here. But there are lots of options.

Deadly Gladiator's Cloak of Deliverance - PVP Honor, 38000
Wispcloak - Tailoring. AH. Often found on auction house for 600G.
Reanimator's Cloak - Drop, low rate, Trash in Drak'theron Keep, BOE
Shroud of Moorabi - Heroic Drop, 24%, Gundrak, Moorabi
Subterranean Waterfall Shroud - Heroic Drop, 20%, Akn'kahet: The Old Kindgom, Jedoga Shadowseeker.

Wrist
There are some good options for the wrist. Really like Culling of Strat drop here.

Deadly Gladiator's Armwraps of Salvation - PVP Honor, 31600
Plague-Infected Bracers - Heroic Drop, 11%, Chest after Mal'ganis, Culling of Strat.
Handler's Arm Strap - Heroic Drop, 21%, King Drek, Drak'tharon Keep
Wound-Binder's Wristguards - Vendor, Honored Knights of the Ebon blade
Overcast Bracers - Leatherworking

Hands
Not a lot of options here. So I have included one cloth piece I actually use as well.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves - PVP Honor, 31,600
Grotto Mist Gloves - Heroic Drop, 21%, Hadronox, Azjul-Nerub
Gloves of Northern Lordaeron - Normal Drop, 18%, Chest after Mal'Ganis in Culling of Strat.
Overcast Handguards - Leatherworking
Moonshroud Gloves - Tailoring

Chest
Very limited options here. The UP drop is very good. BOE item so you may be able to buy at AH.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Robes - PVP Honor, 49600
Ymirjar Physician's Robe - Drop, Low rate, Trash in Utgarde Pinnacle
Overcast Chestguard - Leatherworking

Waist
Another slot with pretty limited options. The PVP belt or Hall of Lightning belts seem to be he best options here. 40 Badges for a belt seems a little ridiculous to me.

Deadly Gladiator's Belt of Salvation - PVP Honor, 49600
Vine Belt of the Woodland Dryad - Vendor, 40 Heroism Badges
Belt of Vivacity - Heroic Drop, 21%, Halls of Lightning, Volkhan
Overcast Belt - Leatherworking

Legs
The Earthgiving legguards rock. Better start saving your gold now. :)

Earthgiving Legguards - Leatherworking.
Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards - PVP Honor, 49600
Kilt of the Forgotten One - Heroic Drop, 19%, Akn'kahet: The Old Kindgom, Herald Volazj
Overcast Leggings - Leatherworking

Feet
The crafted boots look like a good option here.

Deadly Gladiator's Boots of Salvation - PVP Honor, 39600
Earthgiving Boots - Leatherworking
Boots of Transformation - Heroic Drop, 20%, Gundrak, Gal'darah
Overcast Boots - Leatherworking

Summary

Hopefully, you can get some decent gear one way or the other. In part II, I will go over weapons and accessories to complete your set.

Wow Plugins and 3.1

2009-04-15T17:25:00.013-06:00

I wanted to make a list of the plugins I use and where to get them. Mainly so I have a future reference for the next patch. lol. But if I put them here, maybe some other folks out there can benefit from this post.

My philosophy is to use as few plugins as possible. This way, playing on another machine isn't completely alien. And also, if someone stops updating a plugin, it does not wreck my playing experience.

Auctioneer
So popular it has its own web site on Source Forge for downloading. The only way to go if you need to buy and sell stuff in wow.

Wow Interface
Capping (3.1.001, updated for 3.1) - A really, really useful PVP mod. It displays the times it will take for a graveyard or tower to cap. By control-clicking a timer the time is inserted into BG chat. Very useful in AV and AB.

CurseForge.com
Cooldowns (1.2.5, updated for 3.1) - Displays the number of seconds until a spell is available. The genius is the seconds are displayed on the WOW toolbar for the spell. So you don't have to look someplace else or clutter your screen. Very very useful.

Druid bar (Not updated yet) - Shows your mana bar when in Bear or Cat form.

Curse.com

Cartographer - (2.5.1, updated for 3.1) - Map mod for WOW. Makes the make smaller and adds coordinates. Also provides more information about who is where in BGs I think.

