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The Soapbox: Of course I care what you're doing in MMOs
I mulled being positive about the MMO industry as a new year's resolution. Then I remembered that new year's resolutions are silly because if it takes an arbitrary date and a contrived occasion to do something, that something is probably not worth doing! With that in mind, let's kick off the 2015 Soapbox season with a mini-rant about one of the nuttier MMO-related misconceptions of all time. I ran across this gem on a forum very recently, and while it's not a new notion, it's a dumb notion and therefore it's worth blowing up. What's the notion? Here, let me just quote the poster. "Why do you care what other players do in an MMORPG? It doesn't affect you."
The Daily Grind: What's the last team-oriented goal you accomplished in an MMO?
MMORPGs have gotten pretty solo-friendly over the years, but a few of them still boast challenging content for groups, raids, or whatever you'd like to call a team of players. I tend to play solo more often than not, but all of my memorable gameplay moments from the past 15 years happened while I was part of a team. What about you, Massively readers? Do you have any favorite teamplay anecdotes? What's the last team-oriented goal you accomplished in an MMO? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What's the best MMO for solo play?
One of the comment tropes we see repeated over and over below our articles is this idea that if you're soloing in an MMORPG, you're in violation of the rules of the genre. I despise that idea so much that I even wrote a whole rant about it. The fact that a game is massively multiplayer does not mean that you need to be playing directly with other people at all let alone all the time, and it definitely doesn't mean you need to be grouped up performing completely arbitrary combat activities, which is usually how the argument goes. MMORPGs without groups and without combat debunk that construct handily. The genre is way bigger than that limited definition; the options are what make it great, not the requirements. A lot of MMO gamers solo for so very many reasons: don't like other games, don't want to hold anyone back, don't want to be held back, might need to AFK, feel too shy, don't speak the language, or just prefer solo challenges and want to be measured for them against that massively multiplayer backdrop. That leads me to today's question: Which MMORPG is the absolute best for a gamer who likes to solo but wants to do it "alone together" alongside lots of other people? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Soloing the Black Temple with Blizzard
Daxxari is back with another guide to soloing old raids, this time, The Black Temple. Whether it's transmog loot you're looking for, a chance at a warglaive, reputation with another faction (The Ashtongue Deathsworn) or just giggles, Black Temple has it all from Tier 6 sets and lookalikes to some of the coolest scenery the game's ever seen. Black Temple is by far one of my favorite raids. It's quite soloable by a max-level character -- the hardest fight is the Reliquary of Souls because you can easily do enough damage to yourself and the interrupts get brutal -- and it has some really awesome looking loot, cool fight mechanics, and some big lore deals like Teron Gorefiend and of course Illidan himself waiting for you. Daxxari explains the fight mechanics and how they work for a solo player, so head over to the official site and read up before heading into the Black Temple.
Working As Intended: There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs
A Massively community member recently wrote into the podcast to tell us that he prefers to solo, to craft for himself, to avoid group quests, and to skip guilds. Still, he told us, he loves MMOs and doesn't want to leave them to play single-player RPGs. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked. Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs.
How to solo dungeons for fun and profit (but mostly fun)
Lots of people who hit level 90 are stuck wondering what to do next as the game offers a plethora of choices but no clear must-dos once you've finished the leveling grind. One of our favorite options is soloing old content. If you never had a chance to raid or run dungeons earlier in the game, now you can do many old world raids completely solo. It's a fun way to check out content you've never seen, experience new bits of the game's story, gain reputation (useful for that Beloved title), and pick up pets, mounts, and great transmog gear. Oh, and did we mention money? Even though most of the better loot you'll find in these dungeons is bind on pickup -- meaning you can't toss it on the auction house -- it will sell for gold to vendors. That means if you clear out your inventory so you're prepared to pick up and vendor everything you come across, you can make a pretty decent profit grinding through old dungeons. It's not the most time-efficient way to make gold, but it can be a lot of fun. So if you want to try your hand at some solo content -- whether you're level 90 or not -- keep reading for the tips you need to succeed with soloing.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: We do transmog better than anyone
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. I got to do some tanking in Heroic Siege this week - nothing major, just offtanking on Dark Shaman - and it was pretty fun all around. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy tanking in raids. It was fun to get to see the Warrior 2 piece Tier 16 tanking bonus in action in a current raid at the cutting edge of content, instead of in an LFR or using it to solo Cataclysm raids. It's a very solid set bonus, and I'm going to write more about it in the future - basically, I think it should be baked into the baseline Shield Block and Shield Barrier abilities, or perhaps be baked into Shield Slam in some way (so that, for ten seconds after a successful Shield Slam, you heal a percentage of your Shield Barrier absorb or Shield Block damage prevented, as one possible example) - but I'm not quite ready to write about that yet. Now, as I said, I've been using my tank set and prot spec to solo Cataclysm raids, up to and including the first three bosses in 10 man Dragon Soul. It's not always easy, but it is possible, and the reason I've been doing this is because I freaking love transmogrification, and therefore, I've been pursuing it with a fevered dedication that has completely robbed me of bank, void storage and even bag space. I've wanted to write about transmog and warriors forever, but I felt such deep shame at letting Cable, the mutant son of Cyclops and Madeline Pryor, write about it first. I mean, I'm so in love with transmog that I started a tumblr about it. So let's talk about transmog and warriors. (If you're not interested in transmog, you should probably come back next week.) Why do I argue that warriors do transmog better than anyone? Well, here's a few reasons.
