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First Impressions: Marvel Heroes isn't a heroic marvel
Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get into Diablo. I tried several times, but whatever strange alchemy kept turning me off from other roguelikes was still in full effect. Despite that, I can respect that the game has made an enormous impact on gaming as a whole -- even disregarding the effect it had upon MMOs and RPGs in general, we're currently amid a glut of Diablo derivatives (including Diablo III itself). This is relevant because Marvel Heroes is very clearly meant to be Diablo: Online With Superheroes Edition. So I'm not fond of the design style. But I'm very fond of superheroes, and especially fond of the Marvel universe. A well-done Diablo-style game could have easily won me over and convinced me that while this wasn't the Marvel game I necessarily wanted, it was good enough. The trouble is that the game doesn't have the marriage of playstyle and source material that it needs; it wants to be Diablo with a superhero skin, and it misses both marks.
The Queue: Good morning Azeroth!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Welcome to this edition of The Queue. It's 11:00 a.m. Do you know where your children are? Hopefully they're firmly planted in some sort of edumacation. I am so smart, S. M. R. T., I mean S. M. A. R. T.AlexW573 asked..."How many reasonably geared (entry 80 raiding) people does it take for TBC 25man raids?"
Shifting Perspectives: State of the class, part 1 - Balance
Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer votes on Tuesday and spends Wednesday screaming and beating her laptop over formatting errors, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert steals John Patricelli's column once again, secure in the knowledge that she will never be forced to atone for her crime as long as she writes something nice about ferals and keeps a respectful distance from Dan O'Halloran's whip.I hate Tauren cat form.Good. I got that out of my system and can write something productive. Although, believe me, if I could get away with it, an entire Shifting Perspectives would be devoted to just how much I hate Tauren cat form. I mean, just look at it! Look at the angle on the horns! The cat can't bite anything! Christ, I just -- hi, Dan. Yes, I'm totally writing the column! Look at me go!This week, mindful as always of American election-year politicking, I'm going to borrow a page from presidential duties and write a little something I like to call "State of the Class." Druids have undergone a number of changes in the transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and will acquire even more as they level to 80. We are one of Blizzard's primary targets for both gear and role consolidation, which raises a few questions over how comfortably we're going to scale in relation to pure classes and what we can realistically expect on the march to a new level cap.The TL:DR version of this article -- I believe our future is generally bright, the Druid community continues to have a few concerns over certain aspects of the class, our focus in PvP seems to be changing the most, and I hate Tauren cat form. This is a three-part post, so let's get started with balance. However, if you want to jump ahead to feral, you'll find that here; and the third part, restoration, is here.
The marathon raid day?
A friend and I were idly wondering about the possibility of tackling all Burning Crusade raid content the way you'd watch the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy on a rainy weekend: doing it all without stopping, intent on a glorious finish. Nobody's arguing that the point of such a marathon is to have fun every second while you're doing it; I'd say this is the classic undertaking where it really is about the destination and not so much the journey. But let's say you had an enterprising bunch of raiders sitting around bored on a weekend and your choices were either raiding Tarren Mill again or trying something adventurous. Or if you had Wrath coming up the next week and you wanted to conduct a triumphal tour of the content your guild had conquered, stopping only to relish the wholesale slaughter of bosses who'd given you so much trouble (here's looking at you, Gurtogg). Would it be possible to cut a swathe of destruction across the BC raiding landscape all within the space of a day?Assuming a bunch of experienced raiders, we came up with the following figures:Karazhan: 2-3 hoursGruul's Lair: 1 hourMagtheridon: 45 minutesSerpentshrine Cavern: 3-4 hours Tempest Keep: 3 hoursZul'Aman: 1 1/2 hoursMount Hyjal: 2 1/2 hours Black Temple: 3-4 hours Sunwell Plateau: 4-5 hoursOn the low end, that's 20 hours and 45 minutes. On the high end, it's 25 hours (and I have to pause here for a moment's respect over just how much raid content Blizzard programmed for BC). If you lopped Kara and ZA off the marathon in the interest of doing only 25-man content, an experienced (albeit insane) raid that stomped each site and methodically proceeded to the next with no wipes along the way (probably not likely in Sunwell) could probably wreck BC raid content in maybe 18 hours start to finish (giving them a little extra time for travel and bathroom breaks). Has anyone been crazy enough to try this? Should anyone be crazy enough to try this?