Gatherer (3.1.12, updated for 3.1) - Tool for mapping herbs and ore nodes.

Recount (3.1b, updated for 3.1) - The best damage and healing meter in the game.

3.1 and PVP

2009-04-15T17:24:00.001-06:00

A quick note on Patch 3.1 and PVP. I spent some time on my Druid and my Mage last night after the Patch came out.

Damage is even burstier now than it was before. My Druid dies much easier than before and my Mage is about the same. However, my Mage Attillla seems to be putting out some crazy DPS now. So now he has some chance against Ret Pallies and Death Knights. The Ret Pallies still seem to be the most overpowered. The Death Knights seemed much more killable than before the patch.

The Demise of Clothies in PVP

2009-02-18T19:01:00.010-07:00

Last night I saw the future of battleground PVP, and it is bleak. The toon composition of an Arathi Basin game was (11 Paladins (mostly ret), 6 Death Knights, 5 rogues, and a smattering of other classes). My calculator tells me that makes 73% of the toons from these overpowered melee classes that currently dominate BGs.

It makes me sad. Because I can remember the days when BGs were dominated by cloth wearers. The Warlocks, so much like the American Buffalo, used to roam these plains in the millions, cursing, corrupting, and fearing their way to death and destruction. But now they have been hunted to near extinction. Sure you see the occasional stray, cowering in the corner with his FelGuard or FelHunter, hoping to get 2 or 3 dots cast before being 3 shotted. But all the kids have given them up for the really cool new classes.

I remember when a Mage used to be able kite other toons. Throw out a Frost Nova, or a Cone of Cold, then use the old standby Monty Python maneuver. Run Away! Run Away! Get range on the enemy, and burn him down. But alas, those days are gone. If you haven't been hit with Deadly Throw (30 yd), then its Avenger's Shield (30 yd), or a Hammer of Justice, or Repentance (20 yd), or Chains of Ice (20 yd), or Death Grip (30 yd), or Hamstring. I could go on and on. There is simply no way for the glass cannon to get away anymore, especially with the number of people playing these classes.

So alas, like so many other clothies, I must bid farewell to the old BGs. Goodbye WSG. See ya AB and EOTS. Adieu AV, I would still play ya, but since Blizz has ruined you, no one queues any more. I am down to Strand and Wintergrasp where at least I can hide in a tank, on a wall, or the sheer mayhem protects me. That will have to suffice until all clothies get an invincibility bubble or magic immunity bubble or blessing of freedom or some chance to survive more than 10 seconds. :)

Arena Complaints on Wow Insider

2009-02-04T19:19:00.003-07:00

I want to comment on this article on WowInsider about problems with the Arena system.

The Arena system should be a bell curve the way Blizzard has designed it. That means the vast majority of teams should be right around a 1500 rating. Since Blizz has put a rating requirement on gear in season 4, I would guess a large number of players have stopped doing arena since there is no incentive to play (especially if you suck).

Consequently, a lot of teams that were 1600 or 1700 are gonna see their rating drop because without the suckage below them, they will become the sucky 1400 and 1300 teams of the future.

All Blizzards moves seem to have the goal of limiting the number of people that get Epic PVP gear. Dropping players ratings, making them angry enough to quit Arena seems to further that goal. Why they are wasting so much effort on such a small specialized segment of the player population is a mystery to me.

Hit, Expertise, Dodge

2009-01-23T16:22:00.003-07:00

Great article on the Big Bear blog on hit, expertise and dodge.

Stats for Tanking

2009-01-22T13:45:00.009-07:00

A reader asked about stats for druid tanks, so here is my answer.

Back in the day, your main focus was to make sure your tank was uncrittable in melee. This was achieved through either a high defense rating or a high resilience rating. With Wrath, you get the 6% crit reduction by putting 3 points in the Survival of the Fittest talent. So of course, this talent would be your first requirement.

Armor
You want to try and get gear with high armor values as this probably provides the most mitigation for a druid tank. Once again, things have changed. As of Tuesday, the armor multiplier for bear form (this is what makes tanking possible) only affects leather or cloth armor. So high armor value rings and trinkets are no longer all that important. So focus on getting the basics, a good chest, leg, shoulder, and helm. When starting out at 80, there are two good options. Check out the Eviscerator items made through leatherworking. They are usually reasonably priced and are good blue starter items if you have been unable to find anything better at 80. The other good options for tanks is the Savage Gladiator's Sactuary PVP set. This can be obtained through arena or battlegrounds only. Very good armor, agility, and stamina values on all this gear.