110% guarantee soloing old raids will not be harder post squish
Technical Game Designer Chadd Nervig, aka Celestalon on Twitter, has answered a tweeter's question about item squishing with the following tidbit: .@ToppTheDwarf The item squish *will not* make soloing old raids harder. We promise, and 110% guarantee it. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) February 9, 2014 I read this, and my ears perked up. I really enjoy running around killing things indiscriminately in old raids, and I've wondered as to whether or not that would continue to be possible after the item squish. It's good to hear that Blizzard has no intention of letting older content stay as it is while our characters' ability to pump out damage is drastically reduced. Of course, this leads to the obvious question -- what approach is Blizzard going to take for keeping older raids and dungeons' mobs and bosses abilities proportional? The obvious answer is that all of it will be squished along with our characters' gear and abilities. I suppose that will include items dropped of of old bosses too. It will be interesting to see the approach that Blizzards' designers take with the new expansion to make this change go as smoothly as possible.
Item Squish won't affect soloing capabilities, but other changes may.
The devs have been very keen to reassure us that the item squish incoming with Warlords will have no impact on our ability to solo old content. And Technical Game Designer Chadd "Celestalon" Nervig has tweeted, reasserting this point. However, in response to well-known death knight soloer Aelobin, he comments that other factors may have an effect. @Aelobin That is to say; the squish won't affect soloing capabilities, but other changes may. Soloing at low levels isn't a balance focus. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) January 7, 2014 What Chadd doesn't do is expand on just what exactly these "other changes" might be. At a guess, I would imagine that they may relate to ability changes, as there is a planned sweep to address the issue of button bloat, so you may lose some of the skills that you currently use to solo older content. Perhaps it relates to the non-linearity of expansion transition gear, or perhaps it's none of the above. Nonetheless, the message regarding the item squish is being received loud and clear.
More reassurance on post-squish soloing
Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has taken to the forums to reassure players on post-squish soloing. Despite Blizzard's repeated assertions that the squish will do nothing to affect soloing, the message is going unheard by many, so Ion has provided some clarity on just how the downscaling will work for old raids and the like. Watcher Quote: That's great! But I could have sworn solo raiding was frowned upon by Blizzard. Not sure they'll be too worried about keeping it a possibility. Hopefully though. There's nothing at all wrong with going back and doing legacy raids and other content. The achievement system, cosmetic rewards and titles, and most recently transmogrification all serve to reward that playstyle. There's also a lot to be said for just being able to revisit old locations, for the sake of nostalgia or getting to experience them for the first time, without needing to find a like-minded group. As Rygarius noted, we're committed to making sure that we don't disrupt players' ability to engage in that gameplay. Without getting into the math, our goal is to make sure that if Kael'thas's Pyroblast does damage equal to 10% of your maximum health today, it will take off no more than 10% of your health post-squish. And if you kill Onyxia in 30 seconds today, you'll be able to kill Onyxia in 30 seconds post-squish. source
Brewmaster Monk solos Stone Guard 10H
Maebybabe of Ascendance on Draenor EU-H has taken down ten-man heroic Stone Guard, with an item level of 548. No great surprise, I hear you say? Well Maebybabe did it completely by himself. As you can see from the video, there are definitely moments where his health dips down low, and he even dies thanks to not clearing the stagger after the dogs are down, but this is a remarkable feat. Overall, Maebybabe manages to put out 210.91m damage, no surprise as that's the total required to kill the boss, but also 37.27m healing. He notes in the description of the YouTube video that he's using Glyph of Guard, allowing him to keep Guard active longer, which increases his healing by 30%. Notably, the dogs actually enrage shortly before the kill, despite Maebybabe's DPS output, but this doesn't seem to phase him At a lower item level, stated as 522 or 523, he also soloed Lich King 25H, which you can also check out on YouTube.
