Super WOW Guide

Archive for the ‘Blessing of Kings’ Category

I was surprised the other day when I logged in a found that I had advice in the mail from a long-time, though anonymous, reader:

I thought I’d go through this faithful reader’s concerns, and talk about my choices about my current gear. (Points slightly rearranged for ease of response.)

Your armory makes me cringe. Drop the MP5 and SP gems and the MP5 enchants. Utter garbage. Gem pure int with 1 Nightmare Tear in the helm.

This is the major point where I differ with what I see as established Holy paladin theorycraft. Most high-end paladins gem, and even enchant, pure intellect. Personally, I like getting socket bonuses, so I use SP/Int, Int, and Int/MP5 gems. So far I haven’t had any issues with mana. But if I was to change anything, this would be it.

I’m not really sure what MP5 enchants are being discussed. The only MP5 enchants I have are the faction head/shoulder SP/MP5 ones. As far as I know, MP5 is considered better than crit, so these enchants are the ones to use.

Get the 245 libram from Triumph Emblems. It’s BiS.

I use [Libram of Renewal]. My loyal reader suggests using [Libram of Veracity] instead. I am somewhat puzzled by this. The point of gemming full Intellect is to spam Holy Light. Holy Light spam costs a lot of mana, and reducing the cost of HL by 10% is very powerful. Plus HL spam tends to have high overheal, so extra spellpower often just increases your overheal.

Pick up another 400 Haste. Stop wearing MP5 gear. Crafted legs are BiS. 60 Frost gloves are BiS. Crafted boots are BiS

These are pretty good suggestions. To be honest, I kind of just take gear as it drops. I don’t do 10-mans, though, so I’m relatively behind on badges.

Consider a 51/5/15 spec for better HPS and efficiency.

I use a 51/20/0 spec for Divine Guardian. I think Divine Guardian is a really powerful cooldown that is extremely useful.

Drop Glyph of BoL, it’s garbage. HS or FoL is the way to go.

I disagree here, Glyph of Beacon of Light is a better choice. It saves a bit of mana, saves a GCD every so often, and most importantly, staggers your BoL and SS refreshes. Taking two GCDs in a row to refresh buffs is a long time between heals. As for the other two, HL is the spell of choice, so buffing the other two is less valuable. Better to buff the spells you use most often, and Beacon is always up.

Drop enchanting for JC.

My second profession is already Jewelcrafting. Seems kind of silly to drop Enchanting at this point.

Seriously, after you got denied from Reclaimed I thought you would at least try to fix your !@#$. It just bothers my soul that you have a blog and give people advice when your own character is such a wreck. I feel bad for your guild. You at least owe it to them to research your class and play correctly.

Heh, Reclaimed was two years ago. I’m somewhat surprised that someone would remember and consider it important enough to reference. Or take time to look up my armor, make notes, create a character on my server and send me an anonymous mail with advice.

Still, the “bothers my soul” line is a tad over-wrought.

It’s always useful to see what better players are doing. Let’s take a look at Diamondtear of Paragon.

The immediate difference I see is that Diamondtear gems and enchants pure intellect, and does gear for haste (though she uses the same legs that I do). Otherwise, we use the same faction enchants, use the same libram, and have similar specs and glyphs.

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The Original Bargain

THQ and Penny Arcade kicked off a debate last week on used games. Tycho compared used games to straight-out piracy, and got a lot of heat for that view. Here is my perspective on the issue.

Our society created a bargain called copyright between creators and consumers. Creators got certain rights, such as the sole ability to make and distribute copies and derivate works for a set period of time. Consumers got certain rights, such as the right to sell or lend their copy to another person, and to quote snippets of the work in other works, such as essays.

By and large, this bargain worked pretty decently up until the end of the last century. Creators got enough rights that they could make a living selling their work. Consumers did not get penalized for using works in a normal manner. Aside from maybe Disney’s efforts to extend the term of copyright for far longer than originally set, the copyright bargain was fair to both sides.

But this bargain was forged when all creative works were physical media. Digital media, on the other hand, differs from physical media in subtle ways. That difference may be enough that the old bargain is no longer fair to one of the sides.

Differences Between Physical and Digital Media

There are two major differences between physical media and digital media.

First, physical media can degrade. Why buy a new book instead of a used book? Well, for one thing, the new copy is pristine. A used book might have water stains, or torn or dog-eared pages. Some barbarous philistine may have underlined or highlighted sections.

