Thursday, December 18, 2008

Name Needed for New Shatter Combo

Who knows if this mechanic will last, and I swear to all that is pure and holy and lesbian that if you ruin it for me, I will SO say mean things about you on the internets, BUT, BUT, BUT:

Step 1) Arcane Blast
Step 2) LOOK AT MY LOL DMG BUFF MOM
Step 3) Arcane Missiles (It would be better if if MBAM proc'd here, but it's cool)
Step 4) DOOD THESE MISSILES BE FLYING BUT MY +DMG BUFF IS STILL UP WTF?
Step 5) Arcane Barrage
.
.
Profit?

You can combo the stacking damage buff from Arcane Blast on PTR into a Barrage.

Now whether or not this is fair or balanced is really secondary to the severe naming dilemna it imposes.

After hours of soul searching, I've discovered the solution, a solution so perfect that I wonder if you Bads can even read its awesomeness without an Indiana Jones-Ark-Face-Melting upon seeing such true awesome.

It depends on the number of Blast stacks.

One Stack - 1 A Blast + 5 Missiles + 1 Barrage - MASTER COMBO
Two Stack - 2 A Blast + 5 Missiles + 1 Barrrage - AWESOME COMBO
Three Stack - 3 A Blast + 5 Missiles + 1 Barrage - BLASTER COMBO

Yes, you read that correctly, go back, it's bold for a reason. YES.



It is THAT yes. SO FUCKING YES.

PLEASE GO LIVE. PLEASE.

I NEED TO SCREAM COMBO BREAKER ON VENT WHENEVER I INTERRUPT MISSILES.

PLEASE. I NEED IT.

I NEED IT BAD.

Picture how much better this game would be.

Day dream montage music with wavy hands.

"Burst inc on shaman combo. Awesome combo inc."



"FUCK THIS *** JUST COMBO BROKE ME"

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Keyboard Turner Crits You For Your Life

Arena clips and psychotic ramblings from today:

Mage/SP/Druid vs Boomkin/Hunter/Shaman

Hunter traps opposite side of BM bridge. Shaman builds totem fortress. Boomkin fucking dances.

Me: Cool bro. I guess I'll rush in. Shit on nubkin.

Run in. Pop MirrorImage (LOLIMAGE) to eat trap. Commence zerging.

10 seconds later, four players dead. Hmnn.

----

Ogrimmar Arena is pretty much the coolest place ever. Can't drop traps. Can't make a table. YOU ARE ON A TRANSPORT SORRY BRO.

Uh oh, I'm feared near the pillar. Oh...Disconnected From Server. Must have been a coincidence. Two games later. Feared in Ogrimmar near one of the pillars -- Disconnected From Server. SEKRET WARLOCK BUFFS? WTF.

----

Ret pally bubbles and heals his teammates for 100% with one HL...Cool?

---

Divine Hymn doesn't break on damage? Whaaaaaa.

---

Warrior + Pally > Me as Arcane. NERDSTORM COOL.

---

Gumbot's shaman/rogue/mage that pops Heroism and Mirror Image @ the start is scary. I SKILLED YOU 100 TO ZERO. (plz buff Arcane mage damage though)

On that note... has anyone noticed that Mirror Images vs Mirror Images leads to total fucking chaos?

---

Brewkz/Tugget/Carmen repping that Chaos Bolt spam is pretty neat. I ran in because well I have 270 SR and think warlocks are harmless, fluffy, flacid penii then got Bolted for my life.

---

Avenging Wrath's piercing through Dispersion is retarded. Totally unecessary mechanic.

---

Resto shamans are overrated. Pally and priests seem like the top tier healers to me.

WTF RADDY PRIESTS ARE BAD.

NO UR BAD SLAVE.

Priests can actually afford to use their CC and utility even in these stupid fast games. Druids, until survivability creeps up, don't seem to be able to very well. I think Druids will still be sick in 2s.

---

So let me list the classes that Ret Pallies hard counter:
- Demon locks
- Normal Locks (CLOTH LOLOL)
- Rogues (Sap what? Stuns what?)
- Druids (JUSTICE NAGA)
- Cloth in General (I right clicked you. I deserved to win.)

---

How good is PoM sheep in mage/rogue 2s?

---

Is Deep Frost really that much better against melee than Arcane?

Imp Blink and 6% damage mitigation versus Ice Barrier and perhaps 1-2% AW miss?

Even as Arcane, with Ice Armor up, I have 25% physical mitigation (plus 6 more from talents). This doesn't seem that awful. Moreover, with 2min Evos, will I be able to spam Mana Shields. (At 3k absorb per global spent, they aren't that bad)

---

I need fatty resilience so I can try some more interesting comps.

