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The Queue: The fate of Sky Captain Swayze and Ka'anu Reevs
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley (@gomatgo) will be your host for today. My two new favorite NPCs in World of Warcraft are Sky Captain Swayze and Ka'anu Reevs of the Kor'kron Air Command. In the past, I have been very vocal about my disdain for "lazy NPCs" design in which a clever name that just replaces letters or flat-out names the NPC after the pop culture reference is created for content. Haris Pilton is the queen of all lazy NPCs, for instance, because it's not even a joke on Paris Hilton -- it's just her. Sky Captain Swayze and his best orc buddy Ka'anu Reevs, however, are stalwart heroes, best friends, and champions in the highest regard. Whatever happens to them after that fateful jump and subsequent tentacling, I hope they survive. I hope they live on. In the name of freedom. I want Sky Captain Swayze and Ka'anu Reevs to be surfing off the shore of Pandaria for years to come. You're about to jump out of a perfectly good airship, Reevs -- how do you feel about that? mord asked: Is raid finder too easy with 372 gear? I think Raid Finder was tuned for ilvl 365. I can understand why they decided to initially set it to 372, but I have a hunch it will eventually drop to 365 in a month or two. Have blues hinted at this possibility?
Tips for great success in the Raid Finder
The Raid Finder is now live and active. This tool is probably the single greatest boon to casual and solo players added to WoW since ... well, I'd have to struggle to think of something more exciting. If you can't commit to a raid night or more than one raid night in a single week, the Raid Finder means you can still participate in the raiding game. Sure, your item level may be a few steps behind players involved in traditional 10-man and 25-man raiding. But now with the glorious Raid Finder, you can actually take part in the story. Of course, for newer players, using the Raid Finder can be intimidating, especially if you've never spent any time in PUG raids before now. Grouping up at random with 24 other players is intimidating. You can't just ignore that; jumping into a raid group that has expectations and demands about you can be a scary thing. With that in mind, here's a handful of tips to make sure your Raid Finder experience goes as smoothly as possible.
Dragon Soul: Siege of Wyrmrest raid bosses explained in 5 seconds
You've no doubt already braved the Raid Finder, Blizzard's new system for getting players into raiding with a new lower difficulty on Dragon Soul. Players from all walks of WoW life will now be able to participate in the epic raid encounter to take down Deathwing once and for all. Even with the new lower raid difficulty, it's good to go in with some knowledge. Reading your Dungeon Journal is a good start, but here are some quick tips on the first four bosses in the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple wing of the Dragon Soul raid. Here are some quick facts to remember about the Raid Finder: No lockouts. Participating in the Raid Finder will not lock you out from doing the raid on 10- or 25-man with your guild or group. You only get to roll on loot once per boss per week. You can fight bosses multiple times but are only eligible for loot on the first kill. 250 valor points for completing the raid wing. Two tanks, six healers, 17 DPSers are needed for a Raid Finder raid. You can queue up in Raid Finder with your Real ID friends across servers.
Official Raid Finder Q&A
The Raid Finder is one of the highlight features of patch 4.3, but not all players are entirely clear on its function. What raids can you run? How often can you run them? Who can you run them with? In a World of Warcraft as complex and tiered as the one we have today, these are all valid questions. The World of Warcraft community team has come through for us with a full Raid Finder Q&A detailing both the present and future states of the feature. The Real ID functionality in particular receives important clarification. Raid Finder Q&A Q: Does Raid Finder support Real ID friends? A: With patch 4.3, you can invite Real ID friends to a party and then queue together for the Dragon Soul raid using Raid Finder. You can't, however form a raid with cross-realm Real ID friends before joining the Raid Finder queue. While not currently supported, this is something that we're interested in implementing in a future update. source You can read the full Q&A behind the cut below.
