Question: Dungeon finder has favourites?

Tried three times solo joining for a “random” dungeon this morning, and every time I was given HoR; which for me as a tank in my gear is a total waste of energy. I’m badly geared for it, and groups seem to wipe far too often for something not to be suss.So this morning the finder was playing favourites, and while I understand that you take a random and you get places where you are needed, but sheesh!

Consider too that I am certainly not the only person ranting about this.

So I have to ask, is the finder incorrect in putting that class/gear mix together?

Am I missing something very significant about the strategy for HoR?

What do we know about the gear level priority for groupings?

My approach is to HoR is to stack up in a corner, and kill the Priests and Mages first, and the Hunter last. Open to suggestions, please, anything would help!

My fourth LFG random attempt was with a mate, and we got HoL, and finished it with no issues. Go figure.

TNB podcast featuring me *shrug*

My guest rant on the Twisted Nether blogcast is available for download, its issue 73 in your iTunes reader thingy. Having not yet listened to it myself, I’m sure there will be the odd “did I say that?“, and a heap of “tell me I don’t sound like that!“.

Downloading now…

New Legendary: Shard of the Demon Soul?

Larisa at Pink Pigtail Inn has a nice post about the drama and joy involved in Legendary items. Hmm Legendary items…..drool. At some stage I’d like to get something akin to that, even if it was just something uber rare. You know for bragging rights.

It got me thinking of what would be a good Legendary item around the DeathWing story. And it’s pretty clear to me that something called the Shard of the Demon Soul (or similar) would be great.

It sounds kick-arse to new players who don’t know the lore. If you know the lore, then even a shard or segment of it would be powerful, and it has all the aspects of a Legendary quest chain to boot. The caverns of time could get a great workout here as we jump back in time to when the Demon Soul was destroyed, so instead of it being totally unmade, the shard remains. And when we’re finally ready to dispatch DeathWing, we earn this little beauty to help complete the fight.

What about of Legendary items:

• Restored Dragon Soul?
• Essence of Sunwell?
• Tooth of Sagearas?
• Lost Eyes of Illidan?

We could even make it a little funny or odd, by way of pitching the stuff you know must have existed but is really supposed to be lost in time.

Suss WoW account emails

I drew the lucky card a few days ago by receiving an account hack email from a darn fool saying my account details had changed. Happily I enacted the “that looks friggin suss” protocol build from years of geeking it up on the internet, which told me to close my browser, open a new window, disable java-ish things, and login to my wow account to check.

I knew it was not really possible, as my authenticator is present, the password is highly complex, and WoW might send these emails but nothing has changed in my setup recently at all. Be warned, pretty much everyone might get these, and its all totally suss.

Don’t click a link in an email; ever. Get out of the habit now and you’ll be happier in the long run.

It is basically a verbatim version that is sent by Blizzard, but with changed URLs. Clever no, but probably effective. And I hope the scammers get their legs broken.

Armory RSS Feed

Quick note: You can now get an RSS feed of your recent activity on a character. eg. Mortigen’s activity.

Awesome!

LFG Karma Points

Continuing on from the idea of penalty points in the LFG system, it would be great to see positive points too.

Algorithm might be:

• After completing a run if you like somebody, so you mark them with a positive point. 1 point max for each run, which is applied to the player, not the character.
• Max might be 5 points.
• If you ever downrank, kick, or somesuch a person your rating for that person automatically becomes zero.
• Over time you’ll see a weighting toward those people in the LFG, as the system looks across your preferred list before the general list.
• Players in your guild might automatically be considered to have 1 point from you. I mean they are guildmates after all.
• There would be no differentiation between players from the same or  a different server.

So overall I’m asking for Karma Points in LFG.

LFG Penalty Points – 24 lockout

A great idea via the WoW.com forums for rating your fellow players in LFG:

“Blizzard needs to figure out a way to stop rewarding the lazy and inconsiderate, that’s all. I actually started a WoW forum thread a while back, suggesting an “unprepared for role” vote, where you could lock someone out of running Heroics in a particular role for 24 hours. – Sleutel“

Oh yes! Damn thats a good idea. Somebody gets too many “you’re a friggin deadhead votes” and they get locked out for a day or so. Make the amount of votes an algorithm rather than just a flat number, and it will be golden.

