Isle of Quel’Danas Progression

By now, all servers should be well into the world event to unlock the village on the Isle of Quel’Danas. If you’re interested in your server’s progression compared with the rest of the world – or you want to check on your server’s progress without logging into the game – there’s a handy website collating all the data.

Check out the leaderboards for US realms and EU realms at Gorgonnash.

(I’m particularly proud as my server, US-Proudmoore, as we’re top of the US charts. As I write, we’re currently at 35% of the way through Phase 2 and 60% of the way through the Portal; the nearest competitor is US-Medivh on 32% and 55% respectively. Pwnmoore, excelling at PvE grindfests since 2004!)

Magister’s Terrace: the Kael’thas Fight

I’m racing to hit Exalted with Shattered Sun before my server gets to Phase 4, so I can get the title – I’m on track, being a third of the way through Honoured with SSO while Proudmoore’s somewhere between 25% and 30% through Phase 2.

This means I’m keen to spend a lot of time in Magister’s Terrace, and I’ve developed a few tips to maximise the likelihood of success. Since some others might find it useful, here are some handy strat tips and a video!

Magister’s Terrace: Boss 4, Kael’thas (Normal Mode)

Kael’thas is a caster boss, and the fight revolves around fire- and arcane-oriented attacks. You can read up on him in detail WoWWiki (and he’s basically a trimmed-down version of his 25-man self), but here’s a quick summary of how I explain the fight to groups I run with:

Phase 1

This is a basic tank-and-spank with a couple of things to watch out for.

  • Kael hits like a kitten, and can be tanked by off-spec people in tank gear. I’ve done it as holy spec in tank gear myself.
  • If you don’t have anyone in melee range, he just casts spells. He can be tanked by a ranged DPSer with high threat, if they have enough stam – a mage with part or all of a Krosh tanking set is a good example. This seems gimmicky, but can be useful – for instance, having a hybrid tank in healing gear to help keep the party up in phase 2. However, this can be problematic, because:
  • Periodically throughout Phase 1, Kael will summon a phoenix (heralded by him saying “Vengeance… burns!”). This phoenix will aggro onto a party member and fly slowly towards them, with a pulsing fire AoE as it goes; when it dies, it explodes with AoE Fire damage. The phoenix should be kited while all ranged DPSers burn it down fast; everyone needs to stay out of melee range of it.
  • When the phoenix dies it leaves an egg. If not killed fast enough, it will spawn a new phoenix. All DPS should burn down the egg as soon as it appears.
  • (If you have a ranged DPSer tanking Kael, you may not have enough spare DPS to get the phoenix and egg down quick enough.)
  • Kael will periodically cast a flamestrike with a very showy graphical effect. Move out of its area, because it burnsssss, precious.

Phase 2

At 50% health, Kael’thas enters Phase 2. Here are the salient points:

  • He stops casting and drops all agro; he no longer attacks anyone directly for the rest of the fight.
  • Tanks are completely useless here. Pally and druid tanks should heal if needed, otherwise DPS. Warrior tanks should do what DPS they can.
  • Kael will cast a Gravity Lapse that “turns off” gravity in his room. Players can move freely in three dimensions; it’s just like swimming, but at normal movement speed.
  • Gravity Lapse does 300+ damage every second to everyone in the party. Ouch. This is very hard for a paladin to solo-heal, and not easy for a shammy either. This is why hybrid tanks need to help heal: one barkskinned Tranquility from a bear tank, for instance, will make the difference between wipe and win.
  • While Gravity Lapse is up, there are also three large Arcane Orbs that move around the room in three dimensions. They do huge arcane damage if they get into melee range of a player, so everyone needs to keep mobile constantly, panning the camera around to watch for incoming orbs. This is essential.
  • Periodically Kael will drop the Gravity Lapse (and orbs) and stand there, stunned, while regenerating energy. He does nothing during this period, and reportedly takes extra damage at the same time, so you should absolutely go to town here. If he’s not dead by the time he’s done regenerating, he’ll start the Gravity Lapse again, repeat until he’s dead or you are.

Summary

  • Phase 1: The “tank” (whether melee or ranged) keeps agro, burn down the phoenix as soon as it appears, burn down the egg as soon as the phoenix dies, keep out of the flamestrikes, don’t let Kael go to Phase 2 with a phoenix or egg still up.
  • Phase 2: Keep as mobile as possible, stay out of range of the Arcane Orbs at all costs, healers need to AoE heal (or spam like mad), let loose during his regen period.

