Tuesday, 31 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 8:11 AM

AFK on Side Project

Excuse the lack of articles here lately - I've been working on a WoW Armory-related side project that has turned out to be both a lot of fun and somewhat time consuming. Documentation on the Armory is scarce, so a fair bit of reverse engineering is required. It also doesn't help that the sneaky developers have instituted temporary IP bans for sites that try to pull too much too fast - working around that has been interesting.

Since the state of the game is currently in a bit of a lull I am going to bear down on this project while I have the chance, even if that means that I end up neglecting this site a little bit in the meantime. I will continue to keep the 3.1 updates and gear pages relatively fresh, and will be available via comments or email if I need to be reached.

Hopefully I won't be AFK for all that long, and I'll certainly share my project once I get it finished.

Thursday, 26 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 10:00 AM

How much defense does a Druid need?

There seems to be a lot of confusion among neophyte feral Druid tanks about the amount of defense rating that they need to acquire on their gear in order to tank effectively. I have received numerous emails on the subject, as well as repeatedly noticed player specs and gear that are suboptimal due to misconceptions surrounding this topic.

Quick and dirty answer

If you don't care about the rationale behind the answer to the question posed by this article, then here is your simple answer:

A properly specced feral Druid tank needs ZERO defense rating on their gear.

If you care to learn why this is, and why the subject can become so muddled, then read on.

What does defense rating really do?

Like all stats in the combat rating system, defense rating converts into defense skill. Defense skill's effects are summed up nicely on WoWWiki:

Each point of +Defense skill adds 0.04% to the chance to be Missed, to Block, to Dodge and to Parry for players. This means +25 Defense will grant you an extra 1% Miss, Parry, Dodge, and Block. The formula is constant across all classes. It further decreases the chance of receiving critical hits from any level attacker by 0.04% per point that the target's Defense skill exceeds the attacker's Weapon Skill.

In terms of tanking, all of these stats are desirable, however the crucial mechanic is the reduction to a mob's critical hit chance.

Why is being crit immune a Big Deal?

Back in 2007 I explained the importance of not being critically hit as follows:

While you may have amazing statistics and the ability to take a massive pounding, even allowing enemies a sliver of chance to critically hit you can have serious consequences when you are raiding. If nothing else, Murphy's Law states that you are going to take a big crit at exactly the wrong time if you allow the possibility to remain open - so why take the risk?

Besides your own survival, part of your job as a tank is to make things as easy as possible on your healers.

In fact, being uncrittable is so important that most raids refuse to allow a tank who is not crit immune to run with them: uncrittability is usually the entry bar that is set.

So how do I get crit immune?

Raid bosses possess a 5.6% chance to land a critical strike with every attack, and so to completely eliminate the possibility of absorbing a critical hit you need to reduce that percentage to zero.

Thankfully, as a feral Druid obtaining crit immunity couldn't be easier - all you have to do is invest three talent points in Survival of the Fittest and you will be instantly granted a 6% reduction to your chance of being critically hit.

That's all you need to do to become crit immune - nothing more.

Specced like this, you can tank naked and still never suffer a critical hit - you may die in a hurry.... but that will be due to a lack of health and armor, not because you ate a critical strike.

Okay, so why the confusion?

If it is so easy for a feral Druid to get crit immune, then why is there so much misinformation and confusion out there? The answer is two-pronged: history and other tanking classes' mechanics serve to muddy the water on what ought to be a no-brainer.

Prior to Wrath of the Lich King, Survival of the Fittest only reduced a Druid's chance to be critically hit by 3%, so bear tanks were left scrambling to mix and match gear to make up the remaining 2.6% deficiency however they could. This often led to some crazy gear juggling since leather with +defense was scarce. The result is that players who are not completely up to date on bear tanking remember the games that we had to play to stay crit immune in the last expansion, and just assume that the same is true today.

Further confusing the subject is that fact that all of the plate-wearing tanks need to stack defense rating to become crit immune - they have no "I win" talent to automatically acquire their immunity. This can mistakenly lead tanks that are not intimately familiar with feral mechanics to believe that bears also need to stack defense rating.