Breakfast Topic: Do you play solo or in groups?
Certainly at the highest levels, WoW is designed to favor group play in dungeons, raids, and arenas. This can be a big change of pace for the new player since up to level 90, you can get through most of the game solo. But even then, players who would rather be lone wolves in a sea of group content can find new quests to work on and plenty of older content can now be solo'd for fun and challenge. In fact, my schedule means I primarily play on my own, carving out little chunks of game time here and there -- and while it's still plenty of fun, I'm not sure it's exactly the game Blizzard intended... and I definitely miss the fun of grouping with friends when my schedule doesn't match theirs. So tell us, readers, how do you game? Do you play on your own, rely on a few gaming buddies, or work with even larger groups -- be it a guild or LFR -- to conquer raid-sized content? Is your gameplay style by choice or because of limited time or difficulty scheduling with your friends?
The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing
We now know about the last two races coming to WildStar. We don't yet know about the last two classes, but that's pretty much assured for release in the near future. (I'm betting on PAX Prime, based on nothing more than speculation.) In fact, we're getting plenty of interesting and deep reveals... as well as a few things that the developers aren't talking about, things that are mentioned in passing and then allowed to just go unaddressed. Some of this doesn't really matter one way or the other, but there are some places where these unreveals are pretty worrisome. I'm not sure how much of this comes down to limited time for reveals and how much is actually shady, but in lieu of more information, I think some questions should be asked about why we've heard nothing regarding some stuff that, logically, should have gotten its own day in the revelation sunlight.
Kill dragons solo to ride more dragons
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill beats up internet dragons for fun, for mounts, and maybe as a little catharsis. I've already done some Raiding with Leashes vanilla raid posts. The next logical step would be Burning Crusade soloing, but I've tried and failed to make a glorified loot list more interesting to read, since BC content tends to be more "walk in and win" nowadays than an actual soloing contest. So, while I wrangle out an adventure in tiers four to six, I will talk about killing dragons solo as a warlock in order to grab dragon mounts. I'm not talking about dragons that require friends by your side to complete: e.g., Deathwing's two dragon mounts, Ultraxion's mount, completing a dragonstick, or Al'Akir's dragon drop. Al'Akir has actually been soloed before by a warlock, but you'll need friends in order to clear his genie council first. I'm talking dragons you can go beat up by yourself.
Mionee checks off soloing Cataclysm raids, begins bloodying Mists
Evidently, the EU realms are a hotbed of death knight creativity and initiative. While he might be among the best-known players for his crazy soloing accomplishments, Raegwyn is hardly the only DK to crack the code of soloing endgame content. Mionee, a savvy and seasoned death knight from top EU guild Envy, is also making name for herself from soloing a few little things. What kind of things? Everything from Deathwing, Ragnaros, and a challenge mode dungeon down to older content such as Yogg-Saron/0 keepers and the Lich King. "The only normal mode encounters that cannot be soloed right now as a DK are Kalecgos in Sunwell Plateau, Valithria Dreamwalker in Icecrown Citadel (unless you're a draenei with Gift of the Naaru), Conclave of Wind in Throne of the Four Winds, as well as Hagara the Stormbinder and Spine of Deathwing in Dragon Soul," Mionee muses. "That leaves quite a lot of soloable encounters. On a more general note, what's left to solo are the heroic versions of some encounters, or the 25-man versions of bosses that have only been soloed in 10-man." "To give a rough estimate," she continues, "by the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I was doing Mount Hyjal; by the end of Cata, I had completed nearly every possible heroic encounter from Wrath (a few exceptions aside); and right now, I have completed everything in Cata aside from the three above-mentioned encounters." Mionee gives us the inside scoop on soloing some of the game's toughest content and answers the question of whether death knights are really overpowered, after the break.