THATS ALL MY RAMBLINGS I SWEAR. TOKYO TIME. BACK IN TWO WEEKS.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Ninety Minutes of Arena

Left me amused, confused, and much more aware of how silly damage is.

Take the last game of the night - us, mage/rogue (me and Mingaling) vs BM Hunter and Ret Pally in Ogrimmar arena.

Me: Cage is coming down. Just zerg the hunter.
Ming: Okay!
Me: ZERRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG

Game begins.

Global Cooldown #1: Arcane Power + Arcane Barrage. (Yes I pushed two buttons, but it was one global FUCK YOU)

Me: WOOOOOOOoooooooooooo~ (this continues for two more global cooldowns)
Ming: Go!

Global Cooldown #2: PoM + Frostfire Bolt.

I see a 6k number from my Barrage's damage and a whole lot of numbers on my screen. Uh oh.

Ming:

Global Cooldown #3: Ice Block.

Bad Hunter has died.

I'm in Ice Block at 10% hp.

This took < 5 seconds.

We didn't get very far in rating (partially because we're bad blah blah blah), but we did definitely fight a few good teams. Hi2u Entyce. We lost twice to a Unholy DK/Feral Druid team which you would think sounds horrible, but honestly is confusing. We killed the DK in <10 seconds both games, but then couldn't reset successfully with 2 ghouls and a feral druid running about. The feral druid has the threat of rezzing as well which really prohibits kiting out the retardedly long 45 second ghoul timer. (It should be 15 in PvP, even 25 is ridiculous)

I also got destroyed by a gargoyle in Blade's Edge. It took off into the sky and I was quite surprised that it could shoot me over the top of the pillars.

We also lost to a Demonlock/Rogue team in the sewers who used his teleport to reset back into the starting area. Creative use of game mechanics? ^^

We really didn't think or plan or do anything intelligent during any game and just randomly picked targets and tried to zerg them, and now that I'm stepping back from the zerg, I'm starting to see strats that are a little less damage retarded that seem like they'd be good against a lot of the freakshow 2DPS teams we ran into, but the nuances of how a lot of stuff works still remains a mystery to me, and at this point, the only way to improve is to spend a lot of time arenaing.

I'll continue posting random thoughts as I have them.

Such as. Silence->Slow should be spammed against DK/stealth teams, and you must switch to mage armor immediately. Generally silence->slow is devastating against DKs as it really forces him to use CDs or just soak damage. If you eat a strangle->DG, be happy that your rogue can't be peeled off the rogue or feral who's about to open on you (and thus your rogue becomes a very good peel), don't blink unless you really have to, I've been rocket boot + EAing to get away and you pretty much have the option of sheeping or DPSing at this point.

Silence is huge against demonlocks and I failed to use it and thus am bad. You can deny transform and teleport with it.

And that's all I can think of at this moment.

Nerf Hunters.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Hateful Versus Deadly

Okay, the level of confusion concerning the new honor sets rivals my own sexual confusion in the mornings. Did I really just dream that? But I don't even like honey.

There are two arena sets that you could conceivably care about: Hateful and Deadly. Hateful and Deadly are the only honor sets -- there isn't a blue set for belt, rings, necks, bracers, etc.

Savage is awful anyways and is a total waste of honor points. Even if you're horrible, you're better investing those points in Hateful honor pieces and using heroic drops in your other slots.

However, the only good option in spending honor is to spend exclusively on Deadly gear. Reaching 1800 in the first week isn't exactly a huge stretch. (1800, 1775 if you don't want to use Battlemaster's trinket is an important first week goal and probably where most people will call their first night of playing)

Why do you dream of dicks? I mean, why 1775? Well, you need 1750 for the Deadly Cloak, which is actually very good unless you have the 25man sarth cape which shits all over it. But more importantly, it's the rating requirement for Hateful Shoulders, one of the few pieces worth acquiring for many classes. If you raid and have badges to spend, you should consider the shoulders/gloves as they cost only 30 badges -- the gloves for the bonus obvious and the shoulders because you probably won't upgrade them for a week or two. (Or much later if you save for a weapon)

Why buy Deadly honor gear?

Because the difference in cost is marginal and the rating requirements on the pieces can be all attained within the first night or two of playing.

Yo rddy ur a sik blogr n arenaz gud lik wut do i buyz wit my pointzettaz nag?

Even if you have all 100 BG marks saved up (HUGE NERD - hi2u Narelia <3), style="font-weight: bold;">Boots/Belt/Trinket(BM's) 60.2k
Cloak/Ring/Neck 47.4k
Bracers 39.4k
PvP Trinket 49.6k

That's 351.6k if you don't pick up the Battlemaster's.