That concept of pristine doesn’t really apply to digital media. Pardon the pun, but digital media is rather binary: it either works or it doesn’t. Your game either installs and runs, or it doesn’t.

Second, copying physical media is expensive. Copying a paper book is an arduous process for an individual consumer. There’s no concept of making a backup copy of a book, or a transformative copy to a different format.

Copying and manipulating digital media, in contrast, is trivial. That’s pretty much the whole purpose of computers: to copy and manipulate data.

Because copying physical media is so expensive, copyright’s restrictions on copying really only affected the corporations and not the end consumer. But digital media changed all that.

Conclusions

These two differences have put more pressure on the creator side of the bargain. It is important that the bargain is fair to both sides. The harder it is for creators to make money, the fewer works that will be created. There is such a thing as “killing the goose which laid the golden eggs.” At the same time though, making end consumers jump through hoops is just going to annoy everyone.

I think that the differences between physical and digital media are strong enough that the copyright bargain may need to be adjusted. For example, maybe we could ban resale and lending, but cut the copyright term to 5 or 10 years. So the creators can make more money, but only for a shorter time.

If we had a political class worth a damn, maybe they would look at this issue and hammer out a reasonable compromise. But we don’t, so we’ll just muddle along, trying to force the old bargain to apply in a world that it is not suited to.

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There are four aspects involved in crafting:

1. Gathering knowledge – This is learning how to craft items. It can be finding recipes, or trial and error, or even random chance.
2. Gathering raw materials – This is getting the ingredients necessary to make the final item.
3. Transmutation – this is the specific process of converting the raw materials to the finished product.
4. Using the created item – Using the item for it’s intended (and maybe unintended) function.

Different games emphasise different aspects. For example, in A Tale in the Desert, Transmutation is a complicated process, essentially a mini-game within the game. In contrast, WoW abstracts Transmutation to a single press of a button. In WoW, the game associated with crafting is primarily focused on the first two aspects of acquiring knowledge and raw materials.

A lot of people dislike this choice, and feel that Transmutation should be more involved. I am not so sure that this is the case. An interesting mini-game is fun the first time you make the item, but it what about the tenth or hundredth time? Not to mention that it is inconvenient for potential customers. If I get some new gear and need 5 gems cut, I don’t really want to wait for my jewelcrafter guildie to struggle through 5 games of a Bejeweled clone, maybe even failing some of them. I much prefer getting the raw materials, giving them to her, and getting cut gems almost immediately.

I think where WoW’s crafting really falls down is actually Aspect 4: Using the Item.

Initially, WoW is character progression through level. But at the level cap, it switches to character progression through gear. But that progression is controlled through the Bind-on-Pickup mechanism. Bind-on-Pickup ensures that a player needs to actually complete content to have their character improve. While there is a smattering of items you can buy, or alternate ways to earn gear like daily heroics, the vast majority of good gear can only be gained by going out and defeating content.

The problem is that currently crafting cannot partake of the bind-on-pickup mechanism. As I’ve mentioned before, WoW crafting is missing an action: a crafter cannot create a Bind-on-Pickup item for another character using Bind-On-Pickup raw materials that the other character has acquired.

Crucially, an NPC can do this. That’s why crafting is sidelined in end-game, and NPCs hand out emblem gear. Crafting is missing that crucial verb that would allow it to be used in the endgame content.

If a crafter could make Bind-On-Pickup items for another player, that would open the door to a lot of possibilities. For example, Tier armor could be crafted entirely, given that it is already tokenized. Raid bosses could drop recipes, and players would gather raw materials along with special boss drops and take them to a crafter to get their tier gear. You could even restrict recipes to specific classes. Imagine if you had to find a paladin blacksmith to forge Lightsworn Battlegear.

Such a scheme would make crafting armor–not just consumables–an integral part of endgame once again. I think it would also feel better. To see what I mean, compare turning tokens to a vendor to gathering raw materials (could have a field day with what you need to collect) and getting armor forged by a blacksmith who learned the forgotten recipes deep inside the epic dungeon. On one level, both methods are really the same thing, but on another level, the latter would be so much more stylish.

Much better than getting to play a random Tetris-clone every time you want to cut a gem.

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Hopefully, roleplayers won’t feel too insulted by this post.

Kill Ten Rats has an article up asking why there isn’t more role-playing in Dungeons and Dragons Online? We can extend the question to ask why–since MMOs stem from pen-and-paper (PnP) roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons–relatively few people roleplay in MMOs?

