Shaman Preview Up

The Cataclysm Shaman Preview is up.

I have to say that Healing Rain is absolutely gorgeous.

Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

It's something new in healing. It breaks healers out of Grid and into the game world. It has spectacular flavor, and feels like a shaman ability to the bone. It is resonant with a lot real world motifs about rain, water, healing, and even religious comfort.

I think Healing Rain is a home run by Ghostcrawler and his team. It sets a high bar for the remaining previews.

A Blueprint for Endgame: Raiding Gear

In the previous post, I outlined what I think the pre-raid endgame should look like. Now, let's take a look at gear progression in raids.

General Principle

The general principle I would like the raid game to follow is "One instance for farming, one instance for progression." The key here is setting up which instances guilds in the different strata go after.

Difficulties

1. There will be four variants of each raid: 10-Normal, 10-Heroic, 25-Normal, 25-Hard. These four variants are mutually exclusive and share a lockout.

I think that it would be best if you could only attempt an instance once per week. If you are saved to the 10-Normal version, you cannot go to 25-Normal version. In Wrath there's a bit too much repetition. You end killing the same bosses multiple times a week. It was worst in Trial of the Crusader, where you may have ended up killing the same 5 bosses 4 times every week. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.

As well, there is a lot of blurring about who is involved in which strata. Many people at Elitist Jerks believe that 10-Hard is redundant, and only 25-Normal raiders actually use that setting. I am not sure that is true, but making things exclusive will provide clarity, and will allow each variant to be tuned to the specific needs and gear level of its audience.

2. All variants are launched simultaneously.

This allows hard mode guilds to jump directly into the race. They don't get to practice on easy modes first. As well, it makes the race more linear, as they have to defeat every hard mode in order.

Gear

3. Gear will use the following pattern:

Variant:	10-Normal	10-Heroic	25-Normal	25-Heroic
Gear Tag:	Valiant	Challenger	Challenger	Champion
Tier 1	0	2	2	4
Tier 2	1	3	3	5
Tier 3	2	4	4	6
Tier 4	3	5	5	7

Each step in the pattern corresponds to however many item levels is appropriate. I think about 6 would be best. So if Tier 1 10-Normal is ilvl 300, Tier 2 10-Normal would be ilvl 306, while Tier 1 25-Normal would be ilvl 312. This is important because it means that previous tier's Heroic mode provides slightly better gear than the current Normal mode. Remember that you cannot do both Normal and Heroic modes of the same instance in a single lockout period.

So if we go back to the "one instance for Farming, and one instance for Progression" idea, what would the patterns look like for each strata of guild as a new tier of raiding is released (Tier 2 for example)?

Royalty guilds have beaten the previous Heroic mode. So they would dive right in to Tier 2-Heroic, and farm Tier 1-Heroic.

Aristocracy guilds are working on Tier 1-Heroic modes. They will quickly finish Tier 2-Normal and use that for farming, and then finish off Tier 1-Heroic. After Tier 1-Heroic is finished, then they can start working on Tier 2-Heroic.

Gentry guilds will work on Tier 2-Normal, while farming Tier 1-Normal. If they beat Tier 2-Normal early, they can start to nibble on Tier 1-Heroic.

Bourgeoisie guilds will finish up Tier 1-Normal, and then progress into Tier 2-Normal.

The key here is that the current Normal tier does not obsolete the previous Heroic tier. That, combined with the fact that you can only attempt one variant at a time, will keep guilds balanced between the two tiers. They will farm an instance from one tier, and progress in an instance on the other tier. Which tier is designated progression changes as instances are complete.

Instances should be dropped more organically. Rather than repeating the same boss multiple times a week, a guild will work on different bosses. There is always a path for progression.

4. Gear will use the same name and stats across the tier. Each piece will have a green tag designating it as Valiant, Challenger, or Champion, reflecting which item level it has.

Essentially, this extends the Heroic loot method used in ICC and TotGC to the entire spectrum. [Uber-sword] drops from the same boss in all four variants. However, the [Uber-sword] (Champion) that drops from 25-Heroic has the highest item level.