Video

Here’s a video version of the above strategy – a bear tank, a pally healer, two mages and a rogue, all in Tier 4-5 gear. I don’t actually have a video of any of our wins, but the strategy remains the same.

You can also check this video out directly on iMeem for a bigger, better-quality video. Enjoy!

Bump!

Major new content’s going to be a bit thin on the ground hereabouts for the next few days while I power through as much Shattered Sun content as possible.

However, my Guide to Shattered Sun Daily Quests is being regularly updated, so take a look there if you’re interested in the new content but you don’t know where to start – and if you’ve checked it out recently, come back again soon for more information.

It’s only for a night…

I’ve never been one of those hybrids who changes spec at the drop of a hat to meet the needs of a group; I change specs once every few months at most, agonising over the placement of every talent point. Regardless of my championing of the “hybrids should be able to perform all their roles”, that doesn’t mean I want to respec twice a week and go holy for raids, prot for 5-mans and ret for soloing.

But. After a fruitless day of searching for Magister’s Terrace PuGs, wherein it seemed I was competing with every healer on the server for a group spot, and there were about 3 tanks compared with the 789237852 DPSers and 11872735 healers looking for groups… I snapped.

And here I am, one Magister’s Terrace group later – still Prot-specced, with my new best friend Bernie, and a good chunk of Shattered Sun rep up my sleeve. I’m just happy my group was patient and understanding about my utter nubbyness.

Time to go back to Holy… although perhaps not before I see what the PuG scene looks like tomorrow.

Gold farming: illegal?

A recent conversation in Trade channel, transcribed verbatim:

Gold farmer: [insert gold seller spam here, including phrase “100% legal”]
Player A: I like that 100% legal bit, as it is 0% legal
Me: Actually, is it illegal? It’s against the EULA and the TOS, but they’re not laws
Player A: It is “illegal” as far as Blizzard is concerned
Me: That’s not the same as ‘illegal’ though
Player B: It is illegal as far as the courts are concerned too, as Blizzard won a ginormous suit against a “gold farming company” not too long ago
Player A: Semantics get you nowhere
Me: That’s a civil case. If it were illegal, it would have been prosecuted by the government (ie police/district attorney/whoever does that job in the jurisdiction in question)
Player C: Hey, lawyer boy. STFU
Me: Just curious – I see people say “it’s illegal” all the time; I just wondered if anyone had any evidence for it.
Player A: Defending gold farmers is epic fail
Me: I’m not defending them!
Player A: Everything we say pertains to the game. As far as the rules of the game go, it is “illegal”. You get banned for using the services
Player D: Illegal is the wrong word
Player A: Again, semantics get you nowhere. We know what we mean. You know what we mean.
Me: Pardon me for wanting to use the correct words for things.
Player E: Its in the EULA, its violates the terms of the game… which is also bound by a court ruling
Me: Show me a law against gold farming, selling or buying
Player E: Also high chance the gold they sell is stolen from a hacked account. Trafficing in Stolen Goods… Hows that one
Player A: Which is theft of intellectual property. Which is, in fact, illegal

I should have known better than to expect critical thinking from the denizens of the Trade channel – however, I’m curious. Is gold selling actually illegal, in any jurisdiction? Or is it merely a violation of the TOS/TOU/EULA and therefore purely a civil matter? Any lawyers in the audience able to help me out?

(Note that I am not, as some genius in Trade channel suggested, supporting the Real Money Transfer industry; I’m merely curious about the actual legality of it.)

The Alchemist’s Stone

Healing trinkets can often be difficult to analyse, because they offer stats and effects that you don’t typically find on other items. MK of A Dwarf Priest said it best: “you should carry multiple trinkets and select based on your needs for the given encounter.”. That’s an excellent post analysing healing trinkets, incidentally, and I recommend it for all healers. Of course, if you’re a pally or shaman, a lot of the numerical rankings won’t apply as we get zero benefit out of Spirit, but the overall listing and analysis is excellent.

So, let’s take a look at the numbers on one much-misunderstood trinket: the Alchemist’s Stone.

Alchemist’s Stone
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+15 Strength
+15 Agility
+15 Stamina
+15 Intellect
+15 Spirit
Requires Alchemy (350)
Equip: Increases the effect that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%. This effect does not stack.

