small fun ptr update for 5.2

Source here for recent update on PTR, highlights are:

Professions

• The chance to fish up Flying Tiger Gourami, Spinefish Alpha and Mimic Octopus has been increased.
• Reputation gains from bringing rare Pandarian fish for Nat Pagle to examine has been increased.

=> I don’t think these fish have been implemented in Prod as yet, as I’ve never seen one. Nagle’s rep is about the hardest I’ve ever seen, and that means it is fundamentally a bloody joke. Completionist only rep. This update changes nothing about my intent to ignore Fishing and Mr Nagle. It is a poor profession.

Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios

• To encourage Raid Finder groups to persevere, each time an Raid Finder group wipes on a boss fight all players in the group receives a stacking buff that increases health, damage dealt, and healing done by 5% (up to a maximum of 10 stacks). This buff is cleared once the boss has been killed.

=> We can now get a stacking buff to mitigate fail? Cool. Might help a bit actually, and being that its LFR does anyone care if it gets up to 50% easier? Won’t stop dickheads from going AFK or entering in the role they don’t intend to play. That would have been a better fix.

But I’ll take a buff, and no way in hell I’ll be staying for 10 wipes to get the full 50% top-up. Or I’ll create a “wipe in LFR set” and wear that so that the repairs are cheap.

Death Knight

• Asphyxiate’s cooldown has been reduced to 30 seconds (was 1 minute).

=> Good. Though this was in last ptr patch.

The Legendary Quest Continues

Wrathion must know the origin and source of Mogu power, and Azeroth’s mightiest heroes will aid the Black Prince in finding out what it is. The search for information will take players into the depths of the Thunder King’s Palace, and pit them against trials of perseverance and skill. Along the way, they’ll unlock the secrets to a new legendary metagem, Crown of the Heavens.

=> Somebody please tell Wrathion that it is Titan technology, and that he’s in good company trying to make all that power work for himself. Mogu tried, failed, beat up by pandas, now an almost dead dynasty.Old gods fusked around with it, got spanked hard and sealed in a big prison for almost eternity.

Bran Bronzebeard has a phallic collection of artifacts and discs, and he’s no better at actually surviving without us characters as an armed escort. His Panda Lorewalker replacement in Pandaria is no better. Heck Mr Wrathion’s father tried for the “ultimate power kick” and that got him a big skull full of tentacles and a gravestone. Bloody black dragons never learn. Free epix though. Weeeee.

A wee bit of Tanking

We ran through MV last night and due to some silly guild happenings we were a few folks short. We were able to grab a darn excellent Shadow Priest via pugging, to fill the roster. As an aside it was well beyond my expectations to find somebody who has experience on 2-3 characters in MV and is also polite and intelligent. From a pug no less. Its like it 2009 all over again.

Missing a few players might be bad news sometimes, but last night I chucked on my Blood set and mashed the DeathStrike button through the Mogu’shun in a manner to make the designers cringe. I’m sure that I didn’t walk-taunt-move-stay-still enough in some parts, and the mechanics are still gibberish to me in the later bosses. Our regular Blood DK gave me all the help I needed by prompting for each taunt, and while I can normally see a debuff or action from which he is reacting to, last night it was tough to spot.

A few hours of killing, only a few wipes, at an even pace we had all but the last boss dead and unfortunately I hit the “in-home” enrage timer just after 11pm, and had to end the run. Frustrating to not down the Emperors after all that, but then we did start a little later than expected and they’ll be standing there till we come back.

I’m also pissed off that Elegon did not drop anything useful for me that I could bid on. There was plenty of Plate gear that dropped, but nothing for upgrades either way. Selfishly, I’d have liked a two-hander to replace the crappy Blue I’m still using. Or it would be nice to see an end to the fun mini-game of waiting for the Plate Wrist dps to drop too. Love randomness, its so fun.

Old-ish screenie – Ambershaper kill

A quick screenie of my first Amber-Shaper Un’sok kill. I hate that fight, not because it is complex with many phases and jobs, but because the end is a zerg where discretion and strategy seem to go out the window. So much planning just to go Zeeeeeeeeerg.

Kings Landing rendered in Minecraft

Holy insane dedication batman! 100 people, 4 months. Stunning Full image gallery (re-posting from other blog because its awesome).

