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You're bad at WoW, and so am I
Blizzard Community Manager Lore recently posted a brief reply in an excellent thread, which brought up a topic I've wanted to address for some time: how it's OK to suck sometimes. While I'm not going to copy his two posts here, he talks about arenas, discussing how, when he and his team lose, he looks back and tries to work out where things went wrong, and what he could have done to help. He also discusses the merits of doing things like recording matches, to replay and examine what went wrong. While the option of recording your WoW play may not be open to everyone, self-examination is. And it's something we can all afford to do. None of us ever play perfectly, we are not robots. But the key to becoming better is to admit that, to see our failings, and to improve upon them. Sometimes it's you Sometimes it is. Sometimes you'll lose an arena or wipe in a raid because of someone else's error -- your tanks messed up the switching, or the person who had a debuff failed to perform correctly. Even in those situations, it's good to think back and wonder whether your performance was optimal. Sure, you weren't the reason why your team wiped or lost, but what more could you have done to perform well on your own personal scale?
Bosses in 5 seconds: Siege of Orgrimmar LFR wing four
While we've been busy, in my guild, trying to draw awesome stars in Paragons of the Klaxxi with Iyyokuk the Lucid's fire lines, I've apparently not been busy making a Bosses in 5 Seconds for the fourth wing of Siege of Orgrimmar. By way of apology to the many people who've been asking me where it is, I'm writing it right now. Sorry for the rather lengthy delay. You can see the rest of the guides here. As ever, these are minimal guides for LFR. If you use them for anything else, that's on you! Siegecrafter Blackfuse Don't stand in the bad. There will be rings of bad appearing, the first one to activate is the middle one. Don't stand in it, then do, after it's gone off. Kill the fixating crawler mines. Ranged are best at this. Ranged spread out for sawblades. Kite the laser away from the group Taunt at around 3 stacks of the debuff. Swap to tank the shredder. Tanks kill the shredder. Bad on the floor hurts it. Use DPS CDs once it's jumped, keep it 40 yds from the boss. On the belt, don't kill the Electromagnet, prioritize Crawler Mines*. (LFR usually skips the belt) *While it's not needed in the instructions, this merits explanation. The Electromagnet uses Magnetic Crush which removes the Sawblades from the area. These deal a good amount of damage to anyone who stands on or near them, so removing them will help your healers and keep the deaths low. Crawler mines require several players to switch DPS off the boss.
The Guild Counsel: Seven New Year's resolutions every guild leader should make
As 2013 comes to a close, it's a good opportunity to look back at your guild's year and remember the success and memorable high points you reached together. For every guild that made it through the year, there are hundreds if not thousands that didn't. There are many challenges to running a guild, and sadly, there are too many potential pitfalls that can cause even the most cohesive guilds to fracture and fall apart. The start of a new year is a good time for guild leaders to make a few resolutions to strengthen their guild and make the coming year more enjoyable for all. Let's look back at some helpful advice from the past year's Guild Counsel as we look forward to 2014.
Bosses in 5 seconds: Siege of Orgrimmar wing three
Wing three is upon us! It opened today on US servers, and will hit Europe tomorrow like a runaway dinosaur fixating on the Siberian tundra. We've already got the first wing done in our inimitable five second style, and the second one's up for your reading delectation as well. Now, though, it's starting to get serious with wing three. Actually, to be honest, this is a pretty easy wing. Wing four's going to be the clincher. As always, remember, these aren't in-depth guides for your heroic raid. They're arming you with just enough knowledge to get your group through the LFR version of the fight, mostly intact. Malkorok Healers, in phase 1, your heals won't heal. Instead there will be colored blobs on the raid frames. Keep them green. They're absorb shields, that you're building by healing. He'll do cone-shaped smashes that affect segments of the room. Don't stand in them. Also, after every three smashes, he'll re-explode the three areas he smashed. Don't stand in that. Soak purple swirls When he goes into Blood Rage, stack up. Run out with the debuff if your healers are struggling. Everything hurts more as the fight progresses.
Siege of Orgrimmar LFR Wing Two opens
Get ready for the LFR chaos to ramp still higher as wing two opens. This section includes Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, Kor'kron Dark Shaman and General Nazgrim, and we're really getting into the fun stuff now, after the relatively gentle introduction that was wing one. We'll be putting together a guide that details the bosses in five seconds strategy before too long, but in the meantime you can check out our full guides from our PTR testing of the bosses. Which are you most excited about? Which has got you worried? Personally I'm looking forward to Iron Juggernaut. Not because I think it's a particularly excellent fight or anything, but because it's a huge robot scorpion that shoots fire. Frankly I think that's reason enough to be excited about a fight, don't you? And the good news is that, despite the additional difficulty of this wing, we've got two weeks to deal with it and learn the strategies before the next wing of LFR opens on the 8th of October. That one is where it really starts to get crazy, with Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria and Thok the Bloodthirsty, so get yourself ready for some LFR fun! And be good to each other. We're all new to this.
