Friday, August 21, 2009

Blizzard....making wow funner


Blizzard is always reinventing wow. From new talents to talent tree remakes it seams Blizzard is never satisfied. In recent years Blizzard has been adding features into wow to reduce the amount of time to level to 80. This is a awesome move in the right direction for wow as an mmo. leveling to 80, or 85 soon, is by far the worst part of the game. Nothing feels more like work than killing 10 mobs, collecting 8 boxes, and delivering a letter to someone. *Yawn* Some people claim that leveling helps you learn your class. This is simply not true at all. All leveling does is teach you how to have the least amount of downtime when killing mobs. THAT IS IT. Having raided with 100s of people, at max level, that have no clue how to play their class or even basic game play. I can honestly say leveling does nothing for end game expectations of...

Moving out of fire
Removing curses
Avoiding a giant charging boss
Focusing on the raid

So here is a solution Blizzard. Grant users the option of starting new toons at max level ONCE you already have a max level character. It takes all of maybe 45 minutes to setup keys, set a rotation macro, and start searching the AH for some greens and blues. This will remove the worst part of the game for seasoned game players.

Listen to your raid leader


Raids are not 5 man tank-n-spank dungeons requiring no thought process beyond not standing in fire. Raids require teamwork, quick reflexes, and ability to learn fast. The raid leader is your guide through an instance showing you where to stand, what to do, and what to expect. Raid leading is/can be the hardest position to take on in a raid. Either your raid has never done "this" before or your raid has the instance on farm and knows what to do. Yes RLs can get frustrated with the raid group and yell, but they want the group to succeed where others have failed.

Tip: Focus on the encounter, ask questions/state comments, know your role.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Alt-ti-dus

Alt-ti-dus is a condition of a wow player gets after getting burned out with his/her current class. Every wow player has come down with this at one time or another, but there is a cure for it. Roll a class that can fill multiple rolls. So if you rolled a Mage back in the day but would like to try healing? Roll a Shaman. Rolled a sad Warlock and would like to try tanking? Paladin will may be up your ally. Started a Hunter named Leogus and already have a Rogue, Priest, and Warrior? Roll a Druid and do all four rolls!

The cure for having Alt-ti-dus is not to roll several characters anymore. The cure is the class that can do the trifecta (Tank, heals, and DPS) of rolls well.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Blizzards Next-Gen MMO

For years there has been job openings at Blizzard looking to fill various positions for a "Next-Gen MMO". Blizzard is a creature of habit building upon past success every couple of years. So one would think that the next logical choice that Blizzard would make is a starcraft MMO. Blizzcon
is coming up soon and usually there is always an announcement of what new is coming. I have a feeling is it going to be Universe of Starcraft.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Authenticator

Security has a price of about $7 delivered. For about the same price as a master lock you can get a Blizzard Authenticator to protect your account from hackers. Being a security minded person, because of my job as a network admin, I have come to question integrity while divulging worst case scenarios. So $7 is a small small price to pay to know my account is unhackable now. With keyloggers, untrusted patch mirrors, posioned DNS entries, and brute force attacks your account is very substitutable to compromise. Takes about 30 seconds to setup while being even easier to use. First add the authenticator to your account. Next log in your wow account. Finally push the button and type the 6 digit key. Takes an extra 10 seconds to log in while saving you a huge headache later on. Not to mention I sleep better at night too knowing my account is safe.

Bear Tanking


The old saying "Jack of all trades, masters of none" can really be thrown right out the window now. Druids can fill any role there is and do it well. So well in fact most players who play a Druid don't want to play any other class. Not because Druids don't want to because all they have to do is go respec/switch talents and gear then poof they are filling another roll.

Bear tanking spec
0/55/16

Bear tanking stats

When looking for tanking gear you're looking for gear with high stamina, agility, and dodge. Druids gain a large bonus to health so pack on the stamina. Agility helps with crits and dodge so don't overlook that when geming/enchanting. Druids can't use sheilds, our big sexy paws can't hold one, so we rely on avoidance through dodge. A fresh 80 should be looking for 30k health with 32% dodge and 400 defense.
Bear tanking macros
Macros make life 50x easier for everyone. If you not using macros yet you need to focus about 2 hours today making for first few macros. Bear tanking macros are the easiest on the game. Here are the only 2 I use.

Mangle:
#showtooltip Mangle (Bear)
/cast Mangle (Bear)
/cast !Maul()

Lacerate:
#showtooltip Lacerate
/cast Lacerate
/cast !Maul

Keep a free key close for swipe, FF, and growl and now you got some tanking power.

