I avoid breaking classes into different specs for the save of simplicity and brevity, so deal! I basically went with the dueling spec that is generically the most powerful except in the case of druids where resto and feral are so different in how they perform.
Basically, class rank is followed by underdog which lists the matchups the class is an underdog to win and that is then followed by difficult which lists dueling matchups that are about 50-50.
Note these are my opinion as a WE mage, so it's EXTREMELY biased. Also, this is before the latest PvP trinket change which will change this list a bit.
1. FG Lock
Underdog: None
Difficult: BM Hunters, WE Mages
2. BM Hunter
Underdog: FG Lock, WE Mages
Difficult: None *
* These fights seem pretty lopsided to me. ^^
3. WE Mage
Underdog: FG Lock, Disc Priest, Prep Rogues**
Difficult: Resto Druids, Resto Shamans, BM Hunters
** Prep rogues are really somewhere in between these two classifications.
4. Disc Priest
Underdog: FG Lock, BM Hunter, Prep Rogue, Feral Druid
Difficult: WE Mage, Warriors
5. Prep Rogue
Underdog: FG Lock, BM Hunter
Difficult: WE Mage, Disc Priest, Feral Druid, Resto Shaman
6. Feral Druid
Underdog: FG Lock, BM Hunter, WE Mage, Prep Rogue
Difficult: Warriors, Disc Priest, Resto Shaman
7. Resto Druid
Underdog: FG Lock, BM Hunter, Disc Priest, Prep Rogue, Feral Druid
Difficult: BM Hunters, WE Mages, Warrior
8. Resto Shaman
Underdog: FG Lock, Disc Priest, Prep Rogue, BM Hunter
Difficult: WE Mages, Feral Druids, Warrior
9. Warriors
Underdog: FG Lock, WE Mage, BM Hunter, Disc Priest, Prep Rogue
Difficult: Feral Druid
10. Ret Pally
Underdog: Everything but Warriors
Difficult:
Of course, you can disagree with a lot of this list, but it is somewhat interesting to think of things like this. The middle of the pack seems a lot more balanced than I generally think.
Oh I suppose the point of this was to try to think about game balance outside of one's own class, which is not necessarily easy to do even when you play multiple characters.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
New Domain!
Now, you can find this blog at: www.radikalnoise.com
This isn't a big deal if you're already here reading this I guess...but in case you can't remember the whole blogspot part or are giving the link to a friend, it's a bit easier to remember. ^^
I promise some good updates these next few days as I've had a lot of stuff on my mind just haven't put in together on here.
Random Updates:
This isn't a big deal if you're already here reading this I guess...but in case you can't remember the whole blogspot part or are giving the link to a friend, it's a bit easier to remember. ^^
I promise some good updates these next few days as I've had a lot of stuff on my mind just haven't put in together on here.
Random Updates:
- Game Over will be 5sing tonight at 7 server if you care.
- You can find a good chunk of FH currently AFK in AV...err I mean playing AV.
- New World of Ming looks to launch soon, it looks "interesting" lol
- Hopefully, today's PTR patch brings info on the new items. I'll put them up here if mmo-champion isn't too speedy.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Arena Season 2 Upgrades?
I expect we'll see all classes out pretty shortly, but thanks to wowhead btw, note the improvement going from season 1 to season 2 for warriors:
+639 armor
+36 strength
+31 stamina
+22 crit rating
+18 hit rating
+6 resilience
Identical Set Bonuses, Sockets, and Socket Bonuses
If you head over to Ming's Blog, he talks about the trinket change along with the upgraded warrior set. Suffice to say, mine and his opinion on resilience are totally antithetical. I think that the stat will scale with stamina well, but it doesn't seem like that stamina is scaling anywhere near as much as I had expected with season 2 gear. I had expected 1-2k more hp on the sets, not 300.
I really wish PvP gear was just best geared towards PvP than it is. Here is what I feel would be a justifiable upgrade going from season 1 to season 2 gear for a mage, prepare for imbalance and then disappointment when the real info comes out.
+85 Armor (Why not)
+25 Stamina
+20 Intellect
+35 Spell Damage
+20 Spell Penetration
+150 Spell Haste Rating
+15 Resilience
Basically, slap 5 stam and 4 int on every piece of glad gear; this alleviates the atrocious stam/int ratio that already exists on our arena gear plus provide a sizable upgrade to the core stats. Tack on 7 damage per average per slot as well. Toss 10 penetration on 2 of the pieces as the stat is basically free in item points cost, and that stat is basically absent from all of TBC gear. Now toss on 3 resilience per piece as well.