What this does is eliminate the possibility that a Best-in-Slot item might drop from a 10-man due to a unique allocation of stats. An equal or better item will always drop in 25-mans. This eliminates any reason for 25-man players to want to do extra 10-mans. As well, it reduces the amount of loot and different items models necessary in the game.

5. Class Sets will be 5-pieces, and use the same tokens as ICC. One token for 3-4 classes, and a token can buy any armor slot piece. However, you will not use Badges to buy tokens.

This makes Class sets relatively easy to get, with a minimum of fuss. 10-Normal will drop Valiant Tokens, 10-Heroic and 25-Normal will drop Challenger Tokens, and 25-Heroic will drop Champion Tokens. Trade a token in for the set piece of the correct level.

It's not quite as easy as TotC, because I kind of like complaining that Conquerer's Marks never drop. Marks in TotC seemed too mechanical, with no real surprise element or something to look forward to when it came to set pieces. At the same time, having specific marks for specific armor slots seems excessive, especially when it comes to armor slots that drop off the last boss (Yogg and shoulders, for example).

Conclusions

I'll finish up with other thoughts, including badges, in another post. But I hope you can see the general structure of the raid progression that I am proposing. I think Wrath went a little bit too far in obsoleting the previous tier when a new instance came out. I want to balance between tiers a little bit better, and get a little more of a linear progression feel back into the game. Especially with Heroic modes, it sometimes feels like you are bouncing around too much.

A Blueprint for Endgame: Pre-Raid

This expansion has seen a lot experimentation in endgame. Some of it has been good, and some of it has been bad. After thinking about what I liked and disliked in Wrath, here is the first part of a plan that I would love to see in Cataclysm.

Pre-raid

1. The first Tier of raiding opens 3 months after the launch of Cataclysm.

I greatly disliked the "rush" to get to Naxxramas. Levelling, normal dungeons, and heroics, were all severely diminished by the fact that Naxx was available so early. By delaying the opening of raiding for a few months, that gives everyone time to explore all the other facets of the game at leisure. As well, normal dungeon and heroic loot won't get obsoleted so fast.

2. 5-mans only drop blue gear.

I think that dropping scarce epics was a mistake. For one thing, the one epic drop obsoletes a lot of the other blue gear that drops. For example, [Red Sword of Courage] was strictly better than all other 5-man tanking weapons. Second, it allows you to start the raid game at lower item level. Finally, I think everyone skipped past blues and into epics too fast.

3. Heroic 5-mans drop an 8-piece class set.

I miss the dungeon sets of Vanilla. Dropping an 8-piece set gives something for people to collect, a reason to run many heroics. Ideally one piece would be dropped by the end boss of each heroic instance. There would be a version for each class-role combination. The set would have 2-, 4-, and 6-piece bonuses.

As for looks, I think a good motif would be "greatest hits from Tiers 1-6". That way it's a nod to nostalgia, while reusing artwork. For example, the Ret paladin set might be "Reforged Judgement", or the Rogue set could be "Restored Bloodfang". Alternatively the set could just use the blue Cataclysm armor artwork.

4. Heroic 5-mans do not drop badges at the start.

There is no need for badges at this point in time. Later, once raiding gets underway, badges can drop.

Edit: After thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that Heirloom gear will still need to be purchased. Heroics could drop Valiant Badges, but the only things for sale at this point will be the Heirloom gear. I think that Badge gear fills a hole when it comes to the scarcity of raid drops, but since random heroics can be run extremely often, badge gear is not necessary for 5-mans.

5. The Daily Heroic rewards 2x Champion Badges. A maximum of 8 Champion Badges can be earned each week.

There is a weekly cap on Badges so that people do not have to log in every single day.

6. There will be a maximum of 3 epic items available from professions. No weapons. Maybe belt and bracers and a ring. Recipes for these items cost Champion Badges. As well, these recipes require an ingredient which costs Champion Badges.

Here's a little tidbit to make crafting interesting. These recipes should be highly valued, as they are pretty much the only epics in the game (other than maybe a couple epics from exalted faction reputation). I like the way Primordial Saronite has worked out, and I think it's a good model to use for professions at the start of the expansion.

7. Reputation grinds use the "Tabard" model of Wrath.

I really like this model. It's flexible and easy to understand. As well, wearing a faction's tabard really drives home the idea that you are working for that faction, or accomplishing deeds in that faction's name.

