• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

World of Warcraft |OT3|

lordmrw

Member
Alex said:
I'm kind of at an impasse here it feels like, our little 10 man guild was doing really nicely but the further we get, the more our DPS start to hold us back. Of all the easy fights, we struggled on Heroic Magmaw tonight, two of our DPS roughly 10,000 and double the percentage above the rest.

It's sadly not some abnormality either, it's like that on every fight, the same two people just *TOWER* above the rest and it's making everything so much harder. What really makes it mind boggling is that the two good DPS are a Death Knight and a Warrior (which creates extra issues since one or even both of them have to tank at times) and all of the mediocrity is from our ranged pures. Even on shit like Atramedes the two melee come out ahead by a large chunk, what the hell...?

I'm just fed up with dragging along a couple of "Tee hee, I got hit by every hazard and did 30-40% less damage than a melee on a boss that has an aerial phase, but I should get carried because I'm nice" kind of people. I'm a lax person, really, I never wanna be too hardcore but come on. The fun of being a DPS is to be competitive and being extremely competitive while obeying all the boss mechanics is what kills shit.

I'm still amazed we even managed the mediocre 8/13H we got this tier with the shitty DPS we have.

That basically described what happened to me last year around early March or so when my 10 man group was stuck on Sindragosa. Prior to that we more or less steamrolled everything in one go but some of us started to notice certain people were consistently fucking up or underperforming. When we reached Sindragosa the ones who were doing the bare minimum and being carried were exposed. Simple shit went right over their heads and they refused to listen to advice so we replaced them, which led to one of the most hilarious and sad breakdowns I've ever experienced on vent.
 

moojito

Member
Anyone have recommendations of eu realms to check out if I'm looking to get into a decent end game raid guild come the new patch? I keep hearing the one I'm on is a ghost town, but I've little else to compare it to.
 

Alex

Member
I'm glad Unholy seems like it's going to be really nice again for PvE. Frost is kind of wearing thin for me.

Blood is really fun to tank on, my alt is a Paladin and oh my goodness is it ever a bore. Blood is indeed very much manual compared to the other tanks (perhaps to a fault when you need to play it as Rune Tetris) but while it's more engaging it's got some areas of sloppiness I'd love to see cleaned up. Mostly just little bits like disease nonsense, snap AoE threat, etc.

Also, while they say it's fine, I really disagree with DRW costing so much RP. It's really awkward at times. While I'm not into the automation on Paladin at all I would enjoy not having to micromanage two different resource types at odds with each other in the heat of battle just to get a dang defensive cooldown off the moment I need it!

Would be nice if Blood had it's own rune-style as well. I just do not feel that the same type that Frost uses should be what Blood uses. It's too random and occasionally streaky for a tank. One type for each tree would be great (Empowerment for Frost, Corruption for Unholy, ??? for Blood)
 
I didn't like their justification for DK Tanking. "If we made it more rewarding to go through the trouble of being a DK tank, most people wouldn't use the other tanks. Therefore, we're going to make you do all this extra work so that in an optimal situation, you are comparable with the other tanks."
 

Alex

Member
I don't think they even knew what they wanted to say judging by that final paragraph. It comes across just as you said. Also, I disagree with the notion that Protection Paladins are any less simple than they were in WOTLK, unless simply not being able to macro the entire damn rotation is their idea of a wonderful upgrade. I would actually argue that in certain areas it's even easier to play now than it was in WOTLK. I'm really unhappy with mine and it's just an alt.

For Death Knight, I just want them to run some polish on the quality of play. Like remove the cooldown on Outbreak for Blood, fix up our snap AoE threat, alter the Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon to negate RP rather than increase threat, etc.

Then, when they get some time, put a redesign on the blocking/shielding model for every tank. It shouldn't be automated for anyone.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
wow at the trailer... wow...
 

Weenerz

Banned
I spoke with Jay Mohr on Twitter and he confirmed to me that is he is doing Blizzcon this year again, should be another night of laughs for the people that like him.
 