The right and the wrong ways to use healing meters
Meters are a sticky topic. My esteemed colleagues Dawn Moore and Matt Low have both touched on them and their use in the past, but it's time for a few lessons. Some home truths, if you will. Healing meters are something of a problem. Why are they an issue? Well, healing isn't measurable in the same way as DPS is. A while back, in my guild, we had a paladin healer who bragged constantly about his HPS -- yes, healing per second. Now, DPS isn't even the optimal way to measure damage. HPS is far from the optimal way to measure healing. Why not? Well, there's so much more to healing than just raw numbers. If the paladin in question blindly blasted out his max HPS in a short fight, he might accidentally be efficient, but on longer fights, where triage healing was needed and DPS was tight, he went out of mana immediately. He was using healing meters the wrong way. He was using them like damage meters, looking at hard numbers and thinking that was the measure of a good healer. So how should you use them? And what are the pitfalls to avoid?
Patch 5.4: Patch notes updated with smart heal information
The latest iteration of the patch 5.4 patch notes has been posted over at Wowhead, and they contain some changes to AoE heals. As Perculia explains, Several heals now function like smart heals, in which the 6 most injured friendly targets within range, and minor guardians are no longer targeted. Affected heals are Healing Rain, Holy Radiance, Holy Word: Sanctuary, Light's Hammer, and Spinning Crane Kick. Smart heals are heals which, as Perculia says, pick out the players who need healing the most, and put their heals into those people. Previously, spells such as Healing Rain would target everyone inside them, whether they needed healing or not. That included players, hunter pets, warlock minions, everything. What was the problem with that? Well, particularly in 25-man heroic raids, spells like Healing Rain were causing massive input lag.
Patch 5.4: Bashiok talks raid difficulty and unlock schedule
Blizzard Community Rep Bashiok has been writing up a storm in the US forums, in a thread discussing the unlock schedule of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. Of course, as you're most likely already well aware, this is the first raid which will introduce the Flexible Raiding tier, and as a result the unlock schedule has undergone some changes, and whenever things change, people complain. The original post was calling for all content to be opened at the same time to all difficulties, and Bashiok was issued with the difficult task of quelling the unrest. I'm not going to put all his responses in here, they're too long, if you want to you can check out the original thread. The release schedule argument basically runs as follows. One side asserts that you should allow all parties to access all content at once, otherwise it is unfair to people who can't access the harder difficulties for whatever reason, since they pay a sub just like everyone else. What's more, it encourages elitism to open the easier content later.
Siege of Orgrimmar Preview: Malkorok
In Wrath of the Lich King, we rescued Valithria Dreamwalker. In Cataclysm, we had to contend with Chimaeron. Healers, if you were looking for a signature encounter for Mists of Pandaria, look no further than Malkorok. He's a former member of the Blackrock orcs who swore allegiance to Garrosh and now acts as bodyguard, chief advisor, and leader of the Kor'kron. In fact, Malkorok is so loyal that he volunteered to be infused with the power of Y'Shaarj. Read on to find out more about taking down this horde champion!
Siege of Orgrimmar Preview: Norushen
Norushen is expected to be a part of the third encounter in the Siege of Orgrimmar that's coming in with patch 5.4. After we cut through the trash, we found that Norushen prevented us from going any further. Apparently, he detected that we were full of pride and said our bodies had to be purged before we could advance onwards. Our main job here is to defeat the Amalgam of Corruption. It's the elements of pride within us combined into something that we can tangibly kill. If we don't kill the Amalgam within 7 minutes, Norushen's quarantine zone kills everyone. And how does one about purifying themselves? Why I thought you'd never ask!
Siege of Orgrimmar Boss Preview: Immerseus
Immerseus is the first boss in the new Siege of Orgrimmar raid, located just inside the entrance in the Vale of not-quite-so-eternal Blossoms. Descending into the room, you will encounter Immerseus in this circular area. When moused over, he shows up as "tears of the vale" -- the poor thing is created from the corruption of the life-giving pools of the Vale. As the first boss of the raid, it should come as no surprise that Immerseus is very straightforward, but the mechanics, though simple, deal heavy damage if not dealt with correctly. Player are essentially trying to cleanse Immerseus' corruption by beating the corruption out of him, and killing it before it can get back. He has two phases, Tears of the Vale and Split. Immerseus will begin the fight in Tears of the Vale, and the object is to DPS Immerseus down to zero health, when he will shift into his Split mode.
