The last patch of Warlords is upon us.
The availability of the moose mount item will get me back in for at least one more raid. Mythic going cross realm has opened it up to us, but I'm just not interested, unfortunately. Maybe this is because I'd already come to peace with it being out of reach for our guild, maybe it's because we are forced to run with another guild to make numbers, or that combined we won't take it seriously enough, just to pass the time. But probably just because running the 3 prior difficulties for 5 months expended my interest.
The mythic dungeon gear changes, reintroduction of valor upgrades, and the fact all balance changes were buffs, are all a clear leg up for Hellfire Citadel completion and sound great for those still working on it. But without new content, I don't need them. Maybe my mind will change if I see some activity come back into the guild and people earning achievements without me. :P
The arena season has also wrapped up. My rating won't be worth anything, but fortunately I finished my goal of 100 arena wins for the saddle about a week ago. When I found out the mount is not account/server wide, I sent the saddle to my shaman and bought the Vicious War Kodo. Unfortunately the horde flag sticking out of its back wobbles back and forth rapidly with every step. It's distracting and looks silly, at least on a tauren, so I won't be using it. I'm definitely considering that next saddle, so the patch keeps arena relevant to me.
I appreciate more timewalking dungeons to keep that fresh, but on the flipside there's also more things to collect. I have to say at this point, I like that it is an event held every few weeks, rather than weekly or ongoing. It definitely gives motivation to do them regularly without overloading on them.
So that's that, until the Broken Shore then. The busy work to keep occupied has already started, I'll follow this post up with another to talk about that in more detail.
Showing posts with label hellfire citadel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hellfire citadel. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Thursday, 8 October 2015
LFR, fun and rambling
LFR is getting a bit of attention since the normal HFC nerfs. I've read opinions from various sides of the argument and few seem to be happy with it. Today I read Casually Odd's contribution which got me thinking and a comment turned into a bit of a ramble so I decided to rework it into a post here instead.
Despite being a heroic raider, I can appreciate the point of view of a non-raider. That is, you are happy LFR exists as a means to see the raid zones and to finalise storylines, you are focused on enjoyment and not improvement, playing what you want to play, how you want to play it.
But it comes as no surprise to me that you wouldn't find LFR fun. When mechanics are removed or nullified to the point they can be ignored, fights devolve to the point where the only thing that's different about them are the boss models and the yell emotes. The whole instance just blurs into a bland experience.
As an example, Iskar, the fight with a hot potato (Eye of Anzu) where mistakes can see your poor raid members slowly, amusingly blown off the edge, becomes just another tank and spank on LFR, where it is practically impossible to get blown off the edge as the wind is so slow. (I suggested in guild they should have kept it at the same speed, but have players blown off being a temporary effect, like Ji-Kun in ToT. Same mechanics, less punishing).
So the fights become a simple exercise in using your abilities, but the difficulty level means there is no requirement to execute them well - so you are not motivated to improve over multiple runs. You don't care about spec or rotation. You just want to get in there, see the content, collect your rewards and get out. Once.
That leads us to legendaries - all tied into the expansion story. To experience it, you have to get the legendary, and therefore you have to raid. There is no 'legendary grind' for normal+ raiders (ignoring the shipyard, but I won't go there), it just comes eventually, in the process of gearing up and boss progression. But it becomes a grind for you, because you don't really want to be there. You want to do LFR once, maybe twice per character, not every week for 6+ weeks. But it has to be a grind, because otherwise all raiders can also do it once and instantly get their legendaries.
In doing this, you are lumped into the same basket as people with varying levels of skill and motivation. The ex-raiders who are skilled and think performance matters, but are low on time to commit to higher raiding difficulties. The main raiders playing catchup, or playing their alts. This is part of the problem - the audience for LFR is not cohesive. The other part is the reward for participation, so to speak, but I'll get to that.
This is where I start drifting away from the non-raiders problems with LFR and more towards mine.