TheYanger

Member
Meh, I don't have any of the complaints coming up about blood except for diseases/Outbreak (I've always said it should have a lower cooldown for blood at least, and making it miss back when they put that in was REALLY lame as a tank as well). DRW rp cost is fine, you have a LOT of cooldowns as a tank and most of the time DRW is one that I can plan on the useage of. It's certainly weak enough that it's at the bottom of my 'emergency' totem pole. And DK AE threat is monstrously unparelleled, even initial aggro is very strong, but like everything else you have to really plan it out. Examples: Conclave and Sinestra, I know when I need to AE, I store up blood runes, I blood boil the shit out of mobs to pick them up/position them, throw down D&D and there's 0 chance of anyone pulling aggro on anything. If you're tanking 5 mans or something and people just aggro shit when you can't expect it or something, you're boned though. That's how it's always been with DK ae threat.
 

bjb

Banned
Any advice for Heroic Magmaw?

We're in a 10m. Here's a general overview:

- Had a prot warrior and 1 dps kiting the parasites around the entire itme
- Had 1 Tank on Magmaw and then another on Constructs
- DPS Killed Constructs everytime they were up, burned the boss during head phase
- Tanks switched after mangle to counter armor debuff

We got him to phase 2 twice, but by that time healers were out of mana. What can we do differently? I'm assuming it's in the way we handled the constructs.

Oh, and our entire raid was stacked in the Melee group, with just the tank and warlock at range for Meteor and Pillar's.
 

GLopez12

Neo Member
Azwethinkweiz said:
I didn't like their justification for DK Tanking. "If we made it more rewarding to go through the trouble of being a DK tank, most people wouldn't use the other tanks. Therefore, we're going to make you do all this extra work so that in an optimal situation, you are comparable with the other tanks."
I think all tanks should be like death knight tanks. It's a lot more fun and rewarding.

And the gap between death knights and other tanks really isn't that big. It's not that hard to succeed with any tank.
 

TheYanger

Member
bjb said:
Any advice for Heroic Magmaw?

We're in a 10m. Here's a general overview:

- Had a prot warrior and 1 dps kiting the parasites around the entire itme
- Had 1 Tank on Magmaw and then another on Constructs
- DPS Killed Constructs everytime they were up, burned the boss during head phase
- Tanks switched after mangle to counter armor debuff

We got him to phase 2 twice, but by that time healers were out of mana. What can we do differently? I'm assuming it's in the way we handled the constructs.

Oh, and our entire raid was stacked in the Melee group, with just the tank and warlock at range for Meteor and Pillar's.

When you hit phase 2 you spread out right?

Also is it necessary to have 2 people kiting? Could be doing more dps if not I assume (Shadowflaming with bane of havoc is correct afaik, but the rest isn't). There's not really any way you need to 'handle' constructs, they spawn and you kill them. I mean to be frank, if healers are running oom either your dps is just low, or your healers are screwing up, there's not a lot to the fight.
 
So I'm thinking about rolling a tank. I currently only have a feral druid (cat) who is finally getting ready to raid, but I need some diversity. I want to do a Horde tank, I'm guessing Paladin or Warrior. Thoughts? Advice?
 
devildog820 said:
So I'm thinking about rolling a tank. I currently only have a feral druid (cat) who is finally getting ready to raid, but I need some diversity. I want to do a Horde tank, I'm guessing Paladin or Warrior. Thoughts? Advice?

Both are pretty :3 to me. Warrior is a bit less autopilot though - zooming around the battlefield is fun. Avenger's shield on the paladin is one of the most visceral spells in the game to me though, so it's kind of a tossup.
 

bjb

Banned
TheYanger said:
When you hit phase 2 you spread out right?

Also is it necessary to have 2 people kiting? Could be doing more dps if not I assume (Shadowflaming with bane of havoc is correct afaik, but the rest isn't). There's not really any way you need to 'handle' constructs, they spawn and you kill them. I mean to be frank, if healers are running oom either your dps is just low, or your healers are screwing up, there's not a lot to the fight.

We started out by only having two tanks. One for the parasites, one on Magmaw. An arms warrior was taunting them into the raid and our dps would killed them asap.

The problem was that after Magmaw spit his tank out, the debuff on the tank was boning our healers. That, and we weren't sure if we should just keep the construct alive while the head was down (to maximize our dps).