So should I just throw away all my defense gear?

Well no - despite not being a crucial stat for feral tanks, defense rating still serves some purpose as an avoidance stat. There is nothing wrong with acquiring the extra miss and dodge chance that defense rating rating bestows, although other stats are generally more desirable. Don't avoid gear with defense rating - just don't go out of your way to jump all over it.

Tuesday, 24 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 8:06 PM

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Review

As I alluded to in the latest edition of Where is the Bear, I have been trying out Warhammer: Age of Reckoning for the past couple of weeks. The game has recently opened up a 10-day trial pass program that gives you access to all of the tier one content (levels 1-10, plus battle grounds). If you are looking for a diversion from World of Warcraft but don't want to shell out any money, then becoming a WoW tourist isn't a bad option.

Personally, my trial pass expired this morning and I have mixed emotions about it. Over the course of the ten days I played four or five sessions, each of which was an hour or more in length. I only played a single character - a Disciple of Khaine - and reached rank 8 on her. My renown level (pvp) was 6 (nearly 7), and I obtained max influence in the first two chapters of my racial storyline and had made strong inroads into chapter three. While I could have played more, I was worried about capping early, and then simply ran out of time as real life intruded.

My Bias

Before I present my opinions on the game, it is only fair that I lay out my own bias for all to see. While I have dabbled in other modern MMORPGs, World of Warcraft is the first MMO that has truly held me for any length of time. Before that I was an avid MUD player, and I've had a long-standing love affair with browser-based games.

My WoW career has been defined by end game raiding and a distinct lack of PvP. I generally dislike battlegrounds, and I am certainly not very good at them. I am a carebear at heart; games with "meaningful loss" - like EvE - make me cringe.... a kick back to the nastiness that could take place in the old school MUDs.

As for Warhammer, until relatively recently I openly cheered at it's launch/pre-launch failures and took great pleasure in all of the negative press that it had been garnering (not to mention some of the disillusioned bloggers). Much of this was due to the "WoW-killer" attitude that seemed to permeate the hype preceeding WAR's release; nothing gets under my skin more than enthusiastic fanboys spouting about how the end is near for WoW because their game will usher in a new golden age of gaming.

However upon the release of the free trial pass and my borderline burnout with WoW, I decided that I really ought to form an opinion about Warcraft: Age of Reckoning that was more grounded in experience.

And so I begin....

Look and Feel

Upon selecting a career and customizing how my avatar would look, I entered the game world and almost fell out of my chair - if I hadn't have known any better I would have thought that I'd have accidentally stumbled upon a new Warcraft starting area. Everything from the general layout of the interface to the quest bubbles above the NPC's heads appeared eerily familiar - almost too much so for a player in need of a WoW vacation.

After getting over my initial shock I started to poke around the beginning area, and it became rapidly apparent that my slightly-older graphics card was not up for the task of rendering WAR's graphics at the default levels. I grudgingly turned a few settings down and the game became more playable, although far less beautiful. WoW definitely scales better graphically than WAR, which will matter to anyone with an older system.

The default user interface is nearly a carbon copy of Blizzard's, which is to say that it is functional - but barely - and makes very poor use of the available space. Of particular annoyance was the apparent lack of a keybind to rotate between the five default action bars - I was stuck using the tiny arrow buttons to flip bars. The chat box defaults to the most amazingly irritating settings I can think of - it is set to a very low opacity so that it is difficult to read, and it fades out after a short period of time so that it is very difficult to see incoming messages from other players. I forced it to be rather dark and not fade out after a while.

Menus and additional frames (inventory, player stats, etc) are laid out fairly well, and are movable by default which is excellent. Information is found where you expect it, and a few screens even have different views and filters to help you sift through them and find out what you need to know.

Questing

PvE questing in Warhammer is extremely similar to Warcraft. The vast majority of quests involve killing ten foozles, collecting five widgets, or a combination of the two activities. At least in the entry zone that I landed in, there were no quests that even remotely as innovative as those found in Wrath of the Lich King - which is fine for a PvP-centric game, I suppose.

