As Daelo says on the forums the strategy that most raids are implementing is not how Blizzard wants us to play.  Ok the strategy with letting the first and or second person to get the Mark of the Fallen champion dying is not an exploit.  Blizzard can say it is but all in all it is just understanding how numbers work and resetting the counter at the expense of letting a member die, bet it a healer or dps, which can really hurt.

Now I started to write this post prior to the hot-fix.  But this is not something to let drop.  Especially since the hot fix was pushed out in prime time and caused a bit of server lag.  Yay Blizz screws up an encounter and then makes the server unplayable but still live to push out the hot fix, yes it only lasted for about 15 minutes the lag that is but still it would have been better to just give a 15 minute warning and do rolling restarts.  so that you don’t get penalized yet again in another fight.

All of this could have been avoided if 1 of the following things had happened.

1. There was a PTR build with the fight change and the difficulty and blood power gains could have been evaluated.
2. Blizzard quit acting like a kindergartner out on the playgrounds changing the rules every time they see something they don’t like.
3. If you are going to changes the rules you had better damn well make sure it is conveyed to the public i.e. PATCH NOTES PEOPLE PATCH NOTES!

If you don’t like how people are adapting to the mechanics/rules you put in place then be more careful next time but completely changing the dynamics of a fight after it has gone live, other than a simple bug fix, is complete BS.  If you want encounters to adjust to how players are adapting to the mechanics then the mechanics need to be more dynamic in the first place.  But then every fight would become like the Faction Champions and that would just be annoying as hell.

Also since initially starting this post when I was pissed off in raid last night due to the Saurfang fight.  I recently saw that Ensidia’s 25 man kill has been retconned because they were using items that bugged the fight.

Now for the most part I hate Ensidia and the like.  I don’t really give a damn about World/Country/Server firsts.  However if combat log parses show that as they claim some of their dps use the bombs in question regularly as part of their rotation then the action Blizzard has taken against them is BS.  I have used BS a lot in this post but I am refraining from using stronger expletives to express my dissatisfaction and disbelief at the pathetic actions Blizzard is taking in these instances.

The bomb bug is inexcusable in reaching live.  To put it simply Blizzard has all the information and the ability to test everything in their game.  They have logs of information raid leaders could only dream about.   Well I hope they do anyway.  In a test instance they could set a players life to 10M and let the mob hit the player forever and a day if need be they could then go through a list of every expected item that could be used in the encounter and check to makes sure it performs as expected.  Any Engineering item created in this expansion should be well within the expected bounds of items to be used by min/max twinks like the top end raiding guilds.

But then again we really should not be surprised.  Blizzard has a track record of punishing players for creativity and using the tools given to them.

So in the end my only suggestion on how to avoid this in the future is if Blizzard is going to punish us for creativity and adapting to the mechanics of the fight then they need to release an Official strategy to be used with each fight so we know what we are allowed to do in each instance.

I apologize for some of the negativity that is contained in this post, I usually try to look for ways to improve things and not just bitch and moan in general.  However changing the rules of how something works once it goes live regardless of whether some or all of the changes are then rolled back is inexcusable in a production environment.

LFG System

I hope by now we all know what this system is or at least to what it references. Put simply it is a dynamic automatic group building tool that will match players across servers within a given battle group.

Is it good? Yes.

Is it great? Some would say, I put it somewhere between good and great.

Could it be better? Like all programs, yes.

The caveat with the last one, could it be better, is to do this additional metrics or parameters would be needed. Some of these metrics could come from the Battle.Net upgrade that is going on behind the scenes. When we can start to communicate with friends across realms and maybe even battle groups the social networking aspects of Battle.Net could be leveraged to refine the matching system.

Social Metrics

Currently mods like Elitist Group can do this a limited extent, however it is all client side and is limited. If new social metrics are included in the Battle.Net part of the client for use with the LFG system it opens up possibilities beyond the just queue and hope for the best. If we are able to rate people both for a personal rating and a global performance (thumbs up)/(thumbs down) on both the character/player/guild level it could lead to a better LFG experience overall. Additionally the system should also track how many times a player quits a dungeon half way through or gets vote kicked. However like the star rating system in Ebay there should be a way for a person to defend themselves from undo elitist idiots and the occasional ISP hiccup which is not the fault of Blizz or the player.