I like spell haste as a stat; I understand that it is primarily a PvE stat and as someone who you frequently see dueling without using a single casting time spell (LOL), what's the point of spell haste? 150 spell haste is ~10% casting speed, which is hardly game breaking in PvP. I just like the idea of casters going back to casting more, and the only way this is happening is with shorter cast times; plus it speeds up gameplay, forces people to react more quickly to CS/Kick heals and let's any healer or caster stay slightly more agile. I think it's a good stat for PvP, the problem of course being PvErs taking their spell haste glad gear into Black Temple.
Beyond doing that, allow mages to have 2 sets of gear available to them in arena with glove bonuses that appeal to each spec or change the glove bonus to be more general. Why not -2 seconds off CS cooldown or something that mages of any spec would get use out of?
I don't mean to mope/whine, just ranting about how I'd like to see the arena gear full of the new stats: spell haste and armor avoidance are both stats that really call out to be included on PvP gear, it's a shame if they remain PvE only stats.
It seems like everyone is saying deathcoil won't be removed by PvP Trinket next patch, thus you can ignore my earlier comments on how it isn't a big deal anyways; now that we can't remove it, it is of course a HUGE deal and I'm taking this issue straight to the WoW forums.
+639 armor
+36 strength
+31 stamina
+22 crit rating
+18 hit rating
+6 resilience
Identical Set Bonuses, Sockets, and Socket Bonuses
If you head over to Ming's Blog, he talks about the trinket change along with the upgraded warrior set. Suffice to say, mine and his opinion on resilience are totally antithetical. I think that the stat will scale with stamina well, but it doesn't seem like that stamina is scaling anywhere near as much as I had expected with season 2 gear. I had expected 1-2k more hp on the sets, not 300.
I really wish PvP gear was just best geared towards PvP than it is. Here is what I feel would be a justifiable upgrade going from season 1 to season 2 gear for a mage, prepare for imbalance and then disappointment when the real info comes out.
+85 Armor (Why not)
+25 Stamina
+20 Intellect
+35 Spell Damage
+20 Spell Penetration
+150 Spell Haste Rating
+15 Resilience
Basically, slap 5 stam and 4 int on every piece of glad gear; this alleviates the atrocious stam/int ratio that already exists on our arena gear plus provide a sizable upgrade to the core stats. Tack on 7 damage per average per slot as well. Toss 10 penetration on 2 of the pieces as the stat is basically free in item points cost, and that stat is basically absent from all of TBC gear. Now toss on 3 resilience per piece as well.
I like spell haste as a stat; I understand that it is primarily a PvE stat and as someone who you frequently see dueling without using a single casting time spell (LOL), what's the point of spell haste? 150 spell haste is ~10% casting speed, which is hardly game breaking in PvP. I just like the idea of casters going back to casting more, and the only way this is happening is with shorter cast times; plus it speeds up gameplay, forces people to react more quickly to CS/Kick heals and let's any healer or caster stay slightly more agile. I think it's a good stat for PvP, the problem of course being PvErs taking their spell haste glad gear into Black Temple.
Beyond doing that, allow mages to have 2 sets of gear available to them in arena with glove bonuses that appeal to each spec or change the glove bonus to be more general. Why not -2 seconds off CS cooldown or something that mages of any spec would get use out of?
I don't mean to mope/whine, just ranting about how I'd like to see the arena gear full of the new stats: spell haste and armor avoidance are both stats that really call out to be included on PvP gear, it's a shame if they remain PvE only stats.
It seems like everyone is saying deathcoil won't be removed by PvP Trinket next patch, thus you can ignore my earlier comments on how it isn't a big deal anyways; now that we can't remove it, it is of course a HUGE deal and I'm taking this issue straight to the WoW forums.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Hello Mouth, Let Me Introduce Foot
So about that June 12th date...
So the season runs for an extra week, I suppose it gives the slackers out there more time to BG farm it up for season 2 honor gear. Hopefully, we'll get a glimpse of the new arena and pvp gear this weekend on PTR and can plan accordingly.
I have some pretty radical ideas on ideas I want to try in arena in the next few weeks, and yes that was a play on "radikal" and for that I truly apologize, but I'm not going to rant about them all just yet without getting some testing in to see how they play out.
As you know with this site, I love to have a half dozen "incomplete" things floating around; I am aware that they remain unfinished, I often come back read them over again and again and realize I'm not really ready to finish them up.