Aside from the mundane nature of the quests, the WAR PvE system is actually quite well done. A huge bonus for players who are wary of add-ons is the built in quest tracker that is integrated with the map. Rough areas where all of your quests can be completed are highlighted on the map, and mousing over a specific areas will tell you what you're supposed to do there. This makes it extremely easy to plot out an efficient questing path, and not waste time fruitlessly hunting down that pack of goblins that you need to slay.

The other huge win is the public quest system. Scattered throughout each zone are a series of public quests that players can participate in. All of the ones that I saw consisted of three increasingly difficult stages, the last of which was a boss fight. Players entering the vicinity of a public quest are presented with a list of the current objectives, and they can choose to participate if they so desire. Once the quest has been conquered the game calculates each player's contribution (hopefully not like this) and then tacks on a random roll of the dice to determine a final score - the top three players win a loot bag from which they can choose one item. A few minutes later the public quest resets, and you can take it on all over again. It's an excellent system, and some of my favorite WAR-moments during my trial period were spent romping through the public quests.

Finally, one very striking difference between the PvE game of WoW and that implemented in WAR is that the latter has almost no "wasted" time at all. There are two main factors that contribute to the lack of time waste in WAR. Firstly, when out of combat, characters in WAR regenerate the health and energy extremely quickly - five seconds is usually enough to go from "running on empty" to "ready to rock". Secondly, there don't seem to be any low percentage drop quests in WAR - if you need to collect eight widgets from foozles, then you kill exactly eight foozles and no more. Both of these eliminate some of the boredom factor that can set in when levelling a WoW toon.

Combat

The combat system in WAR is, for the most part, stock MMO. You select your target and then spam your attacks (or heals) until it is dead, or you die. Threat mechanics appear similar to WoW as I managed to pull mobs while doing nothing but cast heals. There is truly not a lot of innovation in how the combat system actually works, although many of the classes have nice flavor.

One of the few bright points in combat is the targeting system: in WAR you can have an offensive target AND a defensive target. This was incredibly useful for the melee/healer hybrid class that I played - I was able to DPS an opponent while healing an ally without having to switch targets.

On the down side, fighting in WAR felt very unresponsive. I was often not sure if I clicked my abilities correctly because the on-screen feedback was no where near as immediate or impactful as I am used to. This led to a lot of frustration, especially in the middle of vicious PvP brawls when I simply couldn't attack of heal effectively because I was fighting the interface instead of my foes.

Player versus Player

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning exists to cater to the PvP crowd - and despite my carebear tendencies I was determined to give it a fair trial. As a Dark Elf you receive a quest to participate in the Khaine's Embrace battleground early in your existence, and so at rank 2 I dove in headfirst, expecting to be annihilated. Not so! Players lower than level 8 are boosted to level 8 stats (although skills and gear remain low) so that they have a fighting chance to survive and make an impact in the scenario. Excellent idea.

Not only do you receive quests to PvP, but you also receive experience while you're in the battles, as well as renown (which is essentially PvP experience, and can be used to qualify for gear rewards). I levelled up in a battleground at least once, and played the three that were available to me quite a bit. Theoretically, you could obtain max level in WAR without ever completing a PvE quest.

While I'm not all that skilled at PvP, I did tend to finish near the middle of the pack on both the damage and healing meters, which seems alright. The battlegrounds were okay, but I could have played similar games in WoW, and they would have played out in the similar zerg-fest infested sort of way.

Battlegrounds are only the tip of the iceberg - WAR PvP is supposed to be all about "Realm versus Realm" combat. A rally call went up while I was questing, and so being the enthusiastic newbie I accepted it, and was transported into an outpost on the edge of the contested area. Unfortunately only one or two other Destruction players seemed to be around, and when I poked my nose out of the camp I was nearly slaughtered by a roving band of level 10 champion (elite) mobs.

Throughout my 10-day trial I never once found active RvR - although the helpful folks on the chat channel assured me that it occurred a lot more frequently starting in tier 2 (which as a trial account I was not eligible for).