Actually I hope when the next full version of Battle.Net is released that it becomes a separate client than the WoW or Starcraft Client. That then has the ability to launch or call the other individual clients with a hand off of credentials so those of us that multi-box or may have a Startcraft and a WoW running at the same time don’t have to constantly re-authenticate each time we close the client.

Personal Metrics and Preferences

5-Mans and Raids

The ideas options I am going to list here are the ones that I think would be best to implement as they are impartial and are not directly abusable as some of the social networking system could. Performance recaps after each instance run. We all know how WoW Web Stats and other logging mechanisms work for raiding. Just extend this to 5 mans except where it is a client side action the recap information would be server side with summary information displayed to the client. The player specific performance summary would then be stored and compiled/updated daily and weekly like the pvp honor gains and kills.

• Deaths/Instance
• If not Tank Role # of times pulled Threat
• DPS in Combat
• DPS inside 5 second rule. So if not casting dps is not calculated.
• Damage Taken
• Total Damage Taken by Party
• Total Damage Healed by Character
• TPS
• % of Total Damage dealt by Party in Instance on KoS mobs not critters.
• # times went AFK
• # times went idle for more than 30 seconds.

I realize this is a lot of extra information and if something like this was ever implemented there would have to be a lot of considerations as to where to put and store the massive amount of data that is generated by WoW.

Additionally this should be extended to logs from raid IDs. Accessible when logged into the armory. Go to the character view the Raid IDs they are associated with and get a direct download CVS/XML or some other format. This will then remove the out of range issues that arise with current client side information gathering tools. This would also allow players to track who is using the IDs that they are associated, which would also help with some of the drama that has occurred with raid ID stealing in the past.

Training Quests – Rated Performance Quests

I thought of this concept when I was talking on Ventrilo with other members of Conspiracy .   We were discussing at the time the fail dps, tank, or healers that we sometimes encounter in groups. There needs to be a way to evaluate people that is not tied to gear or the groups of people they associate with. You can be pulled through almost any and all content if the people you are with have enough gear.

During the discussion we talked about the Argent Dailies, yes they got repetitive but they taught you how to joust. So for sake of brevity what we need are a series of repeatable quests that train and rate our ability performing different tasks related to the roles that we can perform. These quests would be repeatable and not just daily. They can be a good way to practice group mechanics while solo playing so you don’t have to rely on others to practice. Matticus made a post about things he learned about group healing while doing a quest.

On a separate note if we are going to continue to use vehicles in quests, dungeons and raids, we need a sandbox area where we can practice how to use the vehicle. NPCs to use other parts of a multiple seat vehicle would be useful if the other positions have something to do as well. The abilities of the practice vehicle need to be the same as the abilities of the ones we use when it matters. To do otherwise robs us of the ability to know what we are doing and are not just thrust into something and say do it. We play the game hopefully because we like playing our chosen class not some vehicle.

Oh the rating we gain from the quests would also need to show up based on our Battle.net account. So that even if we see the lvl 30 or freshly hit level cap n00b we can see if they are truly new or have done something on another character.

Now this system would be completely optional but giving more neutral metrics to use when evaluating people when we get randomly thrown together is always appreciated and really needed. Most the add-ons that do this for us now are resource hogs and contribute more to the Lag we all experience than most people realize.

Personal Preferences

This last one could be problematic but something needs to be implemented that allows us when we random queue to have a little more control over where we end up. In the simplest of implementations it would be that as long as more than 5 dungeons are selected it will count as a random for purposes of daily rewards and such. As a tank there are some dungeons that I just won’t tank. That really only leaves H-HoR but at least one of my tanks is getting to the point of being geared enough to get thrown into queue for it and I just don’t want to tank it. I don’t mind tanking any other instance but I completely despise that dungeon. There are only 2 ways that it is a viable dungeon. Either have good enough gear to survive it while “cheating” by hiding in a corner. Or to completely over gear it to the point that there is no reason to run the damn thing. I think that is my real problem with the dungeon. It is tuned such that the only time it is manageable is when you have such a level of gear that you don’t need anything out of it. It is tuned like the damn heroic instances in Burning Crusade. They were a waste of time and not worth the repair bill for the amount of time and frustration that came with running them.

