Many months ago I wrote a post about earning the Loremaster achievement. No doubt I expounded on the wonderful lore and epic quest chains that exist in WoW (to be frank, I can’t honestly remember what I wrote but you can brush up on my past post here.) Only with the passage of time have I learned the real benefits of the Loremaster achievement. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, let me talk about a friend of mine from work. We’ll call him “Stan”. Stan and I work together making video games. What this usually entails is Stan coming up with the concept of a game and me telling Stan what’s possible with the resources that we have. We usually spend at least an hour a day talking about video games: console, PC, casual, hardcore, it doesn’t matter. I love my job.
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Recently, there has been some talk in the community and here on the Rawrcast about what loot is acceptable to make bind on account (BoA) and what isn’t. BoAs have changed the game, and when Blizzard allowed BoA items to also function as heirlooms, WoW took a major step forward in my opinion, but where should it end? When does a piece of gear really need to be bound to a player, and when should it be ok to allow it to be shared with another player on your account?
Quest Rewards
Let’s first take a look at the gear that should not, under any circumstances, be BoA. In my opinion, the only gear that should never be BoA are quest items. Quests are available to all of your toons, and anything one toon can quest to receive, any of the others can quest for as well. Quest rewards always end up in 1 of 2 places eventually, the vendor or as enchanting mats. Sure you may equip a quest reward for a few levels, but eventually they all get disenchanted or vendored when it is no longer of any use to you. Allowing a player to send quest rewards to an alt could, conceivably, flood the enchanting market even more than it already is thanks to the changes for disenchanting gear in 3.3. Read more…
This week Haf and Stomp share the same frustration that many raiders are feeling right now… As content is getting a bit more difficult, some raiders are getting frustrated and changing their perspective on what they want out of raiding. Keeping the guild focused on progression and kinship is challenging, but Bound is determined to beef up their raid roster and bolster their exceptional players!
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Music provided by:: Across the Sun – May Silence Keep You
Season 8 is about to begin January 26th. We should all be planning for the next season and that means stacking up on honor and honor saving devices. The two servers I play on, Shattered Hand Alliance and Staghelm Horde, are both greatly outnumbered by the opposite faction. The battle groups also seem to have a good losing streak on their hands. So when I run a battleground I try and go with friends and we seem to almost turn the tides and win with a group of 4-5 people. Here are a few strategies for each battleground that have worked for me.
Warsong Gulch
The basic strategy for this battleground is to have 2 people go for the flag while the other 8 rush to the middle and prevent the other team from entering from the ramp or the tunnel. In a perfect world you would have 3 healers, 1 tank, and 7 dps but most likely you won’t get that but chances are also neither will the other team. The best flag carrying team would be and healer/healer, healer/dps, or healer tank combo, and your defense group should consist of at least 1 healer but if you don’t have that no big deal. Try and prevent the defense from pushing too far forward to the point where you are “camping the graveyard”. Keep everyone posted between the tunnel and ramp, rinse and repeat 3 times, and you should have a win. The strategy is easy as that. Read more…
I write about it all the time on this site. The thrill of boss encounters, the subtle value of applying one debuff over another, and the singular importance of situational awareness. Raiding is one of my passions in WoW, there is no other activity in game that comes close to bringing together large groups of people for a collective goal. Unfortunately, raiding is also very stressful. Players get burnt out, and raiders can have off nights. This is precisely why I have a handful of secret alts to play.
Secret alts (SA’s for short) are characters that you have in game, on the same server as your main that no one in your raiding guild knows about. Think of them as a refuge away from the pressures and drama that can sometimes accompany raiding. On your SA, you can be as big of a noob as you want to with no one holding you accountable. Want to spend all of your time fishing? Go for it! Interested in trying out a new roll in 5 man dungeons? Perfect.
The downside to SA’s is that you don’t have the support of your guild when you’re on this alt. That means no guild bank, no face rolls through instances, etc. Also, expect to pay the opportunity cost of not being around on when your guild decides to knock out a quick 10 man. There have been many of those, “Wish you were here moments…” when I was hiding out on my secret alt. That said, there is nothing that beats whispering a friend in game and striking up a conversation when he has absolutely no idea who you are.
While responding to Mullets on Twitter, it dawned on me just how many players are DPS because of the overwhelming amount of information we have to take in before we ever step into an instance to tank. Things like defense, mitigation, avoidance, attack tables, and gemming can all be a bit too much for the virgin tank. If Blizzard were to ask me, and we all know they do that almost everyday right, I would point to all of these reasons contributing what is perceived as the tank shortage. They obviously have some idea because they believe getting rid of defense as a stat will help increase the pool of players who might try and tank for the first time, but no matter what Blizzard does, and I appreciate all the help, tanking is a lot like sex. No matter how ready you think you are, it’s always awkward the first time.
The Defense Threshold
I will refrain from calling the defense number anything but a threshold. It is only the magical number for entry into the tanking ranks. For a heroic, it is 535, and for raids, it is 540. You can go over these numbers, and they will provide you with additional perks like more dodge, block, and parry, but are you likely to find better use for your stat allocation once you reach your thresholds. Defense thresholds are the only number a starter tank should make himself crazy to obtain. Read more…
This week Haf and Stomp are back with loads of news from around the World of Warcraft community, and updates about their current progression in their guild – Bound-Staghelm. Some exiting new updates have been made to the WoW Armory which provokes an interesting discussion about Blizzard’s habit of picking up features that other sites and resources have already developed, then labeling it “NEW”, while still leaving many wondering why it still isn’t as good or complete as it’s successors.
Tell us what you think about the topics covered on this week’s show by sending an e-mail to hugesack@rawrcast.com! And, while you are there, check out the sponsors who support and promote the show.
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Links to topics discussed this week:
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Music provided by:: Across the Sun – Ardent Optimist
Ardent Optimist
Last night as I was checking out Recount for each of our attempts on Professor Putricide, it occurred to me that there is another number located on the add on that counts as much (if not more) than a player’s actual damage per second. I’m referring to the total percentage of damage that you are dealing to the boss. This number looks at the overall damage being dealt by the entire raid to the boss and then calculates what percentage you are contributing to total DPS. For example, last night I was contributing 5.8% of the total raid dps (in 25 man ICC, in 10 man, a player’s percentages will undoubtedly be higher).
Now, this number obviously factors in your total DPS but it also captures several other metrics that are difficult to otherwise quantify. For instance, a high percentage of damage done to the boss may show that a player is effectively using DOT’s when forced to move around during the raid. Raid design places a premium on movement and for many dps classes, movement can break up rotations and lower overall dps. It’s important for all the DPS in a raid to have “filler” spells that can act as a bridge when moving around during a fight so your overall DPS numbers don’t tank. Read more…
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