Conclusions

I think this model will give people a solid foundation to start raiding. They can take their time leveling, collect sets in dungeons, and will enter the first tier of raiding with mostly blues and maybe one or two epics. I think that the first point is key, though. If Cataclysm launches with raids, a vast amount of content is going to go to waste.

Interesting Death Knight Tank Build

Some chatter about this DK tank build caught my eye: 45/26/0

It's a build designed for 5 or 10-man content. It brings two major buffs to the raid: 10% Attack Power and 20% Melee Haste. Both are very important buffs that may not be covered. It also has the full 20% melee slow debuff. Raid buffs are very important, and sometimes it's hard to get full coverage in a smaller group. It also brings a Hysteria to further boost melee damage.

Defensively, it includes Will of the Necropolis and Vampiric Blood. It doesn't have 5% dodge, but it does have 3% additional melee miss chance. That should be good enough for lower content.

It's a two-handed weapon build. It plays like a regular Blood build, only you use Obliterate instead of Death Strike, and you have to refresh diseases more often. It probably won't do as much threat as a pure Frost or pure Blood build would do.

It's a pretty interesting hybrid Blood/Frost build. In some ways, it makes the DK an enhancement shaman replacement, as you bring the buffs an enhancement shaman usually would provide (Strength of Earth Totem, Unleashed Rage, and Windfury Totem). Of course, if your group already has an enhancement shaman, there are probably better tank builds.

Althor's Abacus for Paladins?

I was chatting with another paladin healer today, and noticed he was using [Althor's Abacus]. I was a bit surprised, because it seems like another [Trauma], which really wasn't that good for paladins.

However, this paladin said that the Abacus was very good. According to him, it can proc when someone gets healed from his Judgement of Light. This means that it actually has a pretty high proc rate. He claimed that the Abacus accounted for a full 3% of his heals.

Any other paladins have experiences with [Althor's Abacus]?

Best Change in Patch 3.3.3

The best change in the new mini-patch that came today:

Hunters now display ranged weapons on the character select screen.

No paladin changes to talk about. The new auction interface is pretty good. Don't forget to convert all your old Battleground Marks to Honor.

Cataclysm Parry: Part I

One of the most interesting changes coming in Cataclysm is the new Parry mechanic. Currently, a Parry prevents 100% of the damage on the current swing and speeds up your next swing. In Cataclysm, a Parry will prevent 50% damage on the current swing, and 50% of the damage on the next swing, and will not speed your weapon.

What's amusing about this change is that it changes the way you have to analyze tanking. Boss swings are no longer independent. The damage you take on the current swing depends on if the previous swing was a parry or not. Incoming damage becomes a Markov chain, and you need to play around with matrices instead of simple probability.

There are two possible interpretations of how the second swing after a Parry works, and Blizzard has not seen fit to enlighten us yet. The first interpretation is that the second swing always hits for 50% damage, and cannot be dodged or blocked or re-parried. The other interpretation is that you can still miss/dodge/block/parry the second swing, but damage on a parry or block is reduced even further.

In this post, I'll look at the first Parry version. Here is a graph that shows how damage is reduced as you increase Dodge, Parry, or Block (assumes starting values of 5% Miss, 5% Dodge, 5% Parry, 5% Block):


As you can see, Dodge is the best stat of the three. One percentage point of Dodge reduces damage by significantly more than Parry or Block. Intuitively, this makes sense. After all, Dodge completely negates the attack, while you still take 70% damage on a Block. If you had 100% Dodge, you'd take 0% damage. 100% Block would be 70% damage. As for Parry, if you had 100% Parry, you would be taking 50% damage all the time.

However, in this scenario Parry behaves slightly differently than Dodge or Block. Dodge and Block are linear, and each percentage point of Dodge or Block will reduce damage by a equal amount. Parry, on the other hand, is almost as good as Dodge early on, when you have low amounts of Parry, but becomes less and less effective as you add more Parry.

(Please note that I am discussing raw Dodge and Parry, not Dodge Rating or Parry Rating. The amount of Rating per percentage point will make a big impact.)

In the next post, I'll look at the second Parry scenario. My initial instinct is that Parry will be much better under those rules. After all, in the second scenario, 100% parry would translate to 25% damage all the time.