When we did that, we would get behind and get two constructs up after the head phase. Perhaps we should split dps and have some on constructs and the rest stay on Magmaw? i

I don't know. Not really a hard fight by any means, but I think our strategy is flawed somewhere. All of our dps is above 15k, and our healers are above 10k.
 

Aeris130

Member
bjb said:
All of our dps is above 15k, and our healers are above 10k.

Your dps should all be around 18-19k at least, given Magmaws 100% dmg debuff. Have 1 dps kite parasites all the time, and 2 tanks. When the tank gets eaten, melee jumps onto magmaw and range dps starts nuking parasites (that should be severely softened up from all the kiting), killing them before magmaw comes down. With all 5 dps on magmaw when he's chained, you shouldn't get more than 3 mangles (going into p2 during the 4th).

bjb said:
Oh, and our entire raid was stacked in the Melee group, with just the tank and warlock at range for Meteor and Pillar's.

Do you keep your construct tank running around at range? He should just stand in melee except when he's picking up new constructs. We usually only keep tanks, melee and a tank healer close to magmaw, with the rest of the raid running around outside.
 

Thoraxes

Member
bjb said:
Any advice for Heroic Magmaw?

We're in a 10m. Here's a general overview:

- Had a prot warrior and 1 dps kiting the parasites around the entire itme
- Had 1 Tank on Magmaw and then another on Constructs
- DPS Killed Constructs everytime they were up, burned the boss during head phase
- Tanks switched after mangle to counter armor debuff

We got him to phase 2 twice, but by that time healers were out of mana. What can we do differently? I'm assuming it's in the way we handled the constructs.

Oh, and our entire raid was stacked in the Melee group, with just the tank and warlock at range for Meteor and Pillar's.

Our strategy:
2 tanks
3 healers
5 DPS (2 ranged, 3 melee) (the two ranged is mandatory, the other three you can do whatever with)

Before 30%
- Two tanks, one for the Constructs, one for Magmaw.
- The Magmaw tank stays on Magmaw the whole time, there is no tank switch.
- Healer, Hunter, and Mage for add killing/kiting. Healer is with them so they stay alive/don't have to worry about being in range of the healing group; they can move independently.
- Magmaw tank tanks boss on the north side of the room, the DPS is on the east side of Magmaw .
- DPS group and Tank are in melee range of the boss. Add group stays out of that area the whole time.
- Hunter MD's constructs if they're too far for the add tank to get them, they're tanked within melee range of the boss in the DPS group.
- Leave adds alone during the head phase, burn them down after
- The Magmaw tank stays on Magmaw the whole time, there is no tank switch.

After 30%
- When we push 30%, we burn all remaining constructs which frees up the second tank to DPS (in our case, this is me, a feral druid tank)
- Add group mainly kites the adds, using bombs, traps, and freezes. They then DPS during the head phase and shoot something off here and there during the regular phase.
- Melee spreads out, but stays within melee range of the boss.
- Burn him down like we normally do. For us, it seems we usually get him down in 1-2 head phases. I don't think we've ever done more than that.
 

TheYanger

Member
bjb said:
We started out by only having two tanks. One for the parasites, one on Magmaw. An arms warrior was taunting them into the raid and our dps would killed them asap.

The problem was that after Magmaw spit his tank out, the debuff on the tank was boning our healers. That, and we weren't sure if we should just keep the construct alive while the head was down (to maximize our dps).

When we did that, we would get behind and get two constructs up after the head phase. Perhaps we should split dps and have some on constructs and the rest stay on Magmaw? i

I don't know. Not really a hard fight by any means, but I think our strategy is flawed somewhere. All of our dps is above 15k, and our healers are above 10k.

If a construct is freshly spawned we ignore it during transition and yes, just tank 2 and kill them. It's a net gain, your tank can use a CD etc. If it's already like 50% or less we'll kill it so we don't risk armageddon going off. The exposed head phase is really key to pushing dps so you absolutely want to maximize it.
 

zugzug

Member
Weenerz said:
I spoke with Jay Mohr on Twitter and he confirmed to me that is he is doing Blizzcon this year again, should be another night of laughs for the people that like him.