Before patch 3.0.8 my armor value was coming in around 22k to 25k depending on the gear I had on. After the patch, my armor is value in bear form is 30k.

Stamina

This stat goes hand in hand with armor. Usually high stamina gear has high armor and vice versa. High stamina protects you against bosses that use a lot of magic. Basically it gives your healers a buffer against those high damage attacks. In Wrath I'm guessing a well geared druid tank will have around 30k health with just Mark of the Wild in bear form. Right now my health is at 27k in bear form with just Mark.

Agility

This is the next most important stat. It increases your dodge rating which of course increases your mitigation as any damage not taken is mitigated 100%. It also increases your chance to crit which increases your DPS. The more damage you can do, the better you can hold aggro against mobs. On most feral druid gear, you are gonna see high stamina and high agility values.

Dodge Rating

Sometimes instead of agility you will see dodge on gear. Since druids can't block or parry, dodging is the only way for us to avoid damage. I wouldn't say it is better than agility gear. But if an item has no agility but does have dodge, it may be very useful for a druid tank.

Attack Power (AP)

Attack power is one of the main determining factors in DPS. Generally, if gear has the other stats mentioned, it will also have attack power. When considering an item, AP should be secondary to damage mitigation.

Haste

Still looking into this. Probably more useful for cat druids. Will post on this as I learn more about it for druids.

Gear in General

The best gear for non hard core raiders can be attained by running heroics. Do your homework on what drops where and run those instances. Remember the PVP set is another option to get you started if you like PVP. Either method should get you ready for 10 man runs and the tiered raid gear.

Bear Tanking in Wrath

2008-09-30T16:48:00.003-06:00

Wow Insider has this great post on Bear Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King. If you are a Bear tank you must read it. Lots of good information.

I had kind of guessed that the buff to Survival of the Fittest would make us uncrittable. So there is no need to get Defense or Resilience gear any more. That will be nice.

The big change will be to leather armor. No more leather items with extra armor. When patch 3.0 comes out, this will be a retroactive change. Yep, that's right retroactive. So all the gear you have now, it get its armor value reduced. This means that rings, staffs, trinkets, necklaces, anything with extra armor on it is gonna be much more important.

So if you don't have those items get em now. You have been warned. lol.

The Real Reason Alliance Loses So Much in PVP

2008-04-05T13:03:00.002-06:00

After much thought and play, I think I have finally figured out why the Alliance generally loses in battlegrounds other than Alerac Valley. It's the healing.

The last few days on my mage, I've noticed how rarely the alliance has any healers in a battleground while horde teams generally have 2 or 3 good ones. The combo of burst healing and burst damage is unstoppable in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm. Over the last week playing against the horde, I've encountered numerous talented resto druids, priests, shamans, and holy paladins. While my alliance teams may have the occasional priest or paladin. Usually no healers at all.

As to why this is the situation? I don't have answer to that.

Feature Overload

2008-04-05T12:41:00.003-06:00

Just another quick thought after my last post. I'm beginning to think that World or Warcraft is getting way too complicated. The developers keep adding more and more spells and abilities and I think it is ruining the game. On some classes there are hardly enough button bars to hold all the spells available. Does this really help the game? Does every class need a ranged attack? Every class a root? A stun?

Why not pally bubbles for all? I joke, but we are definitely headed that way. Mages can now frost block. Rogues have cloak of shadows. Will druids get a petrified tree spell?

I think a lot of this stuff came out of the fact that Warlock dots were overpowered in PVP. It would have been easier just to nerf the the dots.

Rogues are melee right?

2008-04-05T12:01:00.005-06:00

I should explain. I just got my Mage to level 70 and I have been PVPing to get him some gear upgrades. Now I originally did a lot of twinking on this toon at level 29 and level 39. At that level, rogue and mage fights tend to be pretty even. Even if you were to beat a rogue, usually you would have to spend all your mana and would not have a lot of health left. But it would be a straight ranged vs melee fight. They are trying to close on you. You are trying to stay away from them.