Another metric that would add a nice dimension is if we can’t rule out what dungeons we want to have the possibility of running at least let us put a weighting rank on each dungeon.

Anyway I could get more in detail on these and take another month to write this post however I want to get these memes out there now and someday hopefully something in some game will come of it. Who knows someday if I ever get involved in working on or creating a game I will push for this type of freedom in similar systems.

Titanium Market

Essentially we need to add a generic level appropriate material that is gathered, so Mining nodes would become like Taconite or some similar material.  Then different fantasy rock compositions can have a chance to produce current ore in different quantities per stack of 5, like how other professions, prospect, mill etc.  For Alchemy I think we need to add a layer from herb -> (potion, elixir, flask).  Rather than use raw herbs it should be processed into powders and extracts, same with enchanting.  Actually Alchemy and Enchanting should become more closely related and cross feed into one another.  Actually come to think of it we already have rough, dense, solid stone coming form mining nodes.  If we convert everything to a stone type as the node rather than the mineral or elemental name that would be a good starting point.

I also think that enchanters should have an alternative process to create the special cloths.  Now I know most enchanters are tailors as well or at least use to be, so that may be overkill but we really need new alternative ways to balance out high end materials.  There should always be more than one way to obtain any crafting material.  Even if it is through an exchange vendor it will help to keep AH prices from getting to extreme.

Because I have been waiting for 3.3 and the joy of the new LFG tool to finally be able to get random groups when ever I have time I have mostly stopped playing my level 80s except when raiding.  I have farmed some more badges and stone keeper shards for my new time filler.  Leveling several new alts.  I am currently working on a Mage, Rogue and Druid.  The cool thing that is keeping most of the mind-numbing bordom at bay when leveling the umpteenth toon through the lower levels is now I am skipping large blocks of zones especially in the 14-20 segment.

The reason I am able to do this and doing this is that I can now get XP in the Battlegrounds.  I use to hate battlegrounds while leveling before because they always seemed to be a waste of time and then there were the twinks.  Now my Mage and Druid with 2 Heirloom pieces of gear are a quasi Twink but no where as bad as they use to be.  With the turn XP off feature all of the serious Twinks have been moved to their own little bracket.  This means that the battlegrounds are now full of people just wanting to play a game or few to either level through BGs or just to get a break from the normal quest grinds.  Before getting to one of the more serious points and improvements that needs to be made to Battlegrounds I have to say playing a Rogue with 2 Heirloom daggers enchanted with Life-stealing is fun as hell.

Bracket Restructure

As the section title directly above states Bracket Restructure is one of the main things that needs to be done now that we have XP in Battlegrounds.  All BGs need to run from X0-X9.  Let the level cap players always be in their own separate bracket.

The reason for this is the end result of several previous PvP changes.  Lissanna, a mutual friend and I got into an argument about this on Sunday over vent.  Because it is player behavior Lissanna is of the opinion that no blame can be placed on Blizzard.  Ok so what is the combination of issues that is causing a problem?   It is a mix of XP in BGs bringing players of All Levels into a BG instance and the level capped 80s only wanting 80s in their game using the AFK reporting tool to “kick” anyone of a significantly lower level out of the instance.  Because there are no repercussions for reporting someone AFK you can just do it to anyone for no particular reason.  This then causes the person to get the debuff and if they don’t do a certain action within a time frame they will be kicked and given the Deserter Debuff.  This occurred to our mutual friend in AV when they were killed and were running back to meet up with the group.  While they were dead they were reported and kicked while running back.  This type of crap can not be tolerated.  If a person is active and attempting to participate they deserve to be there unfortunately even if their performance sucks.

The report AFK tool has now become kick those that don’t agree with us and is now a device for griefing.  There needs to be a mechanism put in place that allows one to defend themselves from being wrongfully labeled.  Because there are legitimate reasons in battlegrounds to remain stationary to either defend or gather surveillance.    Especially if you are a Rogue or Druid since you can stealth and remain mostly hidden.