First of all, you should not invest in the PvP trinket until last. It is relatively the smallest upgrade unless you have amazing 25man gear.

You should obviously pick gear that fills holes in your heroic gear or that you don't envision you'd have a suitable alternative in that slot in the near future. That being said, it's probably to your advantage to have more pieces of gear than less, so the boots and belt should probably be later upgrades. (Wyrmrest boots and badges belt aren't horrible anyways)

This is mage specific, and I'm going to get some hate on this, but I think Ascendancy is the way to go unless you're sure you're going to play exclusively Frost, if so, go with the Haste gear. (Subjugation)

Why get hit gear bro?

You're going to want 5% hit. None of the other deadly pieces have hit on them or socket bonuses with hit. If you have a piece or two (trinkets come to mind) with a ton of hit, you're obviously free to go with subjugation for 1/3 of the pieces, but 2/3 Ascendancy is almost certainly safe.

While it's true that resilience is currently low, and crit therefore is better now than it will ever be in the future, there is going to be a race to gearing up resilience, and sinking tons of honor into gear that is going to massively deflate in value as your opponents get better and better geared is probably not the wisest idea.

It also frees up your gem slots for resilience gems to facilitate your own resiling up. I'm not yet sold on the 16 resil gems -- I think rocking the green 8x12s is probably a better option until we all hit 20k+ hp.

If you end up playing on a comp where survivability isn't a concern, you can also just socket damage.

Again, going full Ascendancy might be overkill, but two pieces makes at least, some sense.

So..back to what to buy when servers come up.

If your team is on and read to queue, nothing. Buy the bracers when you can. Assuming you have at least a few marks saved up, buy the cloak. Then the ring, then the neck.

If your team won' t be on for a few hours, grab the Hateful bracers and hit WG or Strand. Upgrade the Hateful bracers after everything else later in the season. (Including PvP trinket)

Realistically, you won't need a lot of mats for enchants day one or really any gems unless you've got a ton of the 25man raid tokens. Mats for a bracer and ring enchant at most. No gems.

Realize that while this week marks the beginning of Arena, it is equally the beginning of the real honor grind. There's perhaps no huge rush, but 75k is a tiny drop in the 350k total needed. =p

Flame away nerds.

Thinking of this spec perhaps for 3s/5s: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=obIbfzrcdchuGtxdfcbcZh

(After the patch) If you ever eat a silence, you're potentially free to stack up some ABs. Shrug.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

The Hour Draws Near

Well, gentleman, in less than two days, we'll be zerging arena queues, and in less than two more days, I expect we'll be nerdraging about Ret pallies and bitching "that the new patch is taking too fucking long."

Before I get ahead of myself, I'd like to get really really ahead of myself and make a few predictions for the first two weeks of season five:

  • Demonology locks will be a sleeper success. Metamorph is quite potent and the damage output is quite high. Most players are inexperienced and will fail at simply running and LoSing the fourty seconds. (Remember how nobody LoS'd WE season one) Melee who simply try to cleave right through demons will probably fail.
  • It will become apparent that resilience will not save cloth. There will inevitably be improvement to the stat or its item budget reduced. (Or a buff to base armor)
  • Someone is going to get 1shot by a human Arcane mage rocking double proc trinkets.
  • Most mages will abandon Arcane for Deep Frost outside of 2s due to the inability to deal with dk+melee comps.
  • Ret pallies will utterly dominate all brackets despite a huge dearth of skills ret paladins.
  • RMP will add a prot warrior and a holy pally and become an interesting anti 4dps team.

Just random thoughts.

The two comps that I know a ton of people wanting to run are Holy Pally/War and Ret/Dk. Both seem extremely strong (obviously) and both intuitively do at least reasonably well against about any comp I could conceivably throw out against them, and more importantly seem like they'll be quite strong against what will be surely popular comps -- mage/rogue, rogue/druid(boom or restokin), pally/lock, and various other 2dps teams.

There is an abundance of x factors out there. Hunters continue to look stupid overpowered, but while most mages and rogues I run into now have the reflexes to vanish, invis, or IB a PoM, most hunters just backpedal in little circles autofiring while they ponder HARD questions like "why you drive in parkways and park in driveways." I hate fucking hunters, sorry.

Fairknights, aside from allowing you avoid run speed to boots or the run speed meta, bring a whole box of gay to any comp. We still live in a world with no DR on silence - imp cs + strangulate or silence + strangle could be REALLY brutal.

So what are the thoughts on best 3 glyphs?

I'm thinking:

Arcane: Poly/Evo/(Blink/Missiles)
Frost: Poly/Evo/ (Blink/Ice Lance)

P.S. Who's running restokin/mage? ^^