Category: Cataclysm

How Not to Make a Good Impression in Your First Raid

shadow priest Anexxia stares down Cho'gall

On a recent raid night, we somehow ended up one DPS short of a full raid (hold the jokes, please ;p). Thus, we ended up taking with us a member who had just joined the prior evening.

As it turns out, the officer who had invited this person, must not have known them very well, if at all. I say this because if they had, they wouldn’t have suggested bringing him in so far into the instance. Why do I say this? Because I’m pretty sure it was his first ever raid instance.

This player kept asking what color dot he needed to follow on the mini map and was clearly perplexed when asked to just visually look at his screen to see where folks were standing and moving towards. After partially wiping the raid group by running fire in the opposite edition (he literally ran me down), over Vent he asked repeatedly why the instance wouldn’t let him back in. And when he finally was in and we were about to go for what was his third attempt, he asked us to wait when the ready check popped up, and proceeded to ask why we didn’t all just spread out instead of moving around on the fight.

I believe we gave him three attempts before we cut him loose. And I don’t foresee our taking him with us ever again. Why? A few key reasons:

  • He didn’t say he was new to raiding before accepting the invitation
  • He demonstrated an inability to follow instructions
  • He talked over vent almost non-stop through the attempts, distracting the entire team from doing their jobs
  • Despite having no idea what he was doing, tried to tell the raid leader and team what we should be doing differently, on a boss we’d previously killed a number of times.

Start with Baby Steps

Now, I do understand why someone without any raiding experience would want to join a raiding  guild. And why they would be excited to be invited to a raid. And we do al have to start somewhere. But if you have no experience with grouping for raids, unless you are a WOW savant, a difficult boss towards the end of an instance is not the place to do that. You really need to start with an easier fight, and to have prepared for it.

Your best bet for getting your raiding feet wet is Baradin Hold. A slight bit of trash, only one boss, and a likelihood your guild can carry you through the content makes this a good starting point. You’ll be able to start to get familiar with the dynamics of coordinating 10 or 25 players to achieve a common goal. And gain an understanding of the tasks your class and role may be asked to perform in a raid.

Once you start to feel like you are keeping up with the group, you can start thinking about hitting some of the entry level raid bosses. But you’ll want to make sure you go watch a video of the encounter and read a description of what your role does in that fight, so that you are coming into the raid armed with enough knowledge to give it a good try. Be sure that your raid leader knows you are new to the instance, and ask clarifying questions if you are unsure of what you personally are being asked to do.

I understand it can seem scary to admit to being a newbie, but we were all newbies at one point or another. And a good team of folks will appreciate your ‘fessing up, versus not understanding why you are having trouble with executing on something they consider to be on farm mode.

Further reading:

Can Progression Raiding and Alts Productively Coexist?

Don't mind me Atramedes, I'm just sightseeing, said the shadow priest as she crept closer...

We’re at a point in this tier of content wherein serious raiding guilds are well on their way into defeating the heroic modes, but many more casual raiding guilds are finding themselves stuck at 9/12 or 10/12 on regular mode. So you know what that means — folks are starting to want to bring their alts. Worse yet, the people who want to bring their alts are typically the folks who’ve geared themselves out thanks to having attended all or most of the runs (yes, I’m looking at you MT/Raid Leader/Core Raid team members.)

A guild leader’s first impulse is probably to say “OK…” when their raid leader comes to them and says “I don’t want to bring my geared out toon to raids any more; I really want to play Character X.” But there are a number of reasons you should think twice before sealing that deal:

  1. Often this is not the first– or the last– time this player has pulled the old switcheroo. Are you prepared for them gearing up this character then cycling in their next alt?
  2. You’ve just set a precedent. Now that you’ve let them swap out to their alt, why can’t player X do the same?
  3. So, player Z who has stayed on their main and lost a lot of loot to the swapping player, and is now losing more gear to their alt is starting to hate them.
  4. A raid team wants to feel like a team, not a loot delivery system for the raid leader. It can be hard to respect a leader who is continually fine tuning a situation to their advantage– raid synergy be damned.
  5. Typically, no matter how much we love our alts, they will not perform nearly as well, or have the same utility as our mains on whom we’ve spent months raiding.

In my raiding history, once the alts started coming in, progression ground to a stand-still. Tempers flared. And frequently, good players left my raid teams.In many of the cases, this behavior was tolerated because it was done by the raid leader– and everyone was afraid of losing the raid leader to the extent that no one spoke up about it. But there was a lot of discussion going on in the background amongst the raiders it affected. And none of it sunshine and kittens related.

To be clear, I’m not saying a raid leader shouldn’t grab someone’s healer alt if a raid won’t go without that happening. But allowing players, at their request, to swap characters at this stage in the game, after gearing themselves up? That has a real possibility of derailing your progression momentum.