Closing thoughts
Druid tanks have been a little light in recent times, but I have come to find out they are a welcome addition in any raid. Don't let other raids tell you you can't roll on that leather or cloth. If it's an upgrade roll on it. After all you did contribute.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Why craft when I can buy?

There has been a trend away from crafting gear to just buying the BOE crafted gear. back in BC if you wanted the purples of a crafted profession you had to suck it up and make them yourself. Fast forward to Wrath and you can pick up ilevel 200+ crafted on the AH for 300 or more gold. So why craft any more when you can just buy? Well you get special bonuses and enchants you can't buy but if you gather you also get special bonuses too. Myself, on my Druid, have chosen to skin and mine, sell the gathered mats backs to crafters (So crafty), and buy their crafted gear.

Is crafting gear just too much work/gold now?

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Who is healing who?

Having played an end game healer for 5+ years, on two different MMOs, I have little experience on the subject of healing. A healer is not a healer is not a healer is not a healer. The mechanics of a healing class can favor raid or a single target healing depending on the spec of the healer. Paladin healing is strongest on a single target, but how many raid bosses let you stand still? Druid healing is awesome but those hots take some time to preform. Priests and Shamans have a good mix of group and single target healing, awesome smart healing spells, with some damage reduction. If I were to pick a better healer between the two Priests wins out over Shamans by a hair. But the Shaman has more gear choices available to them and could gear up much much faster.

Right now this is the healing assignments in raids...
-Paladin/Disc Priest on MT
-Holly priest/Shaman/Druid on OT and Raid healing

WoW Tattoos

I read an interesting article by Mike Schramm about wow tattoos. Having nothing against people with interesting tattoos I would never get one myself. Having never liked something enough to permanently ink it to my body. Can't help but think if you have a tattoo of something you may be a little too much into it. Into something enough to be into it 20+ years later is a long time. I don't even have a t-shirt older than 6 month that I like enough to wear out in public.

To each their own.

Knock knock who is there? It's Onyxia

Onyxia was one of the only old world raids our guild wanted to run but never did. If you were in this same boat as us here is your chance to battle it out with Onyxia. Loot rewards include top level gear and a chance to own your very own ride able Onyxia mount! Be sure to pick up your free Onyxia Whelpling pet as well.

Good times!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Battle rez.....NOW?!?

This may be a server, realm, or even game wide first. Last night our guild was running Ulduar, with me as MT, and we were up to Razerscale. The OT and I were swapping the boss back and fourth when our slightly under geared OT died un-expectantly. I was up to 7 flame stacks when our healer said "I know this is going to sound crazy but I want you to Battle Rez the other Tank!" I said "You want me to do what?!?" I thought about it, popped all my Druid cool downs, and successfully battle rezed the OT while taking a huge 26k hit. There was a cheer over vent followed by laughter. I still can't believe we pulled that off. Needless to say we finished off Razerscale without a problem.

Druids are awesome!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Gear priority is so old school

Playing as a bear and boomkin has allowed me more access to more gear, but I still get frowned on by the uninformed player when rolling on cloth. Take the raid Naxx for example. There are about 6 pieces of caster DPS leather. Now look at the DPS caster cloth there is about 22 pieces of caster DPS cloth. Clearly Blizzard wants other caster DPS classes to roll on those items. If they did not then why is Naxx itemized so?

-Old way of thinking
Clothies get priority when rolling on cloth gear
Druids can only roll on leather
Spirit does not help in damage
Druids can't use polearms
The earth is flat

-New way of thinking
5x the amount of cloth drops in instances/raids. So if it's an upgrade roll on it.
Druids get to roll on cloth
Spirit helps in damage
Druids can use polearms
The earth is round

When raiding don't show your noobness when that boomkin rolls a 97 against your 86 to win those cloth DPS shoulders then you cry about it. Or when that polearm drops and that Druid beats out your Hunter. Suck it up and stop QQing you don't want to look like a DPS warrior.

Alas, poor Warlock! I knew him well.