Yes as Lissanna pointed out this is a player behavior issue especially since the player base asked for such a system to be implemented.  However since we own nothing in the game it all belongs to Blizzard then they are also to blame.  The created the system and implemented it, and like many things they implement they don’t seem to stop and figure out all of the ways the system could and will be abused so that there are counter mechanisms in place to enforce better behavior or more fair play.  As in if you falsely report someone AFK then you are the one booted.  There should at least be a Query system to the player so that they can respond to their accusers directly.

Anyway I look forward to the PVP XP through level 70.  Afterward, looks like it will be impossible with the level cap Twinks behaving badly either because they don’t know better or are bored.  I suspect the later but ya never know.

I admit I don’t like seeing a non 80 in the BG when I run BGs on my 80s but I realize that the system allows them there and as long as they try I don’t have a problem with them being there.  I would prefer to see the level cap become it’s own bracket for just this reason.

It is just a new perspective for me so thought it was worth noting.  Since I don’t get over excited about purple pixels I really am just a hardcore casual.  As in I prefer to be an alt-o-holic and level toons because the positive feedback is faster than with raiding for weeks to get the one or 2 drops that one needs.  Anyway I fully plan on doing what I can for the guild I am in with my Priest on our raid nights.  At all other times I will either be grinding out the Random LFG on my other 80s and BG leveling the new alts.

Having tanked a little bit on all 4 classes, something like LoHs for Paladins need to be there as an “oh shit” button.

In my opinion how I would balance the ability would be the following.

• The base ability becomes 20% of health usable on yourself or another.
• Though a glyph you add 10% to the ability
• Talents
  • Protection
    • Change “touched by the light” such that the +10% crit heal is now +(5/10/15)% LoH healing on Self
  • Holy
    • Give similar effect to the touched by the light effect and maybe a mana boost or something extra to caster if cast on another target.

End result gives in the ballpark the following table.

You may ask why I favor Protection in this case? At 45% it is similar to what Warriors and Feral Druids get when you combine “Last Stand/Survival Inst” + the Rage based Regeneration ability and have it glyphed.  Paladin’s don’t have a Last Stand per se so just giving a flat out boost would be acceptable while still “nerfing” it from 100%.

I know in the end that balance testing would be needed if anything like this was implemented but at least IMO this seems like a good compromise to the issue.

The other issue that is a problem for Prot. Healing is that they just need to remove Spell Plate, but that fix which would finally put an end to the issue is too big to be dealt with in a non-Expansion content patch.

Thank you Blizzard for making an already scarce resorce and making the demand for it increase many times over by allowing it to be prospected.  Additionally the dust can be turned in for JC daily badges which are required to get most of the patterns for Blue and Epic gems.

Titansteel and everything that requires Titanium to produce has now inflated greatly in price so much so that it is not really worth making the epic items becuase they sell less than the cost of the mats.

In the future if a profession changeis going to beimplemented that is going to drastically change the landscape of supply and demand then please implement alternative ways to acquire the scarce resource.

A simple change that would have let the market stabilize a bit would have been to allow Alchemists or at least Transmutation Specialized Alchemist have no cool down on the transmute Saronite into Titanium.  If nothing else at least remove the shared cool down with the epic gem transmutes.

The transmutation side of Alchemy is in apathetic state and does not look like it will get any better.  Well at least until the next expansion.  At least then the cool downs for most of the transmute in both Alchemy and Tailoring will be removed like they were for TBC materials with the release of WotLK.

Hopefully when the new expansion is released professions will actually really be worth something other than and time and money sink.  The real way to do that would be to create more interconnectiveness between the professions.

Honestly I don’t have the time to write a post for every topic or concert I think about in the game and the various systems.  However since BBB did a good job breaking down what you have to do to get Critical Hits pushed off the table for starting tanks, I want to take this moment to rejoice in the change coming in the next expansion.

Fast Tube by Casper

Right now I am dealing with this BS every time I get a new piece of gear for my Warrior.  What is making it difficult for me is that there are 2 defense trinkets that were added in Wrath.  1 from Loken who has yet to drop it for me.