Other Thoughts

One of the real high points of my trial of WAR was my experience with the career I chose: the Disciple of Khaine. The DoK is a hybrid melee dps/healer class with a whole pile of awesome lore behind it. The class utilizes energy to perform most melee attacks, and successfully landing those attacks builds up a soul energy reserve, which can then be expended on healing spells. Essentially you need to DPS effectively in order to heal effectively - very cool. There are also some melee attacks that damage your enemy while simultaneously healing your defensive target, and some debuff/buff attacks along the same line. The DoK felt very balanced, was fun to solo and appeared very viable in PvP..... well, unless the enemy realized that killing the melee healer was a top priority.

It was a little irksome to discover that you generally only receive a single skill per level (as opposed to 2-5 every two levels in WoW) - this felt slow. Of course, there doesn't appear to be a concept of a skill/spell rank - your skills automatically improve as you level - so perhaps in the long run everything works out the same.

One of the worst aspects of WAR is the utterly abysmal crafting and gathering system. The system is poorly explained in game, and feels like a complete after-thought. I am assuming that crafting was a check-box on some manager's feature list that none of the developers really wanted to implement. I selected Salvaging as my gathering skill and Talisman Making as my trade skill. Salvaging was glacial slow to level up, and never produced much in the way of materials. Talisman Making, on the other hand, was totally incomprehensible without a guide, and largely useless as a newbie skill.

Final Verdict

If WoW was not an option to me as a game to play then WAR would be fairly high up on my list of replacements.... but it is not the "WoW killer" that it was billed as. Although it has outgrown many of its launch issues and closed down most of the under-populated servers, it still has a long way to go to feel like a complete and polished game.

At the end of my free trial pass I have two choices: buy or not buy. For me the answer - somewhat sadly I'll admit - is "Not Buy".

Like most MMOs, WAR comes with a $15 monthly price tag - this in itself isn't so bad. The kicker is that to get myself up and running in the first place, I need to actually buy the game (despite having the full thing downloaded). The cheapest I have found Warhammer for locally is $44, which includes a month of playtime.

While I would be willing to plop down $15 for another single month of playtime - after all, I've still not experienced the most compelling feature in the game due to the limitations of my trial pass - I am not willing to drop nearly $50 on product that is less polished than the one I already own.

So there you have it.... Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is a pretty good MMO with a lot of promise if it can keep its current playerbase happy and engaged. PvP enthusiasts really ought to give it a shot if they haven't done so already - with a free trial pass out there for the taking there is really no excuse not to.

I enjoyed my 10 days in WAR, but for now I will not be back.... it's just not a smart financial decision for me to make.

Monday, 23 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 12:12 AM

Drake-tanking Sartharion-3D

Engaging Sartharion without first killing any of his three drakes sets up the most challenging encounter currently available to end game raiders in World of Warcraft. The encounter is both chaotic and deadly, with a plethora of well-timed and random elements that force everyone to stay on their toes. Mistakes are often lethal.

The encounter features four distinct tanking roles: a main tank for Sartharion, an add tank for the whelps and elementals that spawn, and two drake-tanks to manage Tenebron, Vesparon, and Shadron. While Druids are equipped to fill any of these roles, in my opinion they are best used as drake-tanks; feral flexibility can be exploited to its fullest and a resourceful player has an opportunity to fill in for any of the tanks that have the misfortune to die.

This guide will explore the role of Sartharion's second drake-tank. This tank's responsibilities include the following: tanking Shadron, tanking the portal acolytes, helping the add tank if things get crazy, and DPSing at all other times.

Preparation

You will need to wear full tanking gear for the Sartharion encounter even if you are only tanking the drakes. When the perfect storm of debuffs are active - Shadron, Vesparon, and both of their acolytes are all alive - you will need every bit of survivability that you can muster just to stay on your paws. Quaff an Flask of Stoneblood and eat some Blackened Dragonfin for a big boost to both health and dodge. (Avoid eating the Great Feast or Fish Feast that your fellow raid members are chowing down on - they are suboptimal for feral tanking.)