So, What Can You Do to Avoid a Blowout?

If this issue comes up in your guild, you can’t just ignore it. It won’t go away. But there are a few ways you can diffuse the situation.

  • Start up an alt raid.
    You probably have enough experienced raiders with moderately geared up alts who want to raid on them. Put them all together, and let them start re-clearing the raids. Bonus points for this approach making folks work for it, versus coasting off mains’ hard work.
  • Put it to a vote.
    If someone is truly adamant about wanting to make a switch, put up an anonymous vote on your forums and let the raid team decide. And do the same for if EP/DKP is allowed to roll over or if there will be a penalty spend or freeze for a specific timeframe to discourage the loot and run syndrome.

How has your guild dealt with these situations?

Friday Five: Five Fake Patch Notes That Shoulda Been Real

I'm a smidge tardy with this week's Friday Five, thanks to having spent the better part of the week out of town. But I did get home in time to see some of Blizzard's April Fool's handiworks. And thius, this week's five:

  1. Appearance tab.
    Acknowledging the continued requests of our players, an Appearance tab has been added to the game! The Appearance tab will finally, at long last, allow players to customize the look of their non-combat pets. Simply summon a non-combat pet and use the Appearance tab to change its look to that of any of the other non-combat pets you own. Summon, customize, and play!
    NOTE: of course, we'd *really* like to see this come true for characters, not pets, but still.
  2. Acknowledgement that there's not a lot of choice in the talent trees.
    Talents are now automatically chosen for a player based on the main specialization chosen.
  3. Super herber status.
    Druids now perform an area-of-effect knockback when harvesting herbs, looting, or skinning (does not remove Flight Form).
    NOTE: none of my druids are herbers, mind you, but this would be too funny.
  4. Mirror images now more magey.
    In addition to their current spells, mage Mirror Images now can randomly cast Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Portal: Dalaran, and Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Images. Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images…
  5. Priest class conversion.
    Evangelism now has a 2% chance to convert all surrounding party members to the priest class.

BONUS: Female warlocks are now correctly called witches.

What were your favorites?

If DPS is “So Easy” Why Are Folks Still Struggling?

Shadow priest basking in warmth from two-headed beast Chimaeron, recently slain

DPS is so easy. I know this because people tell me this, often.

Healing is so hard. And Tanking is so much more difficult. But DPS? DPS is so easy.

Bollocks I say!

If DPS were so easy, then everyone I know would be 12/12. I would never be in a fail 5-man PUG that couldn’t get past Baron Ashbury in SFK. And this game would be so incredibly boring as I stood in one place and used a macro for my rotation.

The truth is, I am still in heroics with people who are doing 6k DPS. I’ve recently been in a 25-man with someone in my same spec, with better gear than me, with my same assignment, who did 50% of my damage. And on any given raid night, I see wide fluctuations in my own DPS, depending upon my assigned job in the raid.

That’s right– we DPS don’t just stand around in one place and look pretty as we hurl shadowy death at mobs. We also stare at the middle of our screen waiting for the DBM warning to come up about the nastiness we need to offensively dispel off a boss, while also staying at range from everyone else, or stacking up, or running out of the group so as not to explode you.

DPS kite adds while folks focus on the boss. They click on vehicles to engage random mechanics at very specific times in your raids. DPS endure all means of crackpot schemes dreamt up by frustrated (or perhaps even just plain crazy) raid leaders. And most of all, DPS take being told, day after day, raid after raid, you are replaceable, interchangeable with any other DPS.

A good raid leader, however, knows the value of their best DPS. They understand that a raid is a team effort. The weight of the raid is not all on the shoulders of the healer, or the tank. It’s on *everyone’s shoulders*.

Success hinges upon the team working together seamlessly, one action flowing into another. Healers anticipating damage, as DPS damage the boss and execute their assigned tasks, and tanks maintain threat. A successful boss kill is a thing of beauty and it takes all of us, playing our best, to make it happen.

So the next time someone says “DPS has it so easy…” please consider telling them to knock it off. We’re all in this together, folks.

Friday Five: Five Reasons I Raid

oh hey Maloriak, your momma dresses you funny

Last night I went in and killed this guy, a guild first. I had that awesome heart-pounding adrenaline rush, and thought it would be fun to share the 5 primary reasons I raid.