This is very much an all-rounder trinket. From a healadin perspective, though:

  • +15 Str and +15 Agi are irrelevant.
  • +15 Stam is nice for survivability but doesn’t affect our efficacy.
  • +15 Spi is only relevant if you’re getting innervated, which is pretty unlikely.
  • +15 Int is useful. It provides +150 mana, and equates to 0.21% spell crit (or the equivalent of 4-5 Spell Crit Rating) and +5.8 spelldamage and healing.
  • +40% output on healing and mana potions.
    • As far as I know, this works on any health/mana potion that shares a cooldown with healing and mana potions – so it works on Healing and Mana potions of all strengths, Bottled Nethergon Energy, Mad Alchemist’s Potions, and all those other lovely potions. (See this post for a summary.)
    • Looking at a Super Mana Potion (or instance-specific equivalent), their range of mana return increases, with this trinket, to 2520 – 4200 mana. This is an average return of 3360 mana per potion, or an equivalent of 140 mp5 if you’re chain-potting (compared to equivalent 100 mp5 for chain-potting without this trinket).
  • Therefore: this trinket is worth: 15 Int (approx 4.5 Spell Crit rating, 5.8 Healing, and 150 mana), and up to 40 mp5 if you’re chain-potting.

Note that the mana return from trinkets like this scales down sharply on fights where you’re not taking a potion on every cooldown. Also note that, like mana return on spell crit, it’s not true mp5 – true mp5 mana regen is passive, and valuable because it returns mana without you having to cast or drink a potion. I tend to work things out in terms of mp5 because it provides an easy mechanic for comparing two items – but if you do that, you must remember that an mp5 equivalent is only equivalent as long as you’re meeting the conditions – chain-potioning for this trinket, chain-casting for spell crit, etc.

Upshot: Minor benefits to healing, spell crit and mana pool. Up to 40 mp5 depending on frequency of potion use.
Use: Fights where you’ll want to chain-chug mana potions.

And now let’s take a look at the upgraded version! The recipe for this trinket will be available in patch 2.4, from the Shattered Sun Offensive quartermaster at Exalted reputation.

Redeemer’s Alchemist’s Stone
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Alchemy (350)
Equip: Increases healing done by up to 119 and damage done by up to 40 for all magical spells and effects.
Equip: Increases the effect that healing and mana potions have on the wearer by 40%. This effect does not stack.

So, this variant loseWeight Exercises the +15 to all stats, in exchange for a big +heal boost that makes this trinket worth it regardless of your potion use – this is on par with Tier 6 trinkets. As a bonus, it retains the same potion boost as the previous version.

Upshot: +119 healing, up to +40 mp5 depending on potion use.
Use: Anywhere, particularly healing-intensive situations where you’ll be throwing big heals and relying on mana potions rather than mp5. Great for progression fights.

WoW Character Watch

I’ve got a big post half-written at the moment, but I’ll interrupt that to make a quick website recommendation:

WoW Character Watch, a website developed and offered by Alinden of Moar HP Than Jesus, provides a handy service for anyone interested in keeping track of their friends, enemies, and anyone else. (The tagline is “We watch so you don’t have to.”)

Sign up at the site and you can create a Watch List; every 24 hours, WCW checks the Armory for changes to characters on your watch list. It reports changes in gear, skill levels, character level and guild. Keep track of your friends’ progress; keep an eye on that troublemaker ex-guildie!

Just a note; it’s currently in beta so there may be a few kinks. A contact form will be up within 24 hours; in the meantime, if you have any problems, head over to Alinden’s blog and report them there.

Also note that I believe it’s limited to the US Armory at present, although EU functionality will be added shortly.

Edit: The Armory may be blocking it at present; a few people have reported issues with not being able to look up their characters. If you suffer that, leave a comment here and I’ll make sure the dev sees it.

Edit 2: It should now be working fine again, and EU support has been added.

What do you pack for a raid?

I apologise for the lack of tasty content over the last few days; I’ve been extremely tired, and doing the bare minimum.

This is something I’d been talking about with a friend lately anyway, so when I saw Anna of Too Many Annas blogging about what she packs for a raid, I thought I’d join in!

Here’s what I take for a raid – for reference, I’m a holy paladin with a main healer/off tank spec. (As you doubtless already know, if you’re reading this!)

Consumables

Gear

  • Healing set 1: focused on spell crit & +heal
  • Healing set 2: balanced between +heal and mp5
  • A metric bajillion extra trinkets and librams, for situational use
  • Offtanking/AoE tanking set
  • Spelldamage set – not that I usually need it for raiding, but there’s no way I have room for it in my bank!

And this is why I have full 20-slot bags, both in my bank and equipped, and I still only ever have 6-10 empty bag slots.