Incredible. These folks win at Game of Throne Minecraft. You might need to understand what Minecraft is to appreciate the effort, or be a GoT fan to not think it is a little extreme use of time – I’m both. Impressed. Thanks to Ant for the link.

Pizzainacup on Reddit – It took me and about 100 other builders a little over 4 months to build the whole thing. We estimate theres around 3000 unique buildings, all hand made and all fully decorated on the interior.

The insanity level might be moderate, until I found out that they rendered the interior spaces as well.

And because insanity needs a project, they’re also doing all of Westeros.

Refs:

• Reddit thread,
• direct link to master image,
• full image gallery (mind blowingly great images here)

Related articles

• WesterosCraft: Game of Thrones Minecraft project is a colossal achievement (vg247.com)
• Hardcore Minecrafters build immaculate clone of Game of Thrones’ King’s Landing (gizmag.com)
• Game of Thrones’ King’s Landing meticulously re-created in Minecraft (venturebeat.com)
• Sweet Mother Of Dragons, Get A Load Of King’s Landing Recreated In Minecraft (kotaku.com)
• King’s Landing from ‘Thrones’ gets the Minecraft treatment (news.cnet.com)
• A Game of Thrones’ King’s Landing City Re-Created In Minecraft Masterpiece (video) (geeky-gadgets.com)
• King’s Landing recreated in Minecraft (destructoid.com)

New t14 set bonuses

Tier 15 death knight DPS bonuses are now (ptr): better.

Death Knight T15 DPS 2P Bonus – Your attacks have a chance to raise the spirit of a fallen Zandalari as your Death Knight minion for 15 sec.

Death Knight T15 DPS 4P Bonus – Your Soul Reaper ability now deals additional Shadow Damage to targets below 45% instead of below 35%. Additionally, Killing Machine now also increases the critical strike chance of Soul Reaper.

Thoughts are:

• dps-2 – A freebie ghoul is cool, however the degree by which this is actually useful and effective is subject to each encounter’s mechanics. The base dps increase might be good, but that will be subject to stuns, movement, tricks, special roles, etc. It is a bit meh, but I can see some use.
• dps-4 – An increase to Soul Reaper is great, especially with the crit chance increased. Sounds darn good.
• Both – it is good that both abilities are not granting a special extra button/ability – I hate that. The change in play to use Soul Reaper is something that we’ll see wash up as a boost, and I suspect it will be a great boost. Fights where there are many things to sequentially kill (Garalon’s legs) really shine for SR.

Interesting Permaban in LoL

Penny Arcade’s recent comic is about players who get banned (its a clever Silence of the Lambs), and not just any players – but the worst of the worst. The comic itself is a reference to a LOL (league of legends) player who has been perma-banned. Not the players account – the actual player. And he’s had his accounts closed permanently 3 times before. He also played with two others who are also facing bans.

The level of transparency in the ban and the actual severe ban for this guy is wonderful to see. If for nothing else I might try LOL to see just how virulent the community is, and also experience their behaviour reporting system.

Every online community can do with this type of system; especially WoW. LOL has the Summon’s Code, a purpose written set of guidelines for player behaviour. I respect the right of a player to express frustration, to get heated, and to flame on a bit. It frequently goes way too far often when the person faces no actual ramifications for being overtly rude or disrespectful.

A quick click through the comments found almost total support for the bans, but a few voices speaking out against it. That is to be expected when (a) there are many more borderline players who might be at risk of bans, and (b) the community has been frustrated for a long time.

“Speaking as someone who always has all-chat turned off because of the boring verbal harassment that goes on in every single game, I have to say that all of the Riot punishments are rather meek. I don’t understand why this is the first time I see lifetime ban, but good going Riot.”

I’ve seen one repeat criticism of the bans which is that Riot should not have used the login names in the bans. I disagree. Using the login names and especially linking them to the other accounts where these same players behaved against the guidelines demonstrates the commitment to improving the community. Name and shame on an account name is not severe at all, and certainly makes sense. It shows the rest of the community that a standard was set, and the penalty for not meeting that standard.

Love this…ban them all and let their gods sort them out.

