Tetris: Patchwerk Remix

So Tobold had a post talking about the shifting of Raid's from a single difficulty to having multiple difficulties so that more people can experience the encounters. I do agree to a point. The problem with having all of these versions of the same instance... is that hardcore players have to run ALL versions of these instances.

If I want to do the hard versions... I have to run both the regular for gear, and then the hard version of THE EXACT SAME INSTANCE. While having heroic versions is nice for the challenge... it isn't exactly the same as having challenging new encounters. Having a boss deal more damage and have more hps and maybe one new mechanic isn't very exciting. Or is it?

Well I know in the case of Crusader Coliseum it isn't very exciting. I was thinking though... what if Blizzard designed an encounter that progressively got harder? My unlikely to be implemented idea is that you take a relatively simple fight like say Patchwerk, you take the fight and add a twist to it.

You start off fighting Patchwerk and then after 3 minutes another patchwerk spawns. This patchwerk though has 10% (maybe 20% would be better) more health and does 10/20% more damage. You have another 3 minutes to kill this Patchwerk before the next comes out. Essentially each patchwerk becomes a level and every 3 minutes whether you killed him or not the next level starts. This simply continues till the raid wipes.

At that point the raid zones back in and a chest is there with rewards equal to the level of challenge they completed. You get one emblem of whatever for each patchwerk dead and then say after 5 you get an additional whateverlvl of gear. At lvl 10 you get a tier piece and every level after that you get an additional tier piece and so on and so forth. At level 10 the raid would have been fighting for 30 minutes straight and would have to kill a version of patchwerk dealing twice the damage and having twice the health.

With this type of encounter anyone can experience a challenge equal to their ability/gear level. You still get a reward no matter how far you get and the further you get the greater the reward.

The fight doesn't have to be patchwerk but I chose him because it is a good benchmark for dps yet still requires 2 solid tanks and good healing. You would have to find a good balance between the right number of dps and healers to get as far as you can before your healers run out of mana, the tanks get one shot, or you don't have enough dps to kill the current before the next comes out and you get overwhelmed.

The hardcore Guilds can compete to get to the highest level and would give them something to constantly challenge their abilities. Put the whole thing on a one attempt per week deal to where everyone gets an equal number of attempts to get the furthest.

Anyway what do you think of the idea? Is it stupid? What boss would be a better fit to challenge the whole raid since dps have the easy job? What kind of reward scaling would be appropriate?

Future of the Guild in Cataclysm

So PvD has a great post about talking about the supposed end of Solo play in the next expansion. (You can find the original post here) I posted my comment about the amount of content that will be available for solo play... but the question arose of how this will impact smaller guilds and Raid Alliances.

I participate in what can best be described as a Raid Alliance, though in reality it is more of a glorified pug. Marrus is the guild leader and raid leader for the Guild The Tempest. The Tempest however is a small family and close friends guild. In fact its just like my guild Shadow of Teldrassil. I created SoT as a place to call home where friends can come and be themselves. Most of the members don't raid but some occasionally do join me. I however, raid with The Tempest quite regularly.

During the week we get 10 man runs together with 5 Tempest members, me and 4 others. Kobeck was one of the other 4 but due to College load he is taking a break from organized WoW. My wife also occasionally comes as does Codoy and Caspien when they are on and we need people. But for the most part the other 4 people are totally random.

Ok so that was a wall of text to basically say this... I play in a small guild where in the new system I would be the top contributor to the guild leveling system. In fact I would wager that my 6 80's would contribute 1-6 in that list. But if the system takes in account the top 20 players then the other members who aren't as active or don't raid won't contribute as much.

It is unclear as to how this will affect the guild progress as a whole. I also wonder about The Tempest. Even though as a gathered force we are clearing new raid content, no single guild can take all the credit for it. Also one of the perks mentioned is increased gold and a raid resurrect. How will these work if not everyone in the raid is a member of the same guild?

Of course the obvious solution would be to merge guilds but that may not really be an option. Though we get a long together great in raids and could also in a guild, I cannot say the same for the members of their guild I haven't met, as well as the members of mine who haven't met them. I don't want to destroy the family atmosphere in either one of the guilds just so we can be viable as a raiding guild.

This is still all a long way off but it is tickling in the back of my mind every time I log on.

Hybrid vs Pure dps

I know this topic has been argued into the ground... but after reading Player VS Developer's post something jumped out at me. Blizzard agrees with him that Pure dps should be higher by nature then that of Hybrid dps. To a point I do as well... but then I got to thinking.

The argument is that because hybrids have the ability to heal or tank, in addition to dps, that they shouldn't be able to do as much damage as those who are pure. Pure dps refers to Hunters, Warlocks, Mages, and Rogues. Hybrids refer too... well everyone else.

There are 2 points that I want to present.