But one abilitiy added to rogues really annoys me: Deadly Throw

As a mage, to win in a duel with melee, keeping distance on them is key. Deadly throw is a ranged ability that does 2 to 3k damage (at least that typically what I get hit for) and reduces my movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds. Plus it has a freaking 30 yard range! I'm sorry this is just ridiculous. I thought rogues are supposed to be a "melee" class? What does this have to do with melee? I understand melee clases need a way to pull mobs. But should warriors be able to use a bow like a hunter?

To add balance back to the game I think mages need an ability I would like to call, "ferocious blow". This ability will be an instant cast available every minute that does the damage of all your +dmg and the damage from your most powerful damage spell.
That way we can close in for the kill!!! ;-)

Between the stuns, poisons, blinds, and sprints, rogues should have no problem closing on clothies. Why do they need some sort of completely overpowered ranged ability? Please leave the melee classes melee and the ranged classes ranged.

As soon as I get Attilla geared up, I'm gonna get on my bear tank and go do some rogue hunting. That way they can feel my pain. :)

Itemization for 20-58 Needs Updating

2008-03-28T10:37:00.002-06:00

This is an open post to Blizzard, in case anyone out there is listening. A month or two ago I finished leveling a Mage to 70 and right now I am working on getting a Priest to 70 (he's at 52). Here is the problem, since there are so few players between 20-58 now, it is VERY difficult to get equipment. I'm talking trash greens here, not blue or purple gear.

Back in the day, if you were at 45 and you still had level 25 gloves, you could always buy something. Not anymore. I have been trying to find a green dagger for my priest for 2 weeks. Other than level 40 blue items going for 50G each, there is nothing on the AH. Nothing!!!! I'm having to use a rogue dagger that dropped for me off a mob.

The old world quests need to be more in line with the BC quests. You should always be getting a steady stream of reasonably good green items, with the occasion blue. Since you can't buy gear, this would go a long way to solving the problem.

Too much overlap in PVP?

2008-03-24T14:55:00.006-06:00

I have begun to wonder recently if there is too much class overlap in WOW. My Mage alt recently made it to 70, and I have been PVPing in BGs a lot for fun and gear. (Side Note: I twinked on my mage at 29 and 39 for quite a while so I really haven't PVPed on him in about a year or so. Most of my PVP experience with him is pre BC.)

The first thing I noticed at 70, is that all my magical buffs are getting dispelled most of the time. Used to be that only Shamans and Priests would do that. Now you have Locks with their little fel hunters knocking stuff off. Add to that the plethora of Hunters, and it starts to get ridiculous. What's the point of having them if they are so easy to remove? This ability made sense when it was limited to a few classes and builds. But now it seems like its out of hand.

Why do rogues need a ranged attack ability? Deadly throw? Please. Melee only need the ability to pull mobs. Should a warrior have the ability to do real damage like a hunter with a bow or gun? I suppose that will be next. lol.

Why not give my mage frost "plate" armor? I should be able to have 12000 armor right?

Sylvannas Windrunner Backstory

2008-02-29T20:46:00.011-07:00

The leader of the Undead, Sylvannas Windrunner has a very sad back story that is detailed in Warcraft III. Someone was kind enough to go back to the old game and record the story threads and post them on YouTube. If you are interested in the story, click on these links:

Sylvannas Windrunner Part I
Sylvannas Windrunner Part II
Sylvannas Windrunner Part III
Sylvannas Windrunner Part IV
Sylvannas Windrunner Part V

After the story that takes place in Warcraft III, Sylvannas was able to recover her body and can be found in the Undercity in World of Warcraft. Blizzard added a quest line to WOW where members of the Horde find a necklace that belonged to her sister. This triggers an in game event where she sings a song, Lament of the Highborne. Check out the video on the official WOW movie page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/movies.html

WOW is Down Again

2008-02-29T20:28:00.003-07:00

Just tried to log into the game and I can't get in. Here is the typical keystone cop scenario of a typical Blizzard outage.