I wish I knew what he was paid to do it. Why whoever at Blizzard likes him so much. How many times must he prove he is not a gamer that they want to try someone else. Hell we go to see the Blizzard people why can't one of them do it and show they have some character.

What was it 3 years ago they paid anothe comedian to come out and do a skit, Patton Oswalt. On Top of Jay Mohr. That was a little boggling.

Jay looks even more stupid when he says his prepared gaming line and then tries to taunt us saying something silly like "yeah you all didn't realize I knew what I was talking about didn't you"

I'm at the point where I want to walk up on stage and punch him in the jaw straight on.
 

moojito

Member
So how about this new authenticator business? There's a whole lot of people uncomfortable with the idea, myself included. I'd be a lot happier if bliz would reply saying what's to stop someone trying to log in via my computer (through some proxy style malware, etc).
 
Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
The talent Killing Machine can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.

This wasn't the case before? Oh man, DW Frost is about to become nasty.
 

Alex

Member
Incoming hotfix nerfs on 1H Frost and 2H Unholy after a week or two!

That's a solid buff for Shaman though, puts them in a real comfortable spot provided it's enough to help with scaling. Now if they'd just fix their AoE...
 

camelpope

Neo Member
Just started playing again after an almost 8 month deployment....raided during wrath new game is interesting.

Started a new character, enjoying a warlock so far.....
 

Alex

Member
Hm, do I play my Shaman or my Death Knight for Firelands

Shaman Pros:

1.) Has well tuned single target DPS with the buff
2.) Has a healing spec, I like to have a healing tree for PvP, old raids with friends, etc
3.) Has another damage spec which I enjoy
4.) I like Shaman aesthetics

Shaman cons:

1.) Has clunktastic AoE
2.) Jury is out on 378+ scaling and Blizzard is notoriously slow with helping Shaman out
3.) Even with the buff it's below the overpowered buffs Unholy and Frost 1H just got

Death Knight pros:

1.) Looks to have some of the highest DPS in 4.2
2.) It's my most geared at ilvl 367 I think.
3.) Offtanking helps the guild more than healing
4.) Probably more fun to play, Unholy that is, Frost is boring.

Death Knight cons:

1.) ROLLERCOASTER BALANCING, well I'm currently 2H frost like everyone else, so I'm already fucked for the patch. Going forward anything you pick has a 75% chance of getting nerfed into the floor with hotfixes or having things you like removed, stat priorities swapped around, weapon choices invalidated, all of the fun shit you've come to love from Blizzard where you check MMO-Champion daily out of fear.

2.) I don't really like how my Death Knight looks, and they don't really feel like they fit into the post-LK game world. Kind of a silly complaint, but I'm stupid like that.

3.) Can no longer PvP with my friends Warrior on my DK in 4.2 and I really don't like doing the whole alt thing anymore.

Hard to pick!
 

GLopez12

Neo Member
I like unholy for PVE, so I'm probably going to app to some super guild on Illidan when I transfer there with my arena teammates.

So yeah, I think you should go with unholy in PVE. You shouldn't have to change your gear too much for it.
 

markot

Banned
Alex said:
Hm, do I play my Shaman or my Death Knight for Firelands

Shaman Pros:

1.) Has well tuned single target DPS with the buff
2.) Has a healing spec, I like to have a healing tree for PvP, old raids with friends, etc
3.) Has another damage spec which I enjoy
4.) I like Shaman aesthetics

Shaman cons:

1.) Has clunktastic AoE
2.) Jury is out on 378+ scaling and Blizzard is notoriously slow with helping Shaman out
3.) Even with the buff it's below the overpowered buffs Unholy and Frost 1H just got

Death Knight pros:

1.) Looks to have some of the highest DPS in 4.2
2.) It's my most geared at ilvl 367 I think.
3.) Offtanking helps the guild more than healing
4.) Probably more fun to play, Unholy that is, Frost is boring.

Death Knight cons:

1.) ROLLERCOASTER BALANCING, well I'm currently 2H frost like everyone else, so I'm already fucked for the patch. Going forward anything you pick has a 75% chance of getting nerfed into the floor with hotfixes or having things you like removed, stat priorities swapped around, weapon choices invalidated, all of the fun shit you've come to love from Blizzard where you check MMO-Champion daily out of fear.

