crowdcontrol
Latest
Police turn to pepper-spraying drones in congested Indian city
Drones are popping up everywhere. They've been largely unfamiliar in India, but that's changing. The police department in Lucknow, a populous city in the country, is the first to purchase five weaponized drones that can spray pepper on a rioting mob. The concept of aerial robots isn't entirely new to the city, as they've been used for surveillance and imagery during religious festivities in the past, but this new substance-carrying variety is a novelty. Each one costs about $9,600 and can carry a load of 4.4 pounds.
Skill Mastery: Blinding Light
Ever since Eadric the Pure first made players spin around to avoid being blinded by his Radiance -- the bane of keyboard turners everywhere -- many paladins were enamored with the idea of firing off a flash of light and similarly dazzling those around them into incoherence. And we almost had it too, in the Cataclysm beta, when Blinding Light first debuted as a player ability. However, the spell was removed early on, only (it seems) to be put on the back burner. Now, Blinding Light returns in Mists for a second try at making it into the paladin spellbook. This time around, it looks like it is here to stay. If you're in the beta, you can try it out yourself as soon as you hit 87. The spell itself is pretty straightforward. On a 3-minute cooldown, you can fire off a burst of light that will cause all enemies around you to wander confusedly for 6 seconds. As a tank, I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this in AoE situations, when I need a breather from a pack of enemies that are punching me in the face. Ret and holy paladins will find similar use for it, whether out in the wilds of Pandaria or deep in PvP. Basically, any time you need to get a large number of enemies to leave you alone for a few seconds, this spell is there for you. Admittedly, it doesn't have the same flash or zing as some other level 87 spells, but it can very much shine in the right situations. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Addon Spotlight: LoseControl
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, take back control of your life with LoseControl. Give me an A! Give me a -ddon! Give me a Spotlight! What's that spell? A half-assed attempt at an engaging introduction for this week's Addon Spotlight! Does that lame joke make you want to charge my office and do physical harm to me? Well, good, because this week's addon is a PvP-centric tool that can help you regain control of your character and potentially your sanity. One of the worst feelings is losing control of your character. In fact, as a design decision, many MMOs including WoW limit the amount of player abilities that cause a player to lose control of their avatar. No one likes losing total control for a long time -- it just isn't fun! Balance reasons aside, there is a reason that most stuns, CC options, and other abilities are on short timers.
Sonic Blaster is defeated by fashionable noise-canceling 'head shield'
The Long Range Acoustic Device (or Sonic Blaster, for us simple people) is among the Navy's proudest feats of warfare engineering and a favored tool of law enforcement agencies. The non-lethal amp pumps out an ultra-powerful beam of sound that deters baddies from coming within 82 feet of its position. Unless, of course, those baddies decide to act fresh and bring one of these sound insulating, double-glazed head shields, which will let the wearer stand right in front of a Sonic Blaster without losing his hearing for all eternity. Created by the BBC's Bang Goes the Theory show, the head shield is a perfect complement to your favorite hoodie and casual pair of jeans for a stylish riot out on the town.
Scattered Shots: Crowd control
Last week David covered Arenas for the hunter, while I laid low and did a little more leveling. I'm to the point now where crowd control becomes not only an option, but at times a requirement. Hunters are known for our ranged damage output. It's practically the thing hunters are made to do: stand back and shoot. We are also quite good at crowd control using our traps, though. You'll see it in the Looking for Group channel fairly regularly: "LF1M DPS/CC."That's us. Damage per Second and Crowd Control. They might be thinking Rogue or Warlock, but you should see those five letters and think "that's me." Not only is crowd control something hunters are good at, it's something which not all hunters do reliably or well. Being able to trap, and trap competently, will go a long way towards making you friends in both instances and the open road.In this article I'll be discussing ways to use your Freezing Trap as a method of both controlling crowds and making friends. For those of you who haven't yet learned it, Freezing Trap is learned at level twenty. Rank One provides a ten second freeze. Rank Two upgrades at level forty for a fifteen second freeze. Rank three upgrades at level sixty for a twenty second freeze. Once the trap is laid, it will remain in place for sixty seconds before fading if it is not sprung. Meanwhile, the trap's cooldown is thirty seconds. Laying one trap while another is ready to spring will cancel the first one in favor of the second one.Several talents exist to assist with trapping, in the Survival talent tree. Points spent on Entrapment give your traps an increasing chance to snare any opponent which trips them. Points spent on Clever Traps increase the duration of Frost and Freezing traps, the damage from Explosive and Immolation traps, and the number of snakes summoned from Snake traps. Points spent on Trap Mastery decrease the chance your opponents have to resist your traps. Points spent on Resourcefulness decrease the mana cost of traps (and melee abilities) as well as their cooldown. Talent specialization is up to you, but be aware that some or all of these talents will make your job as a trapper much easier.We start trapping things after the jump.
Cautiously cracking crowd control
In any fight where your group is fighting multiple mobs, you're going to want to have some version of crowd control. For those that play tanking classes the challenge comes not when the fight begins and the mobs are tied up with freezing traps or polymorph, it comes afterward, when the time comes to break said methods of control. As Karthis mentions in a recent post on Of Teeth and Claws, breaking crowd control successfully is more of an art form than you might think.First, there is the concept of threat. Each method of crowd control angers a monster to varying degrees. Add to this the other abilities a crowd controller might have used previous to controlling the mob -- a hunter plinking away at the mob a few times to get its attention, for example -- and the CC'ers threat is pretty darn high. The monster, once they are free, will have eyes (and claws) only for the group member that kept them tied down in the first place. It makes sense, honestly. I know if someone shackled me to the ground for a minute or so I would be pissed.