Optional

Suzina at Kill Ten Rats confessed that she bought gold to purchase dual specialization on her first WoW character at level 40. For the purposes of this post, let us ignore the whole "buying gold" aspect of the story. What's much more puzzling to me is why Suzina felt she had to have dual-spec at all.

To me, it seems that Blizzard put the 1000g price tag on dual-spec specifically to signal that dual-spec was optional. That you didn't need it while leveling your first character, and was more of an extra for experienced players leveling an alt. And I agree with this view. You don't need dual-spec until heroics at max level. Before then you can tank or heal in any spec. Every class has the basic tools necessary available to all specs.

Sometimes it seems like this genre has no concept of the term "optional". Something is either absolutely necessary, or it is useless. There doesn't seem to be any in-between. Another example is professions. Professions used to be more or less optional. But many people complained that professions were useless, and profession perks were added. Now, having two professions is mandatory, just for the extra profession-specific perks.

There is a huge debate on the EJ Benefactor forum about the state of Wrath endgame. The people in Royalty guilds are very unhappy because they feel that--to be competitive--they are forced to do 10-mans, 25-mans, alt runs, and daily heroics. Because every one of these activities has a small benefit, they all become necessary and no longer optional. 10-mans give extra Emblems and some Best-in-Slot gear. Daily heroics give extra Emblems. Alt runs grant you extra attempts on attempt-limited bosses.

And yet, if these activities have no benefit, they become worthless and will not be done at all. There is no in-between, no state where sometimes you do a 10man, and sometimes you don't. You either do the 10-man every chance you get or you never do it at all. Sometimes it feels like players are completely unable to moderate themselves.

Is it possible to design elements that are optional and yet have decent rewards? Or should Blizzard be heavy-handed and formally restrict players from going overboard? Should they combine 10-man and 25-man lockouts? Should they restrict dual-spec to level 80s?

Maybe it's better for the designers to assume that players will have no sense of moderation or sanity, and will take every possible step to gain any potential benefits. Then design the game to severely limit the amount of possible steps to keep players from hurting themselves.

Gold Selling

The Problem

Last week Big Bear Butt issued a call for Blizzard to end Prohibition and start selling gold to players. The theory is that by offering players a safe and legal method of purchasing gold, Blizzard will greatly damage the economic incentive of hackers and goldsellers, reducing the damage that hacked accounts are doing to the game.

I am reluctantly forced to agree with him that gold should be sold through legitimate channels. I have never bought gold. I regard purchasing gold as a form of cheating. But the truth is that there is apparently a significant segment of the audience who is willing to purchase gold. To satisfy that need we have people who hack accounts, secretly install keyloggers, and do much damage to innocent players. If selling gold directly would significantly reduce the number of hacked players, then it would be worthwhile.

There have been two options suggested: players selling gold to players; and Blizzard selling gold to players. Each method has pitfalls, and at the end I will make a suggestion on what I think the best course of action would be.

Solution 1: Players Selling to Players

There are three major problems with Player-To-Player transactions that I see. First, it gives players a significant incentive to defraud other players, especially as the fruits of the fraud result in real money. Imagine a GM or officer making off with the guild bank to sell for real money. Even in day-to-day transactions, the incentive will be to take the most valuable option. In random dungeons, always roll Need on gear so you can sell it. I think that setting the players against each other in this fashion is not good for a casual game like WoW. In a hardcore PvP game like Eve Online, it might be acceptable or even necessary, but it would not be good for WoW.

The second problem I see is that it has the potential to get the IRS and the government involved. I see no good coming from having the IRS interested in my game playing. Anytime something involves real money, the government has an interest and tends to interfere. The academics who think virtual worlds are important might feel validated at the sign of government interest, but I don't want to end up filling out Section A, Subsection B: Income Earned From Virtual Currency Trading on my tax forms.

The third problem is that I believe it is wrong for strong players to get a "free ride" at the expense of weaker players. If players can sell gold to other players, the good players will pay for their subscriptions by selling gold to weaker players. So essentially, the weaker players are paying both subscriptions and are the ones who are actually supporting the game.

