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Alter-Ego: Five favorite Fire tank powers
I'll admit it: Of all the powers I've played with in DC Universe Online thus far, the Fire and Ice powersets are undoubtedly my two personal favorites. Normally I'm not so much the tanking type, but there's something about these two trees that just satisfies the comic book nerd in me. I grew up watching my favorite heroes taking on incredible odds, being beaten down, and triumphing at the end of the day. However, as in any MMO involving endgame raiding, no man is an island. While I might enjoy standing toe-to-toe with the bad guys, if I don't have a good group behind me, there's only so much I can do before I'm spending quality time with the defeat button. This is where I have to note that specific endgame "builds" don't appear to be quite as easy to create in DC Universe Online as they are in other games such as World of Warcraft. As DCUO is still in its infancy, there are many players who are working hard on theorycrafting statistics. This means that there simply aren't any 100%-perfect cookie-cutter builds everyone adheres to as yet. Still, there are some power choices that seem to be fairly popular for Fire tanks in this early stage, which is what we'll be taking a look at this week.
Behind the Mask: The power that changed the game
One of the difficult things about explaining complex systems is that sometimes too much detail is bad, and other times not enough detail is also bad. Last week I talked about the myriad defensive systems in Champions Online as a precursor to an analysis of the mighty Inertial Dampening Field. The big problem is that in a huge complex series of systems like CO's, it's difficult to get all the information into one column. This week, we're going to skip talking about the new Inventor Archetype and the Gadgeteering revamp to talk more about the impact of IDF on the free-form hero game. IDF is probably the most game-changing power released in F2P, and its effects on Champions' gameplay is far-reaching.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 4.1 PTR Warrior changes
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. It wouldn't be a patch without warrior changes, and patch 4.1 is nothing if it isn't a patch. What are the really big standouts from an initial overview pass of the changes? Rallying Cry is a new ability that seems to work like Last Stand for the entire party or raid. Colossus Smash now only lowers armor by 70% for 6 seconds, down from 100%. Intercept stun is reduced to 1 second. In addition, Juggernaut will no longer increase the stun duration of Charge. Whirlwind will now reduce its cooldown by 6 seconds if it strikes four or more targets. Several arms abilities have had their damage increased, from Mortal Strike (175% weapon damage) to Overpower (145% weapon damage) to the talented Improved Slam (increases slam damage by 20/40%, up from 10/20%). These are most likely intended to compensate arms for losing Colossus Smash's armor penetration, indicating that nerf was aimed at fury DPS. Finally, Improved Hamstring will now also reduce the global cooldown on Hamstring by half a second for 1 point and a full second for two. Less stunning for warriors and more snaring seems to be the order of the day.
EVE Evolved: Incursion guide -- Fleet setup and tanking
In last week's EVE Evolved, I gave my first impressions of EVE Online's newest group PvE activity based on a cautious first night spent at an incursion in Obray. The Sansha incursions have been running for over a week now, and players have come up with some clearly effective strategies for clearing the sites. Many groups are now tackling the incursions in relative safety, and yet every incursion still sees several ill-prepared fleets decimated at the hands of Sansha's ships. Incursions throw some difficult challenges at players, with focus fire melting vulnerable targets, energy neutralisers and ECM disabling your support ships, and bomber frigates wreaking havoc on large hulls. In some encounters, Sansha's Nation will even use deployable remote repair platforms and other structures to its advantage and will call in random reinforcement waves if your group is too slow. With the right fleet composition and strategy, however, all of those challenges can be overcome with ease. It seems that what players need most right now is a solid guide to tackling incursions. Over the next few editions of the EVE Evolved column, I'll be smashing my way through EVE's incursions to compile a comprehensive guide from the ground up. In this week's first part of the guide, we get the ball rolling with vital information on incursion fleet composition and tanking strategies. This part of the guide is aimed mainly at those interested in Vanguard-level sites, but the fleet setup and tanking strategies described are fundamental to all encounter sizes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I tackle the fundamentals of incursion fleet design and tanking, which should be enough to help your group jump right into 10-man Vanguard encounters.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Tankers
If there's one thing that's always bothered me about the archetypes in City of Heroes -- the vanilla game, that is -- it's that none of them has a name that's particularly evocative, even though there are tons of examples that each archetype can draw upon. Today's archetype is a perfect example, one that covers Superman, Colossus, Giant-Man, Captain Marvel, even certain incarnations of more variable characters like Iron Man. But the name "Tanker" fails to conjure up images of anything beyond a dry recitation of party roles. Yes, this week we're discussing the third of four melee-heavy archetypes with the Tanker, as was hinted at the end of the last column. It's also the archetype closest to its two predecessors, coming with almost identical power selections in a slightly different order. But the Tanker's powers get prioritized in a very different way, so whether you're new to the game or just the class, let's take a look at how to make your Tanker as tanky as possible.
