I’d back a MOO2 clone in a heartbeat

BioBreak blog reminded me today how much I loved the PC game Master of Orion 2. By today’s games it is a contradiction to all the features that generate buzz:

• single player
• turn based
• fully offline
• no time limits
• still images, or sprite graphics

Why was it so good? Well for a start it supplied a backdrop for my mind to fill in the story.

Dark Heart of Pandaria Heroic scenario

I’ve only done a handful of heroic scenarios and the Dark Heart was pretty tough all told. I joined the team and found that it needed all my concentration to keep alive and swinging. Yes, heroic scenarios are actually challenging. That is good. Bring them on.

Wrathion Story part 2 done!

Those pesky pvp battles were an absolute pain, and now my DK is thankfully back to grinding drops from raid bosses and farming mats to get further through the quest chain.

Generally I hated the pvp battlegrounds. Almost all the fights demonstrated that an organised group will crush a typical pvp set of random players. The battlegrounds where we died constantly were blisteringly frustrating.

The battlegrounds were a core of us followed some simple strategies were good, and generally we either won or came very close to winning.

I learnt:

• Any group is stuffed without a healer, and protecting the healer is actually fun. A particular Paladin teamed up with myself and another Death Knight and we roflstomped almost everyone for 2-3 minutes at a time before the Orb debuff made us crushable. As a set of three we moved through that Battleground together and it worked really well. Later it was a Druid who help me steamroll through the squishies are part of the fighting team.
• Stay as a group. i.e. when 3-4 players stayed in the middle of the Orb Arena (not its real name) we smashed the others. Especially when we had two players with Orbs.
• Fight within the game’s ideal zone. i.e. on the flags, carts, or in the center of the arena where you get the most points.
• Personal cooldowns are not for emergencies, they are for every second in the game. A moment spent in combat without them is pointless.
• Not that I intended to, but a particular Shadow Priest and Warlock on Horde are probably writing blog posts about how much Death Knights are broken and overpowered in PvP. I think I killed these particular two characters

Related articles

• Wrathion’s PvP Battleground Quests (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Tests from Wrathion (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

New gear, art, strats, and info on Patch 4.3 from MMO Champ

New gear, artwork, strategies and all sorts of lovely information has been data mined by MMO Champion for patch 4.3. There are some nice armor sets for us in Season 11 PvP, although I am reminded of the old Warrior set with the bladed helmet built for head butting Tauren.

DK PvP Season 11 gear set

There is also a stack of great new gear. iLevel 378 gear will drop from the 5 man dungeons, and some of it is rather wonderful. Like this Axe for 2H Weapon wielders.

Quick Tips for Brewfest Boss

As Brewfest Holiday event is half way through, I thought I’d put up some simple guidelines (far too late) for how to get through the very short fight that is Corbin Direbrew.

That black hearted sod Direbrew is just an ale swilling mongrel. Kill him.

For everyone:

• If the Tank or Healer is undergeared, then the Dps should burn down the spawning dwarves as too many can the healer’s job difficult or the tank die.
• If the Dps are all undergeared, then you’ll need to kill the Brewfest maiden who spawns, as she stuns people.
• Roll Greed if the loot is not your primary role.

For Tanks:

• If you are undergeared/newbie, say so at the start. Better to let folks know that have a Mage try to Tank 6 monsters.
• Start with an AoE attack opener, to gather up the boss and three adds. This is really important to do well.
• Then get a good threat lead on the Boss (duh).
• Throw in an AoE affect every now and then, or taunt the extra monsters that spawn around the place. That makes the group happy. If the Dps are idiots or rude, let the monsters hit them.
• Roll Need on the +Dodge and +Stam trinkets. They’re not too bad at all, the dodge one especially.

For Dps:

• Wait for 2-3 seconds for the Tank to get some threat.
• Use Single target/dots on the Boss as openers.
• Stand in the AoE affect if the Tank uses it. They’ll get aggro that way.
• If the Tank or Healer is undergeared, then burn down the additional monsters quickly with either AoE or single target, but keep damaging the boss too. A good misdirect is wonderful for too.
• You might need your battlerez ability if something odd happens. Please be prepared to use it.
• The +Stamina trinkets are useless for you, don’t roll Need please.

For healers:

• I have no real idea, but the healers don’t seem stressed by this fight at all. Some have been doing Dps as well – one Shaman did almost 6k. YMMV.
• Keep yourself alive, then Tank, then the best to worst of the dps (duh).
• If the Tank or Damage crew is using any type of AoE then stand in it. It’ll keep the nasties away from you.

My level 84 Warrior has successfully Tanked the fight against dps who far out-scaled her; to the point where the dps were doing very nice damage, but i was still able to hold threat. One fight saw a Mage doing 22-23k dps while I still held aggro on the nasties.

Happy Brewfest. Hic!