For normal to heroic raiders like me, the fun of raiding is at its peak when you are presented with a challenge, and with some effort, you overcome it. Not when bosses are so hard that you are just getting stomped on, wipe after wipe, but also not when you outgear the boss and it becomes trivial. LFR starts at this level, a level that sets expectations that you can succeed without putting in effort, without coordinating and communicating with the other people in the raid, without understanding mechanics or rotations. So people don't - and some even AFK their way to victory.
The fact most people consider two wipes on an LFR boss to be completely unacceptable, and one barely tolerable, means they expect not to wipe (read 'fail'), they expect to succeed, regardless.
This isn't to say that Blizzard always gets the balance right, that they don't overtune bosses for LFR. But we know that is where the bar is set because they have said so.
On the one hand I see people rejoicing LFR as this 'tourist mode', that they get to see things they wouldn't otherwise, but on the other hand they will equally talk about rewards. I've seen all the remarks, from not being able to upgrade your legendary ring from an LFR Archimonde kill, to the LFR tier sets, and even as far as complaining that you don't get the achievement and the garrison monument. Imagine the shitstorm if LFR were only to give Baleful level gear (650) - and yet, that is probably the level of reward that the effort warrants.
If LFR is meant to be so easy anyone can participate and succeed, make it so, but don't reward people for participating. Unfortunately, I think if you reduce or even take away the reward, no-one will actually want to do it, despite what people say otherwise. This is why I don't hold much hope for LFR, and have leant in the direction of 'remove it'.
Someone, somewhere, is going to have to draw a line and say, yes, there is a success state in this game, this is it, and no you are not good enough/not dedicated enough/don't have enough time to reach it, yet. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm not trying to push an anti-casual agenda, just that few people are happy with the current situation and there are better solutions. I maintain the problem is one of lack of content, not lack of access or excessive difficulty. Bellular made some good points in his video on WotLK Casual Content Done Right? - including differentiating between time and skill, and championing a return of mid expansion dungeons and the old weekly raid quests. Currently, casuals are simply railroaded into LFR. There are a lot of ideas to improve the end game experience for non-raiders (explicitly, non current tier raiders), and with more of that, there would not be a need for LFR.
I hinted at the idea in my previous post, but I think yesterday's raid should be today's LFR. There is no reason to make older content so irrelevant. There just needs to be a shift in mindset from the players, and Blizzard could do some things to assist this. For example, enable the ability to queue for last expansions raids as a dungeon group (5 man for a 10 man raid, in wings), instead of removing all mention of it from the queue interface - heck do the opposite and shove the idea in their face via the adventure guide. And implement level downscaling, like all the other MMOs are doing, to keep even older content interesting. I'll probably expand on this in another post, but it is not 'fun' to be able to clear entire instances with one button press (eg barrage, starfall).
Despite being a heroic raider, I can appreciate the point of view of a non-raider. That is, you are happy LFR exists as a means to see the raid zones and to finalise storylines, you are focused on enjoyment and not improvement, playing what you want to play, how you want to play it.
But it comes as no surprise to me that you wouldn't find LFR fun. When mechanics are removed or nullified to the point they can be ignored, fights devolve to the point where the only thing that's different about them are the boss models and the yell emotes. The whole instance just blurs into a bland experience.
Image courtesy wowhead
As an example, Iskar, the fight with a hot potato (Eye of Anzu) where mistakes can see your poor raid members slowly, amusingly blown off the edge, becomes just another tank and spank on LFR, where it is practically impossible to get blown off the edge as the wind is so slow. (I suggested in guild they should have kept it at the same speed, but have players blown off being a temporary effect, like Ji-Kun in ToT. Same mechanics, less punishing).
So the fights become a simple exercise in using your abilities, but the difficulty level means there is no requirement to execute them well - so you are not motivated to improve over multiple runs. You don't care about spec or rotation. You just want to get in there, see the content, collect your rewards and get out. Once.
That leads us to legendaries - all tied into the expansion story. To experience it, you have to get the legendary, and therefore you have to raid. There is no 'legendary grind' for normal+ raiders (ignoring the shipyard, but I won't go there), it just comes eventually, in the process of gearing up and boss progression. But it becomes a grind for you, because you don't really want to be there. You want to do LFR once, maybe twice per character, not every week for 6+ weeks. But it has to be a grind, because otherwise all raiders can also do it once and instantly get their legendaries.
