The New Year post: Why I am taking a break from raiding, and what I’m going to do instead

Why I am taking a break from raiding
I have stopped full time raiding with  my guild.  It was a hard choice to come to, but I am happy I have done it.  There were lots of reasons, but they all ultimately boiled down to time and committing time.  I only have so many free hours in a week, and I was committing a lot of them to raiding.  I believe that if I want to commit to raiding, I commit to showing up every time (or as close as you can reasonably manage).  Raiding, however, never seems to stop, so I have decided to make that break for myself instead.

It was a bit of a perfect storm that led to this decision.  Partly real life issues (a small child, about to go back to work, moving house) and partly gaming issues (SWTOR, LFR, MoP announcement, alts).  Basically, I felt like I had more demanding real life commitments that, whilst I could probably manage, would be more difficult to manage if I didn’t have more flexibility.  I also found myself with more things I wanted to do that were not raiding and realised I wasn’t going to be able to do everything.  Then LFR hit and finally I can ‘see’ the content, albeit with less of a challenge, in a couple of hours.  And thats enough for me for now.

What am I going to do instead?
These will probably cover the first part of the year:

WoW

1. Get my warlock to 85
2. Gear up as many chars as I can via the raid finder/PvP
3. Participate in the MoP beta (accessed via the annual pass)
4. Moar achievements!

SWTOR

1. Get a couple of characters to 50
2. Participate in an operation
3. Gear up at least one character to PvP
4. Get the hang of space battles

For the blog I have a few ideas.  I will try and post more of the Moar Achievements series (and post them a bit quicker!)  I will finish the current LFR Crib Sheets.  And I am going to write some SWTOR crib sheets.  I might write some LFR/VP level gear lists.  I will write about the MoP beta when it starts, especially about PokeWoW.  I might also try and collate some useful resources for different aspects of WoW and SWTOR.

Does anyone have any other suggestions of things you want to read from me in relation to SWTOR or WoW? I’ll respond to each suggestion made with either a post or a good reason why I can’t write it (i.e. I am the worlds worst mage, 1920s French cinema is not WoW or SWTOR related, I’ll get arrested for writing that, etc.)

 

Why Morrighan wrote the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple Crib Sheet twice, or your responsibilities as a Raider

I imagine some people were confused by the fact I published the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple Crib Sheet twice.  There is an explanation on the Current Crib Sheets page.  But I will also go into it here.

Whats the difference?
The new Crib Sheet, which is the one linked on the Current Crib Sheets page, contains LFR tactics only.  I’ve been a bit conservative and the LFR tactics are possibly a little more detailed than you will need.  But LFR can be quite random and it depends on your group.  From now on, LFR tactics are the only ones I will produce Crib Sheets before.  If you want more detailed tactics I suggest heading on over to Icy Veins and watching Learn to Raid/Tankspot videos.

Why the change?
One thing that never ceases to irritate me is being in a raid and realising the people you are raiding with don’t understand how the tactics work.  You know this when someone makes the same mistake over and over.

Heres an example.  How many times does someone need to drop a ball close to the hug point on Ragnaros before they come to understand that the closer you are to those balls, the more damage they do?  There is no limit because this is something players rarely understand from doing.  You only understand it if you have bothered to read at least the encounter journal and preferably tactics.  There are some awesome guilds who can figure this out.  Also some players.  If you can, then congratulations to you.  If you can’t, and your raid wipes again because you ran in too soon, then you are letting down every player in that raid who has bothered to read the tactics and make sure they understand the fights so they can execute them better.

This isn’t just a random rant.  My crib sheets aren’t designed to explain the mechanics.  They tell you what to do and little more.  In LFR, thats enough.  If you can do what you need to, it will die.  In normal raiding, that might get you through.  But your raids will not be smooth and your progress won’t be great.  And I don’t want to contribute to that problem further by enabling people with a short cut that might let them scrape through some fights, but that will ultimately see them come up short on difficult fights.  Each guild or PuG needs to deal with this issue as they see fit.  But I don’t want to help people hide the fact that they can’t be bothered.

This should ultimately make the crib sheets better.  They will be shorter and more suited to their purpose.  They won’t be as confusing.  And they will hopefully help make raids better and not worse.

Fall of Deathwing LFR Crib Sheet – coming soon to a computer near you! 