Siege of Orgrimmar Boss Preview: Kor'kron Dark Shaman
The Kor'kron Dark Shaman are the seventh boss of the new Siege of Orgrimmar raid instance, which will arrive in patch 5.4. They are the second boss in the Gates of Retribution wing, which is the first of three wings which are located in Orgrimmar. These wings will be applicable to both the Raid Finder and Flexible Raiding difficulties. Kor'kron Dark Shaman was tested in 10-man normal mode with three healers, and two tanks. The start of the fight sees the two shaman, Earthbreaker Haromm and Wavebinder Kardris, who share a health pool, inside what used to be Garrosh's throne room. They are accompanied by two dogs, and the room is extremely small for the fight on 10-man difficulty, let alone 25-man, so it is best that all four are pulled outside. On PTR, the pull required quite some caution, as the combination of a +100% frost damage debuff cast on the Haromm tank and Kardris' Froststorm Bolt caused some serious issues if aggro was not well-managed, not to mention the bolt one-shotting DPS and healers. The two wolves seemed completely insignificant, with only 12 million HP each they were DPS'd down extremely quickly, then the fight begins for real.
Flexible Raiding lockouts and queues clarified
As with any new feature, confusion abounds around Flexible Raiding and just how it will work. Blizzard Community Manager Taepsilum took to the forums to clarify various aspects, including lockouts. Taepsilum Right now, the idea is to have FR lockouts work very similarly to lockouts in LFR. You will be able to repeat bosses, and that will actually still be somewhat rewarding, you'll be able to use additional bonus rolls, earn Valor Points, and potentially loot some shinnies from trash... There's something unique about FRs though, I'll explain it with an example: Let's say you join a 12man and kill the first boss, leave the raid, and join a 20man, you might have to repeat the first boss. "Might", so how does that work? If everyone in the new 20man raid has already killed the first boss just like you did, then that boss will not spawn. But even if only 1 of the players in that 20man has not killed the first boss, he will spawn again and everyone else will have to repeat the encounter. source This is all pretty confusing stuff! WoW Insider reached out to Blizzard for some additional clarity on just how the raid lockouts will work, and they came back with some more information.
25-mans have higher Thunderforged drop rate than 10-mans
The new Thunderforged loot designation -- much like the affix Raid Finder -- was introduced into Patch 5.2 for a number of reasons by Blizzard. While the affix does stay certain pieces from disenchantable execution on farm bosses, players largely regarded Thunderforged items as another attempt to help 25-man raiding guilds stay afloat. The developers didn't want to go back to late Wrath of the Lich King model of completely higher loot in 25mans, so instead Thunderforged items can drop in both sized raids. However, the drop rate in 25-mans would be higher than that of 10-mans. "How frequent is more frequent?" players would ask, especially when given the chance to chat with the developers about patch 5.2. Ghostcrawler deflected the question on TotemSpot's interview, preferring to let players figure out the drop rates themselves. Fortunately for us, WoWProgress has analyzed the loot drops using its database of characters, guilds, and bosses killed this first week of Patch 5.2. Looking at loot gains from Jin'rokh the Breaker, specifically: 11.7% of the 10-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged 25.7% of the 25-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged Even figuring in disenchanted items, WoWProgress figures the drop rates to be approximately 10% for 10-man and 25% for 25-man. From personal anecdote, my 25-man raiding guild saw usually one but sometimes two Thunderforged drops per boss in addition to four to five regular mode drops. Tier pieces, of course, will never drop as Thunderforged. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
GuildOx interviews Ion Hazzikostas
As patch 5.2 looms ever closer, Blizzard has opened their doors, offering insights into the ideas, plans and processes behind the upcoming patch. WoW Insider's Anne Stickney interviewed Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak yesterday, and now GuildOx has published their interview with Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas. The GuildOx interview brings up many interesting insights into the new raid, from the man leading the team who designed it. WoW Insider found several of Ion's answers particularly interesting, for example, he indicated that the Dark Animus fight, as pictured above, is probably the most innovative, and we certainly agree. Ion also has some tips for guilds tackling the new raid: Take your time, pace yourself, and enjoy the variety of the tier. It's a large one. There are fights that focus on different skills, and if you're struggling with one encounter, it's quite possible that a fight that plays to your group's strengths, and which you'll have a much easier time with, lies just over that hill. If your guild runs into a roadblock on Normal mode, consider revisiting any 5.0 raids that you never finished, or trying some of the 5.0 Heroics for more gear upgrades to complement the ilvl-522 and -528 gear you'll be getting from your Throne of Thunder kills each week.