I’m going to say that it is because roleplaying in an MMO is fundamentally different than roleplaying in a PnP game. And the difference is significant enough that the majority playerbase sees MMO roleplaying as mere affectation, irrelevant window dressing that kind of misses the point of the underlying game.

The thing is that the point of pen-and-paper roleplaying is “conflict resolution in character”. You play a character, you are presented with conflicts, and you resolve them in character. It’s sometimes hard to see this in D&D because so much of the rulesbase concerns itself with combat. But if you look at indie PnP games such as Dogs in the Vineyard, where conflict resolution is more abstract, it becomes really obvious.

But in an MMO, you can be in-character all you want, but you cannot resolve conflicts in character. You are limited to the options provided to you and the need to share the same world with other players. You can try and spin “extra” conflicts between other players, but those do not have same weight as the conflicts the game itself provides. It’s not “roleplaying” per se, it’s just amateur theatrics.

(As normal, we pause to insert the standard EvE Online disclaimer. This is mostly because EvE Online gives players the tools to resolve said conflicts: ship-to-ship missiles.)

So I think that role-playing is not really relevant to MMOs, and isn’t really something that should be expected from the players, regardless of the lineage of the genre. If players want to indulge in RP, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think it is something that game developers need to spend time worrying about. And I don’t think that the presence or absence of a roleplaying community has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of an MMO.

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My guild, Ad Infinitum, is trying to make a last push for Heroic Lich King before Cataclysm comes. We’re looking for some people to fill out our raid.

Specifically, we’re looking for priests and mages, but we’re always willing to talk to good players of any class.

We’re 11/12 Heroic ICC. We’re a Pacific Standard Time guild on US-Lethon, which is a low-pop PvP realm. We raid 25-mans 3 days a week (Wednesday, Sunday, Monday) from 7pm – 11pm PST.

There’s also several 10-mans throughout the week and an alt 25-man on Fridays.

If you’re at all interested, please take a look at our website and apply. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or comment on this post.

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You know, I really like the way the warrior tank plays in Wrath. At least at level 66, which is where my lowbie tank has gotten to.

There are two major things I like about warrior tanking. First is Charge. Warbringer is one of the best talents in the game. Charging into combat is fun. Charging around during combat is fun. Charging into the next pack when the current pack is almost dead is extremely fun.

The second thing is Thunderclap and Shockwave. The thing about these skills that I like is that they very much reward you for timing things well. There’s a satisfaction from Thunderclapping at the exact right time to get every mob in the group. Or lining up the perfect Shockwave and stunning everything just right.

It’s not like Thunderclap and Shockwave are hard to use. But you can make mistakes with them. And that makes using them correctly valuable.

All in all, I really like the way the warrior tank plays in Wrath. I hope it doesn’t change too much in Cataclysm.

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I came across a couple of interesting articles by Megan McArdle of The Atlantic where she talks about a new trend of employers using FICO (credit) scores to weed out job candidates.

This situation immediately reminded me of Gearscore, and the way the WoW PuG community often uses Gearscore to determine who gets into raids.

(For those who don’t know, Gearscore is a mod which examines a character’s gear and gives a single value score that represents the quality of the gear. The higher ilevel, the higher your Gearscore.

FICO is a credit score that represents your credit-worthiness. It’s the main score used in the United State. It is generally used when people are deciding if they should lend you money. Low scores generally mean that you have trouble paying back loans, or have declared bankruptcy, and are likely to be a bigger risk for a loan.)

In the articles, employers are using these credit scores as a general proxy for your overall trustworthiness, just like raid leaders use Gearscore as a general proxy for your skill as a raider.

In both situations, the measurement is a weak proxy for what the evaluators really want. It’s easy to imagine that someone with a poor credit score might still be a good employee, or someone with a lower Gearscore might still know how to play.

But there are reasons that these scores are used. It’s too easy to say that using Gearscore or FICO score is wrong, and so raid leaders or employers should be forbidden from using it.

First, it’s fast and obvious. A FICO score of 300 is worse than one of 800. GS 4k is worse than GS 5k.

Second, the best method to determine competence is unfeasible. The best method is by giving the potential employee or raider a trial. But this is just not possible due to logistical constraints. Even the second or third-best methods are not viable. For raiding, high end raid guilds often require proof in the form of logs, or will ask the candidate questions in an interview process. You just don’t have time to do this when making a PuG.

