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Korg adds drums to its line of tiny Volca synths
Korg continues to expand its Volca series of sub-$200 synths. Today it announced the Volca Kick, a drum machine with a 16 step sequencer and analog oscillator. To keep it all in the family, it links up to the rest of the Volca line and minilogue, electribe and SQ-1 step sequencer.
Encrypted Text: Why does Kick cost energy?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Rogues have always been the premier interrupters of World of Warcraft. Back in the day, druids and paladins didn't have any interrupts, much to their chagrin. Warriors couldn't interrupt from Berserker Stance, which left them unable to interrupt effectively. Up until recently, death knights and monks didn't even exist. Shamans have been valuable in the past with their short-CD interrupts, but the main job of locking down a target always fell to the rogues. Rogues have been tirelessly interrupting spells since WoW's launch 8 years ago. Individual mobs use spells quite frequently. You're bound to find an array of dangerous casters in a dungeon. Interrupts have been a crucial raid mechanic from the days of Molten Core. Other players are also notorious for trying to cast spells at rogues. Kick has been a featured part of the rogue arsenal for years. So why has it failed to evolve alongside the other interrupts?
Insert Coin: The Kick, an iPhone-controlled camera light
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Lighting in photography or movie making is often the reserve of pros who can either afford a studio's worth of equipment or who have the know-how to generate just the right effect with one light. Rift's Kick light mostly tackles the latter by using a control you (probably) already know how to use: your iPhone. If you opt for the WiFi-toting Kick Plus model, an iOS app can control one or more lights for basics like brightness and color temperature -- but it really comes into its own when you want a dash of color or to record video. A Kick can sample color from a palette, a video or directly from the iPhone's camera; temporal effects like a lightning storm can spice up an amateur horror movie. If you're only looking for a straightforward white light to back up production for a traditional camera, the Kick Basic will let you control the rudiments from buttons on the light itself. Unless you're just looking for a sticker reflecting your support, every pledge tier is directly tied to buying a Kick light in advance. Early buyers can put down $89 to get a Kick Basic in black or white, or $139 for the Kick Plus. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets: $180 or $280 will land a pair of Basic of Plus lights, and stores can pay $4,300 or $6,500 to get a hefty 50 units of either model. If you're starting on a small-scale movie production or just have to have properly-lit subjects for street photography, head on over to the Kickstarter source link and chip in.
The Light and How to Swing It: Working with a single school of magic
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. Holy paladins have several features that make them powerful healers in PVP environments. Our diverse utility spells provide us with capabilities that our rivals can only dream of, and we have plenty of cooldowns that can counter our opponents' actions. While holy paladins are generally considered to be strong PVP healers, we aren't without our weaknesses. Our most notable flaw is our complete reliance on a single school of magic -- holy. All of our spells and abilities are tied to one school of magic, which means that interrupts are incredibly potent at shutting down holy paladins. Even Judgement, which feels like a physical attack, is tied to the holy school. Interrupts are obviously potent against any caster, but holy paladins are especially hurt since we don't have any alternative spells to fall back onto. Mages can still cast Frost Nova if their Arcane Blast gets Kicked, and shaman can use any of their fire spells after getting a heal hit by Pummel. Holy paladins are useless when interrupted, which provides us with a unique set of challenges.
Encrypted Text: Pinpoint interrupts with Gnosis addon
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. This week, we talk about an addon that solves the problem of missing interrupts. Once, when experimenting on my holy paladin (I'm a dirty traitor, I know), I healed through an entire heroic dungeon with my user interface disabled. Matticus had recommended the exercise, as it allows you to focus on what's happening and your surroundings instead of little green bars. The experience was interesting, but I simply couldn't handle it. I'm an information junkie, and I want to know everything there is to know all at once. Why? Because knowledge is power, knowledge is the food of the soul, and knowing is half the battle. With that said, there's still such a thing as too much information. I can set up my UI to have all sorts of numbers and statistics displayed everywhere, but it's not valuable unless I can interpret them. When you're in a high-stress situation like learning a new boss fight, you want to spend as little time as possible worrying about your UI. A good UI should make your rogue easier to play, not harder.
Encrypted Text: Let's get kicking
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any article ideas or questions you have! You've all seen my arguments for having rogues top the DPS meters. We're the only pure melee DPS class, meaning we have the most specific role. Yellow is a great color, and so having a nice patch of it at the top of Recount is awesome. You get the idea. The fact is that rogues are known for their DPS, so doing lots of it becomes pretty important in succeeding. Even with this huge focus on DPS, we do have one other trick up our sleeve. Back in the days before balance, the developers had to find a way to ensure that every class was brought to a raid. Hybrids could bring powerful buffs, bosses would use debuffs that required certain healers, and there was always a boss per tier that you needed a warlock to Banish. Even the DPS-focused rogues had a special niche to keep them getting invited: Kick. A boss would be designed with an ultimate ability that needed to be interrupted, and there was nobody better at that job than a rogue.
Encrypted Text: 5 tips for heroic rogues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any article suggestions or screenshots you may have. Why do I ever talk myself into running heroics without my guildmates? I always end up with a tank that doesn't like waiting for CC, the healer who thinks that Recuperate is all the healing I need, and the hunter who wins the roll on Left Eye of Rajh. Despite all of this, I still put myself through all of pain because I love running heroics. Not everyone I meet is awful, and it helps me to keep my gameplay sharp for my upcoming raids. Practicing in heroics, as if they were raids, can have you learning your new rotation and gearing up at an accelerated pace. The last thing you want to do is underperform at your opening raid, as you'll be first on the chopping block. Heroic bosses have come a long way from the easily conquered Wrath dungeons, and many bosses are basically bite-sized raid encounters. By learning new mechanics and keeping your timing and rotations sharp, you can be fully prepared for whatever tier of raiding you intend to conquer.
Officers' Quarters: Neros and zeros
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I can't take credit for the column name -- it was a turn of phrase used by the writer of this week's reader e-mail. It's a fitting expression, as you'll see. He wonders just how to get people to care again when a guild is faltering. Hey Scott, Thank you for this column, hopefully you and the comment crowd can help me. Over the last few days I've had to watch my beloved guild start to unravel. Our problem is, apart from a few select officers and members, we have too many Neros, content to fiddle as our guild burns, and Zeros, members who don't really contribute anything but a raid spot. Nobody seems to care enough to even sign up for our website. We have had trouble with our loot system, suicide kings, and raid scheduling, and it has caused some key members to seek other guilding opportunities.
Wrath Beta patch notes: Rogue
The long awaited Wrath of the Lich King beta is hitting the masses and the patch notes are out. As you've seen regarding other classes there is a ton of really exciting news. Right off the bat Blizzard is changing stat itemization in regards to +Hit and +Crit to a more generalized Hit Rating and Critical Strike Rating. These stats, which in the past had been separated into melee and spell versions are now a single stat that can be attributed to any class. For classes with mixed or hybrid functions, this should greatly assist overall gearing. Rogues should see no overall changes in the way the Hit or Crit mechanic works on pre WotLK gear other than just wording on the tooltip.I have to say that the changes that Rogues can expect aren't of the world-shaking variety, but many of them serve as excellent clean up improvements.
How to convince tanks to PuG
I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear. During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.