Lichborne: Death knight tank pre-raid gear guide
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. So a few editions of Lichborne ago, we talked a bit about stat priorities for death knight tanks. Because of that, I probably won't go over it much more before we head into this week's gear guide, but I did want to give you a quick refresher course. Let's run it down one more time: Stamina is still king, but not as much as it was in previous expansions. You may find that there comes a time when more avoidance or absorption is better than a higher health pool, as the extremely high health pools and new boss design philosophies of Cataclysm mean, for now, that you'll rarely die from a couple hits. In the mastery vs. avoidance struggle, you'll essentially need to experiment to find your best balance. Which stat is best for which tank will depend on personal playstyle and competency, healer and raid competency and composition, and other factors. You should take a balance of each, but where that balancing point is will vary. Recall that Death Strike is getting a slight nerf in patch 4.0.6, which will in turn nudge the balance more toward avoidance for most people. When gearing for avoidance, try to keep dodge and parry percentages as close to each as possible, as they have the same diminishing returns. This means you'll always want to raise the one that's lower for optimal effect. You can do this by regemming and reforging instead of regearing in many cases, especially now that solid gems in every slot isn't 100% mandatory. Hit and expertise are not as mandatory as they are for most DPS, but you may find they help you with threat. That said, you should never go beyond 8% hit rating and 26 expertise. If you're mastery-heavy, you'll want to focus a bit more on these stats, as missing a Death Strike could prove catastrophic. With all this in mind, let's take a look at some of the stuff you should be rooting up as you prepare to tank the first tier of Cataclysm raiding. Note that while some ilevel 333 items may be decent stopgap options for a raider with an experienced raid group that doesn't mind a bit of undergearing, I've left them off this list, and you really should just try for the higher-level options. Finally, don't feel too guilty if you can't afford some of the crafted or world drop BoEs on this guide. Most raid groups probably won't hold it against you, and in some cases, they're arguably inferior to or only marginally better than BoP drops anyway.
Ghostcrawler reveals upcoming class changes in Cataclysm
Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted the blog post I think most of us have been waiting for ever since Cataclysm went live. It features a summary of where the dev team sees the PvE and PvP games at this point, including some analysis of various classes and specs, and some planned changes for those specs that are underperforming and overperforming. In PvE, Ghostcrawler mentions that Blizzard is mostly happy with the tank classes and notes that while healers do have it a bit hard, this is intentional. Heroics are meant to be a challenge. As for DPS, he offered that some classes, such as arcane mages and marksman and beast mastery hunters, are too low in their damage, while others, such as shadow priests and fire and frost mages, are being watched closely before final judgment is made on their numbers. In PvP, Ghostcrawler says Blizzard is satisfied with the decreased emphasis on healing prevention and burst damage. Crowd control and dispel mechanics, especially offensive dispels, may see some PvP nerfs, and priests will specifically be getting some PvP buffs. Stats also got some mention. A lot of stats are being neglected by some classes, and the dev team wants to fix this. Mastery will be either buffed or completely revamped for many specs, such as unholy death knights and retribution paladins. Haste may be made to scale with more attacks, such as Lacerate, Slam, and Steady Shot, in order to make the stat more desirable to certain specs. Check after the break for the complete text of Ghostcrawler's post, including a list of specifically planned (but not finalized) class changes for future patches.
Ghostcrawler talks tanks and threat
Hey everyone, having fun in those heroics yet? In my own personal (PUG) experiences, things go wrong far more often than they go right. While healer longevity is a major issue, effective crowd control and threat management is growing to be another. Some tanks are just ill-equipped to handle generating threat on supercharged mobs, and some DPSers are just unable to understand the basic rules of threat -- or ignore those rules entirely. Perhaps it's timely, then, that Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street posted a blog entry about Blizzard's philosophy with regard to threat. The piece is something of a follow up to his previous blog entry on Vengeance and threat. A few of the key takeaways of his latest post include: Threat Needs to Matter "We don't think it's too much to ask for DPS and healers to wait a couple of GCDs for the tank to get the enemy under control ..." "... if someone is nuking or cleaving a random target on a group pull instead of assisting the tank, that's not the tank's fault." "... overall, we'd like to present threat better since we're asking you to take it seriously in the PvE game." source The post, "Threat Needs to Matter," is worth reading regardless of whether you're a tank or not. The full text is after the break.