In Magic Online, this phenomenon was called "going infinite". Players had to supply packs of cards to enter tournaments, and the prizes were additional packs of cards. A good player would win tournaments, and the prizes would pay her way into the next tournament. The only people who were actually paying for the game were the losers. I don't think this behaviour is healthy for the game in the long run.

Right now, everyone pays an equal amount to access the game, and that is fair and sensible. Creating a division between sellers, who play the game for free, and buyers, who end up paying for everything, will cause nothing but problems.

Solution 2: Blizzard Selling to Players

There are two major issues with Blizzard selling gold directly to players. First, Blizzard can be undercut by the illegal gold sellers. A significant number of players will buy from Blizzard, but there will probably be enough people who go for the cheaper prices. This may or may not be a big problem.

Second, incentives matter. This is just as true for corporations as it is for individuals. If Blizzard sells gold, then selling gold becomes a revenue stream for them, and they have a strong incentive to increase that revenue stream as much as possible. I really don't want to see game design decisions that encourage the player base to buy gold instead of bettering gameplay. For example, the drop rate of Frost Lotus was recently increased, bringing down prices. Would you trust Blizzard to make the same decision if they stood to gain money as people bought gold to compensate for higher prices?

Maybe the Blizzard of old might have made the best decision for the game, but Activision certainly won't. Not if the other path results in increased revenues in the short term.

My Solution: Charity Selling to Players

My solution would be to have Blizzard sell gold to players and donate all money generated to a charity. Not just the profits, but all the revenue. Blizzard can pay for it out of the decreased Customer Support costs.

This would remove any incentive for Blizzard to maximize gold selling revenue at the expense of gameplay. They wouldn't really care if players buy gold or don't buy gold. The charity might care, but it would have no power to do anything.

Secondly, it would provide a powerful incentive for players to purchase from Blizzard instead of illegal gold sellers, even if the illegals undercut Blizzard. On one hand, your money can go to people who hack accounts. On the other hand, your money can go to charity. I think that making the choice starker, and adding extra moral weight to the choice we want people to take, would lead to more people sticking with the official sales.

As well, this would avoid consumers protesting that Blizzard is being excessively greedy. Gold selling would be seen as something completely separate from subscriptions. The divisions between sellers and buyers would not occur.

Of course, this option is extremely unlikely to happen. It's hard to imagine an MMO company allowing its virtual currency to be sold, but giving up all revenue from it, especially if the amounts were non-trivial.

Ask Coriel: New Prot Paladin Spec

Redzilla asks:

I'm looking for the overall best Tankadin build in your opinion. I have a Female Dwarf Ret Pally, that I love, but I'm now leveling a Female Blood Elf Prot Pally. This is the cookie cutter I'm using, wanted to get your opinion, and what you would do to change this:

0/53/18

Also, as a long time Ret pally, I'm used to using certain blessings and aura's for different situations. With a tankadin, what do you suggest? For 5 Mans, I'm assuming Blessing Of Kings, Devotion Aura, and Seal of Light(for health regen) or Seal of Just curious as to what you use in 5 mans vs solo'ing to level. I'm going straight Prot Pally all the way to 80 with my Blood elf.

In my opinion, my tank build would be: 0/53/18

It's not very much different from yours, but I would take 2/2 Imp Judgements, 2/2 Pursuit of Justice, and Seal of Command. 2/2 Imp Judgements is not strictly needed, but sometimes it's useful to have your Judgements available a bit early. The 969 rotation is the standard, but don't get tunnel-visioned. Sometimes deviating from 969 is necessary. For example, if you were kiting a mob, you'd prefer to have more Judgements.

As well, I am a great fan of Pursuit of Justice. I find being able to move swiftly is very useful, and I think trading 2% crit is worth it. However, a lot of other paladin tanks would probably disagree with me, and say that having Tuskarr's Vitality on your boots is good enough.

Seal of Command is very useful on trash and adds. It's especially good for AoE tanking.

I'm not sure about Divine Sacrifice. I'm not sure how much you would use it as a tank. You might be better off just getting 3/5 Divinity instead. Divine Sacrifice is powerful, but if you never use it because you're always tanking, better to take something else.