Loken – N: Seal of the Pantheon
Thaddius – 10:  Repelling Charge

This change is a side effect of the gear homogenization.  Which makes it a pain in the ass for all non-druid tanks to keep the un-crittable state.  I did not say difficult, you can still do it, just an annoying requirement.  Really all of these issues could have been resolved easier if oh I don’t know entire sets of gear were craft-able.  Now a fresh DK, Warrior, Paladin can hit 520 easily at 80 just from the Tempered Saronite set.  What would have been even better would be a 4 set bonus that adds the last 20 defense.  Then you could at least keep those 4 peices while replacing the rest with epics as you do dungeons and other content.  It would be nice if there were even a good amount of Heroic and Valor Emblem gear that had a healthy helping of defense.  There is some don’t get me wrong.  The problems with all Blizzard itemization is they do not proved a complete set of gear for any facet of their game without having to piss with other unrelated content.

There should be an entry level set of gear for dungeon and raid content available through all PvE content.

1 set from questing.

1 set from dungeons.

1 set from crafting.

Another design change that would be nice to see would be a definite progression of dungeons/heroics and raids.

Another tip for the itemization department would be that only your non-random loot can you expect with any amount of accuracy your player base to have when designing the next iteration.  So ya all that new epic gear that has small amounts of defense but tons of parry/dodge/block is great only if the player was lucky enough to be in a raid where the item dropped and they got the time.  Which since your player base moved away form guilds to a PuG mentality for raiding means that the old DKP systems that you forced the player base to rely on to distribute gear fairly falls apart.  I will be posting again about Guild systems soon.

Anyway no matter what anyone says the removal of the Defense Cap mini-game for tanking is a welcomed improvement.

*****Update*****

There is one more added from patch 3.2.2 as a reward from the quest with Onyxia’s head.

Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman

Enchanting:
Abyssal Shatter – Disenchants an Abyss crystal into greater cosmic essence or infinite dust.

Why is this in the patch, the answer is simple since 3.0.x Cosmic Essence and Infinite Dust have been the cockblock of skilling up enchanting.  You had to dis-enchant insane amounts of green gear to get the Essence and Dust requirements for most patterns after 400, ya 50 points to go not the 425 range that you seen in most of the other professions.

As extra insult to injury the material costs on tailoring items, the previous bread and butter DE fodder were raised as well which was a double whammy to the majority of cloth wearers who were Tailor/Enchanters.  The current best DE fodder comes from some early and mid-level leather working patterns because the non-heavy borean leather patterns are actually reasonable cost effective.

Now since the new 5 man drops Epics only in both Normal and Heroic mode Abyssal Crystals have devalued greatly.  They were a little over priced but now are a little too cheap.  This like many issues with wow comes from a lack of planning.  I know the dev mean well, and they want to give us a good game.  However the in game economy is just another vector that should be factored in when charting the course to WoW’s future, one that seems to almost always get overlooked.

To end on a positive note the next expansion more than any previous patch and or expansion has the greatest potential for change and improving all of the little side systems that go and support the game overall.

For the next month or so I will be fine tuning some ideas and rebuilding others from the ground up to eventually post in the cesspool that is the suggestions forum.

In one of the comments under my 3.2 killed Crafted Epics post, I mention how my reasonably fresh 80s a Priest healed a H-UK.  There were a few problems and we ended up having one of our DPS switch to tank speck and the tank switch to DPS.  As the new tank was slightly better geared.  The rest of the instance went reasonably well, we still had another wipe but if anything it was only a death here or there the rest of the time.

Well after doing a few battle grounds and seeing my numbers suck and trying to figure out what I needed to do about it, we ran a normal CoT:Stratt.  We ran into the new instances can not be launched issue again for 15-20 minutes.  Long enough for me to log in here and create another fuming post about the instance servers.  After writing I decided to cancel it’s publish as it was just too negative.

So now beating around the bush what was my noob moment last night.  Halfway through the run I realized that my spells were not up to date.  I was 1-3 ranks behind on almost all of my healing spells! My hots would tick for between 3-400 more per tick and my heals were 2k more potent each cast.  That is a hell of a lot.  My first reaction was wow do I feel stupid now.

Then I remembered hey you healed a H-UK with lower rank spells and it still succeeded despite your stupidity.  This goes to further my point that new 80s can get good gear and Epics if they know people already established in higher end content.  Also that means that even though my numbers sucked I could still heal well while handicapping myself like I did.

The lesson to be learned from this however is that if you level Dual-Spec like I did with the Priest check your alt-spec after training and manually update your spells.