World of Warcraft strikes the Hour of Twilight
It's patch day for all you World of Warcraftizens out there, and this one promises to be a doozy! Players everywhere are applying body paint, creating massive "BLIZZARD 3:16" signs, and waving about giant foam hands in anticipation of the updatey goodness. Patch 4.3 will go live later today with a wealth of updates to the game, the biggest of which have to be a trio of heroic dungeons and a new raid, Dragon Soul. The patch also introduces legendary daggers for rogues, a transmogrification system to allow players to change the look of their gear, a raid finder, a rework of the Darkmoon Faire, and special Void Storage to free up more bank and inventory space. Our sister site WoW Insider has been covering all of the Patch 4.3 madness with aplomb, so catch up on all the goodies coming to the game over there!
Ready Check: Cleaning up issues with Raid Finder
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Questions, comments, or something you would like to see? Email me at tyler@wowinsider or message me on Twitter @murmursofadruid. Last week, we talked about a few of the issues that are currently speculated for Blizzard's new Raid Finder tool that is being released within the next patch. Specifically, that discussion was about raid size and raid leadership; however, these are not the only concerns that people have. The Raid Finder is a rather charged topic within the community, for a wide variety of reasons, all depending on whom you ask. This week, we will be wrapping up the discussion as best can be done as I attempt to address the remaining issues that people have put forward. Before we begin, let me say that, until this all goes live, we cannot accurately judge the success or failure of the tool. The Dungeon Finder, similarly, had a significant amount of backlash and down talk before it was released, yet most people now wouldn't play without it -- just to put everything in perspective.
Spiritual Guidance: A shadow priest's first look into the Raid Finder
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen comes from out of the darkness to bask in your loving adoration and grant you one birthday wish ... Let's start off today's column with a question to you, the reader: How did you get your start raiding? Me, I got my start in the PUG raiding circuit of yore. Someone would spam trade chat with their need for one ranged DPS for whatever raid instance happened to be in fashion at the time. I'd whisper them, hoping to snag that elusive slot (and believe me, as a DPSer, that slot was very elusive). Generally, I had no idea what I was doing while in the raids. I knew not to stand in stuff and to target whatever had the skull over its head. I was a pretty lousy PUG raider. Let's face it -- we all were. PUG raids aren't known for their rates of success. Which is why I was intrigued when Blizzard announced its new Raid Finder system, coming in patch 4.3. Could Blizzard have found a way to make PUG raiding ... bearable?
Shifting Perspectives: In which Allison makes a stupid prediction
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we take a risk. Well, I'm bushed. Post-BlizzCon, I reached that dreamy level of fatigue allowing me to hallucinate that I am on a Thai beach being served fizzy drinks by men in loincloths, and that was lovely while it lasted. But just as I had recovered from the delusion that this was ever going to happen, a freak snowstorm hit the American northeast and killed every tree and power line in sight. Folks, I spent a week without power or internet, and I am mad at the world. Let's see. What did I have on the docket for this week? Responsibly and rationally evaluating what we learned at BlizzCon 2011? The hell with that. Let's start off by completely ignoring the new talents announced, and then getting into a quite possibly asinine prediction that I will try to pretend never happened if it doesn't come true.
Ready Check: The human element of the Raid Finder
Ready Check helps you prepare yourself and your raid for the bosses that simply require killing. Check back with Ready Check each week for the latest pointers on killing adds, not standing in fire, and hoping for loot that won't drop. Questions, comments, or something you would like to see? Email me at tyler@wowinsider or message me on Twitter @murmursofadruid. These past few weeks have been quite the doozy here for Ready Check as we've discussed the future of raiding in Pandaria followed by the more current notion of raid accessibility, two seemingly different topics that are heavy intertwined. This week, we'll be brushing into another similar topic as we delve into the newest tool that Blizzard is releasing in order to increase raid accessibility across the board: the new Raid Finder. Currently on the PTR, the Raid Finder has been running rather hit or miss with some of the playerbase at the moment. A few are avid PTR-goers, while others have only just now popped into the process. For either group, they certainly don't have a lack of being vocal on the forums. Despite what problems some players have been raising, I feel and have experienced that the Raid Finder tool will go over amazingly well. A lot of the complaints that we hear now are the exact same ones that were given for the Dungeon Finder when it was being released, and while not everything from 5-man content transitions to raids, both will have the same success. Join me as I defend the single tool that I will probably never use in this game.