In doing this, you are lumped into the same basket as people with varying levels of skill and motivation. The ex-raiders who are skilled and think performance matters, but are low on time to commit to higher raiding difficulties. The main raiders playing catchup, or playing their alts. This is part of the problem - the audience for LFR is not cohesive. The other part is the reward for participation, so to speak, but I'll get to that.
This is where I start drifting away from the non-raiders problems with LFR and more towards mine.
For normal to heroic raiders like me, the fun of raiding is at its peak when you are presented with a challenge, and with some effort, you overcome it. Not when bosses are so hard that you are just getting stomped on, wipe after wipe, but also not when you outgear the boss and it becomes trivial. LFR starts at this level, a level that sets expectations that you can succeed without putting in effort, without coordinating and communicating with the other people in the raid, without understanding mechanics or rotations. So people don't - and some even AFK their way to victory.
The fact most people consider two wipes on an LFR boss to be completely unacceptable, and one barely tolerable, means they expect not to wipe (read 'fail'), they expect to succeed, regardless.
This isn't to say that Blizzard always gets the balance right, that they don't overtune bosses for LFR. But we know that is where the bar is set because they have said so.
On the one hand I see people rejoicing LFR as this 'tourist mode', that they get to see things they wouldn't otherwise, but on the other hand they will equally talk about rewards. I've seen all the remarks, from not being able to upgrade your legendary ring from an LFR Archimonde kill, to the LFR tier sets, and even as far as complaining that you don't get the achievement and the garrison monument. Imagine the shitstorm if LFR were only to give Baleful level gear (650) - and yet, that is probably the level of reward that the effort warrants.
If LFR is meant to be so easy anyone can participate and succeed, make it so, but don't reward people for participating. Unfortunately, I think if you reduce or even take away the reward, no-one will actually want to do it, despite what people say otherwise. This is why I don't hold much hope for LFR, and have leant in the direction of 'remove it'.
Someone, somewhere, is going to have to draw a line and say, yes, there is a success state in this game, this is it, and no you are not good enough/not dedicated enough/don't have enough time to reach it, yet. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm not trying to push an anti-casual agenda, just that few people are happy with the current situation and there are better solutions. I maintain the problem is one of lack of content, not lack of access or excessive difficulty. Bellular made some good points in his video on WotLK Casual Content Done Right? - including differentiating between time and skill, and championing a return of mid expansion dungeons and the old weekly raid quests. Currently, casuals are simply railroaded into LFR. There are a lot of ideas to improve the end game experience for non-raiders (explicitly, non current tier raiders), and with more of that, there would not be a need for LFR.
I hinted at the idea in my previous post, but I think yesterday's raid should be today's LFR. There is no reason to make older content so irrelevant. There just needs to be a shift in mindset from the players, and Blizzard could do some things to assist this. For example, enable the ability to queue for last expansions raids as a dungeon group (5 man for a 10 man raid, in wings), instead of removing all mention of it from the queue interface - heck do the opposite and shove the idea in their face via the adventure guide. And implement level downscaling, like all the other MMOs are doing, to keep even older content interesting. I'll probably expand on this in another post, but it is not 'fun' to be able to clear entire instances with one button press (eg barrage, starfall).
Friday, 2 October 2015
HFC normal nerfs
I found the the normal difficulty Hellfire Citadel nerfs that went out yesterday - removal of mechanics - confusing at best. Someone in raid referred to Archimonde normal without Wrought Chaos and Living Shadows as baby's first raid boss, which was an amusing take even if exaggerating. I wanted to see the other side of the argument, so I sat back and waited for the inevitable reaction and blue response.
Watcher stated that normal difficulty should be suited to Friends and Family groups, where people won't be dropped/punished for performance reasons. So it should cater for those that can not (or will not) get out of the fire or provide sufficient output. I thought that was what LFR was for, but the distinction is obviously solo queuing via the UI versus premade/pug groups.