2.) I don't really like how my Death Knight looks, and they don't really feel like they fit into the post-LK game world. Kind of a silly complaint, but I'm stupid like that.

3.) Can no longer PvP with my friends Warrior on my DK in 4.2 and I really don't like doing the whole alt thing anymore.

Hard to pick!
No contest imo
 
moojito said:
So how about this new authenticator business? There's a whole lot of people uncomfortable with the idea, myself included. I'd be a lot happier if bliz would reply saying what's to stop someone trying to log in via my computer (through some proxy style malware, etc).

Yeah... they made the process less user friendly by removing the extra box on the login screen, now they want to make it more user friendly but also less secure at the same time?

I really wonder what they're thinking sometimes. The authenticator process was fine until they removed the extra box.
 

TheYanger

Member
I'm assuming it's a combination of both IP and some sort of encrypted token it leaves on your system when you use the auth. Shouldn't be any less secure than it was.
 

Thoraxes

Member
TheYanger said:
I'm assuming it's a combination of both IP and some sort of encrypted token it leaves on your system when you use the auth. Shouldn't be any less secure than it was.
Yeah, I'm thinking it's like steam guard, except you'll be prompted for your authenticator one-time code if you login for a different spot than was previously logged into from. So basically instead of sending you an e-mail with a password to log in with, you just use your authenticator.

So unless you have people who leech your wireless and have hacked your account, and are in the premises of your house/apt/condo/etc I think you have no worries.
 

markot

Banned
They should make you 'autenticate' new computers you try to log on with like Steam does with email. To help people without authenticators.
 

ampere

Member
Considering the odds of you getting hacked from a non-Chinese IP are probably pretty low... you really don't need to type the code in every time if you're using the same PC and internet connection. Different IP address = need authentication code.
 

Alucrid

Banned
How much of a step up are Heroics? I just got my gear level high enough to start but I ran into enough idiots doing normal dungeons to make me skeptical. Also, should I be using an authenticator? If so, which one?
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Alucrid said:
How much of a step up are Heroics? I just got my gear level high enough to start but I ran into enough idiots doing normal dungeons to make me skeptical. Also, should I be using an authenticator? If so, which one?

They can be quite easy or quite hard depending on your group gear and skills.

If you are a healer or tank, i suggest you get all the 333 blues you can from Twilight highlands quests, regular dungeons and reputations(You should be at least honored with all factions and revered with Hyjal/Earthen Ring if you did all the quests) before doing heroics... just to be on the safe side. You should be able to buy 2 or 3 346 ilvl blues from reputation alone before doing any heroics. Also, check the AH sometimes too, you might be lucky and get something for only a couple hundreds of gold.
 

Eric WK

Member
Alucrid said:
How much of a step up are Heroics? I just got my gear level high enough to start but I ran into enough idiots doing normal dungeons to make me skeptical. Also, should I be using an authenticator? If so, which one?

Yeah, you should be using an authenticator. Whichever one is most convenient for you.
 
Alucrid said:
How much of a step up are Heroics? I just got my gear level high enough to start but I ran into enough idiots doing normal dungeons to make me skeptical. Also, should I be using an authenticator? If so, which one?

I went in as a healer a couple weeks ago right as I hit 329. The nice thing is most people are pretty geared up now so it's not as much of a strain on you.
 

TheYanger

Member
If you're a good player heroic gear level requirements aren't very important. Queueing solo you get the 15% buff and now most other people are decently geared too. Competency is FAR more relevant, and if you feel comfortable with the character you'll be fine to queue whatever your gear lets you. I usually start queueing on my alts the instant they hit 85 with whatever blues and greens I can throw in my inventory to meet the requirements on. Yeah, you still do less than you oculd, but to be totally honest if you can do like 9k in quest greens you're better than half of the pugs you run accross even in appropriate gear.
 

bjb

Banned
Sebulon3k said:
Tried doing Nefarian normal in a PuG today, what a painful experience.