Ghostcrawler explains tanking with a vengeance
Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) had some very interesting tidbits of information and explanations on the new tanking mechanic vengeance in a recent blog post on the new World of Warcraft community website. Vengeance is a new passive ability that all properly specced tanks receive, which converts damage taken into an attack power bonus to make sure that tank threat scales with the increasing power of DPS. Ghostcrawler admits that as with all new mechanics, there is much tweaking still to happen to Vengeance. He explains that the ability has been implemented to give tanks the tools needed to retain threat, but not do the job for them. One interesting point that Ghostcrawler makes is that Blizzard and the designers strive for a healthy balance between the mechanics making tanking possible and players' ability to successfully hold threat. All in all, this is a great post, and I hope for much more from Ghostcrawler like this. I love the systems design posts and rationales behind gameplay design, especially when it covers my role of choice. Check out the whole article on the new community blog. And, Mr. Street, as for that dinosaur -- screenshots or it didn't happen. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The Light and How to Swing It: No more avoidance caps
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. Oh, and I still love the Grand Crusader proc graphics even though they're unrelated to today's article. One thing that we've been taught as tanks throughout most of World of Warcraft is that you had to be capped at something in order to not be insta-killed by bosses. Back when I started playing, this was referred to as reaching uncrushable. You would have to stack up 102.4 percent avoidance in order to push the dreaded crushing blows off of the boss's list of possible attacks he could hit you with. This also meant that all incoming hits were avoided or mitigated in some way, shape or form. That primary form was blocks, and abilities like Shield Block and Holy Shield at that time were custom tailored to this environment. With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, crushing blows were deemed a thing of the past and bosses would no longer be employing them against tanks. However, we quickly had a new cap to deal with instead of that called the defense cap, aka reaching uncrittable. This meant accumulating 540 defense skill against raid bosses in order to remove bosses of being able to hit us with a critical melee attack. In early raiding tiers, this was a constant balance between gems, enchants and trinkets, as each piece of gear we accumulated could change how the scales tipped.
Ghostcrawler on the evolution of rotation complexity
Yet again, a forum discussion of a singular topic (blood DK tanks and their diseaseless rotation, as discussed by our own Daniel Whitcomb last week) has led to some really fascinating perspectives on how the game is designed, how "intended" rotations were and will be discovered, and how much room there is to allow or discourage variant builds and rotations. Poster Deathsaint opened the discussion with the subject of relearning rotations, something we discussed last week in terms of DPS spec design. Things got interesting fast. Ghostcrawler - Re: GC: Blood Tanking Instructions? You are missing the point of that quote. It is not "players shouldn't have choices," as many of you are inferring. It's that "there should be more thought on the part of the designers for how various abilities are supposed to be used and those roles should be more apparent to players." There has never really been a time in the game when you could just do whatever you wanted with your class and be equally effective. Then, as now, smart players doing a lot of homework would figure out the most optimized way to play. You can choose to follow their recommendations, try to find an even more optimized way to play, or just do your own thing because that's more enjoyable for you, knowing that you may pay the price of being less optimized. source What's interesting here is the change in emphasis.
Waging WAR: Guide to defensive stats
Greg takes us through to see the dark side of our character sheets, and explains the various defensive stats found in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. He trudges through this week's Waging WAR with the stubborn stoutness of an Ironbreaker, and the cunning pre-determination of Tzeentch's Chosen to bring us this guide... For every 10 tanks running around with gigantic two-handed weapons and the Focused Offense tactic slotted, there is one tank with a shield. And for every 10 of those tanks, there's that one who will step onto the battlefield and shake its very foundations with his/her ability to soak incredible amounts of damage and survive. What makes those tanks so indomitable? It is their preference for and understanding of defensive statistics. Sure, they may not hit as hard as others, but their ability to stand defiantly in the face of an entire warband is what makes them so fearsome. With confidence, these rare titans stride onto the battlefields knowing they could put up a fight against death itself and stand a chance to win. Continue after the break as I explain the defensive character statistics of WAR.