The algorithm:

• You only get to assign points by using the Dungeon Finder tool.
• First point counts always, and next votes from the same party add another point. Max 2 pts.
• When you get kicked from a group you get an auto-vote. Max 1 pt.
• If you leave a group before the first boss kill you do not get points automatically. This is so that players can use the initial trash as a measure of performance.
• If you leave group after the first boss kill you an additional point. Max 1 pt.
• Each new group you join after the 15 minute timer can gift each other with votes, so repeat asshats will get a quick succession of votes (in sets of two or three probably).
• When you reach 4, 6, and 8 points your queue time becomes longer.
• When you reach 10 points you are locked out for 24 hours. Maybe 12 is better, but 10 will send a clear message.
• Points decay over time, perhaps you drop 1 point every 2 hours.
• Completing an instance successfully where there have been no successful votes to kick by you or another player remove x2 points from all participants. If there was a vote to kick, but you then finished you can remove 1 point instead.
• Maybe (??) players who are repeatedly locked out for 24 hours all the time will get their queue times increased for weeks rather than just a lockout.
• Points are acquired by the PLAYER not the character. So you can’t be a dickhead on your alts, then act normally on your main.

Thus good players get rewarded, and also get to counter the affect of possible abuse of the system.

Bad players suffer. The definition of a bad player is made by the community.

Gear level for ICC Raids

What gear level is needed for raiding ICC?

Its a question that has been raised on chat, in our guild catch-ups, and all over the various community forums. And while I’ve seen a lot of wrong or misguided answers, there is really no short perfect answer either.

So instead here are my thoughts as guidelines for how to measure yourself against ICC’s requirements.

Firstly Gearscore is mostly ok, but flawed. It should be used as a guide only.

Short version: A good guideline for ICC is to aim for ilevel 232 in every gear location possible. This should be ok for entry into ICC. The reason for that is that ilevel 232 is what drops in the new 5 man ICC heroics and also in ToC, which are the places to gear up for ICC.

The other easy answer is to get the best gear you can from Triumph and Frost badges, and everything else on your character of the same level. Simple really, however…

Upcoming guest on Twisted Nether Blogcast

This week I am rather chuffed to be a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast (TNB)!

In the WoW community they are one of the most interlinked and socially prevalent blogs, and I’m really looking forward to chatting live to the guys that I listen to every week. Long time listener, first time guest.

Tune in live Friday (USA time), Saturday (Australian time) on the UStream page, or here as a back-up.

It will be odd. Asking questions, or being able to jump in and say, “yes!, I thought that too…”. I just need to retain my self control and not climb too high on my soapbox.

Is it even possible to steal the microphone in a blogcast?

Must have Death Knight mods

Here are a few mods that have made playing a Death Knight far better.

Of course some of these have applications for non-DKs, and there are a stack of ones that are generally useful across all characters.

1. Rune Watch. My favourite display for rune power, disease timer, and all the DK information which in normally handled by the default DK unit frame.
2. DK Presence Alert. This mod warns when you get threat, but instead of saying “Threat!!” it says “Switch to Frost presence!!!”. This is good as its a threat warning as well as a reminder for when you’re tanking but are in the wrong presence.
3. DotTimers. I use this for tracking what I have applied to which mob, which is also handled by the Rune Watch, but it is handy to see some of the extra cooldowns with the disease ticks.
4. Power Auras Classic. A way of showing customised screen affects based upon combat conditions. eg. I have Unholy Blight so that it creates a green circle around the RuneWatch area. This way I look in one easy place for all the single target info I need.
5. ZOMGBuffs. Reminders for Horn of Winter and Bone Armour. Works across all classes, and handy that it pre-warns so you can fit the spell into the next rotation set.

If you’re serious about a DK get something that each of these mods does.

DK Gear from patch 3.3, Frost Emblems

Critical note: Justice points will make this table totally different, and you’ve got till early Oct (my total guess) to buy them using Emblems. Don’t asssume that the point change will make ilevel 264 gear cheaper! (source)

Reposted from my post at DK.info, here is a list of DK gear by Emblem type:

Building upon the regular gear guides, and the forum post for BiS for 3.2 by Futhark; here is a set of gear lists for items added in patch 3.3.

Updated list of the gear available from emblems, adding Frost emblem items for both PvE DPS and Tanking.