Level 80 paladin solos some Mogu'shan Vaults bosses, gets Vengeance hotfixed
A great video is making the rounds right now of an exceptional player using some unintended consequences to solo multiple bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults -- and as a protection-specced paladin no less! He apparently downed Stone Guard, Feng, and Elegon before Blizzard caught wind of the escapade. You can see a video of the Elegon kill above. How he pulled this off was by taking advantage of a series of design choices that Blizzard made, combining them all into a hilarious example of the law of unintended consequences in action. To reach a decent item level, the paladin equipped various bind on equip rares that drop in Mists zones which all had a required character level of only 80. And because he was only level 80, he was avoiding the combat ratings drop-offs for levels 81 and 86 that a normal character wearing those pieces would be subjected too. This would allow him to get an insane amount of secondary stats like haste (I've seen that he had 95%!) and mastery (88%, apparently).
Blood Pact: Soloing the vanilla raids for pets and more
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill laments being knocked successfully up past the Suppression Room, only to pull the boss and be knocked back down and across the Suppression Room while the original knockback mobs die. UGH. Well, Naxxramas is big enough that I'll leave a whole article to it. The other raids from the original raiding scene of level 60 can fit into one since they're relatively easy to do. The roadblocks to finishing them are largely mechanical tricks, not damage output or survivability problems. There's no real difference between the specs in these earliest raids. I run as destruction mostly because it's fast-paced, but any spec and almost any talent setup can do these raids.
Blood Pact: Speccing for old world raids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill harvests all the songbells ever in the search for more Imperial Silk, but slaughtering masses of Horde NPCs for reputation also works. Patch 5.1 introduced pets to the vanilla-era raids. Patch 4.3 introduced transmogrification, which brought old raids back. Before that, some players would solo or duo old raids just for the challenge giggles. Every new expansion has raised the level cap and opened another expansion to soloing. Whether you're soloing for a look, for improved familiarity with your spell toolbox, or for bragging rights, warlock is definitely a great class to jump into soloing old raids. At level 90, even before you're decked out in tier 14, most of the Wrath of the Lich King raids are fairly easy. But let's start with the basics -- speccing and playstyle.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A Birthday Miscellany
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Still waiting on 1h weapons for an SMF build. So I've decided that this week, I'll go and take a look at smaller topics, things that won't fill up a full column by themselves. I'm doing this because the day I write this is my birthday and I want to treat myself. One of those things is soloing old raids, which I've been doing a lot of since patch 5.1 dropped. Whenever I post to twitter that I've completed another old raid or boss, people ask me what spec I'm using or what talents I'm choosing. Now, none of this is remotely as impressive as soloing Baleroc at level 80, but it's fun and pretty easy to do. I've found that I can solo any boss up to ones that require a certain class ability a warrior doesn't have, up to and including Professor Putricide in ICC-10.
Patch 5.1, old raids and soloing
So, since Patch 5.1 dropped, I've been gleefully running old raids with the group of me, myself and I, seeing how far I could get solo. I've found myself able to solo up to Gunship in ICC 10, which has been great for me from a purely transmog perspective as I eagerly love the WoW equivalent of clothes shopping. Now, I know a lot of people are interested in this as well, in part because of the pets that drop from the original four classic WoW raids. So I was interested to see this post on the forums and community manager Brennvin's response on the matter. Are all old bosses intended to be soloable by all classes and specs? The answer seems to be no. 5.1 Thought we could solo old content now? We believe there was a lot of confusion when we originally announced this change and we're certainly at fault for said confusion. The original patch note was very vague to the point of being misleading. It was never our intent to weaken old raid boss encounters to allow anyone to have a chance to solo them, regardless of class, spec, or skill. What we did change were encounters that were mechanically impossible for one person to accomplish, solely for the purpose of ensuring players have easier access to the hunt for the new rare companion pets -- the drop rates of which are actually set to account for a group of three players, not one. Moving forward, though, we do not plan to adjust encounters for tougher raid bosses to be solo'able by all classes and specs. source So while you can zone in to any pre-Mists raid now (and I have been) you still can't solo Vicidus if you have no frost attacks (and I don't). However, the Twin Emps I did solo. It's possible at level 90 to simply overpower the healing they do. What's harder is to get kill credit for both, since I have no attacks that can damage Vek'lor. Every time I kill Vek'nilash, his brother simply despawns. 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.