In addition to your gear and buffs, you will also want to set your "Spell Detail" to its lowest setting in the video configuration - not only will this eliminate any source of video lag, but it will also allow you to see the true size of the flame walls; with spell detail cranked up, the size of the gaps in the walls is not accurate. Also, it is vital that you zoom way out - you need to see as much of the playing field as possible, especially when dodging walls.

The first 30 seconds

The encounter begins with only Sartharion active, and remains that way until Tenebron lands thirty seconds into the battle. While you may be tempted to damage Sartharion as much as possible while he's on his own, this is generally a bad idea. The main tank should be allowed to kite the dragon into your guild's desired tanking spot, and challenging him for the threat lead is a sure way to get yourself killed. (As a tank you should know how hard it is to build threat while moving.)

All that you should do during this time is build up five combo points on Sartharion, and then head over to the far end of the island where Tenebron will land.

Waiting for Tenebron - click to enlarge

Park your tail down until the first fire wall rises up, pop the Savage Roar you've been saving your combo points for, dodge the wall and then lay into Tenebron, who will touch down as the lava washes over the battle area.

Enter Tenebron (30 seconds to ~65 seconds)

If your raid is going to conquer Sartharion and his three drakes, then Tenebron must be killed either before Shadron lands (at the 75 second mark) or very shortly thereafter. Every scrap of damage is precious during this phase and you will have to DPS hard and fast while you can. The Savage Roar that you triggered as Tenebron lands simplifies your cycle - it will last long enough to see you through to the next stage of the fight. Your personal DPS goal is to get Rip up quickly, pop Tiger's Fury for an energy boost, fly into a Berserk rage, and then Shred-spam the drake. It's frantic action - just beware of the Shadow Fissures that can spawn beneath you, and get out of them immediately.

Tearing up Tenebron - click to enlarge

As Berserk winds down the second fire wall will rise up from the magma pools. This is your cue that your first tanking assignment - Shadron - is on his way. Shift into Dire Bear Form and blow your Enrage as you find the gaps in the approaching wall, and then make your way to Shadron's landing spot.

Tanking Shadron (75 seconds - ???)

Pick up Shadron where he lands, and hold him in place - you will be safe from any lava walls originating from the south. Do not cast Barkskin right away, no matter how much you want to - it is crucial to save it for Vesparon's landing.

The two big dangers while you tank Shadron are fire walls and the shadow fissures. You need to keep your eyes glued to your toon and move as soon as you see the telltale blue aura that signals a shadow fissure - it really helps to have your UI set up well for this. When a northern flame wall appears, turn and run away from Sartharion to the gap close to where Tenebron is tanked. Try to get into the center of the gap so that the melee group have as much room as possible to work with.

Drake tanking - click to enlarge

It is worth mentioning that the drakes are a pain in the hide to move around. Ideally you want to face them into the surrounding lava pools where no one is standing, however in practice this is rarely possible. If you have a drake facing parallel to the edge of the island, then that's good enough - don't fidget around and try to get them perfect - they have a nasty habit of whipping around and breathing on your raidmates.

The most deadly five seconds (~130 seconds)

120 seconds into the fight Vesparon will land, and shortly thereafter he will summon his acolyte into the twilight portal. With Shadron, Vesparon, and both of their acolytes up the raid will start taking incredible amounts of damage; fire damage is increased by 150%, shadow damage is increased by 125%, everyone's health is decreased by 25%, and twilight torment reflects damage back onto everyone who is attacking.

The seconds after Vesparon's acolyte is spawned are the most crucial in the fight - DPSers have to scale back their attacks to avoid killing themselves and raid healers have to step up their output, drastically altering both the number of targets they're patching up, and the amount of healing they're dumping onto the tanks.

To help mitigate this desperate time, blow most of your cooldowns a few seconds before the acolyte of Vesparon appears - Barkskin, Frenzied Regeneration, and any +dodge trinkets should all be activated, and you should be ready to use Survival Instincts, your health stone, and a potion if your health starts to waver even a little bit.

After a few seconds the healers should be able to stabilize the raid, and DPS will resume killing Shadron, albeit at a much slower rate.