Cataclysm tanking changes expanded
If you read Fox's post yesterday, well, I hope you braced yourself for more changes. Because here they are. When the devs said more specifics were coming soon, they were not kidding us. Also, Fox is mean to tanks, but he's a DPS player; we're used to their silly little ways. Anyway, let's take a look at the newly announced changes, shall we? Zarhym - Re: Upcoming Tanking Changes Here are a few additional changes we are making which will be applied in patch 4.0.3a: Guardian of Ancient Kings -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds. Icebound Fortitude -- Damage reduction changed from 30% to 20% (or 60% to 50% talented). Cooldown still 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds. Shield Wall -- Damage reduction changed from 40% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds. Glyph of Shield Wall -- Now buffs damage reduction by 10% (to 60%), but only adds 1 minute of cooldown. Survival Instincts -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds. Bear Form -- Stamina bonus lowered from 20% to 10% and Heart of the Wild health bonus from 10% to 6%. Bear health should be close to plate tank health with this change. Vigilance -- No longer reduces damage by 3%, but will still reset Taunt cooldown and provide Vengeance for the warrior. source In addition to these changes, there was much expounding on the tanking design philosophy, which we will cover after that jump I hear so much about. Being a tank (and thus kind of slow mentally, according to Fox ... man, see if anyone taunts for him in Cataclysm dungeons), I need to go over these things in detail.
New changes to tanking cooldowns coming for Cataclysm
Blue poster Nethaera informed us today about a number changes coming to tanking cooldowns in Cataclysm (specifically, patch 4.0.3a). It seems an imbalance occurs in the current build when tanks stack mastery, leading to astronomical values of block. For now, specifics are only available for paladin, druid and warrior tanks. The post hints that cooldown changes for druid and death knight tanks will be coming later, once developers can get a better handle on the complexities of the classes' abilities. When asked for comment and analysis, Fox Van Allen's orc Grunk posited, "Me Grunk! Grunk fear change! Grunk smash!" Sadly, Grunk lacks the mental clarity to process the full meaning of all these forthcoming changes because as a warrior, Grunk does not stack intellect (and takes repeated physical blows to the head). If he did, the changes would be meaningless to him, as he'd have followed his dream and become an architect rather than becoming Orgrimmar's No. 3-ranked skull cleaver. In lieu of expert testimony from Grunk, we have the full blue post just after the break.
Wings Over Atreia: Making the cut
"What position are you applying for?" The interviewer listens and nods. "Mmhmm. Thank you. Now, what special skills can you bring to the team?" "Please list all previous experience and describe your major accomplishments." A pause. "Have you the required equipment to adequately perform your duties?" The interviewer is quiet while sizing up the applicant. "I'm sorry, but you just don't quite have what we are looking for. Next!" Sound familiar? No, this isn't a job interview -- this is the rigmarole many players experience simply to get into a group in NCsoft's Aion. You might think that time of day or availability of people in the right level range would have the most affect on forming up a group, whether in a legion or a PUG. Instead, players often must contend with an entirely different beast before even stepping foot into an instance: group elitism. Unless you have a regular group of friends with identical play times or a very supportive legion, you are apt to occasionally find yourself in the situation of seeking a group while traipsing about Atreia. Even with a regular group, there are going to be times you are left more-or-less on your own and just want to get something done. Thus begins the (oft times unpleasant) task of creating or finding a group. Like a microcosm of drama played out in short spurts, group formation showcases a variety of less-than-desirable attributes: greed; envy; lust; selfishness; and inflated egos. Just how exclusive can this process become? Your inclusion could ride solely on your class, equipment, or skill set, and have nothing to do with your ability and skill as a player. Heck, even your name may keep you out of groups. Join me past the cut to explore elitism in group dynamics in Aion.