As for Auras/Blessings/Seals, at low levels I would suggest Blessing of Kings, Devotion Aura, and Seal of Righteousness. Don't use Light, let your healer keep you healed up. When I see low level paladin tanks running Light¹ I know that the tank is going to have a hard time holding aggro.

Switch to Blessing of Sanctuary when you get it, and then Seal of Vengeance or Command when you get those.

¹ Or worse, Seal of Justice. I'm not sure why Justice is so attractive to newbie tanks.

Allods Online Pricing

There's a mini-controversy about pricing for Allod's Online. Keen has details. Allod's Online is a Free-To-Play game that started out in Russia. Apparently prices in the North American game are 10-20x times higher. (Keen says 20x, but all his examples are only 10x.) A bag that costs $2 in Russia costs $20 in the NA version.

So all the vocal gamers, parsimonious creatures that they are, are up in arms over this.

I don't know if the price is too high or too low. But consider this: Russia is a poorer country than the United States. Its GDP-Per-Capita is roughly a fifth of that of the States. Is it really so unreasonable to believe that if people in Russia are willing to pay $2, people in the States would be willing to pay much more? Heck, this is the land of $5 coffees!

I think a lot of times gamers take it as an article of faith that there is a large segment of people who are willing to pay small amounts of money to a micro-transaction shop. But maybe that group doesn't actually exist. Maybe the two major groups are people who will pay nothing, and people who will pay a lot. In that case, it's the best strategy to get as much money out of that second group as possible.

Edit: Also, the other thing that struck me was that there is a "level 10 rune that was $689 is now $6,890." Now, I have a hard time believing someone will pay $7000 for an item, but then again, I have a hard time believing someone paid $700. If the $700 item sold, then it is entirely possible the $7000 one will too.

Healer Hubris

In the continuing adventures of my low level warrior tank, I joined a group today to tank Maraudon's Orange wing. I run the addon RankWatch, which notifies people when they use a lower rank of a spell than their max available. Because all spell ranks cost the same, it's almost always a bad idea to cast a downranked spell now.

Anyways, the druid healer in my group got upset when RankWatch told him he should be using Abolish Poison instead of Cure Poison. He told me that he put me on his ignore list.

On the next trash pack, I somehow died, even though the healer was at full mana. Cutting my losses, I leave the group.

After waiting 5 minutes for my Dungeon Finder timer to wear off, I rejoin the queue. I get put back into the same group I left, leading to this exchange:



I don't really know why he thought I would want to tank for a healer who deliberately let me die. That just sounds like a terrible idea.

Lately, I've seen a lot of forum and blog posts about healers abusing their healing power. Letting DPS who've annoyed them die "to teach them a lesson". Reveling in the fact that because their role is somewhat rare, that gives them the right to act like a jerk.

In my opinion, if you sign up as a healer, you heal as best you can. Triage as appropriate, but you don't let people die if you can help it, regardless of how annoying they are.

If someone is truly too annoying to play with, leave the group. Don't act like a petty tyrant.

Was Blackwing Lair Boring?

I recently had a chance to see a raid video of Blackwing Lair, by A Few Good Men. I have always liked Blackwing Lair, and consider it to be one of my favorite instances.

However, on watching the video, what struck me was the Blackwing Lair fights look really boring, at least compared to modern fights. Everyone pretty much just stands in one spot and spams DPS or heals. The only fights that look mildly interesting are Razorgore and Nefarian.

Admittedly, part of it is that a lot of the challenge in BWL dealt with tank threat (Vael, Broodlord, Ebonroc) and Line of Sight (Firemaw, Chromaggus) which was important in the days before Omen and that is something that is something that videos don't convey well.

Is it just nostalgia that tints our view of old fights? Is it hard to appreciate just how unique and interesting modern fights are?

Even Trial of the Crusader, for all that instance is denigrated, had far more complex fights than BWL. Take a look at Northrend Beasts, with its three phases, snobolds, multiple wyrms, poisons that cancelled each other, evading charging yetis, etc. That's significantly more complex than even Nefarian was.

Revisiting Blackwing Lair has certainly made me appreciate modern raid fights more, especially those in Icecrown Citadel.

Limits in Normal Icecrown Citadel Removed

Daelo, on the WoW Forums:

After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.

We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids.