Tank Talk: The first kill
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish.The nature of tanking is to be a component in an overall strategy. In classic WoW, levels 1 to 60, it often seemed like the center of attention, as boss encounters were often 'tank and spank' variations that involved having one tank hold a boss on him or her while the healers kept the tank upright through the boss' attacks and the DPS players burned it down. There were a few fights that broke this mold... fights where a player would become a bomb and have to run away, fights with giant eyestalks and sweeping beams that had to be avoided that were as much choreography as encounter... but as time has progressed encounter design, especially for raid encounters (although even five man fights have been diversified) has taken this mechanic and stretched it into whole new shapes. While there are still bosses who need to be primarily tanked by one person (Naj'entus, Azgalor to name just two) even these fights tend to incorporate new mechanics that challenge the raid and break the monotony of a 'tank him here, the raid stands here" fight. Other fights require several tanks to hold different aspects of the encounter, whether it be Azgalor's infernals or the multiple tanks (my guild uses three, some only use two) needed to ensure smooth mitigation of the Hurtful Strikes on Supremus.
Archimonde, Eredars hotfixed
I love hotfixes. They're like patches you don't have to wait for. Just posted by Daelo, WoW's lead encounter designer (who I've been seeing a lot of lately, but don't remember seeing much before) is a brief account of hotfixes to Archimonde and the Eredar Twins. For Archie:We just implemented a hotfix for all realms that makes Archimonde's doomfires no longer be able to move right through him after they spawn. Their movement should now be much more consistent with the previous patch's behavior, and melee should have a bit easier time dodging the doomfires as a result of the change.He goes on to note that any other problems people might have noticed have been un-reproduceable at Blizz HQ, but they're still keeping an eye on them. As for the Eredar Twins, they "hotfixed a bug in the Eredar Twins encounter that prevent a Hunter's Feign Death ability from working if Lady Sacrolash was alive." Nuff said there. These fixes should, as far as I can tell, be live now on the US and the EU realms.
Massive connection issues in raids tonight [UPDATED]
Based on my experiences, and a slew of other folks posting over at the Blizzard Customer Service Forums, it appears many Tier 6 instances are having issues with stability tonight. Half the raid or more is constantly disconnecting at seemingly random points.Several CMs GMs are looking into the issue – but it is wide spread. This means that it is almost assuredly an issue with the Blizzard servers. Based on testing I've done it is not an issue with addons. After a disconnect, all addons were turned off, and the disconnects still happened.Stay tuned to HKO Insider for the latest. Hopefully they'll hotfix this one right up.Updated 11:00 p.m. EDT: Belfaire posted "We're gathering the appropriate info now. I have no ETA on a resolution, only that it'll be [fixed] ASAP." (April Fool's text removed for readability.)Updated 12:44 a.m. EDT: Belfaire also let us know that Q.A. is working on the problem, though no fix has been announced yet. Seems they are at work on it.Updated 1:00 a.m. EDT: Potential solution from Belfaire: "Please have your entire raid delete or rename your Interface folder and let me know here if you encounter the issue again. [One] group said that they ran without mods, but if what I think's happening is actually happening, even if one person has [an addon], it can affect the raid."
Exclusive Interview: Nihilum, the Sunwell, and the future of high-end raiding
After writing one of my first articles on an essay penned by Neg, one of Nihilum's resto Shaman, I was surprised and heartened to see him get in touch. We talked about a few matters related to our pieces and I asked him if he would mind answering some questions about what the guild's been up to since we spoke to them last. We hadn't heard much about Nihilum on the PTR (Vis Maior was the guild steamrolling the content this time out), but they've been upgrading and expanding their website, and one of the 2.4 raiding screenshots on Wowwiki belongs to them, so they've obviously been busy. It had also become clear that Awake, arguably their most high profile member, had left the guild, and I was curious about what was going on.Neg very graciously answered my questions, which you'll find below the cut. Read on for his take on Sunwell Plateau and his favorite boss, Awake's departure, resto Shamans versus holy Paladins, picking up an enhancement Shaman and the class in PvP, various boss encounters, and WoW as an e-sport.