Arcane Brilliance: Adventures with and observations on the Raid Finder
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we spend some time sniffing around the PTR. Which is difficult, because all I can smell right now is burnt warlock. How do you guys get that out of your robes? Maybe some Febreze. I have to admit: Nothing in patch 4.3 excites me as much as the Raid Finder. Not transmogrification, not the Deathwing raid, not the fact that we're drawing ever closer to me being able to roll a Pandaren kung fu mage. Nope, I'm excited about the Raid Finder. There was a time during my WoW career when I was able to adjust my schedule around my guild's raid nights, but that time hasn't really existed for some time now. My family has grown, my work responsibilities have grown, and my WoW time has become increasingly limited and far more unreliable. I play when I can play these days, and it's nigh impossible to plan a raid schedule around that. I'd wager I'm not alone in this. So the idea of being able to see much of the same endgame content and gear up enough to help my guild on my own schedule much the same way I gear up through 5-mans now ... that just thrills me to death. But putting together a 25-man raid is an exponentially more complex endeavor than simply throwing together a 5-man run. How does this Raid Finder tool function in practice? Well, I've taken my mage to the PTR, and I've tested it out for myself. And I'm here to tell you: It totally works. And it totally doesn't.
Patch 4.3 PTR: Gear levels revealed for Dragon Soul raid
The newest updates to the patch 4.3 public test realm have revealed the new item levels for gear acquired from the valor point vendors as well as the loot dropped from Dragon Soul bosses. With Dragon Soul, Blizzard is introducing a brand new difficulty tier in raids called Raid Finder, aimed at providing a new difficulty curve for new raiders and players who want to pug these raids. Valor point vendors now have a piece of armor for every slot, mitigating that whole "no shoulders drop except tier shoulders" problem that warriors had this recent patch, among other classes. You will be able to fill every slot with new gear from valor points but will not be able to purchase set pieces. The new gear ilevels for Dragon Soul are as follows: Raid Finder drops ilevel 384 (just a bit better than normal Firelands). Normal Dragon Soul drops ilevel 397 (just a bit better than heroic Firelands). Heroic Dragon Soul drops ilevel 410 (the best around). As with other valor point tiers of gear, the boots and bracers on these vendors will be bind on equip, allowing players to purchase these items with valor points and send them to alts, sell them on the Auction House, or help out a guildmate in need. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Officers' Quarters: Formal invitations
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. To the esteemed druid Shapez: The Guild of Heroes formally requests the honor of your presence to attend our martial gathering, to be commenced on the evening of October twenty-fourth, in the year of our lord two thousand eleven, for the purposes of assailing that fiendish realm the Firelands, forthwith to slaughter its inhabitants most precipitously and attire ourselves in the abundance of their worldly treasures. The horn heralding our advance shall be sounded precisely at seven o'clock. Your humble servant and friend in all things, Orcman For casual raiding guilds, attendance can often be a huge struggle. The handful of players who seem to show up (or not) on a whim are the bane of their officers' existence. The example above is of course exaggeration, but you do begin to feel that you should send your players written invitations on fancy stationery. This week's email is from a guild leader who seems to be running an entire guild of such people, and he's looking for answers. I have been the leader of a small, casual, friends-and-family guild for over three years. We have seen good times and bad together, including a LK kill before the end of Wrath. Cataclysm, however, just isn't working out. At any given time our roster is experiencing a great deal of churn, and despite the fact that several of our core members are rock solid, I just can't put a raid together any more. We customize the schedule, confirm it, re-confirm it and still have people not show up. Recruiting is a bit tough due to the atmosphere of the guild. If you're not casual enough to enjoy raiding with three generations of the same family, you probably won't stay, and that's okay. We usually wind up picking up entire clans, for at least a little while, but these affiliations just don't seem to be strong enough to keep the guild running. I've read your book, and we've adapted a lot of our practices around your advice. Unfortunately, it hasn't been enough. A week ago we lacked enough players to field our regularly scheduled progression raid, even though I had confirmed we were raiding only the day prior. I was angry enough to hang it all up right then and there. I decided I'd give it a week, try harder on the organization and make sure to express how important it was that everyone be on time, etc. Same result this week. I suspect that because my guild members know that I'll never actually remove them from participating -- because, after all they're all someone's family -- they just don't have any reason to uphold their agreements.