Blind as a viable form of crowd control
While a Rogue is my highest level alt (heading through Outland as we speak!), I have to admit that I hardly ever use the skill Blind. A 10-second disorient on a 3-minute cooldown (yes, I know the first patch 2.2 notes said it was going to be reduced to a 1-minute cooldown, but that change was reverted)? Perhaps I am a complete newbie of a Rogue, but 10 seconds hardly seems like enough time to accomplish anything, and so the skill sits, collecting dust on a rarely-hit hotkey. However, Doomilias points out that Blind really can be a useful crowd control -- and that ten seconds can make all the difference, both in solo and group play. 10 seconds can give you time to finish off a mob when you've gotten an add, it can give you time to get in some bandaging, in a group situation it can keep a hard-hitting mob off your healers for a few precious seconds. So, Rogues -- do you find Blind to be a useful form of crowd control?
AT&T preps landlords for iPhone campers
Those who've started taking notes in order to keep track of all the iPhone launch details still floating in can add one more, and thankfully for those worried about their own safety come next Friday, you'll be relieved to know that this one involves crowd control. Two documents outlining how managers should "prepare landlords for the iPhone launch" explain that stanchions (you know, those annoying cattle herders that keep you in order whilst waiting in the airport) should be made available at almost any cost, so it's pretty safe to say they know you (and your posse) are coming. Additionally, it's noted that AT&T stores will be staying open only until 10:00PM unless individual managers choose to keep the overtime clocks a-rollin', and venues located within enclosed malls will be closing at their normal times. Guess we can't blame 'em for trying to make us all happy campers.
Who needs CC anyway, amirite!?
Crowd control is definitely helpful, that I'll agree. It's much easier to do a Shadow Labs run with two mages who know how to sheep. But I also have to agree with sydney over at WoW Ladies: CC is far from necessary. You can have a great group and still fight all of the mobs all of the time.Gear, of course, makes a big difference. If your shaman has a few epics on him, chances are he can take a few hits before the tank has a chance to grab a mob off. And a group with tons of DPS can do really well at tearing down a mob as they pull them-- I've played in groups where we never once bothered with sheeping. We just had so much DPS that when we pulled something off of the tank, we killed it before it could hit anyone.Not to mention that even if you have a group without CC, there are plenty of abilities that you can use as CC. During my Heroic Slave Pens run this past weekend, we had me (a resto shaman), a prot warrior and a holy priest, a moonkin druid, and a warlock. Whoops, no sheeping or traps, right? Nope, but we did have cyclone, chain fear, my elemental pets, and mind control. Ok, well, my elemental pets did drop pretty quick (it was heroic, after all), but incredibly (even though we were a little undergeared for the instance), we made it far enough to pick up two Badges each. Yeah, the mind controller gave us a little trouble, but it was getting late anyway, so we called it.CC helps, and you do kind of need the basics (tank, healer, and DPS, although it's true that even with those, you can make some subs that don't seem possible), but the truth is that the limit of your group is the limit of the players in it. All of the classes have some ability to keep mobs out of play (or just keep them busy for a little bit until you're ready to fight them). It's just up to players to think of creative ways to do so.
Problems appearing in 2.0.3
2.0.3 doesn't seem to have as many problems as 2.0.1 did, but there's at least a few going around.The first is more of a problem players are having-- the actual code is "working as intended." More than a few players were distraught to note that crowd control trinkets like the Tidal Charm are now "fizzing out after level 60," according to the tooltips. Drysc says about what you'd expect: that this kind of stuff is part of the CC nerfing going on, and that the trinkets coming in BC will make your eyes pop out of your head anyway. Tough luck, basically.There's a few known bugs going around, however. One a lot of people are dealing with is that the default target frame-- the little portrait of your target next to yours-- is disappearing. One small fix is simply typing /console reloadui: that seems to bring it back up for a bit, but it usually drops away again. It's definitely a repeatable bug, though, so hopefully a word from Blizz is forthcoming.Another known bug leads to issues changing and promoting raid leadership and main looters. Blizz acknowledges they're working on this one. Meanwhile, Kelriia over on LJ supposedly has a fix: either type /promote [name of leader][last letter of leader's name] , or /script PromotetoAssistant [name and last letter again]. Not sure if anyone else has tested those (or why you'd have to include the last letter repeated), but if it works, there you go.A few people are complaining that their addons aren't loading-- here's a quick reminder that after a patch, you have to go to the addon screen and actually check "Load out-of-date Addons." Worked for me.And finally, just a personal disappointment, being a Shaman: Where the heck is my Totemic Recall? Never mind-- commenter mubari says it's waiting for me at the trainer. Sweet!
Boston's mayor to bill Sony for mayhem at Copley Plaza
As if Sony wasn't losing enough coin on each PlayStation 3 sold fought over, now it'll probably be invoiced for the police services that were required to maintain peace at Copley Plaza. While criminal activities weren't hard to come by on the PS3's launch night, there was apparently a smart way to handle the mobs of unruly potential customers, and then there was Sony's way. Rather than planning for an organized flow of individuals, or better yet, turning away those who would end up empty handed anyway, nearly 500 eager (and likely delusional) individuals rushed the doors of Boston's Sony Style, creating chaos that required "12 police cruisers" in order to halt the riot. None too pleased, the mayor (Thomas Menino) plans on "billing the company for crowd control," although he failed to mention exactly how much those boys in blue charge per hour to fend off fanatical hopefuls.[Via Joystiq]