  1. I love the adrenaline rush of a new boss kill. First you make steady progress. Then you get the wipe at 17%. Then you get the attempt where everyone is in the flow. No one has died. You are in phase 2. Everything’s smooth. The raid leader says “BURN HIM!” and you do. You push your character, micromanaging every GCD, You find that volcanic potion you forgot you’d stashed in your bag. Push, push push…and he’s dead!
  2. I love the teamwork. The world is full of plenty of ways to be an individual contributor. Raiding on the other hand is very much about the entire team doing the dance, ebbing and flowing together. And I love being part of a team accomplishing a goal together. I also love all the silly inside jokes you have after a year or more of raiding with the same folks. See also why I never let my horde guild’s paladin tank Dreb off the hook without making at least 1 funny voice for me.
  3. I love seeing new places. And taking many many screenshots.
  4. I like to push myself to be a better player. And raids have endless room for fine tuning and experimentation. You can raid on the same character for an entire expansion and still have room to fiddle with things you do in the raids to keep it interesting. And of course raiding has the potential, RNG willing, of your getting new gear with which to improve your character, which feeds back into this reason.
  5. I like to have the opportunity to shadow priest tank. What, your raid doesn’t have any shadow priest tanking? My raids *always* have some shadow priest tanking. Like when both tanks die at 3%, and someone needs to keep the boss engaged long enough to finish him off. Or when a nasty dragon trash mob kills the entire raid and I get to DoT and kite him down a long hallway until he keels over. Those are incredible moments of fun and joyfulness for me.

So why do you raid?

Friday Five: Five Things to Multitask in WoW While You are on the Phone

Deepholm can be pretty

Don’t you hate sitting on hold? The jaunty muzak, the boringness of it all? Just as deadly is when you get roped into a phone conversation that mostly consists of you being a recipient of someone else’s non-stop monologue. These situations do not lend themselves to your joining a 5-man. However, there are a number of things you *can* easily and comeptantly do while stuck ont he phone for an undetermined amount of time:

  1. Gathering professions. Make a loop of your favorite zone and pick up herbs or mining nodes. This sort of farming does so much better while multitasking.
  2. Fishing. You can fly around searching for pools, or you can just go to the spot that provides your favorite fish, and cast+click then cast again. Heroics and raids are raraely a one-food affair these days, so it’s nice to have a stack or two on hand. And if that’s not enough to motivate you, you can get an achievement for maxing out fishing, and your guild can get an achievement for you fishing up every pool that crosses your path for the next few months.
  3. Profession chores. Milling herbs. Making bolts of cloth. Doing your daily transmute. Check! Check! Check!
  4. Bank maintenance. Toss all those old pieces of non-dress up gear from WotLK. You won’t need them. Also toss out those quest reward greens you weren’t sure about equipping along the way. You won’t use them either. Are those some non-BOP stackable items I see in your bank too? Send that to your bank alt!
  5. Exploration through Archaeology. Are you a world explorer yet? If not, now’s the time to go see the many landscape changes, while picking up relics from Azeroth’s past. Archaeology likes to send you to there and back again, and provides a great excuse to do fly-bys of all your old haunts.

Top Thing NOT to Do While on the Phone: Queue in LFD. Those 4 other people do not look kindly upon someone who is standing at the front of the instance for 5-10 minutes, unresponsive, or who distractedly walks into another group of mobs. If you are on the phone (or at work for that matter) don’t queue. Go do something solo until you can give WoW your close to full attention.

This post brought to you courtesy of my having spent way too much time on hold this past week, trying to get a firm to stop spamming me with their direct mail welcome packages (25 packages and counting so far). I feel welcomed already! Stop with the dead tree deluge! Gah!

What to Wear: The Shadow Priest’s Guide to Cataclysm’s Justice and Valor Points-purchased Gear

consider this a prime example of what NOT to wear

Now that you’ve got some justice points stacking up in your currency tab, and a few vexing greens still on your 85s, you are probably ready to go shopping, yes? But first things first — how do you earn more of these points?

Justice Points

  • Cataclysm Heroic dungeon boss — 75 Justice Points
  • Cataclysm daily normal dungeon — 75 Justice Points

Valor Points

  • Cataclysm daily Heroic dungeon — 75 Valor Points
  • Cataclysm 10-player raid boss — 75 Valor Points
  • Cataclysm 25-player raid boss — 105 Valor Points

Now before you hit the comment button to tell me I forgot about WotLK raids and heroics, let me stop you. At 85 you will not be earning justice points from any “outgrown” content, regardless of if they previously dropped badges for you. And now, on to the good stuff.

Justice Points Gear (ilvl 346)

 Valor Points Gear (ilvl 359)

Next Steps

If you are looking to build a set that works well for healing in addition to shadow, you will want to grab pieces with spirit rather than with hit. The relative utility of the mastery bonus continues to be debated, but is widely considered to not be worth choosing over an item without it, so also bear that in mind if you plan only to play as shadow. Additionally, there are some crafted items, including epic pants and belt, that you may wish to have made rather than spending your points.