"There are no simple solutions" -- Design diversity in WoW
In a recent post on the forums, Bashiok responded to the idea that 1.35% of all WoW players have completed normal Firelands and what that does or does not mean for the recent changes implemented to the raid instance. It's a very interesting and information-filled post that I think deserves a thorough examination, as it reveals elements of Blizzard's current design philosophy and how and why it chooses to alter raids from their initial difficulty levels. I intend to go over the entire post carefully, but here are some highlights to ponder up front: The 1.35% number is just plain wrong. Blizzard has its own numbers that it's not going to share, but the 1.35% is probably as accurate as could be expected without access to Blizzard's internal data gathering. Blizzard's design intent is to make content for all of the playerbase. "It's both a blessing and a curse that the WoW player base is as large and diverse as it is." Players raid for many different reasons, some challenge, others loot, and others just to see the content. Some players are happy if they just see a boss once, while others enjoy weekly clearing. The idea of being willing to wipe a hundred or more times to clear a boss, a staple of the raider mentality for years, is not appealing to most players. OK, so now that we've picked out a few highlights, let's go over the entire post and really consider the implications of designing for as many players as possible.
Accessible content, valor points and the alt
I play a lot of alts. I don't have as many alts as my friend Kol does (in Wrath, he had a max-level alt of every class in the game and several more besides), but I have four warriors at max level, a shaman at max level, two paladins in the high 70s, a druid who just dinged 73, four or five DKs between 60 and 80 on various servers, and a mage I don't like to talk about. I also raid. My raiding is semi-casual from my perspective, three nights a week for three or four hours a night, but we're pretty exclusively doing hard mode content -- so for some people, that's fairly hardcore. I won't pretend it's easy for me to do much beyond 5-mans and BGs with any of my alts. I play about 20 hours a week, more than some, less than others, and am pretty happy with my main and what he can do. One of the problems when playing one of my alts is that they're simply not capable of even coming close to my main. Struggling through yet another Zul'Gurub slog on my Worgen becomes almost impossible when I know I could blast through it on my Tauren -- but the Tauren wouldn't benefit, whereas the Worgen needs the gear. The announcement of Raid Finder for patch 4.3 has me thinking about how many of my alts will actually get to see raid-level content. New heroics will also debut with patch 4.3, and for the first time in Cataclysm, a heroic dungeon will offer gear on par with raiding. (Up until now, even the ZA/ZG tier of heroics offers gear a step below the Tier 11 raids.) This means that we're about to enter into a new way to play your alts.
Officers' Quarters: Patch 4.3 -- An officer's perspective
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Patch 4.3 is shaping up to be the most exciting and feature-filled of Cataclysm. Let's take a look at which features might impact your guild and how you can take advantage of them. I have located a raid The Raid Finder is not just for the guildless. Guilds can also take advantage of this new feature in several ways. The first and most obvious is that it will allow your raiders to get practice time on bosses for your own normal-mode raids. Since you don't get locked to the instance using the finder, you can see the mechanics ahead of time and still raid with your guild in the same week. If you have players who need to get up to speed, you can also use Raid Finder runs as a training ground. New players can learn the fights without wasting time and causing wipes in your normal runs. (Of course, we have yet to see how different finder mode and normal mode will be, but odds are the mechanics will be fairly similar.) Plus you can use the opportunity to address any issues that the player might be having with DPS rotations, awareness, etc.