Disciples in the portals

If all goes well Shadron should drop after another minute or so. The next priority is to kill off the acolytes of Vesparon and Shadron in the twilight portal, and alleviate some of the pressure on the healers. Since Twilight Torment is the more deadly of the two debuffs, kill Vesparon's acolyte first - he always spawns near the portal exit. Once he falls, dispose of Shadron's acolyte.

In the twilight realm - click to enlarge

Neither acolyte hits very hard, so your main focus should be building threat as quickly as possible to allow your DPS you go all out. Thankfully this is fairly simple in the current tier, and requires no special effort.

As a side note, when both acolytes die everyone who is in the twilight realm will be kicked out, and find themselves back on the island with Sartharion. For this reason it is imperative that the final acolyte is not killed as a flame wall is about to spawn - if the wall timer is ticking too low, then call off DPS.

The end game

Upon exiting the portal it is usually a good idea to hunt down a healer to innervate before shifting into cat form and finishing off Vesparon. The previous phase was intense, and many of them will be low. Help DPS Vesparon, continuing to dodge flame walls and shadow fissures along the way.

At some point another acolyte of Vesparon will appear in the twilight portal, and you will have to slow down your DPS. Once Vesparon is dead, head back into the portal and take out the acolyte for the second time. Then it's back to easy mode - only Sartharion remains, and if your raid survived this long then you should have no trouble finishing him off.

Emergency maneuvers

Sometimes things go bad. Really, really bad. Without ever having been assigned to any duty other than the one described in this article, I have ended up tanking all three drakes, the adds, and Sartharion himself during various attempts.

Emergency-tanking Sartharion ftw - click to enlarge

As a drake-tank you need to stay on your toes, and know when to stop DPSing and haul tail over to a trouble spot to try to save a wipe. If another tank dies and you are free, then it should be second nature to target the loose mob and taunt it while you run to the prescribed tanking location for that enemy. If the add tank dies, then get into bear form and Challenging Roar. There is simply no excuse to keep DPSing when you could potentially save a wipe.

QSS video footage

The first two successful Sartharion-3D kills were committed to video by a couple of our members.

Revaan, Holy Paladin - Kill #1

This kill was nearly text book, aside from Rev getting himself killed, and me having to pick him back up. While we lost some raiders, we maintained focus and got the job done - having a whole whack of Druids helped matters out too.

Helias, Shadow Priest - Kill #2

This kill was a complete mess, and looked like a sure wipe (Total raid deaths: 16, including 3 tanks). To add to the fun, Helias managed to lose his connection as the melee group entered the Twilight portal, and reconnected in time to see our Death Knight main tank die to Sartharion's breath. Thankfully I had a hero bear moment, picked the dragon back up, and despite losing a third of the raid we brought it home. (What you won't see in the video is that I also collected adds after the add tank died, and then picked up Vesparon after his tank died - we'd battle res'd the add tank, which turned out to be pivotal!)

Friday, 20 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 8:42 AM

Flying bears! Oh my!

Etaiu has started up a new feral tanking blog: Leatherbelly Tanking Blog. Apparently most other feral bloggers are not focused enough for his liking, and so he will be keeping the spotlight squarely on tanking (with engineering as an aid) and nothing else. To each his own - and I'm sure that there will be a wide audience for this, especially given the excellent quality of Etaiu's writing; amusing and eloquent all at once.

Anyhow, a couple of days ago he put up a great tip on how to utilize the feline version of Feral Charge as a trash-tanking opener, and I must admit that I'm completely sold. What's more, Etaiu even created a video of the technique in action so that you can both read about it and see it. Great stuff!

Wednesday, 18 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 10:23 PM

Where is the bear? (special burnout edition)

I have slept fitfully these past few nights, my dreams haunted by strange images of foreign lands and unfamiliar terrain. When the hours of tossing and turning mercifully give way to precious sleep, I find myself occupying the form of an elf, but not my birth form.... nor even a man.

A dream word - click to enlarge

Although I have no control over the elven maiden I find myself sharing a body with, I am unable to leave - an unwilling passenger on her twisted journey. Much like the Blood Elves of Azeroth, my hostess is decadent and cruel, taking pleasure in draining the souls of her victims and channelling their stolen power against their allies. I wake each morning shivering, the all-to-real memories of gleeful corruption and callous murder seared into my mind.