Morrighan’s Siege of Wyrmrest Temple LFR Crib Sheet

Covering LFR difficulty only.  I will add links to MMO Champion’s boss pages (Learn to Raid vids, Encounter Journal entries and loot tables) as well as the well written tactics at Icy Veins for people doing normal/heroic raiding.

There are four bosses in the Siege of Wymrest Temple.

Morchock [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 2 tanks who should always be the closest to the boss to take the double Stomp damage.
• The raid should stand behind the boss at maximum melee range to share Stomp damage.
• 7 ranged/healers should move to each red crystal as it spawns and sit right on top of it until it explodes. Closer = less damage.  While this isn’t vital, if your health is low it might kill you.
• Every so often he will pull you all towards him and cast The Earth Consumes you which spawns some spikes (don’t get hit as these spawn as they do damage).  Hide behind them.
• Hide from the black blood in the safe spots behind the spikes.  Once the blood has spawned you can move to dps him if you have a safe spot available.  The blood will kill you even on LFR.
• He enrages at 20%.

Warlord Zon’ozz [ MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 1 tank should fact him away from the raid.
• Melee should hug behind the boss.  Ranged should stand further back and behind him.
• Dispel Disrupting Shadows immediately.
• Every so often a void spawns.  It can be bounced between players, making it grow larger.  A small group, including a healer, should do this.  It can be safely ignored, but more bounces will speed up the fight by making the boss take more damage during the burn phase.
• Once it hits the boss, hug.  He will do lots of AoE damage.  Pop cooldowns and burn.
• Repeat until dead.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• 1 tank.
• Its all about the oozes here.  There are 6 possible different coloured oozes and he will spawn 3 every so often.  You can kill one of them.  The other 2 will merge with the boss and give him certain abilities.  Its all about the combinations.
• The oozes do the following:
• Purple means every 5 heals on a target cause the target to explode and take damage.  Use big heals and avoid AoE heals. Better just to kill it.
• Green causes the raid to be digested and does minor damage.  There is no splash damage in LFR so hug.  This is almost harmless in LFR.
• Yellow increases attack speed and adds an AoE component to Void Bolt.  Hug.
• Black spawns add that cast spells on players.  Hug and AoE.
• Red damages 3/8 people at random.  Hug.
• Blue causes a mana void to appear and suck mana from every ranged caster.  Kill it and the mana comes back to those nearby.  It only steals mana once.
• In LFR mode I personally would kill Purple > Yellow > Red > Black.  Again, Green is completely harmless!!!!!!  If you can’t manage to AoE the adds, then killing Black before red might be a good idea.
• You can hug for every ooze combination.  Only Blue requires you to move (to dps the mana void).

Hagara the Storm Binder [MMO Champion | Icy Veins]

• This is a 3 phase fight.  There is a ‘main phase’ and then 2 other ‘special phases’ – an Ice Phase and a Lightning Phase.  During special phases she is immune to all damage.
• Focused Assault does a lot of damage to the 1 tank so be ready with extra healing.  She doesn’t move while channeling it so move back away from her.  Move towards the edge so by the time a special phase comes, you are on the edge.
• In the main phase hug up.  Dispell Shattered Ice and have a ranged ‘tank’ Ice Lance.
• Ice Phase:
• She covers most of the platform in a big bubble.  Get out of it and hug at a Binding Crystal.  Stay there until the walls have spawned.
• She casts four walls of icy spikes that rotate clockwise around the platform.  Group and move around between them, paying attention at all times.
• Binding Crystals appear that you need to dps while running round and round.  Destroy all four to end the phase and go back to normal.  Don’t risk getting hit by a wall to do more damage.
• Lightning Phase:
• Kill adds near one of the Lightning Conductors so it overloads.  It will cause someone to be Electrocuted.
• Create a chain of people to spread Lightning between Lightning Conductors to overload them.  Some healing is needed here.
• Repeat Main > Special > Main > Other Special until dead.

 

Furtive Father Winter: Crib Sheets!

Todays post comes to you courtesy of Glady from thereadycheck.com who has produced an awesome and unique piece of art work for me as my Furtive Father Winter gift:

Behold as the mighty yet elegant Morrighan smites the weepy Deathwing with the holy powers of penance, aided by the fierce and resourceful “crib sheets!!”

Happy Holidays dear Morrighan (and readers)!! I hope you have the very best of Winter Veils, and a happy new year filled with much smiting of weepy bosses atop infant bedding!