Patch 4.3: Raid Finder loot rules updated
Blizzard has just posted a detailed explanation of how loot rolls will work in the forthcoming Raid Finder feature in patch 4.3. With the new feature, players whose currently assigned class role, be it DPS, tank, or healer, will get a +100 added to their loot roll. Loot rolls for items with parry or dodge on them, for instance, will award the tanks in the group who roll need +100 to their roll. The system will only be looking at class role and not spec yet, but Blizzard is considering adding to the system and even potentially implementing this type of roll bonus to the Dungeon Finder as well. We will have more information as it becomes available, but at first glance, this system seems to fit very well within what Blizzard is trying to go for in terms of Raid Finder accessibility. Tanks get to roll on tank gear, DPSers get to roll on DPS gear, and healers get to roll on healing gear. Greed rolls are still available for off-spec gear and do not function like the need rolls, so if no tank needs something, for example, the greed roll system will still work as intended. I think these will be positive changes.
Addon Spotlight: Raiding essentials for healers
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley 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. As we get Raid Finder clarifications and new details, the excitement ramps up for this brand new feature coming in patch 4.3. Raiders and non-raiders alike are clamoring for new ways to experience the high-end, endgame content. Since we also now know the role makeup for the Raid Finder, healers will be in demand as each Raid Finder group will be made up of six healers. Healing is one of the most stressful jobs in World of Warcraft right now. The logistics for healing have changed dramatically since the Wrath of the Lich King days with a new emphasis on smart healing versus throughput. What that means is you have limited resources and need to make sure you're using them correctly. Healing is probably the most complicated role out there right now, if only because healers have a lot of responsibility. In the Raid Finder, encounter difficulties will be easier than we've seen before, but the fact is that players will still need their health bars above zero in order to beat a fight. Healer addons can be a divisive topic, so I'm going to stick with the basics for healers in raids. Your own mileage may vary, and you're going to want to try out different setups in order to see what works for you. On the whole, people agree that having some addons to help with healing makes the job that much smoother.
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.12, Drums of War
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? I'm not ashamed to admit when I've made a mistake. Which is good, because today's Archivist would be awkward otherwise. Last week's classic WoW recap was a smidge premature. I haven't covered patch 1.12 yet. Why? Because I thought patch 1.12 was patch 2.0. Patch 2.0 would go with the Burning Crusade-era patches. Patch 1.12 isn't patch 2.0, however, so we're mired in classic WoW for one more week. Patch 1.12, Drums of War, released in August of 2006. It contained the feature that has set the standard for all group content in World of Warcraft: cross-realm Battlegrounds. In addition to cross-realm Battlegrounds, patch 1.12 also included sanctioned world PVP (which didn't work) and a number of UI improvements that you probably take for granted all these years later. Let's dive in, shall we?
Patch 4.3: Raid Finder feature preview
Tonight's late-night blog post from the World of Warcraft community managers is one we've all been waiting for: a Raid Finder preview! The blog post from Daxxarri explains precisely what the feature is and how it will work in a Q&A format. Some highlights: There are currently no plans to include Call to Arms rewards, individual boss kills will not yield valor points, and you can't acquire legendary weapon components in Raid Finder raid groups. The Raid Finder will also require at least one player to queue as a raid leader volunteer, so they can be saddled with the responsibility of marking targets, choosing tanks and off tanks, and so on. A little part of my soul blackens every time I think about how much patience would be required to lead a 25-man raid PUG. Hop after the break to check out the full Raid Finder Q&A.
Addon Spotlight: Raiding essentials for tanks
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley 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. With the Raid Finder tool hitting the PTR in the very near future (potentially even right now, depending on what happens between the days betweeen this publishes), new players will be ushered into a new era of raiding. With the new, more forgiving raid difficulty setting, players who might have never been part of the raiding game will get their chance to see endgame content first hand. We want you all to be prepared here at the Addon Spotlight. Today's installment of the column is all about getting tanks in tip-top interface shape for their new adventures in patch 4.3. Addons essential for tanking, like the other two roles, have greatly lowered in number over the years, as Blizzard has made the entire WoW experience more streamlined and user-friendly. Old paradigms like threat and mitigation have substantially changed over the course of the game's life and now are much more straightforward affairs for the average player. Addons can still help increase the user-friendly nature of the game and give you an extra edge in making your raiding experience an enjoyable one.