I apologize for the lack of cogency in today's post by the way, no sleep for days and too much red bull:
Dueling
So the season runs for an extra week, I suppose it gives the slackers out there more time to BG farm it up for season 2 honor gear. Hopefully, we'll get a glimpse of the new arena and pvp gear this weekend on PTR and can plan accordingly.
I have some pretty radical ideas on ideas I want to try in arena in the next few weeks, and yes that was a play on "radikal" and for that I truly apologize, but I'm not going to rant about them all just yet without getting some testing in to see how they play out.
As you know with this site, I love to have a half dozen "incomplete" things floating around; I am aware that they remain unfinished, I often come back read them over again and again and realize I'm not really ready to finish them up.
I apologize for the lack of cogency in today's post by the way, no sleep for days and too much red bull:
- Raddy : Red Bull ::
- Lindsay Lohan : Cocaine
- Yao Ming : Rogue PvP
- In Flames : PvP Video
- Warlocks : Mushrooms
- If you guessed (A), you are CORRECT. Remember when solving analogies to express the word pair in a sentence. Red Bull is something Raddy likes to consume.
Dueling
- Obviously a huge buff for gnome mages who can simply EA the opening snare and save PvP trinket for blind. For non-gnomes, you can now more safely IB early, even IB the garotte without fear of blind, just make to get the vanish deny. If you've been playing the fight the way I do the majority of the time, which is PvP trinket early to gain distance, get some practice with other rogue dueling strats.
- This should put all hunters who try to trap -> aimed, silence, multi, scatter, trap blah blah totally utterly on farm. It won't be a difference maker against someone like Valanmor who Vipe kites with BM and snakes.
- Feral druids get hit very hard by this. You can use IB on the second cyclone now, and really feral druids don't have time to sit in caster form all day trying to cyclone you while your pet is ripping into them. This fight is getting easier. You can even be weird and PvP trinket a bash if you want to keep up the pressure without spending a global (and the mana) on Blink.
- I actually don't think this will help us non-UD mages against locks very much. I think as UD you'll be able to do things differently now. Can pretty much ignore fake casts and just will or IB when you get feared, depending on how DoT'd you are, gaurantee a good CS and keep up pressure; for non UD mages, I don't see us having enough fear breaks where trinketing a deathcoil provides any real advantage over Ice Blocking it and then trinketing the next fear. Also, we can no longer sheep lock and kill FG which was probably the most effective SL-FG strat, so this matchup overall probably got a little worse for us with the change.
- No change with priests, warriors, pallies.
- Shamans are going to have to trinket that first nova either way, so I'm skeptical it is going to make a difference really.
- The best part is getting out of cyclone. This might really save you if you're cycloned at low health to enable your teammates to get a big heal off. Or when you're going for the kill, you can quickly trinket the cyclone and keep up DPS. This will be great. ^^
- As for how it affects our own CC, it makes no difference at all really.
- Generally speaking, poly and fear are the OMG long arena CC. You're going to be trinketing these two the majority of the time so no major change there.
- In small arena, being able to get out of blind/sap is pretty huge. I think small arena against rogues ,and to some extent druids, is where this change REALLY shows.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Wrapping Up Season 1
It looks like Blizz will keep its word, and barring some unforeseen delays, season one wraps up next Tuesday. One last week to scramble for those top spots: it's going to be definite chaos on some battlegroups. (LIKE OURS!!)
I'm not going to get into a dreary, emo, self-deprecating, reflective "how the season went" thing, don't worry...YET. I will say that I'm pretty happy with the game overall -- dueling on test was a blast, I'm really feeling Game Over's current lineup, and I'm proud of the FH's overall success in arena this season. With SC2 beta on the horizon, I'm sure a lot of the players who are serious into PvP are looking to jump ship to a game where competitive high level plays comes more naturally, and I'm certainly of that mindset myself a bit, but I'm genuinely psyched for Season 2 to get going and to play against our Stormstrike rivals seriously once again.
Oh and in case if you haven't noticed, this is a LOT more "my PvP diary" than my normal content, so you can either skip the rest or keep reading, but I promise you'll find no "real" content.