I continue to believe 4 difficulties of raiding are too many - they make up too much of end game content, and force people who otherwise don't want to raid, into raiding. The solution would be to consolidate LFR and normal into the one difficulty, harder than current LFR and easier than current normal, and provide the means to run it both as a closed group and an open queue. If this is the direction they are headed for Legion, then I can buy into it, and will accept the nerfs for what they are. Not aimed at me, for starters.
There was also the declaration that if they are nerfing mechanics to the point where they can be effectively ignored, then they might as well remove them. A symbolism for LFR as it stands, if you will...
Difficulty in raiding can involve compounding mechanics. A good example is on Socrethar, where Gift of the Man'ari by itself, you can deal with - have the player stand out of the group and heal them. But throw in a Shadow Word Agony and an Apocalypse, and death will occur if mishandled.
So whilst these removed mechanics might have otherwise been reduced to insignificant damage, it could have still caused lethal damage in combination with other abilities. With it removed, that is simply not possible.
Removal of mechanics is a pure difficulty reduction, as opposed to number reductions that allow a greater margin for error.
They also seem intent on reducing personal responsibility, targeting abilities where one player's mistake can wipe the raid.
If this is all aimed at difficulty consolidation, like I said above I can accept that. But I have not seen any indication that this is the case, just community (and my own) speculation. In isolation, I don't like the idea of dumbing down for the sake of access. I don't think LFR provides an accurate representation of the raiding experience, and therefore I'm not in favour of moving normal difficulty towards LFR.
I've always preferred the idea of access/progression through a combination of gear and zone buffs. If normal Hellfire Assault is too hard for a particular guild on release, give them options to obtain better gear over the coming weeks through other end game content, and it will get easier. Then, half way through the raid tier, introduce an increasing HP/damage/healing zone buff, as was done in Icecrown Citadel.
But why should casual players have to wait, we pay the same subscription, we deserve to have access to the same content. But we shouldn't have to work for it, so provide it in tourist mode, now, thanks.
If HFC is initially too hard for a group, they can do BRF or Highmaul. Right now, they don't want to, because they did it all in LFR the week it was released. There's nothing new for them to experience.
The problem is not lack of access to raids, but lack of other end game content.
Put the effort currently put into LFR into non-raid content, that provides trickled gear upgrades that will in turn increase access to raid content.
This will give everyone more things to do, reduce the hardline distinction between raiders and casuals, and raid content won't become (as) redundant the moment the next tier comes out.
I'll leave it there for now. But I do think there is a problem with this new paradigm of 3 tier difficulty via additional mechanics, where normal + more mechanics = heroic, and heroic + more mechanics = mythic. That is difficulty via complexity, which is fine for some bosses, but it can feel like a clusterfuck when every boss throws a bazillion mechanics at at you. Half the battle is then reading about abilities and relying on addons.
Image credit: wowhead
Watcher stated that normal difficulty should be suited to Friends and Family groups, where people won't be dropped/punished for performance reasons. So it should cater for those that can not (or will not) get out of the fire or provide sufficient output. I thought that was what LFR was for, but the distinction is obviously solo queuing via the UI versus premade/pug groups.
I continue to believe 4 difficulties of raiding are too many - they make up too much of end game content, and force people who otherwise don't want to raid, into raiding. The solution would be to consolidate LFR and normal into the one difficulty, harder than current LFR and easier than current normal, and provide the means to run it both as a closed group and an open queue. If this is the direction they are headed for Legion, then I can buy into it, and will accept the nerfs for what they are. Not aimed at me, for starters.
There was also the declaration that if they are nerfing mechanics to the point where they can be effectively ignored, then they might as well remove them. A symbolism for LFR as it stands, if you will...
Difficulty in raiding can involve compounding mechanics. A good example is on Socrethar, where Gift of the Man'ari by itself, you can deal with - have the player stand out of the group and heal them. But throw in a Shadow Word Agony and an Apocalypse, and death will occur if mishandled.
So whilst these removed mechanics might have otherwise been reduced to insignificant damage, it could have still caused lethal damage in combination with other abilities. With it removed, that is simply not possible.
Removal of mechanics is a pure difficulty reduction, as opposed to number reductions that allow a greater margin for error.