Slot	Item	EoH	EoV	EoC	EoT	EoF
Head	Scourgelord Helmet dps					95
	Scourgelord Faceguard tank					95
	Helm of Thunderous Rampage				75
	Thassarian’s Helmet of Conquest				50
	Conqueror’s Darkruned Helmet			58
Shoulders	Scourgelord Shoulderplates dps					60
	Scourgelord Pauldrons tank					60
	Pauldrons of Trembling Rage				45
	Thassarian’s Shoulderplates of Conquest				30
	Valorous Scourgeborne Shoulderplates		60
Chest	Castle Breaker’s Battleplate dps 264					95
	Cataclysmic Chestguard tank 264					95
	Scourgelord Battleplate dps 251					95
	Scourgelord Chestguard tank 251					95
	Thassarian’s Battleplate of Conquest				50
	Conqueror’s Darkruned Battleplate			58
Legs	Scourgelord Legplates					95
	Scourgelord Legguards					95
	Thassarian’s Legplates of Conquest				50
	Legplates of the Violet Champion			39
	Valorous Scourgeborne Legplates		75
Waist	Malevolent Girdle dps					60
	Verdigris Chain Belt tank					60
	Belt of the Singing Blade			28
Hands	Scourgelord Gauntlets dps 251					60
	Scourgelord Handguards tank 251					60
	Gatecrasher’s Gauntlets dps 264					60
	Gauntlets of the Kraken tank 264					60
	Thassarian’s Gauntlets of Conquest				30
	Bladebreaker Gauntlets			28
Feet	Bladed Steelboots		40
Wrists	Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress		60
Neck	Spiked Battleguard Choker			19
Back	Might of the Ocean dps					50
	Sentinel’s Winter Cloak tank					50
	Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak		25
Relic	Sigil of the Hanged Man dps					30
	Sigil of the Bone Gryphon tank					30
	Sigil of Virulence				25
	Sigil of Awareness		25
Trinket	Herkuml War Token dps					60
	Corroded Skeleton Key tank					60
	Mark of Supremacy				50
	Shard of the Crystal Heart				50
	Mirror of Truth	40
Ring	Bloodshed Band				35
	Ring of Invincibility		25

Note: The searches are very easy to custom create using WoWHead’s item filtering. By way of example, this is is all items usable by a DK which are purchasable with Emblems of Frost.

LFG Perspectives

Gnomeaggedon has a darn good post about how the Hardcore folks do not own the LFG randoms, and Gearscore checks and general 5k dps requirements are a total joke in random heroic runs. He’s dead right. The rude pricks should f*@k off.

I wrote a comment over there that was long enough to be a blog post, so I’m repeating it here too after the break.

Update:  Its going to get far far worse before it gets any better. This will be to boiling point, rants, spitting, and insults before we see any drop off of asshats. Why? The asshats either like to piss people off, or don’t realise they are a waste of oxygen (aka an Oxygen Thief).

Add Raids to LFG system

The LFG system is awesome, but it still needs more:

• Add the Weekly quest raid to it.
• Add all the raids in a separate area (+ thing), so we can pick find groups easily for VoA, OS, Naxx, Uld, ToC, ICC etc. (Edit): Just found that this is already in game, press “O” then click the “Raid Finder”. No idea what the shortcut key is.
• Do not let anyone teleport when combat has started.
• Do not let a kick happen once a boss has been engaged, until loot distribution is finished.

This will all but remove the need for folks to type in the LFG channel, and send a clear message about gear level expected for runs. No more “you’re not worthy” or “link achieve” rubbish.

Quick noob move

Totally embarrassed to have done this – last night in Halls of Reflection Heroic,  we’ve cleared the initial room and are now running past Arthas and about to kick-off his walking scene. Like normal we stack up on the tank, just on the left of the main path, so Arthas can walk past and we can do the trash waves in relative peace.

My noob move was to back up….right off the edge of the cliff. Damn it! Shamefully its not an auto-Death, you land on a small shelf, and I get to suicide off the ledge.

Players were ok with it, I ran back, and joined the battle again. Thank god you can run back in and re-join the fight. /facepalm.

Its been a long time since I noob’ed it up that badly; otherwise the “walk backward into mobs” was my classic oh-shit move.

Maintenance update 5th Jan

Quick update to note the changes in the patch last night (via wow.com):

• that HoR waves of trash has been made easier
• 25m version of Lady Death Whisper has been made easier
• Occulus on Heroic gives chance of a blue drake, and extra x2 Triumph emblems.