We didn't get a chance to play too many games on Tuesday. Tuesday is generally the most active day for playing, so it was a bit surprising to not run into any of the top few teams, but I'm sure this weekend we'll all be clashing. We instead played against one of our rival FH teams a few times; its a matchup that we dominate I think, but a DC loss and a pretty big spread in ratings lead the games to being only slightly better than a wash. This is where I complain about how I've played in 30+ 4v5 games all season and only in one 5v4, but that would be REALLY whiny and I'd never do that. We played a half dozen 0-rating games before competition totally dried up and we had to call it a night; it's really unfortunate that, due to various RL conflicts, we really can't play much this week at all (MY FAULT) and we're pretty dependent on the top few teams playing this weekend if we want to catch up, hopefully they'll give us a chance.
As it currently stands, I feel that we're the favorites to win any matchup, though DeadMatch, NiP, and Yeah We Lift I'm sure disagree. ^^ My point isn't to be an arrogant prick, but just that the 4DPS matrix feels really solid. It really is more fun to play for me as well; you really are actively controlling the match instead of just poly juggling, bursting a bit, and waiting on your priest to manaburn the opposition to grind out the victory. 4DPS feels very strong against the classic matrix, feels lacking against tri-healer, and feels generally so-so against the 2.5 healers a teams; I don't think you really pick up a matchup advantage by going 4DPS as opposed to other matrices, but you do gain versatility in how you play some of the fights. I'm interested to see how the PvP Trinket Change affects gameplay, I hate to generalize and theorycraft, so I'll just leave it with that we aren't super dependent on regular CC, so the change probably doesn't hurt the matrix much at all.
As for non-Game Over, but overall FH PvP, I'm very proud of the guild's teams. It looks like we'll have 5 teams in the top 10, and all of these teams I believe return next season, though with some roster modifications. Also on the horizon for next season is a new team built from new FH members formerly of Surge (a rival/friend guild of ours from back on BB) and yet another team that will certainly turn heads, but I'll keep quiet about. Seven teams all with the potential to be serious contenders? Hell yeah ^^
Though some of the best players in the battlegroup have left the game, Makoplux ::cough::, their teams for the most part remain and I have little doubt that Stormstrike will see NiP, Yeah We Lift, and perhaps a new Shining Force team tearing it up next season. As a battlegroup with a ton of pride that was utterly decimated by disqualifications for the Blizzard tournament, it's tough to really say much about how we compare skill-wise to the other battlegroups, and I hate to make silly, cocky baseless statements, but I actually love to make said statements and WE'RE THE BEST BATTLEGROUP IN WOW. Perhaps not, but if Blizzard can avoid totally screwing up the end of season playoffs next season, hopefully we'll at least prove we're competitive with BG9 and BG6.
This is about the time where the serious players are finishing off farming their honor for next season's PvP gear, and at any given time, I see at least a few guildmates doing just that. I personally am a combination of too cynical and too lazy to really get going on the honor grinding until I actually see the new gear, which I guess I can now so I really have no excuses...except for the lazyness. I actually don't abhor the idea as it'll be the first time I've stepped foot in a battleground in months, which honestly is something I used to love. My reservations are of course: Should I really be wearing gear so focused on survivability as a WE mage on a 4DPS team? I mean I NEVER get attacked; most teams just CC and lightly harass to try to reduce my damage output, but I'm certainly the less squishy of the various options. I'm already running around with 10k+ unbuffed HP and 320+ resilience, should I be focusing on other gear instead? In the end, I'll probably stick with the PvP gear as I don't really know what else I'd use as I don't raid or PvE at all. But it does seem that those mages who are truly hardcore enough to do it all that they'd probably get more mileage out of PvE gear playing the role I'm playing in arena. It's not even like you sacrifice stamina in PvE gear anymore, you just trade resilience for DPS, a worthy trade IMO.
I think this wall of text has gone on long enough, and though I have a few more things to rant about, I'll save them for another day. Enjoy the last of season 1 and don't suck.
I'm not going to get into a dreary, emo, self-deprecating, reflective "how the season went" thing, don't worry...YET. I will say that I'm pretty happy with the game overall -- dueling on test was a blast, I'm really feeling Game Over's current lineup, and I'm proud of the FH's overall success in arena this season. With SC2 beta on the horizon, I'm sure a lot of the players who are serious into PvP are looking to jump ship to a game where competitive high level plays comes more naturally, and I'm certainly of that mindset myself a bit, but I'm genuinely psyched for Season 2 to get going and to play against our Stormstrike rivals seriously once again.
Oh and in case if you haven't noticed, this is a LOT more "my PvP diary" than my normal content, so you can either skip the rest or keep reading, but I promise you'll find no "real" content.