They also seem intent on reducing personal responsibility, targeting abilities where one player's mistake can wipe the raid.
If this is all aimed at difficulty consolidation, like I said above I can accept that. But I have not seen any indication that this is the case, just community (and my own) speculation. In isolation, I don't like the idea of dumbing down for the sake of access. I don't think LFR provides an accurate representation of the raiding experience, and therefore I'm not in favour of moving normal difficulty towards LFR.
I've always preferred the idea of access/progression through a combination of gear and zone buffs. If normal Hellfire Assault is too hard for a particular guild on release, give them options to obtain better gear over the coming weeks through other end game content, and it will get easier. Then, half way through the raid tier, introduce an increasing HP/damage/healing zone buff, as was done in Icecrown Citadel.
But why should casual players have to wait, we pay the same subscription, we deserve to have access to the same content. But we shouldn't have to work for it, so provide it in tourist mode, now, thanks.
If HFC is initially too hard for a group, they can do BRF or Highmaul. Right now, they don't want to, because they did it all in LFR the week it was released. There's nothing new for them to experience.
The problem is not lack of access to raids, but lack of other end game content.
Put the effort currently put into LFR into non-raid content, that provides trickled gear upgrades that will in turn increase access to raid content.
This will give everyone more things to do, reduce the hardline distinction between raiders and casuals, and raid content won't become (as) redundant the moment the next tier comes out.
Original image credit: hyperbole and a half
I'll leave it there for now. But I do think there is a problem with this new paradigm of 3 tier difficulty via additional mechanics, where normal + more mechanics = heroic, and heroic + more mechanics = mythic. That is difficulty via complexity, which is fine for some bosses, but it can feel like a clusterfuck when every boss throws a bazillion mechanics at at you. Half the battle is then reading about abilities and relying on addons.
Tuesday, 22 September 2015
Raining trinkets
A big turnaround in fortune and a fantastic week in WoW.
At the start of the week, I was still using mythic Blackiron Micro Crucible along with the Chipped Soul Prism from Kazzak.
First up, we hit Iskar and while we still haven't had it drop, I coined a socketed Unblinking Gaze of Sethe. Nice.
Completing the mythic dungeon weekly, I wasn't expecting anything but was rather fortunate to get a warforged Prophecy of Fear.
Now all that was remaining was the class trinket. I've obviously made enough noise about wanting it, and about my lack of luck using personal loot, that my guildies tried to wind me up about it. But we went with master loot after 6 kills using personal, so finally I got a Core of the Primal Elements.
The trinket makes flame shock much more powerful and changes the talent selection and priorities a bit. It might take a few days to get used to, particularly not automatically flame shocking when switching back to a target after killing an add. I'm hoping it will improve my results on some of the earlier bosses, in particular Hellfire Council, where last week Warcraft Logs had me at 75% overall, but only 9% within my bracket, presumably down to the missing trinket. However I think we've reached the point where no-one needs those bosses and they may just get skipped.
I was also fortunate to have a Cursed Demonchain Belt drop from trash, and again socketed. With this and the trinkets, I don't really need anything before Heroic Archimonde, and as we are not doing mythic, all that's really left for me is the kill. After spending 2 hours on him, the only major hurdle left seems to be separating the infernals. Once we get better at that, they should die a lot quicker and we should see him defeated.
A funny moment on normal, I switched to the Void Star because it looked like we wouldn't get out in time to ignore it. I was wrong, everyone else got out, leaving me to eat the Void Star - but I landed on a little ledge off the edge and didn't die. I couldn't get back up, and eventually the Nether Storm surrounded me and killed me, but it was pretty amusing.
To top off my good week with loot, I also knocked off a couple of big ticket items on my to-do list. Firstly, a Highmaul Coliseum group helped me get the Lord of War title and Warlord's Flag of Victory, something I'd long since given up on doing solo. Secondly, the amount of rep you get from mythic dungeons is superb, and both Auchindoun and Everbloom give Laughing Skull rep, so 5-6 runs later I finally got exalted, saving me many, many trips to The Pit and Everbloom Wilds. Finally, I also got wave 30 endless proving grounds on my hunter. I set out to do it on my shaman, but gave up and went and did it on my hunter, as I did in Mists, because it is still so much easier.