Now that you have your wish list in place, where do you make your purchases? Horde has Jamus’Vaz <Valorous Quartermaster> and Gunra <Justice Quartermaster> in Orgrimmar’s Valley of Strength. Alliance has Faldren Tillsdale <Valorous Quartermaster> and Magatha Silverton <Justice Quartermaster> in Stormwind in the Old Town area.

NOTE: It is a bummer that wands and bracers for shadow priests are not craftable, available through rep, or purchaseable from the point vendors at this point. Hopefully we shall see that rectified with a future patch. Until then, you can farm Grim Batol for the Wand of Untainted Power [spirit]. For bracers, your options are Lost City for Sand Silk Wristband bracers, the long quest chain that culminates in Doing it the Hard Way in Halls of Origination, or Crimsonborne Bracers in Grim Batol.

What to Wear: The Shadow Priest’s Guide to Cataclysm’s Crafted Gear

shadow priest fishing up volatiles to craft some new clothes

Note that I am not including rare quality tailoring gear here at this time since it is PvP oriented, or ilvl 333 and under. Also note that overall, until there’s data showing that mastery is worth it for shadow priests, I am leaning towards gear without it when there is a choice to be made.

ilvl 359 Tailoring Epics

ilvl 346 Blacksmithing Weapon

ilvl 346 Jewelcrafting Accessories

ilvl 346 Inscription Off Hands

What Motivates You to Level?

I hope this mine car has brakes...

Two weeks into this expansion, I have my druid to 85, my shadow priest to 83, tailoring maxed out on Horde and Alliance sides, and my druid’s cooking, enchanting, fishing and skinning maxed out as well. This is how I can say with complete certainty that it is the professions that motivate me to level.

I already knew that was true for lowbies. Because nothing can push me through 5 levels in a sitting on a low level alt like knowing I can skill up a crafting profession at the end of it. But it is funny to see that’s true of the primary characters as well.

If I think back to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, I think I had two 80s before I did a big professions push. But this time, it was simultaneous. Yes the new phased linear questing and all the new things to see and do kept me out there and racking up the XP. But truth be told I got just as excited at making it out to Twilight Highlands and buying my first pattern (for the enchanting rod. second purchase? the lamp pet recipe.)

This has made it easy to see that the next character I need to level Alliance side is my wee shaman. Why? Because we really need a leatherworker…

😉

Friday Five: Five Things NOT to Do in LFD Groups

Camel-back Boomkin in Halls of Origination

Cataclysm has marked the return to random dungeon groups for many people. Some of whom seem to to be unclear on some of the common courtesy’s of grouping with strangers. This Friday Five goes out to them…

  1. DON’T queue until you are ready. This is especially true for tanks and healers: you know you will get an instance almost immediately. So don’t queue, come on inside, then tell us you need a 5 minute AFK. We hate you. And will kick you out of there as soon as the timer allows us to for that.
  2. DON’T be afraid to ask questions. You know how right before a boss fight, the party leader will often say “so has everybody done this?” I know it can bruise one’s ePeen to be the only one raising their hand, but if it’s your first time in Vortex Pinnacle, speak up. Heck, even if it’s not, if you are running with a bunch of strangers, ask them how they want to handle the fight. Make sure you understand who is in charge of cc’ing the diamond. Double check if this is a go stand in something or a kite through or a run away from fight.
  3. DON’T run back to the entrance to turn in your quests. No, the group doesn’t want to wait 5 minutes for you to go turn in your quest, no matter how excited you are about that quest reward item. This is a pretty surefire way to get kicked out.
  4. DON’T ignore party chat, especially when it is directed towards you. If someone is asking you a question, you need to respond to it. “Paladin X, are you lost?” crickets. “Paladin X, why are you back at the entrance to the instance?” crickets. “Paladin X you aren’t keeping us all waiting here for 4 minutes now turning in your quests and not replying to us are you?” crickets. /vote to kick.
  5. DON’T be a primadonna. We don’t care that you blew your uber mega DPS cooldown on that last boss 200 feet over there and it won’t be up again for 5 minutes. Your meter humping is of little interest to the group. Really. I promise. It’s up to you to manage your CDs and buffs, not the group’s obligation to stand around waiting for your to feel everything is optimal for you for each fight.

BONUS: DON’T tell the group how every other group you’ve done this instance with has done it faster/more smoothly/without the boss casting meteor/whatever. The expansion has been out for a little over a week. Saying stuff like this marks you as a pretentious git. Get over yourself and learn how to have a good time!

So far I am enjoying the new dungeons. I especially liked being able to run around in boomkin form on a camel in a dungeon, as seen above. Now THAT’s what I call a fun time in a dungeon — boomkin DPSing from a camel’s back.