We didn't get a chance to play too many games on Tuesday. Tuesday is generally the most active day for playing, so it was a bit surprising to not run into any of the top few teams, but I'm sure this weekend we'll all be clashing. We instead played against one of our rival FH teams a few times; its a matchup that we dominate I think, but a DC loss and a pretty big spread in ratings lead the games to being only slightly better than a wash. This is where I complain about how I've played in 30+ 4v5 games all season and only in one 5v4, but that would be REALLY whiny and I'd never do that. We played a half dozen 0-rating games before competition totally dried up and we had to call it a night; it's really unfortunate that, due to various RL conflicts, we really can't play much this week at all (MY FAULT) and we're pretty dependent on the top few teams playing this weekend if we want to catch up, hopefully they'll give us a chance.
As it currently stands, I feel that we're the favorites to win any matchup, though DeadMatch, NiP, and Yeah We Lift I'm sure disagree. ^^ My point isn't to be an arrogant prick, but just that the 4DPS matrix feels really solid. It really is more fun to play for me as well; you really are actively controlling the match instead of just poly juggling, bursting a bit, and waiting on your priest to manaburn the opposition to grind out the victory. 4DPS feels very strong against the classic matrix, feels lacking against tri-healer, and feels generally so-so against the 2.5 healers a teams; I don't think you really pick up a matchup advantage by going 4DPS as opposed to other matrices, but you do gain versatility in how you play some of the fights. I'm interested to see how the PvP Trinket Change affects gameplay, I hate to generalize and theorycraft, so I'll just leave it with that we aren't super dependent on regular CC, so the change probably doesn't hurt the matrix much at all.
As for non-Game Over, but overall FH PvP, I'm very proud of the guild's teams. It looks like we'll have 5 teams in the top 10, and all of these teams I believe return next season, though with some roster modifications. Also on the horizon for next season is a new team built from new FH members formerly of Surge (a rival/friend guild of ours from back on BB) and yet another team that will certainly turn heads, but I'll keep quiet about. Seven teams all with the potential to be serious contenders? Hell yeah ^^
Though some of the best players in the battlegroup have left the game, Makoplux ::cough::, their teams for the most part remain and I have little doubt that Stormstrike will see NiP, Yeah We Lift, and perhaps a new Shining Force team tearing it up next season. As a battlegroup with a ton of pride that was utterly decimated by disqualifications for the Blizzard tournament, it's tough to really say much about how we compare skill-wise to the other battlegroups, and I hate to make silly, cocky baseless statements, but I actually love to make said statements and WE'RE THE BEST BATTLEGROUP IN WOW. Perhaps not, but if Blizzard can avoid totally screwing up the end of season playoffs next season, hopefully we'll at least prove we're competitive with BG9 and BG6.
This is about the time where the serious players are finishing off farming their honor for next season's PvP gear, and at any given time, I see at least a few guildmates doing just that. I personally am a combination of too cynical and too lazy to really get going on the honor grinding until I actually see the new gear, which I guess I can now so I really have no excuses...except for the lazyness. I actually don't abhor the idea as it'll be the first time I've stepped foot in a battleground in months, which honestly is something I used to love. My reservations are of course: Should I really be wearing gear so focused on survivability as a WE mage on a 4DPS team? I mean I NEVER get attacked; most teams just CC and lightly harass to try to reduce my damage output, but I'm certainly the less squishy of the various options. I'm already running around with 10k+ unbuffed HP and 320+ resilience, should I be focusing on other gear instead? In the end, I'll probably stick with the PvP gear as I don't really know what else I'd use as I don't raid or PvE at all. But it does seem that those mages who are truly hardcore enough to do it all that they'd probably get more mileage out of PvE gear playing the role I'm playing in arena. It's not even like you sacrifice stamina in PvE gear anymore, you just trade resilience for DPS, a worthy trade IMO.
I think this wall of text has gone on long enough, and though I have a few more things to rant about, I'll save them for another day. Enjoy the last of season 1 and don't suck.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
My UI
Not that I love this UI a ton, nor am I sure that these are exactly the files you need, but...
http://files.filefront.com/Raddy_UIzip/;7680805;/fileinfo.html
I don't exactly know how to test this to see if it will work for you, but you can at least see what I use. Also, note that a lot of the mods have newer versions at this point, but I usually don't update versions until I have good reason.
http://files.filefront.com/Raddy_UIzip/;7680805;/fileinfo.html
I don't exactly know how to test this to see if it will work for you, but you can at least see what I use. Also, note that a lot of the mods have newer versions at this point, but I usually don't update versions until I have good reason.
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