How a quirk in the game can steal your loot
There is a mechanic in game that we are all aware of, and one that exists for a good reason: when we attack a mob, we get the mob's loot. That's the mechanic. If you're solo grinding mobs out in Shadowmoon Valley for some Primal Fire, you want to be sure you're the only one that can get the loot. The same goes for groups – if you're grouping and killing Murmur in Shadow Labs, you want to be sure that everyone is going to get his pretty blues.But what if the mechanics of the boss fight dictate that you won't hit the boss? In fact, what if successfully killing the boss means that you have to stand on the opposite end of the playing field the whole time? You don't hit the boss, you don't get the loot – but you've done everything right. In this, the game mechanic does not represent fair play, nor does it encourage success. In fact, the mechanics are a complete contradiction of each other.I've recently encountered this problem, and it's a real pain. Read on after the break for what happened, and what can be done to solve it. It's rather long, but this is a serious problem that Blizzard needs to fix, and all the facts need to be laid out completely and in a way that is full of thruthiness.
Playing with your mouse
Lots of us purchase these nifty mice from the local computer store. Be they a fancy new Logitech mouse with a dozen keys placed strategically around the unit, or a slick new beauty from Apple, the mouse is a strategic part of your game play.At least, it should be.All too often people don't utilize what they have in front of them. Today we're going to look at how you can increase your game play by using your mouse more effectively. In particular, the buttons.However before we look into buttoning strategies, lets just quickly cover moving with the mouse. It's pretty simple, right? Push both buttons down, move forward. Right click and hold to turn your character. Left click and hold to look around without moving. Mike Schramm covered this in a post about a month and a half back, and it's a pretty good read for those interested more in the topic of mouse moving.So now that that's out of the way, let's look at basic mouse buttoning techniques. I own two Logitech MX5000 cordless optical mice. They work very well and have a battery life of a couple days; but even then I recharge them both every night just so I don't have disaster strike me in the middle of a raid when the battery goes out.
Tier 6 names and bonuses
I heard these were out a few days ago, but the link I got was to the official forums, and the thread had been deleted by the time I got there. Well, MMO-Champion has them now. Delete that, Blizz! Now keep in mind, as MMO-Champion warns us, these aren't "official" bonuses, but were rather extracted from the currently game files somehow, and will most likely change when 2.1.0 goes live (which according to Tseric will be "soon"). Still, this should be something to get your mind going.The bonuses mostly follow the same pattern: 2-piece bonuses makes a skill cheaper (or sometimes return more mana), and 4-piece bonuses makes a skill stronger. Since the 4-piece bonuses mostly affect our "bread and butter" skills (e.g. Greater Heal for healing priests, Fireball, Frostbolt, and Arcane Missiles for mages) and mostly by about 5%, they seem pretty cool. The 2-pieces vary in how much they impress me. Tier 6, if I'm not very much mistaken, drops in Mount Hyjal the Black Temple [thanks, klink-o], which is certainly out of the reach of most guilds, but I'm sure some of us will see it eventually. Without further ado, all the Tier 6 names and (provisional) bonuses are after the cut.
Learn2play: a guide to class roles
While trying to explain the difference between MT, OT, DPS and healer to a new player, I found this well-written guide to party roles in WoW. If you're unsure quite what the difference between a main and offtank is, or which classes are considered "DPS", it's a great read.As a druid, I love the fact that my class appears under all headings, but as a recent instance run taught me, it's best to ensure you know which you are before you begin. Hybrid classes can cause no end of arguments when they fail to remain hybrid, too, so don't be afraid to switch roles if necessary -- a healing class that refuses to heal when the only other healer is out of mana is a great party annoyance.