At the start of the week, I was still using mythic Blackiron Micro Crucible along with the Chipped Soul Prism from Kazzak.
First up, we hit Iskar and while we still haven't had it drop, I coined a socketed Unblinking Gaze of Sethe. Nice.
Completing the mythic dungeon weekly, I wasn't expecting anything but was rather fortunate to get a warforged Prophecy of Fear.
Now all that was remaining was the class trinket. I've obviously made enough noise about wanting it, and about my lack of luck using personal loot, that my guildies tried to wind me up about it. But we went with master loot after 6 kills using personal, so finally I got a Core of the Primal Elements.
The trinket makes flame shock much more powerful and changes the talent selection and priorities a bit. It might take a few days to get used to, particularly not automatically flame shocking when switching back to a target after killing an add. I'm hoping it will improve my results on some of the earlier bosses, in particular Hellfire Council, where last week Warcraft Logs had me at 75% overall, but only 9% within my bracket, presumably down to the missing trinket. However I think we've reached the point where no-one needs those bosses and they may just get skipped.
I was also fortunate to have a Cursed Demonchain Belt drop from trash, and again socketed. With this and the trinkets, I don't really need anything before Heroic Archimonde, and as we are not doing mythic, all that's really left for me is the kill. After spending 2 hours on him, the only major hurdle left seems to be separating the infernals. Once we get better at that, they should die a lot quicker and we should see him defeated.
A funny moment on normal, I switched to the Void Star because it looked like we wouldn't get out in time to ignore it. I was wrong, everyone else got out, leaving me to eat the Void Star - but I landed on a little ledge off the edge and didn't die. I couldn't get back up, and eventually the Nether Storm surrounded me and killed me, but it was pretty amusing.
To top off my good week with loot, I also knocked off a couple of big ticket items on my to-do list. Firstly, a Highmaul Coliseum group helped me get the Lord of War title and Warlord's Flag of Victory, something I'd long since given up on doing solo. Secondly, the amount of rep you get from mythic dungeons is superb, and both Auchindoun and Everbloom give Laughing Skull rep, so 5-6 runs later I finally got exalted, saving me many, many trips to The Pit and Everbloom Wilds. Finally, I also got wave 30 endless proving grounds on my hunter. I set out to do it on my shaman, but gave up and went and did it on my hunter, as I did in Mists, because it is still so much easier.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
The 1 percent
We've had some interesting new boss kills lately. A couple have been 1-2 players left standing, bringing relief that we didn't miss it by that much. And we also had a few progression kills on the 'last attempt for the night'. It is a pleasant surprise when you figure attention would be wavering and performance slipping at that point. Sometimes with some luck, you just pull it off.
Fel Lord Zakuun is one of those fights where it doesn't take much learning to reach the 'enrage' part of the fight, but then everything gets hectic and being down a couple of players or low on healer mana matters. It then needs time to improve the execution of the fight as a whole to ensure a kill. So it seemed a natural fight where it might happen again.
On our last attempt, we wiped below 1% for the second time of the night - the agony and humour in seeing the last man fall certainly provides a spark to the raid. These close calls make for memorable boss kills when they come, which I'm certain will be next raid.
Fel Lord Zakuun is one of those fights where it doesn't take much learning to reach the 'enrage' part of the fight, but then everything gets hectic and being down a couple of players or low on healer mana matters. It then needs time to improve the execution of the fight as a whole to ensure a kill. So it seemed a natural fight where it might happen again.
On our last attempt, we wiped below 1% for the second time of the night - the agony and humour in seeing the last man fall certainly provides a spark to the raid. These close calls make for memorable boss kills when they come, which I'm certain will be next raid.
Tuesday, 18 August 2015
All the wrong upgrades
New raid week, we started upstairs first and Iskar dropped Surefooted Chain Treads (socketed) which are heroic BiS even without the socket, would have been stupid not to take them. Later, clearing the earlier bosses, Kormrok dropped protector helm and no-one else needed it. I had normal helm so again it would have been stupid not to take it. Both great upgrades, but neither filled the gaps and there goes my EP advantage.