Pre-BC I played a Priest because I wanted to be the best healer I could. I healed every instance/raid I could and was very geared out. It was not uncommon to get 10 whispers soon as I logged on "Hay wanta heal UBERS? We have Warlock and can summon". Ahh those were the days healers, esp Priests, were in high high demand. Then when BC came out I was sick of healing and wanted to try DPS out. Shadow priests were still being called Warlock "wanta bes" and could not compete with the DPS other classes were doing. So after 1 year of playing nothing but my Priest I decided to re-roll a Warlock and not be a wanta be anymore. After about 5 weeks I had a level 70 Warlock and full shadow damage crafted gear. I was'nt just topping the DPS charts I was ROCKING them. Times were good again. Our guild had Kara on farm and were progressing up to BT pretty fast. Then I took a break from wow to work on my business. When Wrath came out I decided to roll a DK WITH EVERYONE ELSE. My Warlock was sitting by waiting for a good time to re-dot the world of warcraft. When I decided to play my warlock again here is what I noticed what was wrong with the class...

Dots take waaay to long to do damage

Fear is a joke with diminishing returns
Reverse blink is not an escape
Demonology tree is not a pvp tree
Every class needs on cloth gear
Free HK

In short, I will not play my Warlock again until Blizzard fixes 90% of these issues. I have the feeling other Warlocks feel the same way. Buff my Warlock.

Good gear but crappy DPS

Are you decked out in purples but DPS like your rocking the blues? Well Everything Over Powered is here to help. First thing we need to look at is your talents to spec according to what is needed. After you have picked a build now we need to build on that solid foundation with some nice glyphs that really drive home the damage. Next you need to reach your hit cap. This is the most important stat to have as a DPSer. Any points over cap is wasted any points under means your not prepared. So run heroics, gem, and enchant your way until you reach hit cap. Your raid with thank you. Once your hit capped you need to stack damage, haste, and crit into every piece of gear you get. Either with gems, enchants, or set bonuses. Finally you want to make a macro, or three, of a DPS rotation. Not every encounter is going to favor your macro so try to think about how to apply your macro to general encounters.

Now your ready to top the DPS meters and not look like a scrub.

Deleted comments on wow.com...Part 2

Well looks like our good buddy Adam Holisky followed up his controversial posting on wow.com. Turns out the reason why I can't post, and not posting there anymore, is because I asked for sources/proof for this supposed "leak" of new classes. I would have taken any link to any other creditable source just to check the claim. Then I got banned from commenting any further and all previous comments deleted.

"And while most of those people who are yelling are getting banned from our site over the next few hours (there’s so many of them)"

Banned for disagreeing with the powers that be. That is very mature of you guys, but hay it's your site. If you have no evidence then you have no case to prove anything. Period. /facepalm

"Third, no one will reveal their sources. This is a founding principal of modern journalism. Anonymous sources stay anonymous."

No. The founding principal of journalism is backing up facts with evidence and not "anonymous" here say. If you are making outlandish claims you must site your sources as credible or lose all credibility. I know news sites want to be the "first" to break the story, but there has to be some type of data to back up claims. Otherwise the integrity of the site is at risk because of misinformation. Next time wait until an official statement from the source has been made, report on said statement, and provide links to the source.

"and would be forced to be a burger expert at McDonalds. McDonald's."

Adam maybe you should try your hand at flipping burgers. I hear they may also need some help in the fry department too.

Over powered Shamans

Shamans were THE original over powered class with a nice slow double hander and wind fury totem. Oh the humanity! I bet players were rerolling Shamans left and right. Then here comes Blizzards nurf hammer *POW* the Shamans are not so OP any more....Then BC came along and Shamans got a pass because EVERYONE was QQing about Warlock damage and forgot to look at Shaman utility. Like some well orchestrated plan the Shaman community cried "Hay Blizzard you nurfed us! Now give us buffs!" Oh the ground was soaked with tears and Blizzard answered.

Now Shamans can lay 4 totems down at once, regen mana/health 2 ways, raid wide buff 4 different ways, have a fiery pet, Blood Lust....and the list goes on. Don't get me wrong I love the OP Shaman in my raid. I just wish I rolled a Shaman instead of a Priest.

What other class can raid buff so well AND top the damage/healing meters?

Monday, August 10, 2009

Deleted comments on wow.com

Part of the reason why I created this blog was my comments were getting voted down and deleted on wow.com. The vibe over there is very one minded with a "We are so right because we are wow.com" attitude. If anyone has a slight change of option of view expect your comment to be voted down to the black or even deleted by the blog submitter. From here on out I will be commenting on wow at everythingoverpowered.

Welcome to Everything Over Powered

This site is dedicated to everything over powered in World of Warcraft. Expect to see daily news on what classes are overpowered, people who QQ about their classes, and some sites that have it all wrong and make me want to facepalm.