Friday, September 28, 2007

Ninja'd

I'd just like to take this moment to say that having all of the loot off of one boss 'accidently' be looted by one person... SUCKS. Especially after we spent the entire fucking night wiping to him due to whatever... I fucking hope to God that Blizzard lets us redistribute the loot because if not... what a total fucking waste of time/consumables/gold. It's nothing that I would have even bid more than 40 for... it's just that there is a certain satisfaction you get from seeing your guildmates get better gear after a night of raiding.... and last night, that didn't get to happen.

In short, a dwarf priest 'accidently' looted all of Archimondes loot to himself. He claims he has some sort of auto-looting mod that caused it to happen, and I will believe this story simply because he's never done anything to make me doubt him. Regardless, it was a total let down and the chances of Blizzard actually going through with the redistribution are slim. I hope they do though... so far they've given some hope by actually accepting names of characters that should've recieved the pieces... but who knows. The matter keeps getting redirected to another GM then to another, so we'll see.

Anyways... it's not the first time it's happend... won't be the last. Anyone on Alex remember Rizzle? Yeah... how ironic it was another dwarf priest last night, eh? HAHAHAHA.

So yeah... FAIL. Archimonde is such a bitch of a fight.. it's like no matter how good you are at it, if just ONE person sucks ass at ONE thing... it can cause a trickle of deaths and a wipe. RAWR.

I'm rarely upset about anything but damn did I blow through consumables last night. Jeezus.

UPDATE: All the gear went the intended people! I'm shocked. GG Blizz... for once.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Just a thought!

There is a certain aspect to end-game raiding that a lot of people don't really think much about... it's something that can really bring out those who are dedicated from those who are just along for the ride. Back in the AQ40 days it exsisted and even in Naxx, somewhat... now with Mother Sharaz, you see it again.

For Mother every single raid members needs epic crafted shadow resist gear... at least for learning. It's quite possible that some could do it without everyone in full gear, but that's another story. My point is... it takes dedication to farm the materials needed to craft the gear. One of the items required in order to make the gear is called a Heart of Darkness. These things only drop from within Black Temple, off of trash beyond Najentus (and not usually very often, I might add). Every single raider needs like... 8 I think it was, for their whole set. Now on some servers I'm sure there are multiple guilds in BT... therefore the economy may include things such as Hearts of Darkness... but for us, it's taken a lot of dedication and outside effort to help get a solid group of 25-30 people their Shadow Resist set crafted. On nights where we've cleared everything up to Mother, we've spent the night clearing trash to her and then resetting it... just so we could gather hearts for gear. Meanwhile it was expected of each raider to do their part and farm the other mats needed... such as Primal Shadows.

This is where my original point can be made now... with something like this it takes a lot of dedication by the core raid group to stick together and get things done for one another. If we want to down this boss, we all need to be on the same page. There are times when you can carry a few slow members through an encounter... but this isn't one of those moments. Every single person has to have that gear and have it enchanted. Every person needs to do their part to assure they have the most hp possible in order to ease healing and lower their risk of dying to something simple... like falling damage and a hit of something else just before. It's a fight like this in which you can figure out really quickly who your actual motivated raiders are. You hope that everyone is... but it shows through who isn't in a lot of ways really quickly here.

So... for those of you out there who haven't had this kind of challange in WoW yet, just know that they do exist, and sometimes they bring a little drama with them. Either people don't want to put their effort forth on their own, or people just give up and leave for one reason or another. Regardless... sometimes raiding can require a little extra effort, but when we got Mother to ~50% the other night with people fresh into their gear and unflasked... it all made it worth it. It felt amazing to see something go smoothly that could so easily go wrong if people weren't prepared.

All in all, it takes some time to farm the shit needed for the gear - but at least the fight is hella funny, although frustrating in it's randomness. She hits like a BEAST, by the way. Oh, and it's awesome when I can wear my resist set and be fully buffed... and have 13,000hp. hahaha. These kinds of fights are what this game is about. It's a gimmick fight, but very much fun when she doesn't throw someone into the raid with the debuff. >.> It's frustrating as a magic user, because she throws up a resist shield that can screw anyone over at any time.. BUT... that's part of the fun. Viscidus was fun for the same reasons... it was different and every person had to do their part to be a part of it. FROST WAND!!!! Lol... good times. :)

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Something New

So I decided that I needed a new spec on the gnome. Her gear is amazing now (for the most part) and yet I just couldn't get my damage to go up much. It was frustrating as hell, and I finally decided that it seriously may be due to my latency spikes as to why Affliction wasn't working out for me.

It was suggested to me last week that I try a Demo/Destro build. I took this into consideration and thought it out... meanwhile still trying everything to make her current spec work.