Try to log into game and it won't authenticate me. (Got an "unable to connect" error this time.)
Go to the forums to see if there are issues.
Can't connect to the forums cause they are down too. (See 1 above).
Wait 10 or 15 minutes and log in again.
Now I authenticate, but I get an error saying "your prepaid time is up". That could be the case, but I think I'm paid up to the summer.
So I click on Manage Account to check.
I get a "Server Busy" error message from the account management server. Obviously I'm not the only one having this problem. lol.
So I try to log into the Forums to post a message about 5 - 7.
Can't log into the forums because they won't authenticate me.

Blizzard has to be the worst company ever when it comes to this stuff. You would think they could at least develop systems robust enough so you could contact them to let them know they have an issue. Not Blizzard. Wait until the customers crash the forum server, or account server, or whatever. Then we will take action.

So since I can't contact them through normal channels, I post here. Maybe someone somewhere will hear my plea for help. lol. I doubt it!!! :)

The Trouble with Blizzard Support - Part II

2008-01-30T22:29:00.001-07:00

So now that we know Blizzard's customer support is really lame, what should they do? Well I have some ideas.

First off, Blizzard really needs to back up accounts. Weekly at a minimum. Daily would be better. Then when this sort of thing happens, a customer can be up and running in a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks. In addition, just think how much time and money would be saved. It can't be very effective to have game masters essentially restoring everything by hand.

Second, Blizzard needs to log usage patterns. For example, say I log in from the same IP address between 9am and 11pm server time every day. And blizzard tracks that information. Then I suddenly log in from a different IP address at 3AM and start selling all my blue and purple gear. Hmmmm. Maybe something is up? Possibly? This should be a very easy thing to implement. If suspicious things start happening, a Blizzard game master should be notified and the account should be monitored.

Third, Blizzard needs to give game masters a little more power. If four guild members from a guild think an account has been hacked, maybe it would be a good idea if they could act? If you had the usage data described above it would be easy to figure out if someone is getting hacked.

Finally, if Blizzard doesn't do any of the above, they could at least e-mail customers with the status of the investigation every couple of days. Then at least a player with a hacked account would know they are working on fixing things. Leaving people hanging for days is just plain stupid. Just think if your phone went out or your power. Would you be ok with them getting back to you sometime in the next two weeks?

Blizzard needs to address some of these issues. They are the king of the hill right now, but if you don't treat your customers right, you are not gonna build any loyalty. And if you don't do that, as soon as the next good MMORPG comes out, they will wish they had treated folks a little bit better.

The Trouble with Blizzard Support - Part I

2008-01-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of a two part post on some stuff that happened with our Guild Master and our Guild back in December. I have broken the discussion into 2 parts. In this part, I will discuss the facts of what happened. In the next, post I'll try to make suggestions about what Blizzard should do and what they should have done.

Our guild master and her family are avid World of Warcraft players. They have two accounts and play regularly. They also have a nephew who lives nearby and plays as well. Our story begins when our GMs son visited his cousins house and played a little WOW. Apparently, hackers got a key logger installed on his machine. Therefore, while playing there, the hackers were able to obtain the passwords to both of my GMs accounts and her nephew's account.

Fast forward a few weeks to just before Christmas. Our GM logs off for the night around 12am server time. Pretty typical for her. And since it was near the holidays, we had several guildees (like about 5 or 6, including a couple of officers) playing most of the night. At like 3am, our GM and then her husband log in. Now being married with kids, this is very unusual. So our guildees said hi to her. No reply. So several of them begin to ask what's up. One of the hackers pleasantly tells them to "F*!# off, you idiots". Since our guild has a strict policy against using profanity, guild members realized almost immediately that our GM's account has been hacked. They all open tickets with Blizz game masters to shut down the account. Now this is 4 or 5 people opening at least 1 ticket. By now the Guild Bank has been emptied. Then the hackers begin to gkick all the guild members above level 30. So the fact that we have been hacked has been confirmed.

So our members finally get a hold of game masters and report that the GMs account has been hacked, they are robbing our guild bank, and gkicking members. Blizzards response "we can't do anything, only the account holder can shut down the account." So Blizzard does nothing. Absolutely nothing until, we are able to reach our GM via e-mail at about 3pm the next day. Then our GM changes her account password and calls Blizzard tech support alerting them to the fact that the account has been hacked.