(Check out my own gift to Ringo of Flinthammer Hall as well as all the other bloggers involved in the Furtive Father Winter fun and games over at Blog Azeroth.)

Moar Achievements: Darkmoon Faire

The all new and exciting Darkmoon Faire has arrived.  And it adds another batch of achievements to the World Events tab of your achievements panel.

You can get the following achievements from the Darkmoon Faire

• Come One, Come All! – Attend the Darkmoon Faire
• Fairgoer’s Feast – Consume one of every Darkmoon food and drink
• Faire Favors – Complete at least 6 profession-based quests
• I Was Promised a Pony – Ride  a Darkmoon Pony
• Step Right Up – Play 5 different Darkmoon games
• Blastenheimer Bullseye – Score a bullseye when launched from the Darkmoon Cannon
• Quick Shot – Score a Quick Shot at the Shooting Gallery
• Taking the Show on the Road – Launch off Darkmoon Fireworks in every friendly capital city
• Darkmoon Dungeoneer – Turn in 5 dungeon Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Defender – Turn in 3 BG Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Despoiler – Turn in all 9 Darkmoon Artifacts
• Darkmoon Duelist – Win the Darkmoon Deathmatch and recieve a Pit Fighter trinket
• Darkmoon Dominator - Win the Darkmoon Deathmatch 12 times and recieve a Master Pit Fighter trinket

You can also obtain the following pets and mounts:

• Darkmoon Dancing Bear (mount) - 180 Darkmoon Tokens
• Swift Forest Strider (mount) - 180 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Balloon (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Cub (pet) - 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Monkey (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Tonk (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Turtle (pet) - 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Darkmoon Zepplin (pet) – 90 Darkmoon Tokens
• Sea Pony (pet)  - Fishing on Darkmoon Island

How you do it

1.  Go to the Darkmoon Faire via a portal from the old location of the Darkmoon Faire (i.e. one of Goldshire, Mulgore or Shattrath, rotating each time).  There are breadcrumb quests from capital cities. [Completed: Come One, Come All!]
2. Work your way along the Faire visiting the following people:
1. Buy some Darkmoon Game Tokens from a Token vendor.
2. Buy 6 Darkmoon Fireworks from the Fireworks vendor (not just any fireworks – specifically the ones called Darkmoon Firework).
3. Buy a Darkmoon Adventurer’s Guide from the Darkmoon Faire Information kiosk.
4. Play each of the 5 Darkmoon games, completing the daily quests for these as you do them (its the quests that give you the achievement).  These award Darkmoon Tokens. There are two additional achievements for the Cannon and Shooting games (see below).  [Completed: Step Right Up]
5. Pick up all the profession based quests and complete these.  You should have two for your main professions and 4 for the secondary professions.  You may need to go back to your city to buy materials for these.  You need a skill of 75 to get the quest which awards 5 points.  If you are levelling a profession you can keep these for tough points.   You can do these once per Darkmoon Faire. [Completed: Faire Favours]
6. Visit the Darkmoon Food and Drink vendors (the Food vendor is also the Cooking quest giver) and buy and eat one of everything they have to sell. [Completed: Fairgoer's Feast]
7. Visit the petting zoo and ridy a pony there. [Completed: I Was Promised a Pony]
3. Blastenheimer’s Bullseye requires you to land in the middle of the target after being shot out of the canon.  This is tricky, but not impossible with practice.  Alternatively you can possibly get this by having someone summon you to the spot while in mid-air (you need to be walking on the water for this).  If you hit the centre and don’t get it, there are some suggestions you can try jumping. [Completed: Blastenheimer Bullseye]
4. To get quick shot you need to hit the target really fast.  You can do this by just aiming at one target and keep shooting until you get it. Or have fast reactions of course. [Completed: Quick Shot]
5. Now it comes time to leave the island.  You need to visit your 6 friendly capital cities (the 4 faction cities and Shattrath and Dalaran) and fire off those fireworks you brought. [Completed: Take the Show on the Road]
6. While you are moving around, you need to pick up 9 BoP items which you can only get with the Darkmoon Adventurer’s Guide in your bags.  These are the ‘artifacts’ in the three achievements (Dungeoneer, Defender and Despoiler).  8 of the artifacts in the Despoiler achievement are in either the Dungeoneer or the Defender.  The 3 Defender artifacts can be looted when you remove an Insignia in a Battleground.  The Dungeoneer ones come from ANY dungeon.  So they have a chance at dropping while you farm your VP in heroics, or you can farm something like Stockades to get them (not sure if this is intentional and it may be patched).  The final item, the Soothsayer’s Runes, drops from raids.  This will take a while. [Completed: Darkmoon Defender, Darkmoon Dungeoneer, Darkmoon Despoiler]
7. This leaves only two achievements and these are back on the island but are the hardest to get.  You need to win the Darkmoon Deathmatch.  You win by looting the chest in the middle of the arena that spawns once every three hours starting at 12 am.  It takes 10 seconds to open the chest.  Anyone who is not in your group can kill you once you enter the arena, including your own faction.  Lots will be trying!  A group will really help here, as will PvP gear and waking up at 3 am to do it!  One win gives you Duelist and a quest to win another 11 times and get the Dominator achievement. [Completed: Darkmoon Duelist, Darkmoon Dominator]