Sha of Fear might take a few attempts

I don’t know how many shots we had, but Sha of Fear on normal is very unforgiving. Look at all the skeletons! I’m looking forward to killing him, and will have to keep working on my tank gear for this.

SC2 Heart of the Swarm Cinematic

Its a darn cool cinematic. Plenty of zerg, plenty of humans, cannon, zerg rushes, and the fall of a colony world. I might dabble in this methinks.

Image of DK T15 Armor Set

Well an image, straight from MMO Champion. Thoughts?

I hope it get “refined” a little, because I don’t understand what the intend of the armor is.
Also its odd that the armor would leave the back of the neck exposed, but perhaps its just highlighted because of the contrast. And odd that the Human model can’t actually see out of the “creature” mouth.

And perhaps the two huge teeth/horns might be the wrong way up. And there are no creature features except teeth and horns. Stuff it, I’m just being grumpy. Not sure. I’ll say one thing, its better than the T14, which is not overtly difficult.

Patch updates for DKs

Patch notes updates via MMO Champion. Overall its more interesting to read and reflect that as much as it appears that players are getting more, you’re essentially not getting a huge amount here at all. But then its a patch note, so the world should not be shocked or moving; its all still very early.

Results from SimCrafting a character

Al little while ago I started fusking about with SimCraft to test differences between items where the set bonuses apply. It is a pretty wild tool. It basically runs tens of thousands of dps simulations to seem what factors, abilities, and stats affect the dps the most for your character. Min dps 73.5k, max 96k – well I do somewhere in the middle, very close to the average depending on the fight. Yup, makes sense.

For example I can see the spread of which abilities are used for dps, and then can compare that to the figures that the EJ folks have. The White area above in the pie chart is waiting – that is a bad sign that there is a significant amount of time in the rotation where an ability is not used when reaching the optimal dps figures.

below I can also see how powerful relative to each other some abilities are – for example I knew that Soul Reaper was good, but not that it was stand out so much better than all other abilities. Take a look, the difference is huge!

Then also the dps scaling weights – which are much argued in forums for what stat has what weighting. Well I know now what measures I should put into a custom config of stat weightings for reforging to get the optimal response for my current build. No surprise, just slight tweaks in the values.

All in all, an excellent little slice of information, and something i will resist each time a major item alters in my gear. Happy killing.

Related articles

• T14 2set 483 vs 489 Chest, set bonus wins (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Mathy question on DK set bonuses and gear item levels (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

Playing wow for gold? Nope

There is a spot-on post by Tobold which questions those players who play to acquire in-game currency (Optional Economies). It’s not that playing to get large amounts of gold is not a valid goal – it is; but some players do not care at all for the economies. It resounds for me as I am one of those players. Gold is just another token to get to the other end-goal.

With so much concentration on efficient gold farming and selling around, its good to see a blogger outlining that non-gold approaches are not silly. Playing for gold to me seems silly; I’d be better off working another job if I wanted to acquire extra money in my spare time. I don’t – I want to relax.

LFR Sha of Fear – Tank’n for laughs

I queued for LFR as dps hoping to get a sub-40 minute wait. Wish granted – but the group was staring at the Sha of Fear, and we were one tank down. Damn it, I hate waiting.

So I grabbed my Tank set, chatted to the current heavy, and we pulled. One Dead Sha. And I think my meter is broken in that fight, as it has my 8th on Dps – which cannot be true.

I think I’ll do more tanking in LFR now.

Insidious wants you (recruitment post)

The mighty and awesome guild Insidious on Nagrand-US (of which I happen to be an officer) are looking for a few warm bodies with computers and wow accounts attached for progression raiding 3x nights a week.

The guild is 15/16 in the current content (it was 11/16, then 13/16 – BOOYA!), and typically aspires to get well into hard modes for each content release. With wow patch 5.2 now in the works, we’re darn keen to clean-up the Empress and get through Terrace in a hasty fashion.

What can we offer:

• Some of the most sane and kind hearted players in Oceanic realms,
• who love progression kills, achievements, titles, and are not afraid to keep at it until we seen the great stuff drop.
• a darn fair loot system (EPGP) which is supported by most of our players arguing for who else should get the gear instead of themselves. Rare stuff!
• A social collective of players who indulge overly in all aspects of the game.
• Players who are in the game for the long haul.