The end result of Blizzard's lack of response? Our guild bank is emptied completely, probably losing the guild items worth 1000 to 2000 gold. All of our GMs toons are stripped of their gear or deleted. Her husbands account is also stripped and transferred to another server. (I find this particularly interesting as most character transfers take at least a day. They were able to move his primary toon from one server to another in 12 hours. Makes one wonder if the hackers don't have a back door into Blizzard's transfer system.) So their toons are stripped of gear and everything is sold and all their gold is taken.

So how does Blizzard respond? With an immediate call back? With a quick restore from the day before? No they gave each account a 3 day ban. Yep. If you report being hacked, Blizzard will shut you off the game for 72 hrs. Nice huh. And don't expect them to tell you anything. Cause they won't. They will say they are "investigating" and nothing else.

So what happens after the 72 hrs? A quick restore of your account? A detailed e-mail on what they have found out? Nope nothing. You get nothing. They say pretty much nothing other than they will be in touch after they have completed their investigation.

So fast forward 2 weeks, a Blizzard Gamemaster finally contacts our GM and begins to restore some of her stuff. But anything really important like her primary weapon (a bow, she's a hunter) or other gear, you don't get back. We got nothing back for our Guild bank. She get's practically none of her gear back for alts. It takes another couple of weeks before they restore stuff on her husbands toon.

Pretty lousy support if you ask me. What can we deduce from this state of affairs? A few things.

Blizzard does not back up your toons. The GM had to give our guild master her stuff one at a time. This means they have no backups of accounts and no way to restore them. They must take snap shots of your inventory list, but that must be the extent of their data protection.
Blizzard gamemasters and tech support have no authority to help you. Bascially, you are screwed if you get hacked. If someone contacts you in time, you can reset your password, but that only kicks the hacker if they log out before stealing all your stuff. You are on your own. Blizard support can't do anything to help you.
Blizzard does not take hacking or customer support seriously. They are taking in around $150M a month in revenue. There is NO excuse for not backing up players data. NONE!!! Disk arrays and storage are cheap. It would not be that difficult to backup accounts weekly or bi-weekly. Obviously they don't think this is important.

So I have described what happened and what the state of affairs are relating to customer support. In part II, I will discuss what Blizzard should do. Apparently they need some advice. :)

AV Issues

2008-01-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

WowInsider has posted this article which discusses the ongoing issues with AV. Apparently Horde turtle wins are so pervasive in some battlegroups, the alliance has stopped playing all together, causing 1 to 2 hr queues just to get in a match. I can understand why the alliance players quit, if the Horde forces a turtle and you end up getting 20 honor points from a 30 min game it is a waste of your time.

It is in the best interests of both sides to make the BG into a race. Race games last about 10 minutes. The winner gets 300-400 honor, losers get 200-300. So if you are winning most of the time, 900-1200 honor for 3 race games is better than the 800 honor you would get from one turtle game. Unfortunately, some players are incapable of doing the math or are just jerks and enjoy ruining the game for the other side.

Ultimately Blizzard needs to balance the game so that the losing team always gets a reasonable amount of honor in a reasonable amount of time. That is what made AV so popular in the past, it was the best way to have fun and grind PVP honor.

I just wish Blizzard would test some of these changes before making them. They seem to have a very bad habit of breaking that which is not broken. Then taking months to fix that which is newly broke. Frankly, I think a lot of people are getting tired of this.

More Kudos to the Exiles

2008-01-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, Exalted Exiles have downed:

Illhoof
Shade of Aran
And we got the Prince down to 10%

Grats to everyone who was on any of those runs. We just need to work on our Prince strategy and he is down next.

Grats to the Exiles

2007-12-09T23:07:00.001-07:00

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

2007-11-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-11-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-25T14:49:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-10-20T08:58:00.001-06:00

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.

Complete control of your toon is lost.
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

2007-10-20T08:43:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-18T08:14:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-12T10:39:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-09T15:43:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-08T15:32:00.001-06:00

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

2007-10-08T14:26:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-08T14:11:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-02T22:27:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-01T09:07:00.000-06:00

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.