1. Pure DPS are less limited by threat due to having Threat Dumps.
2. Hybrids CANNOT dps while healing.

Threat Dumps refer to Feign Death(hunters), Soul Shatter (warlocks), Invisibility (mages), and Vanish (rogue). Pure classes have the ability that, if they pull threat, they can get rid of that extra threat and not get eaten by the boss. Now all dps (except hunters) have threat reduction talents so that they can deal more damage without pulling aggro. The difference though is that when a hybrid pulls aggro... they have no option but to stand there and get squished.

Priests come closest to having a threat dump in fade... but that threat gets returned to the priest once fade wears off. Additionally that talent is more to compensate for healing priests being extra squishy compared to other healers.

I'm usually second in dps in our 10 mans and top 5 in 25 mans on my shaman. Yay for me right? Well on fights like Hodir I'm constantly riding the threat line of our tanks. This means that if I'm not careful I will pull aggro and die. This means sometimes I actually have to stop dpsing to let the tank build up. The pure dps... just reaches the threat cap and pops their respective abilities and go right back at it.

What happens in the above scenario when the tank dies? Or in our case gets flash frozen and bubbles /glare. Well MR. Hodir comes over and smacks me with his big giant mace and then turns around to go after the rogue. The rogue says LOLVANISH and Hodir goes to find someone else.

For the record... being able to heal isn't going to save you from a boss one shot... nor is throwing on a shield or switching to bear form. If you pull aggro as a Hybrid you are left to the mercy of the tanks taunts (though I did survive a melee hit from Archavon once).


The second point is really the one I've been thinking of a lot lately. You see I've talked about it before, and while yes being able to spot heal can save an encounter... so can some extra dps. Blizzard says that because we have the ability to heal, that we should be lower then pure classes in terms of damage. Why? My role in a group is DPS the fact that I can heal alone IS a dps decrease.

When I have to stop and heal myself, or a tank, or that dps who wouldn't get out of the fire, I'm losing dps. The time it takes for me to cast a lesser healing wave is the same amount of time that I could have been casting a lightning bolt. The last time I can ever remember going an entire fight without casting a single heal is Patchwerk. Every other fight I've done there are times where I have had to stop and heal "someone". That ability to heal costs me damage.

Don't get me wrong... I love playing a hybrid... but there are times I wish I could just straight dps through a fight... just to see what my actual potential is. I may never catch the rogue in our group in damage... but I hope that it isn't because of some "5%" difference inherently between us. There have been a number of times where I have been low on damage... only to flip to the heal meters to see the missing dps in hps.

I'm very competitive... to the point where I want to start bringing my hunter into raids just so I can focus on one job... Killing stuff.

Sign of a Good Player, Taking Criticism.

The difference between being a good player or a bad player is knowing when you are right or wrong. What I mean by this is that to become a good player, you need to accept that you won't always be right. On your realm, there is a player that is better geared, more skilled, and more advanced then you are. Its a fact. On any realm there can only be 10 people that are the best of their class and chances are you aren't one of those people.

So occasionally you are going to run into people that are better players then yourself. Depending on how good you are determines the frequency of this occurring. The other factor is of course, your exposure to the community as a whole. If you never do anything in WoW but play by yourself.... you probably won't be reading this blog. Also if you are playing solo then your performance really doesn't matter and so you can ignore this post.

This post is about taking criticism. I don't mean the criticism from the "leet" players who just tell you that you suck and kick you from the group. What I'm talking about is when an experienced player pulls you aside and points out that you could be doing things differently. I've had this happen to me and I have done this with players that I encounter on my realm. The difference between a good player or a bad player is how you take this criticism.

The bad player will simply ignore this advice or get upset that this person is "judging" them. Perhaps he will reason or justify his choices in playing the way that he does. Often times they will attack the integrity of the person who is criticizing them. So they will continue to do whatever it was they were doing and perform subpar in groups. Other times it will push them away from raids or group content, or they will only do so in the confines of the guild they are in. Since the guild they are in caters to their poor performance and are often full of bad players, no one will call them out and they will never improve. Good players who happen to be in this guild will get shunned for giving criticism till they either quit the guild or sit in silence.

The good player listens to the criticism. Takes the other players words into consideration and then does research, either on his own, or on a community site to verify the advice. Based on this the good player decides to accept the advice and make the change, or reject the advice based on the evidence found in his research.

Very few people take criticism well. I for one, do not take it well. The difference between me and a bad player though, is that I do everything I can to not be wrong in the first place. I do my research on community sites and blogs as well as in game testing. I do this so that I can be beyond reproach. Am I perfect? No. But I want the person who criticizes me, to be one of the best players in the game.

So when someone comes to you with advice. Listen to them. Take what they say into consideration (make sure it makes sense). Go onto the community sites and blogs to see if the advice is valid for you. Back this research up with a little of your own, whether that is playing with spreadsheets or the target dummy. Finally make an educated choice to accept or reject the advice, and if you choose to accept, act upon the good criticism.

Learning and growing can improve your character just as much as that shiny new piece of gear.