To explain my latency issues:
I can have perfect nights where I'll never see my latency go above 300ms. Those nights I did pretty damn well in raids... who would've thought? BUT... especially here lately, my ISP has been a pos. I've rarely seen my latency sit below 400ms for more than an hour. It's typically bouncing between 200ms and 1000ms. That is just retarded... and trust me, I don't want to use it as an excuse... but when playing a spec like Affliction, latency can screw how efficent you can be in a heartbeat. I mean with UA in the rotation... you have CoA, UA, Corr, Immo, and SL to constantly refresh. Ideally you can watch UA start to fall and start refreshing it, Corr, and Immo basically all in one motion. Now, with my latency spikes here lately... sometimes I'd be attempting to refresh UA (even starting early because I knew my latency was shitty) and by the time the cast would go through on my end... everything else would've dropped. There's just NO way to efficiently keep that many dot's ticking on a mob 100% of the time when you're spiking up to 1k ms in the middle of the dot rotation.

Yes, I've called my ISP. Several times. I used to work tech support for them, don't lecture me on fixing shit. I live in the middle of nowhere currently... it is the only high speed service I can get out where I live. Don't even go there, I already know.

So, to conclude all of that ranting. I needed to find a spec I could enjoy playing that was latency friendly. That ruled out basically all heavy Affliction builds. This made me sad because I've honestly never raided as anything but affliction... even pre-bc. I love dark pact... I love CoEx. But... sometimes you have to compromise and so I did.

The spec suggested to me is something like this:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?0000000000000000000000350030133200100000000505000512200510430250

I spec'd a premade lock in t6 that on the ptr. Granted that gear is unenchanted, but it is socketed... I was able to get some idea of the playstyle it entails. It's very mana inefficent.. and very cookie-cutter. You basically sac a minion based on which school of magic you'll be using... throw up a curse and immo, at least, and then spam away at either shadowbolt or incinerate. Not a bad build, but not much room for compromise. If you have to become a utility warlock for one reason or another, you gimp your damage due to the fact that you may not be able to sacrifice your minion. You get a lot of neat buffing talents from the destro tree.. but it just wasn't what I was after. Nothing wrong with the spec by any means, but too mage-y to me.

So this is what I came up with about 15 minutes before the raid last night:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/warlock/talents.html?0000000000000000000000350030133250100501350505000512200010000000

Being that there were only 2 warlocks present in the raid, I was using my imp all night. Not a bad deal considering that with Master Demo it reduces my threat by 20% to have the imp out. Also, with soul link active my damage is increased by 5%. With 2 pieces of t5 on, my pet gets healed for 30% of whatever I get healed for. Hmm... so if he's taking 20% of the damage from me.. but getting healed when I get healed... works out great, right? I never had to resummon a minion because it died to being soul linked... and we were clearing huge aoe packs in which I did get aggro from multiple mobs at once, many times. I watched my imps health basically stay 100% just like mine. We'd dip down... but the second I got healed, so did he. I never even had to health funnel. I was rather impressed! I'd totally overlooked the things offered in the Demo tree. It's so versatile... so I'm happy to be giving it a shot.

With the way the talents all work together in it, you can just leave a minion summoned for a raid... have it get all of the raid buffs... feed it a Sporeling Snack (nummy!), and suddenly you just buffed your damage because you buffed your pets stats.

At one point, fully raid buffed, I had 1500+ shadow damage. 1056 fire damage. 12.7k hp. 10k mana. 22% crit, and 12% hit. That's just nasty. I was throwing out shadowbolt crits that were 6.5k hits. Seed of corruption was critting for 3k at times when it'd explode. Even though I am fire dmg gimped... my immolate was critting for 1100 on inital hit at times. I mean wtf?

This is even an amazing lock tanking build due to the resists offered by the felhunter being out. I had an overkill resistance rating in my Shadow Resist gear of 403 because of my fel. Lawls... wtf?

The only downside to this spec, so far, is that it's mana inefficent. So I have to lifetap or mana pot... no more dark pact. QQ. But honestly, with nearly 13k health, one Lifetap isn't gimping me on almost any of the fights we do every week. As long as I play it smart, it doesn't matter.

Conclusion:

Even though we only spent the night farming trash for hearts (for shadow resist gears) I came out on top overall damage done. I even died once and ran back and still managed to pull it off. We did, I think, 4 or 5 full clears... and granted there were a lot of aoe packs to clear - even looking at my damage on single pull mobs I was top 3 nearly every time, I believe. From what I recall, only hunters and melee were above me in damage on any single target mob. Now... this doesn't say anything yet... I haven't had the chance to blow this up on a boss - but it has at least top 5 potential, I'd assume. Which is far better than I was pulling off with Affliction.

I love Affliction and always will... but until I move, most likely, I have to find something else that works better.. because I can't go on being that gimp on the damage I'm putting out when I know full well that I am way better than that.

On another note, I'm told this spec is godly for arena. Orly? I guess I'll have to try soon.