Farming the AH for raid gear, p2

Well it has been three weeks since I thought to start gearing up, and my effort to gear up via making a huge pile of cash from the AH is not going well. I’ve increased my gold total by about 3k. Given that the gear I want to buy costs ~60k, I’m a long way short. Only 60 weeks to go at this rate (shudder). I have had some very expensive expenses as I spend gold on mounts, gear changes, glyphs, and all sort of other strange items. In terms of income the figure is more like 5-6k, and I’ve been spendthrift.

You see I’ve not really changed my (poor) analysis methods, or started converting materials into items to re-sell. Part of my hesitation is that I may need some of those materials later, but really it is because I love to horde mats.

I’m a womble at heart.

I’ve looked at the current craftables that are performing well for which I have patterns, and there is money to be made. There is also however a slowly closing window for this opportunity as more players enter the manufacturing market, and the demand drops off as players buy what they need. The real burst time for profit is probably past, and now it is about considering the goal vs the cost.

When I thought that the mats could be redeveloped into around 40k of gold, that meant that I could get a fair way along my goal – which is better gear. But then the gearing through the dailies is reasonable, and the rep rewards are very solid. I think a better approach might be to do the same effort of slowing building a gold base, but spending that gold on rewards that are ever decreasing in cost is not something I want to rush.

e.g. A really smick one handed axe was selling for upward of 35k, and it now sits around 22-28k depending on the day. That is a very large drop in price in a short period.The axe is BoE drop, so there will be more at a steady rate, and the demand will decrease.

So I continue to ponder options and review what items to craft. My mats are steadily increasing and via the odd bargain, some clever use of mats, and some questing I think I can maintain a steady growth of my gold base at around 1k per week – after all the repairs and upgrade costs are included. That is an OK way to play for somebody who only really gets online 2 nights a week.

Happy farming.

Step up, take a hit, love it

Last week of irregular 5 mans and 3/12 impromptu ICC10 runs were enough to give me enough Frost emblems to purchase some tanking upgrades. It takes a while to acquire 120 badges of Frost, so I am rather looking forward to the difference that it might make to both tanking characters.

Death Knight Tank set upgrades for Mortigen – which somehow only inch my overall ranking forward slightly, but looking at the items a GS of around 5400 seems reasonable to me fro ICC10 man (yes I know gs is no measure of skill, yadda blah blah, but it does work if used properly).

• Verdigris Chain Belt (60 frost emblems), which swaps this ilevel 264 monster belt with an old-ish ilevel 226. The change also dropped me a significant amount of hit, so I also switched to the Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore as the 2H of choice. Having two of those is a real advantage.
• Scourgelord Pauldrons (60 frost emblems)

Druid-Bear Tank set upgrades for Quendalon

– Ikfirs’s Sack of Wonder, by donation from the Guild (ya, thats a huge gift!)

With all the upgrades it is time to Step-Up, Get Hit, and darn Love it.

Then the team was ready to roll into ICC10 and kill the LK again, right as my partner sprang a last minute critical task (ie. RL > WoW… grumble). So offline I go while the guys go to get the Kingslayer title. Shit, damn, bloody-hell, snap, etc.

But I am happy that they did it, and some nice loot was handed out.

Then we went through RS and killed Halion. For me that was a first too, as getting into RS has been a lower priority that other fights, so overall darn happy.

Then over the past few nights we did some hard modes in Ulduar, which was a huge buzz. Most I had never attempted, and all of them still hold some challenge as they require attention to strategy and awareness, not gear.

What was interesting is that now that we over-gear the instance so much, the strategy is still totally dependent on having the correct instructions, but needs to be modified so that the team does not do too much damage at once. Kind of funny to be saying “stop dps” in a hard mode fight. We missed the Kologarn hard mode for this reason, but only by a smidge (damn it).

• Orbital Devastation
• Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare
• Nerf Engineering
• Heartbreaker
• I choose you Steelbreaker
• Crazy Cat Lady
• (and the Freya ones, all at once)

And Mimron-Firefighter kicked us around a lot, buy hey – its is darn worth it.

This week if the gods of MMO glory are kind to me, I’ll be a Kingslayer.

Happy killing.

DPS with Whiteline Fever is a Trainwreck

I should know, I get white line fever in spades. It goes like this:

You’re starting the fight, strategy pinging around your skull as the Tanks run in. First phase watch threat, second phase get the adds, etc. Your adrenaline is ramping up, and Omen ticks your name onto the meter. Combat begins. Fun; sweet blood-thirsty fun.

Move, strike, move, strike, strike, kill. Turn, new target, strike, strike….and it all fades to a white line.

Next thing you know a guildmate is screaming over vent, you’re up to your neck in aggro, and you’re standing in a void zone/fire/glyph thing. Damn it!

Whiteline fever strikes again.

It happens to most folks who get distracted for whatever reason, so this post is half confession of what I do wrong, and half call to action. Any screw-up in a run can be bad, and nobody likes to be that person. If you’re a DPS role and find yourself getting white-line fever, please read a few tips below on what works to keep me from getting too absorbed in the thrill.