So off to Archimonde normal tonight, and we one shot it. Hoping again for the gavel or class trinket, used my last coin and got nothing but gold.
Off to work on heroic Xhul'horac, made steady progress throughout the night and killed it for the first time on our final attempt. Protector shoulder and Voidcore Greatstaff dropped. The shoulders would be a solid upgrade via a gear shuffle. But the staff was a 685/705 to 715 upgrade with the right stats - a definite priority.
Here's the beef. Tier goes up for bids first as usual, and I bid pending the weapon result. I would have won it, but given an option to take it or leave it, I passed in favour of the weapon. Unfortunately, one of our warlocks also wanted it and, due to the above upgrades, he now had priority. Walked away empty handed and a bit jaded, but got over it soon enough, just gotta take what you can get.
Still need to do something about the weapon though. Was planning on running Kazzak's tomorrow night for Felblight but maintenance has thrown those plans out the window too. Fully expecting Kilrogg to finally drop his weapon the moment I bite the bullet and craft, thus why I'd rather farm the mats than buy them. Just seems a bit silly crafting at this stage when theoretically, so many other options should be available to me.
So off to Archimonde normal tonight, and we one shot it. Hoping again for the gavel or class trinket, used my last coin and got nothing but gold.
Off to work on heroic Xhul'horac, made steady progress throughout the night and killed it for the first time on our final attempt. Protector shoulder and Voidcore Greatstaff dropped. The shoulders would be a solid upgrade via a gear shuffle. But the staff was a 685/705 to 715 upgrade with the right stats - a definite priority.
Here's the beef. Tier goes up for bids first as usual, and I bid pending the weapon result. I would have won it, but given an option to take it or leave it, I passed in favour of the weapon. Unfortunately, one of our warlocks also wanted it and, due to the above upgrades, he now had priority. Walked away empty handed and a bit jaded, but got over it soon enough, just gotta take what you can get.
Still need to do something about the weapon though. Was planning on running Kazzak's tomorrow night for Felblight but maintenance has thrown those plans out the window too. Fully expecting Kilrogg to finally drop his weapon the moment I bite the bullet and craft, thus why I'd rather farm the mats than buy them. Just seems a bit silly crafting at this stage when theoretically, so many other options should be available to me.
Thursday, 13 August 2015
Normal HFC cleared
With the portal to bypass Gorefiend now open to us, there was the possibility of reaching Archimonde on our Sunday normal run. Tyrant only took 1 go, and Mannoroth 2, so we got some time to learn it. It was pretty much straight to phase 3 from the get go, but from there it was untidy. The officers determined we would do better to continue on him the next night with our heroic raid team, rather than trying heroic Xhul'horac. Finally, a chance to spend my EP and get a class trinket, jahaha!
I feel like I've been slipping on performance a bit, relatively, so there were 3 upgrades I was banking on; weapon, tier shoulders (to make 4-set), and the aforementioned class trinket.
For the weapon, I'd been waiting on Fallen Warlord's Mindcarver from Heroic Kilrogg, leaving Kormrok's dagger and Gorefiend's staff (both mastery items) to others - but it hasn't been dropping. I was considering the crafted weapon but went with bracers instead, as I already had a pair with the right stats that became BiS when fully upgraded. It has now reached 'take whatever you can get' stage.
For the tier, I was after the shoulders as I'd already picked up a Jungle Flayer's Chestguard (socketed) for off piece. We went to Xhul'horac first and two protector tokens dropped, but I was outrolled by 2 hunters. Later on, after they picked up 4-set off Socrethar, I was outrolled again on the Mannoroth chest but passed on it for me - not ideal but 4-set nonetheless, I couldn't refuse the gesture. The other chest piece remains in my bags for now.
And so Archimonde... still a chance to pick up a much needed trinket or weapon. We managed to kill him on the last pull of the night, with only a couple of people left standing. We weren't aware that if 3 people don't soak the Nether Banish, Archimonde heals for 5%. Someone made the call for a tank to eat it solo, and it very nearly could have been a sub 1% wipe as a result.