Patch 5.2 Raid Preview
Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri posted a lengthy blog over on the official forums today, providing a preview of the upcoming Throne of Thunder raid. This blog provides two really interesting elements, quite separate from reviewing the actual content itself. First off, Daxxarri has shared a summary version of every single boss's lore with us. If you're wondering just why exactly you're fighting a triceratops, this blog will tell you! It's really interesting to learn the lore behind the bosses, making the raid more than just a series of puzzles. The stories revolve around power and its destructive effects, from Jin'rokh, who started life as a quest-giver in Zul'Gurub, before being corrupted by the Thunder King and given shamanistic powers, controlling lightning alongside his huge strength to crush his foes. Horridon is a sadder tale, for me, as he seems to have simply been captured by Jalak, and forced into battle. Having fought him, though, he doesn't seem very peaceable. There are several other great stories in the blog, for example, did you realise that the Mogu actually created the Saurok? I sure didn't. The stories, in brief, are very similar to those in the dungeon journal, along with the recent addition of Ra-den, who, it is revealed, was guarding the Engine of Nalak'sha. But more than that, there is what could almost be considered a director's commentary, provided by Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas. Ion provides a brief summary of the team's approach for every fight, how they came into being, what was the inspiration behind them, and so on.
Patch 5.2 PTR: Crushing the Council of Elders
Thought you saw the last of Gara'jal in Mogushan Vaults, did you? Yeah, so did I. Mogu'shan Vaults was merely a setback! The Council of Elders is the third encounter in the Throne of Thunder. I surmise it's the whole leadership of the Troll empire right there looking to stop your raid team from progressing any further into the compound. As you can guess, this encounter is the first council-type encounter of the raid. They'll have to handle the various abilities and spells that the Council is dishing out while slowly whittling them all down. They don't have a shared pool so you do you have your work cut out for you. Now there are going to be a ton of things going on but your raid should be able to pick up on the different abilities without too much of a hassle.
Poll: The worst boss of tier 14
Don't pretend you didn't see this coming after the earlier poll asking about the best boss of tier 14. Where there is light, there is shadow, and just as we love to discuss the best of a raid tier here at WoW Insider, we find ourselves duty bound to also talk about its bad sides. What was your worst boss in tier 14? For me, again, just expressing a personal opinion, not a statement of fact, the worst bosses were the worst bosses thanks to either mechanics which I found gimmicky, or fights that seemed overly long and sluggish. Leaping to the head of the pack for my worst boss in the tier, then, is Amber Shaper Un'sok. His random transformation of players into vehicles with, as you'd expect in a vehicle, completely revamped abilities, is frustrating at best. In fact, I say it's random, but it isn't. Almost without exception, Un'sok has a remarkable ability to target the player least equipped to deal with a sudden transformation into Lord Ryolith. If the vehicle was something that could be targeted, or selected for a specific player, it would be fine, but that isn't the case. He is, therefore, number one on my worst boss list.
Poll: The best boss of tier 14
As patch 5.0's raids' glory days draw to a close, it's time to look back on the first tier of Mists of Pandaria. No, you're right, it's highly likely that a lot of players will not yet have completed this tier, maybe not even seen the latter half, but most will probably have made it through the Raid Finder, at least. So, as we stand on the brink of embarking on a new patch, and new raid content, what has been your best boss in patch 5.0? For me, and of course this is just my personal opinion, based on my experience and preferences in bosses, there are a few contenders. I actually like a lot of the fights in the earlier part of this tier, maybe because we're used to them so they're more relaxed, but I like to think that it's because they have mechanics that are innovative without being gimmicky, and because the fights don't last forever. Some of the Terrace of Endless Spring fights seem to last about a week, and maybe it's because I'm healing, but that isn't a characteristic I particularly enjoy. For me, as a shaman healer main, the best boss contenders are the following. Gara'jal the Spirit Binder, because the Spirit Realm health knockdowns, plus mana regen buffs, mean I can blow the top off the healing meter as mastery kicks in and mana becomes a non-issue. Pure /flexing, I know. And I must admit that it's pretty terrible on the raid finder.
Patch 5.2 PTR: Breaking Jin'rokh the Breaker
I headed back to the patch 5.2 PTR recently with Lore from TankSpot, and members of his guild Months Behind to test the first boss of the Throne of Thunder, Jin'rokh the Breaker. We had an entertaining time, at first, as can often be the case on the PTR. The developers had ported all the testers into the wrong part of the raid, so we set off exploring, and found a geyser that transported us all up to Lei Shen, who, while he happily continued his RP, refused to engage us in combat. We couldn't get to Jin'rokh at first, but a swift disband and regroup secured us entry into his room. Jin'rokh is the first boss of the new raid, and as such has relatively straightforward mechanics, certainly compared to Lei Shen. Again, I was on my goblin restoration shaman, so view the fight from a healer's perspective. Jin'rokh's fight proceeds in repeating, short phases. He engages and beats up your tank for a short while, putting out very healable damage. Jin'rokh will place a stacking debuff on the tank called Static Wound, which increases damage taken from melee strikes more and more as it builds. This is apparently designed to force a tank swap.