If you're bored and want something new to try... give this spec a shot. It's fun, if anything... so many directions it can go. :)

Friday, September 14, 2007

Recruitment Notice<3

The guild is recruiting a few exceptional players currently (various classes)... including a warlock. If you can't scroll down and figure out which faction we are, then don't bother reading on. ;)

Honestly, the guild is looking for people who have SSC/TK experience. (Meaning you've either participated in clearing both, or you've worked on all but possibly the last boss in either.) With that, your gear should show that you've raided both instances.

Being Hyjal/BT attuned is a huge plus, but can be worked with if you're not.

The raiding schedule is Sunday-Friday, 6:30pm-12am CST. If you cannot maintain 75% or more attendance with those scheduled times, then don't bother applying.

For more information: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1371605294&sid=1&pageNo=1 that's the current recruitment post. (Not updated with the need for a warlock.)

To see the guilds website, visit: http://www.invictus-gaming.com .

Just thought I'd throw this up for the guild. :)

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

A few screenshots

Someones random AFK bank alt happened to be my twin, so I broke out the tuxedo for picture time.<3

As Glint says: "He likes you."


This is how the Gnome is looking these days.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Lootwhore?

...taking 3 pieces of t5 in the past couple of days makes me feel like one, haha. But hey, I don't bid everyone out on every item I want... typically I even drop out of the bidding early. So, essentially - I think I'm just trying to gear myself up so that I can actually compete with the other casters.

One thing that I have noticed and despise about the loot system of my guild... is that people can take items for one slot, say a chestpiece, and then the very next kill could take an item for the same slot - if they have the dkp to bid people out on it. It's kind of retarded, but I guess it shows how people really play the game.

Personally, I could never bring myself to do that... because I believe that gear should be spread out. That's not saying I don't want tons of upgrades, but if I took a helm tonight - I sure as hell wouldn't take another one anytime soon. I'd rather see the whole raid wearing exceptional gear, not just myself.

So, the gnome has T5 pants, helm, and shoulders now. She's looking pretty wicked. I can hopefully get a robe upgrade soonish and then go from there for everything else... not really concerned with my beyond robes at this point. :)

Saturday, September 8, 2007

<3


I'm in your bank, killin' your NPC.
And yeah, that's the gnome at the tip of the heart. Win.

Unstable Affliction vs. Ruin

I specc'd UA out of curiousity recently, for raiding, and I have to say... it's only mediocre to me. Like any specc for any class, some players will tell you it's God-mode, others will say it's only for PvP or PvE.

I dropped Ruin and threw in extra points into Affliction. Picked up UA and Malediction, since there's been discussion of how effective 3% more damage would be. I dropped a few things that I do miss, though, in the process. Intensity and Ruin being the most missed in raids... and Soul Siphon from the Affliction tree. Some fights I severly miss the extra bonus to drain life... though many fights it's not even noticed.

The difference between UA and Ruin is based mostly on what the fucking encounter is. On something like Archimonde where you can often be moving, constantly, due to doomfires and air bursts... UA is probably the way to go. You cast it and viola, you have another dot, ticking away. Ruin is nice, but on a fight like that... you can't promise you'll have much of a chance to spam shadow bolts, so it's better to have something like UA to promise that damage consistantly.

However, on tank and spank fights where threat isn't even much of an issue... Ruin does show itself. Lurker, for example, you can pretty much go all out on. I mean the only thing that prevents you from shadowbolting is the brief time you spend in the water during spouts. Otherwise, you can throw your dots up and spam shadowbolts all day while he's up. 6k+ crits add up really quick on a fight like that.

The biggest annoyance with UA is that it's a casted DoT and fairly mana expensive. Corruption is annoying when you have to cast it, haha. UA does it's biggest damage if it's dispelled, as well. Which does not often happen on trash or especially boss fights. So for raiding... I'm debating how worth it, it is. It's not entirely useless, but realistically... it depends on your gear. If you stack strictly plus damage and some hit, then yeah... by all means... stick to as many DoT's as possible. But seriously.. if you go for any amount of crit above 12%... shadowbolts aren't so bad, are they? Especially if you can get in around 20% crit - those 100% damage bonus crits aren't looking so bad, now are they?

I mentioned how on Archimonde another DoT is useful, however... you're still casting it as if it were a shadowbolt, in a sense (not quite as long of a cast time). You still have to be stationary for a short bit in order to place it on the boss. So... it's debatable on how useful it is, even there. It would depend on your luck with Doomfires and such, I'd imagine.

So... I'm pretty torn as to which is better to me. I enjoy Ruin more, but UA isn't treating me too bad. For my current gear, UA is probably more reliable... but once I get more crit - I may go back to Ruin for a bit and see how my damage stands.

I'm not entirely sure on Malediction. I need to go back through some raid stat stuff and see if there's a major difference in shadow damage, etc.

I know there are plenty of other warlock raid speccs and pending where you go or what you're reading, you'll see it say such and such is the best.. etc. I'm not saying UA or Ruin are the only ways to raid, at all. Lol.... just giving my opinion on both since I've raided with either.