Waging war - click to enlarge

My days feel so monotonous - I cannot even lose myself in the thrill of the hunt any more - so perhaps it is little wonder that my mind descends into unblemished chaos during the night. I can only hope that this passes, otherwise I may go to sleep one night, and slip into insanity never to wake up.....

Joyous slaughter - click to enlarge

(So, where is the bear?)

Tuesday, 17 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 4:02 PM

PTR Patch 3.1 Updates

I took some time to update my post on all of the changes pertinent to feral Druids on the PTR as well as my sneak peek at the new loot.

Many of the placeholder loot items now have their proper stats, and there are a bunch of new drops in there too. No DPS leather headgear has been located so far, which follows the depressing WotLK trend. Hats are always hard to find.

Monday, 16 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 10:16 AM

When not in Azeroth....

As much as I love World of Warcraft, I refuse to let it define my life. Sure, I play hard and I spend a lot of time thinking about the game, analyzing the mechanics, and writing about it on my blog - but in reality it's just a small part of my life, and fairly easily replaced (as happened last summer, when I took a break).

This weekend was a WoW-free one, but I was far from bored. In fact, Saturday was a wonderfully geeky day as my best friend came over for a board game marathon. Later that evening we capped the day off with a few matches of co-op Dawn of War II.

Kicking ass in Twilight Imperium - click to enlarge

Bill has actually written up a battle report of our two games of Twilight Imperium that we played on Saturday, complete with turn-by-turn snapshots. Synopsis: two crushing victories for me.

Bill and I have been wargaming rivals for more than a decade (and players for far longer), starting first with Warhammer 40k, but then progressing into actual board games as Games Workshop made its system more and more prohibitively expensive. Although Twilight Imperium is our recent fixation, we also love Axis and Allies, Shogun, Nexus Ops, and Memoir 44 to name just a few.

I'll probably be back in Azeroth again tonight - my wife works the late shift - but ten perhaps I'll do something else..... it's great having a diverse set of interests.

Friday, 13 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 7:03 PM

The Sky is Not Falling

A couple of weeks ago on Azeroth is Burning, the author wrote a short article that I meant to respond to, but then completely forgot about. He led off with:

Blizzard is nerfing bear tanks so far that even Ret Pallies feel sorry for us. -30% armor, -10% or more health... And you won’t be able to tank every fight now. Any fight that in any way interrupts your attacks will now be untankable by bears.

And the few feral druids that do numbers in the blog world don’t even care. Karthis doesn’t even seem to tank anymore. He’s all about the DPS nonsense. As is Kalon. BBB hasn’t commented, but he’s pretty much all about the hunter now anyway.

The problem is, I don’t want to DPS. I want to tank. Tanking is fun. DPS is boring on a druid.

As anyone who has been following the development of patch 3.1 knows, the main changes coming for feral tanks take the form of twin nerfs to Heart of the Wild (10% less bonus to stamina) and Survival of the Fittest (33% less bonus to leather armor) and the addition of the Savage Defense mechanic to compensate.

These changes worry a lot of people and for good reason - enormous armor and health have long been the defining characteristics of the bear Druid. As of yet, no one - not even Blizzard's team of developers - truly knows how these changes will alter the survivability and long term viability of feral tanking. Early tests give a small insight into the new mechanics, but Savage Defense is still too buggy to collect any hard data on - especially in a raid environment where it matters the most. (Note: I will admit that encounters that interrupt your ability to attack, and thus remove a bear's ability to generate a shield, are hugely concerning to me as well right now.)

The important thing to keep in mind is that Blizzard has repeatedly stated that everything is tentative so far; all mechanics, berfs, and buffs are subject to change. If Savage Defense in its current state does not allow a Druid to compete for a tanking spot, then modifications will be made - Survival of the Fittest or Savage Defense could be buffed, Lacerate bleed crits could be made to trigger the shield, or some new ability could be added. In any case - it's too early to make any sort of definitive statement on the viability of a Druid once patch 3.1 lands - nothing is finalized.