What we need:

• Great players who know their class/roles;
• Particularly a Mage, Hunter, or Elemental Shaman is highly desired, with a Holy Paladin or Rogue also being bloody useful.

You’ll need to be:

• An adult who wishes to enjoy your time online, and have a thick-ish skin and appreciation for off-colour Aussie humour,
• be happy with progression raiding, and all the corpse running that usually involves,
• able to raid (vent, addons, etc) 3x nights a week from 8:30 to 11:30 server time,
• be willing and able to bring your own mats,
• and generally a good sane person.

For those who are interested message Genowen, Mortigen, Kalsor, or Rhamiel in game, or visit the Insidious on Nagrand-US website for details. Apps through the website. Or ask me questions here too.

So come join us for some happy killing.

WoW players raise $2.3 mil for Sandy Relief

Warcraft players raised $2.3 Million for Sandy relief through puchased of entirely option in-game widgets and toys. At last a feelgood aspect of MMO games, instead of a typical angry rant. 2.3m for any charity effort is bloody nice work, and not bad considering we’re a bunch of no-life basement dwellers; with violent tendencies.

Kind of makes you feel good. See we do have souls. Kek.

World of Warcraft Players Raise $2.3 Million for Sandy | Geekosystem.

Mr Robot gets even better

hmmm, Mr Robot just added support for:

• Find upgrades for valor points, what raids to run, etc.
• Best in Bag let Mr. Robot dig through your bags & tell you the best items to equip for your main and off specs.
• Shopping list  will make sure you don’t miss any optimizations.

You’ll need a premium account, or try a 1 week trial. The killer feature I see is the “Best in Bags” feature, because it allows the odd and different gear to be included in optimisation. Yes, it is not overtly hard to suss, but this is about making the choices for you.

And for those who just like the free Optimise service, that has not changed.

Its a great offer, and when I tried the free week everything looked and worked as I expected. Good stuff.

Whats next for upgrades?

There is a new-ish site which indicates which item on your character will benefit from Valor Points the most according to your class and spec stat weightings. Wowupgrade.com.

Cool stuff, and a great idea. Check it out.

That said, the best use of Valor for me is buying new gear, not upgrading. I suppose it should be obvious, but I jumped straight at the tool to see where the bang-for-buck was, and initially forgot to consider the purchase.

eg. 1500 VPs to upgrade a 476, or 2200 VPs to buy a 489? Get the 489 every time, as it can be upgraded later to even higher. Then once all the purchasable VP gear is obtained, then start the upgrade spends as per the site’s recommendations.

This week if I cap the 1000 pt limit successfully, then I’ll be darn close to the 3000 hard cap as well. A spend is a must do. This is a great problem to have, as I can replace either a set of 476 Bracers or Legs.

The choice then becomes between the two items – the bracers have Exp and Crit, where the Legs have Mastery and Haste. No brainer – Legs. I have no idea what the dps increase will be by upshifting 13 item levels, but it moves to what are almost perfect DK stats. And when they get replaced by 5.2 stuff the Mastery might be re-used in a Tank set.

I’m soon off to spend VPs – Wheeeeeee.

Happy Killing.

Related articles

• Gearing up for an adventure (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Patch 5.1: Upgrading your gear with valor (wow.joystiq.com)

Folks still roll Need on offset. FFS

Short one – doing a 5 man for the valor, and the Druid healer needs on a Strength dps Neck item. Riiiiiiight. Druids need strength for what exactly? He then needs another item which could be his offset. Both well before anyone else has even rolled. Deathlordxtx for the loss.

It was not surprising that his name was also an ArthasZ style fiasco. Can’t these people re-roll Rift already? Somebody tell them that Wow is dead please.

I’m sick of this shit, so I’m calling them out. You want an offset item and wish to roll Need, then use the chat function BUILT INTO THE GAME to see who else wants it.

2012 in review

The WordPress folks prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 60,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Guestpost on Escapist Scrawl, for Furtive Father Winter

The Furtive Father Winter project by Redcow enabled guest posts between bloggers during the holiday season. My guest post is on the Escapist Scrawl by Jennifer. Go have a read. 🙂 Apologies to E.S. as I was bloody late with the blogpost (direct link).