Third, you cannot trust the potential employee or raider. People lie on their resumes all the time, and due to litigation concerns, most previous employers won’t do much more than confirm employment dates. Similarly, all raiders say they know the fights and will do top DPS.

Finally, it is better to be wrong in one direction than to be wrong in the other. For example, when picking up a PuG raider, there are two different ways a raid leader can be wrong. He can turn down a good player, or he can pick up a bad players. The consequences for picking up a bad raider are much higher, and so the raider leader will pick a method that minimizes the chances of that outcome, even if it increases the chances of the other wrong outcome.

The same thing happens with employment. It is generally considered better to turn down a good employee than hire a poor one.

I find the two parallel situations to be very intriguing. It’s always interesting when a real world issue comes up independently in a controlled game world.

Note that I don’t actually use Gearscore. It’s a chatty mod, and I dislike taking a chance of being disconnected in raids. But I still understand why people do use Gearscore.

If I had to make a Gearscore-like mod, what I would actually do is evaluate gems/enchants against spec. The more optimal your gems/enchants for your spec, the higher your score. In my experience, people who care enough to keep their gear in good condition, regardless of the underlying ilevel, are more likely to be successful raiders.

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I figured out what was bothering me about Cataclysm tree design.

If you look at the first row of talents, Blizzard usually has 2x 3pt talents and a 2pt talent. That means that if you want to only spend 5 points in the first row to get to the second, you get the 2pt and one of the 3pts.

However, in a lot of cases, the 2pt talent is “more optional” than the 3pt talents. If you look at the current paladin trees, Ret has Eye for an Eye at 2pts, and Prot has Imp Hammer of Justice. Both of those are more PvP talents, and somewhat less attractive to other specs.

Because of this, you tend to be pushed towards taking both 3pts in the first row, leaving you with only 4 points for the second row. So you can take a 3 or 2pt talent, and then you’re left with 1 or 2 points and very few options to cap out. No matter what, if you are subspeccing, you cannot take 2 3pt talents in the second row.

I think talent trees would flow a little better if the 2pt talent was “less optional” than the 3pt talents. That way, you’d grab the 2pt and choose which 3pt you liked, making the next tier easier to finish. And you’d less likely to have 1 point left dangling in a standard 31/10 build.

For example, in Retribution, I think that tree would flow better if Crusade was 2pts and Eye for an Eye was 3pts. Then PvP/Prot would take Eye for an Eye and Crusade, and Holy and Ret would take Rule of Law and Crusade, and that would give everyone 5 points for the second row of Ret or for the first row in Prot.

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The Dev chat on Friday revealed the new paladin mechanic for Cataclysm, Holy Power:

All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:
An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:
1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast).

It looks like the closest mechanic to this is rogue combo points. Certain of our abilities generate Holy Power, and other abilities will consume all of it, and have an effect proportional to the number of points consumed.

However, where the rogue is focused on combo points, and most GCDs are used either generating or consuming combo points, Holy Power looks to be layered over top of our regular abilities. Paladins look to generate a point of Holy Power every 4-6 seconds using our normal rotation, and use a Holy Power finisher roughly every 12-18 seconds.

I guess that this is intended to make paladin gameplay a little more dynamic, and we weave in Holy Power finishers every so often, or maybe even save them for times when we need burst.

On paper, this seems pretty good. We’ll have to see how this plays out. There is always the possibility that tactics getting a 3-stack of Holy Power, then running to a new PVP target and unloading a full-power Templar’s Verdict will be deemed overpowered. (And naturally, hotfixed 24 hours after Cataclysm’s release.)

The other thing I like are the new paladin ability names. Word of Glory, Inquistion, Templar’s Verdict, and Light of Dawn (new cone healing spell mentioned in the Dev chat) are very nice paladin names that avoid resorting to the words Holy, Judgment, Light, Righteousness, and Divine.

On the other hand, “Holy Power” is a rather bland name, and could stand to be spiced up. I suggest using a name that paladins have been waiting to see in WoW since Diablo 2: Zeal.

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There are beta talent trees up at WoWTal.

Honestly, the trees are still a great state of flux, so it’s really too early to comment on them. In general, I like the paladin trees so far.

The only comment I have is that I keep making builds for many different classes and specs, and I always seem to have 1 talent point left over, and 2/3-point talents to use it in. So I have to partially fill a talent, which I’ve never really liked doing.

Maybe it’s just a general problem with the numbers used to make the talent trees, but it seems kind of odd to be happening so often.

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