There is a saying that generals are always trying to fight the last war. In a sense, so is Blizzard. The big problem in Trial of the Crusader was that the gap between normal and heroic was too large.

To fix that problem in ICC--to create more of a spread between the Gentry guilds, but still have many guilds eventually complete the instance--Blizzard added normal-mode attempt limits for the end bosses. I think the idea was that the normal-mode attempt limits would slow down Gentry guilds, but not really impede Aristocracy and Royalty guilds.

However, ICC turned out to be reasonably difficult. The attempt limit isn't what's holding back Gentry guilds. And the Royalty guilds are going out of their way to evade the normal mode limits, because they can't afford to fall behind on hard modes. Several edge guilds are doing alt runs of ICC first. I understand that Paragon, which got the world first Arthas kill, took this path.

So Blizzard removes the limit for Gentry guilds, and is relying on natural difficulty of the fights and the eventual Faction Leader buff to spread out the guilds.

What will be interesting to see is how Blizzard reacts to the creation of alt teams to evade time and attempt limits. I'm not really sure what they could do, other than excessive attunement chains. But if it is hard to attune alts, it is also hard to attune trials and new characters, and that has its own pitfalls.

Perhaps Blizzard will just start creating impossible fights, with a built in buff timer like the Faction Leader buff timer, and let the best guilds wipe until the buff stacks just high enough to clear the bar. Like a high jump bar slowly being lowered until someone can just clear it. Then the bar keeps going down so the rest of us can experience the fight.

The Third Dimension

Valithria Dreamwalker has really driven home a point for me: I am not fond of having to maneuver in 3 dimensions.

Oculus, Malygos P3, and Valithria have all had portions where you could move in all three dimensions. And I haven't really enjoyed those portions. It's not the vehicle aspect either. I like Flame Leviathian, and I don't mind jousting. Plus, in Dreamwalker you fly with your normal character.

Part of it is because I don't think I am very good at 3D movement. I always seem to move too far up or down unintentionally.

3D fights add a extra level of complexity that I am not sure makes an encounter more fun. For example, Malygos might have been better if the dragons were restricted to the plane. If they couldn't really move up or down. Would Valithria be any different if the orbs were on the ground, and maybe had to be killed instead of flown through?

But on the other hand, riding a dragon is all about flying in three dimensions. Maybe limiting it to two would be overly restrictive.

Top WoW Videos - #2 - Here Without You

The #2 video on my countdown is Here Without You by Dimoroc.



This video is one of the oldest WoW music videos. I think it might have been first one I saw.

It's a great storyline, which fits the song perfectly. The video also embodies the Forsaken extremely well. While some of techniques--notably the fight between Redsword and Dimoroc--are less advanced than videos today, a lot of the other effects match anything produced recently. Especially the cuts and fades, and the flashback sequence.

I love this video. It is simple and not especially flashy, but it just works.

Top Video List (so far):

2. Here Without You
3. Tales of the Past III
4. The Craft of War: BLIND
5. Big Blue Dress

Ensidiagate

So Ensidia claimed the world-first kill of Arthas, but were then hit with a 72-hour ban and had their kill and titles revoked.

I admit that, like Tobold and Larisa, when I first heard the story I was a bit sympathetic to Ensidia. Their story was that a rogue using Saronite Bombs as part of his regular rotation happened to make part of the encounter easier.

However, now I think it's likely that the ban was completely deserved. Apparently, what happened was something like:

1. The Lich King destroys part of the platform during the fight.
2. Valkyrs come and snatch raid members. They have to be DPSed down before they reach the edge or they drop the person to their doom.
3. Saronite Bombs are bugged and apparently rebuilt part of the platform.
4. Ensidia apparently sent the Saronite rogue to deliberately rebuild the outer edges of the platform where the val'kyrs drop people.
5. Ensidia ignored the val'kyrs when they appeared, focusing DPS on the Lich King.
6. The val'kyrs dropped the people, but they landed on the rebuilt platform safely, and rejoined the fight.

That's textbook "exploiting a bug to avoid part of the fight". Thus, Ensidia fully deserves their ban.

Star Trek Online: Ground Combat, Skill Points

The other half of Star Trek Online is ground combat. In true Star Trek fashion, anytime you need to beam down into a hostile situation, rather than sending Marines, you send the bridge crew.