Patch 4.0.1: Armor mitigation values nerfed
If you've been tanking since patch 4.0.1 dropped and noticed you were taking more physical damage, it's not just a case that you lost armor in the class changes. Armor also does less now. Poster Valen performed a test on the first boss in Forge of Souls and reported some changes observed with the way damage was mitigated. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) soon responded that yes, the formula for armor value and its mitigation had been changed for Cataclysm. Furthermore, those changes are in place as of now, meaning that if you feel like you're suddenly taking a lot more physical damage in ICC, well, you probably are. Ghostcrawler - GC, physical mitigation changes intentional? We looked into your findings, and the armor numbers reflect an intentional change meant to cover the armor increases players would get between levels 81 and 85. We should have been more explicit with the rest of the announced Cataclysm changes that physical damage would go up. (It only affects creatures higher than level 80 -- bosses in this case -- so this change has no current PvP ramifications.) Now that our live class balance changes are slowing down* and players are starting to learn their class changes, we can get a better idea of whether players are struggling more on content that they used to be able to clear. We've made some Icecrown and Halion changes already and we may need to make more. Nice job on the analysis. source No word yet if boss damage in ICC will be tuned down to reduce the streaky factor on incoming damage or not. But it's nice to know we're not all insane. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Ability queue system issues
If you're a tank, you probably have some experience with the way abilities queue up in the live game. Tanks tend to keep their threat-generating abilities on cooldown, and certainly for warrior tanks (I only tank on a warrior or DK), there's a good deal of spam with abilities like Devastate or Heroic Strike. While Cataclysm promises to fix HS spam, the basic form of tanking remains, and reliable threat abilities will be spammed. The difficulty will be in the new way abilities are queued up when you hit the button for that ability. It seems that a few exploiters have caused a change that may affect you. Ghostcrawler - Re: New ability queue system needs work We had to change the ability queue system you are describing to fix an exploit that was threatening to become pretty widespread. It is unfortunately one of those cases where a few bad apples ruin things for everyone. :( We are working on an improvement where the most recent command will override the previous one. If for example you are spamming Hamstring, and then succeed in snaring someone, you can switch to Mortal Strike which will clear out the Hamstring queue instead of wasting more GCDs on Hamstring. source The issue here is not the queue system itself but rather being locked into a choice when you rely on proc abilities that you can't predict. In the absence of a Sword and Board proc, for instance, or Revenge lighting up, you're going to want to use an ability like Devastate or Heroic Strike to generate threat, since some threat is always better than no threat. But when a higher-priority attack like Shield Slam or Revenge lights up, the last thing you want is to be locked into Devastate, unable to use the greater threat ability not only until Devastate fires but until the global cooldown -- which could end up costing you over 2 seconds on a proc that has a limited duration, as well as costing you that threat. There's a similar issue for DPS or PvP players, of course. A high-damage proc ability like Bloodsurge could very well fall away entirely while you're waiting for your ability queue to clear. Hopefully that override will be in place soon. At any rate, this is something to be aware of for the immediate future.
Breakfast Topic: Do you prefer to be the off tank?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to our pages. Most tanks (and aspiring tanks) want to be the main tank of a raid. It is upon this prestigious player's shoulders that the success or failure of the raid is often considered to rest. Screw that. First of all, we know that stereotype is untrue. Healers and DPS both play critical roles in raid success, even though they are sometimes forced to argue for their significance. But I don't often hear praise for the off tanks. While the healers heal, the DPS damages and the main tank tanks, these "wannabe main tanks" play critical roles in most every fight. Whether they have to pick up adds or share the burden of boss tanking with the main tank, these intrepid heroes have to work just as hard to keep the raid alive. I first tasted off-tanking back in Naxxramas (10-man) when I stepped up to the task of being one of the rear tanks on my elemental shaman during the Four Horsemen fight. Here, I received my first taste of the special joy of adapting my skill set to new situations for every fight. I pined to be the one who would kite the zombies on Gluth, but my shaman lacked the capability, and one of our mages shouldered the responsibility. You can rest assured, however, that I was always back there to assist by laying down my Stoneclaw Totem. My guild fell apart for a while after Ulduar was released, and I was too poor for more WoW. Once I wasn't poor anymore, I leveled a feral druid, and we all got back together just recently and started raiding Icecrown. Now I'm the off tank, and I'm loving it. Being an off tank lets me flex and show how creative and adaptable I am. Do any of you tanking types out there prefer the off-tank role?
Guest Post: Confessions of a noob death knight
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Here's the thing: I've been a mage from day one, when I first started playing WoW a good two years ago. I always liked being a mage in Dungeons & Dragons, so I figured I would like being a mage in WoW. I was right. In fact, I love being a glass cannon. (OK, I don't love the glass part so much, but I really dig the cannon part.) I'm not a great mage; age and fingers that were broken by judo or baseball have slowed me some. Still, I am a good mage. I hold my own, doing anywhere from 7-12k DPS depending on buffs and what I am watching on TV. The thing is, as much as I love being a mage, making my own food and teleporting all around, I hate taking forever to queue. I also started thinking, "Hey, there must be more to simulated life than just standing back and blasting things." I decided to try a new character. Not having the patience to level a character from 1 to 80, I figured I'd go the death knight route. After all, DKs are mage-killers; they are the anti-mage. So after two years of being nothing but a ranged DPS machine, I rolled a DK.
Drama Mamas: Tank frustration
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. /queue dramatic sporting event music This week on Drama Mamas, the mamas duke it out for the title of Best Drama Buster! Who will win the battle for the most useful advice for a frustrated tank? Will it be Robin who thinks the tank should take a strong leadership role or Lisa who thinks that teamwork should be just that? Turn the page to read the Battle of the Drama Mamas. Disclaimer: The mamas really just think people should choose the advice they think works best for them. We don't care about winning any battle. The previous paragraph is solely the result of overzealous introduction writing and too much caffeine.