The MMO-that-must-not-be-named

This isn’t a post about the MMO-that-must-not-be-named.  Its all a lie.  Just like the cake.  I know some people HATE WoW bloggers talking about it.  Just like they did for Rift.  The difference is that I am not one of those bloggers who is abandonning WoW, and neither am I one of those bloggers who is hailing the new MMO as THE WOW KILLER ALL HAIL ITS GREATNESS.  Theres room in my life for two MMOs (in fact, I’ll be blogging about priorities and WoW soon).

So I have been playing in a certain beta this weekend.  I wanted to talk about the whole WoW/MMO-that-must-not-be-named comparison and what each company really should learn from the other.

MMO-that-must-not-be-named: the review
Just to get this out of the way: I like it and I will be playing it at launch.  End of review.

Its not better than WoW; its not worse than WoW though, and thats an achievement.  Each new MMO hangs itself off of one thing thats ‘better’ than in WoW.  It might be a new class system (so complex its impossible to balance), an alternative questing system (thats just not quite working), cross-server PvP (nice idea, but shame about the rest of it) or, it might be really good storytelling.  Bioware went for storytelling.

Many things are very similar and WoW players will be able to get going pretty fast without it being too complex.  The tutorial leads you fairly well and I only had to ask a couple of questions.  A couple of things that aren’t immediately obvious:

• Advance Class specializations are PERMANENT and cannot be changed, so there are 8 classes, not 4 (i.e. if I want and Imperial Agent Sniper and an Imperial Agent Operative, which I do, that means levelling two characters);
• I say 8 because, despite the different names, each class has a mirror on the opposing side – it might look different because the trees and talents have different names, and the abilities have different graphics, but its not (I am told – I haven’t personally tested this beyond a couple of levels).

So what did the MMO-that-must-not-be-named get right?

• Excellent storytelling, and combination of storytelling and questing – its far more immersive than WoW during the leveling phase and even the dungeons are worked elegantly into the storyline;
• It makes use of that ‘conversation with options’ approach that I have never been a fan of and actually makes me a fan of it including as a key part of Flashpoints (dungeons);
• I like the crafting system – its less grindy and more flexible;
• I like the crew system – my little sidekick means that a 4 person Flashpoint can be done with just me, my husband and our crew as they are good enough to be a person (not sure about in Operations (raids)).

And where should it really have learned from WoW

• No LFD – despite all the complaints about it the most common missing feature people talked about was this (mitigated a bit by the crew system);
• Worse, you have to go physically to your dungeon AND theres no summons;
• Old-fashioned talent trees (someone in Bioware must have started banging their head against a wall when Blizz abandoned the talent tree system since this is direct copy);
• I’m not sure about the number of group quests – I know some people miss them from WoW, but on the other hand Blizzard was responding to a lot of people who wanted them gone, so I think those players will find the higher number of group quests in this difficult;
• No addons (which I don’t object to) combined with an average interface – the interface IMO is not sophisticated enough to make me not want addons.

As a final point I want to say this: none of the differences, good or bad, are game changers.  This is not a WoW killer, though WoW might lose some people to it just because, after 7 years, they want something fresh for a while.  Its not revolutionary enough to be a WoW killer (drawing heavily in Knights of the Old Republic is not revolutionary).  But I expect it to be the biggest success of any new MMO in a long time because Bioware tell amazing stories.