Alas, a trinket was not to be. The raid had favoured personal loot instead of EPGP for that kill, and predictably the rolls did not go my way. Hopefully this week.
I feel like I've been slipping on performance a bit, relatively, so there were 3 upgrades I was banking on; weapon, tier shoulders (to make 4-set), and the aforementioned class trinket.
For the weapon, I'd been waiting on Fallen Warlord's Mindcarver from Heroic Kilrogg, leaving Kormrok's dagger and Gorefiend's staff (both mastery items) to others - but it hasn't been dropping. I was considering the crafted weapon but went with bracers instead, as I already had a pair with the right stats that became BiS when fully upgraded. It has now reached 'take whatever you can get' stage.
For the tier, I was after the shoulders as I'd already picked up a Jungle Flayer's Chestguard (socketed) for off piece. We went to Xhul'horac first and two protector tokens dropped, but I was outrolled by 2 hunters. Later on, after they picked up 4-set off Socrethar, I was outrolled again on the Mannoroth chest but passed on it for me - not ideal but 4-set nonetheless, I couldn't refuse the gesture. The other chest piece remains in my bags for now.
And so Archimonde... still a chance to pick up a much needed trinket or weapon. We managed to kill him on the last pull of the night, with only a couple of people left standing. We weren't aware that if 3 people don't soak the Nether Banish, Archimonde heals for 5%. Someone made the call for a tank to eat it solo, and it very nearly could have been a sub 1% wipe as a result.
Alas, a trinket was not to be. The raid had favoured personal loot instead of EPGP for that kill, and predictably the rolls did not go my way. Hopefully this week.
Wednesday, 5 August 2015
Fulmination chain
I've had 2 pieces of tier 18 for a week or so now. The elemental 2-set bonus states:
These are independent events, meaning two procs in a row, resulting in 3 earth shocks, has a 0.45 x 0.45 = 20.3% or roughly 1 in 5 chance of occurring. This continues as follows:
This did cause a 'holy shit' moment, where I had to bring up the calculator and figure the probability of that happening - 0.034% or a roughly 1 in 2940 chance. I hope to beat that at some point, although I suspect it might be a once in a raid tier level event.
For now I will save my thoughts on the set bonus until after I get my fourth piece and I can see the interaction with the 4 set bonus.
A quick final note, last night I ran LFR to get the last 5 Tomes of Chaos I needed to form the legendary ring Nithramus. I look forward to trying it out, but I am only aware of 2 others in our raid team having it so far, so the full effectiveness won't be visible just yet.
Your Earth Shock has a 45% chance not to consume any Lightning Shield charges and to have its cooldown instantly reset.What this means is that when you earth shock, to drop your lightning shield stacks into a fulmination, a proc allows you to instantly cast it again for the same effect. The extra cast also gives the set bonus another chance to proc, meaning you can get lucky and chain multiple earth shocks/fulminations in a row.
These are independent events, meaning two procs in a row, resulting in 3 earth shocks, has a 0.45 x 0.45 = 20.3% or roughly 1 in 5 chance of occurring. This continues as follows:
4 in a row - 9.1%The first time I had 6 earth shocks in a row I was briefly shocked, until I got a moment to think about it and realised you could easily experience that a couple of times in a raid night. When I had 9 in a row, I thought I probably wouldn't beat that for a while. But on our heroic iskar attempts, I had a new personal record of 11 earth shocks in a row.
5 in a row - 4.1%
6 in a row - 1.8%
and so on.
This did cause a 'holy shit' moment, where I had to bring up the calculator and figure the probability of that happening - 0.034% or a roughly 1 in 2940 chance. I hope to beat that at some point, although I suspect it might be a once in a raid tier level event.
For now I will save my thoughts on the set bonus until after I get my fourth piece and I can see the interaction with the 4 set bonus.
A quick final note, last night I ran LFR to get the last 5 Tomes of Chaos I needed to form the legendary ring Nithramus. I look forward to trying it out, but I am only aware of 2 others in our raid team having it so far, so the full effectiveness won't be visible just yet.
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