Now, I must address the second concern raised by Azeroth is Burning: "Karthis doesn’t even seem to tank anymore. He’s all about the DPS nonsense."

Despite my ramblings about DPS on my blog, I do continue to tank; my job in a Que Sera Sera 25-man raid continues to be the same as it has always been - I am an offtank. What this means is that in a normal raid I am tanking trash, performing tanking assignments on bosses that require more than one tank, and occasionally even main-tanking. In 10-man raids I am generally a main tank - however I don't really have the time to do many of those.

The reason that I have been talking about DPS on this site is that for the first time since I have played Warcraft feral DPS is actually viable. On top of that, it is not "boring" as Azeroth is Burning asserts, in fact feral Druids have one of the most complex damage dealing systems in the game, and it is an absolute joy to work with.

Turning his statement around, I would counter that a huge problem right now is that tanking is too boring, and that is why I - any many other feral bloggers - have little inclination to write about it. Maintaining a threat lead is trivial, trash is mindless, and aside from Sartharion with two or more drakes up, there simply are not any bosses that require intricate maneuvering, fast reaction time, or adaptation on the fly. Don't get me wrong - I love tanking, but all of the reasons that I love it are muted or irrelevant right now.

Ulduar promises to bring new challenges, and I am excited to be challenged as a tank again. Patch 3.1, for that reason alone, cannot come soon enough for my liking.

Thursday, 12 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 6:48 PM

Initial T8 Feral Set Bonuses

I am having an extremely busy day today, so do not have time for an in depth article. I did noticed that a new patch was just pushed onto the PTR that should keep everyone busy for a while: read about it at MMO Champion.

As of now it looks like the feral Druid tier 8 set bonuses will be:

Two piece - The periodic damage dealt by your Rake, Rip, and Lacerate abilites has a chance to cause you to enter a Clearcasting state.
Four Piece - Increases the duration of Savage Roar and Survival Instinct by 8 sec.

Off the top of my head (and without doing any math) my gut says that the two piece bonus is enormous for Kitty Druids assuming the proc chance is reasonable, while the four piece is quite powerful, but perhaps not crucial. I suspect that running with 2pc T7 and 2pc T8 in your DPS spec will be a good choice. Theorycraft is needed - and the key point will be the value of 4s of Rip relative to 8s of Savage Roar.

For tanking ferals the set bonuses are less thrilling. The two piece bonus will help threat generation, but unless DPS really closes the threat gap in T8 this is largely irrelevant. The four piece bonus increases the duration that we keep our extra health from Survival Instincts by almost 50% - but I have a hard time getting excited about that.

Anyhow - I'll try to dig deeper into this soon.

Wednesday, 11 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 10:06 AM

New Feral Blog - Omen of Clarity

Marino, who sometimes comments on this site, has started up his own blog: Omen of Clarity. Despite being... well, bovine... he's off to a promising start - I guess hooves work as well as fingers for banging out quality articles.

Here's a sampler to get you started:

Roundhouse Kick (Discussing the rumors of a buff to feral AOE tanking in 3.1)
Achievement Fun (Simple way to get the Gotta Go when the Volcano Blows raid achievement.)
Tell Me When (An alternative kitty UI to RoguePowerBars.)

Great stuff so far, Marino - keep it up!

Tuesday, 10 March, 2009

Posted by Karthis at 11:59 AM

Sneak Peek at Patch 3.1 Loot

Article Change Log:

March 17, 12:10am - Piles of loot updated and changed; page reorganized, comments added.

March 22, 8:08pm - New loot, including tier gear.

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MMO Champion has been collecting screenshots from the PTR of all of the new loot that will be obtainable in patch 3.1. For convenience sake, I have filtered this list down to only the items that will be of interest to feral Druids.

While browsing these items, keep in mind that: (a) the list is not complete, (b) any of the items are subject to change, and (c) some of the items are obvious placeholders, and have the same stats as existing items.

Updates will be posted inline, with an amendment to the top of this post.

Tier 8 Sets