You beam down with your officers, creating a party of 5. If you are with other players, you have less NPCs and more real players. The NPCs are pretty good. Kind of honestly, they seem to do a better job than I do, so I let them do their thing. I'm still not sure what the Science Officer is doing with tachyons in the middle of the fight, but I'll assume it's something useful.

Combat is pretty much MMO-standard with 3rd person-view and hitting buttons corresponding to abilities. The one twist is the Expose/Exploit system. About half the weapons have a special ability that has a chance of putting an enemy into an "exposed" state. The other weapons have a special Exploit ability. If you hit an Exposed target with an Exploit, the target takes massive damage, and is usually vaporized thus far.

This adds some nice coordination between characters. My Engineering officer sets people up with an Expose, and I vaporise them with an Exploit. There's a real sense of teamwork there.

An added concern is that Exploit abilities do large amounts of damage on their own, but they have a long cooldown. The cooldown is long enough that you often miss an Exposed window. So you have to decide if it's worth saving the Exploit ability for an Expose (which is not guaranteed) or if you should use it whenever it comes off cooldown.

Ground combat is okay. I don't think it's as fun as space combat, but it's interesting enough in short doses. However, I think there is a issue with skill points.

Skill Points

Star Trek Online gives you skill points as you play which you can invest in skills. However, Space skills are separate from Ground skills, but both use the same pool of points. Because I like space combat, I've been dumping all my skills into Space skills. This has the side effect of lowering my effectiveness in the ground game, which makes the ground game harder and less fun.

You have to make the same choice between Space and Ground skills for your officers as well. My officers have been maxing out their Space abilities, but still have poor ground abilities, which really isn't helping.

I can't help but think that it might have been better if there had been separate point pools for Space and Ground. Or if each skill had both a ground effect and a space effect. That way you don't end up gimping yourself for one half of the game.

Not to mention that there are no respecs yet, and if Cryptic follows the Champions Online pattern, skill respecs will end up being sold in the RMT store for real cash.

Conclusions

Well, that's an overview of Ground Combat and the Skill system. I think that they are both interesting yet flawed elements of the game.

Offering Advice

Apropos of our discussion last week, here's a question. Let's say you see another player make a mistake. When should you offer them unsolicited advice?

1. They're playing solo and you come across them randomly.
2. They're part of your Random Dungeon group.
3. They're part of your PuG Raid Group.
4. They're a member of your guild.
5. They're a member of guild's steady raid team.
6. They're a long-time "in-game" friend.
7. They're a "real-life" friend.
8. They're a family member.
9. Never. Only offer advice if someone asks for it.

I think most of us are more willing to offer advice as you go down the list. The more tenuous the social connection, the less likely we are willing to offer unsolicited advice.

Where I disagree with a lot of readers, it seems, is that I think it is perfectly appropriate to offer advice to pretty much everyone. Why not? Are you afraid of looking elitist?

Obviously you should be tactful, but if you're a skilled player, I don't think it's a good thing to just keep your head down and collect badges.

Dreamwalker

So Valithria Dreamwalker is now active in Icecrown Citadel. It's an interesting boss, where the healers have to heal the dragon up to full health, while the rest of the raid deals with adds trying to prevent this.

It's a pretty good fight, but there's one aspect of the fight that I do not like.

Every so often, Dreamwalker will create portals to a dream world. In the dream world are little orbs that you can touch and it will give you a stacking buff that increases your healing by 10% per stack.

It's possible to carry your stack from portal to portal, but the timing is exceptionally tight. If you are capable of carrying stacks, your healing gets massively magnified. If you're not, or have high latency, your healing is greatly hurt.

The timing is way too tight for the potential gain. If healers are meant to carry the stack from portal to portal, the timing should be slightly longer. Alternatively the penalty could be less severe, maybe losing a stack per second instead of all of them at once. If healers are not meant to carry stacks, the timer should be lower, so the stacks drop off before you enter the portal.

Basically, if Patricia is a little bit better than Daisy, Patricia should do a little more damage or healing than Daisy. You shouldn't have a situation where Patricia can all of a sudden do twice as much damage or healing as Daisy. Small differences in skill should not translate into very large differences in effectiveness.