10m pug is next to impossible mainly because there will always be one moron who dies (or does something stupid) resulting in a wipe for 9 other people.
 

Swag

Member
bjb said:
10m pug is next to impossible mainly because there will always be one moron who dies (or does something stupid) resulting in a wipe for 9 other people.
In this case it was cause 2 healers sucked and couldn't heal to save their life. It's really painful cause I have 3 healers at 85, which makes anyone that's terrible, look really terrible.

In better news, working on my last healer toon, and just discovered how fun Balance Druids are, love classes that have a secondary resource to manage.
 
Alucrid said:
Perfect, I do have a smartphone.

Also it's good to see that Hunters still suck ass at PvP. It's like nothing has changed.

They do okay in BGs when they can stand behind the rest of the crowd, but arena is not the venue for them.
 

Alucrid

Banned
CarbonatedFalcon said:
They do okay in BGs when they can stand behind the rest of the crowd, but arena is not the venue for them.

Yeah. LOS issues, mana > focus, cc not great, my friend is a dk, and it keeps spawning me in human form, fuck that.
 

Loxley

Member
I've sort of hit a wall in terms of interest in my Alliance characters lately, I think after six years of playing my Paladin I've finally just sort of lost interest in him (possibly temporarily, but still) and since I've been guildless for quite a while now and most of my friends haven't touched the game, I felt like maybe it was time to move on from them.

So, out of impulse, I rolled a Troll DK on Area 52
Christ this server is populated
. I remembered reading here a while back that quite a few GAFers were on Area 52 as well as the Unofficial-Official GAF guild, is that still the case? I'm having a good time leveling him up (only 63 right now) and want to try and get him to 85 close to around the time 4.2 hits and would love to actually be in a guild and have people to play with for the first time in, oh, probably close to two years.

I'm actually amazed at how many ninja guild-invites I've already gotten despite only having made the character two days ago (thank god you can block those now :p). It seems there are people who just sit and wait for guildless low-levels to walk into their line of sight and spam their g-invite key. Kind of amusing, actually.
 

Miletius

Member
Loxley said:
I've sort of hit a wall in terms of interest in my Alliance characters lately, I think after six years of playing my Paladin I've finally just sort of lost interest in him (possibly temporarily, but still) and since I've been guildless for quite a while now and most of my friends haven't touched the game, I felt like maybe it was time to move on from them.

So, out of impulse, I rolled a Troll DK on Area 52
Christ this server is populated
. I remembered reading here a while back that quite a few GAFers were on Area 52 as well as the Unofficial-Official GAF guild, is that still the case? I'm having a good time leveling him up (only 63 right now) and want to try and get him to 85 close to around the time 4.2 hits and would love to actually be in a guild and have people to play with for the first time in, oh, probably close to two years.

I'm actually amazed at how many ninja guild-invites I've already gotten despite only having made the character two days ago (thank god you can block those now :p). It seems there are people who just sit and wait for guildless low-levels to walk into their line of sight and spam their g-invite key. Kind of amusing, actually.

Area 52's a great server for Horde -- lots of PuG's Raid's and the size makes the commodities market pretty stable. Hope you enjoy your stay!
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Loxley said:
I've sort of hit a wall in terms of interest in my Alliance characters lately, I think after six years of playing my Paladin I've finally just sort of lost interest in him (possibly temporarily, but still) and since I've been guildless for quite a while now and most of my friends haven't touched the game, I felt like maybe it was time to move on from them.

So, out of impulse, I rolled a Troll DK on Area 52
Christ this server is populated
. I remembered reading here a while back that quite a few GAFers were on Area 52 as well as the Unofficial-Official GAF guild, is that still the case? I'm having a good time leveling him up (only 63 right now) and want to try and get him to 85 close to around the time 4.2 hits and would love to actually be in a guild and have people to play with for the first time in, oh, probably close to two years.

I'm actually amazed at how many ninja guild-invites I've already gotten despite only having made the character two days ago (thank god you can block those now :p). It seems there are people who just sit and wait for guildless low-levels to walk into their line of sight and spam their g-invite key. Kind of amusing, actually.
That guild is pretty much gone since everyone quit soon after Cataclysm.
 
Top Bottom