Going out of town for a wedding!
Really hope the patch doesn't drop while I'm gone, heh.
Probably won't be posting much, but Yigi will still be posting about druid and PTR stuff.
-Zigi
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hit & Run: New Emblem Gear
Not a lot of new stuff, but I thought I'd weigh in on some of the new gear.
New Emblem gear has been announced on the PTR. I always wonder how in-touch the devers are with the actual player community, but it is very nice to see that the itemization for the mail gear, for the most part, is very much in line with Resto and Ele prioritization. Other than that mp5 on the chestpiece, it is all very well itemized for the current Shaman HEP weights that are being thrown around at EJ.
REALLY like the new healer trinket too. It's a lot more interesting than the current badge one.
New Emblem gear has been announced on the PTR. I always wonder how in-touch the devers are with the actual player community, but it is very nice to see that the itemization for the mail gear, for the most part, is very much in line with Resto and Ele prioritization. Other than that mp5 on the chestpiece, it is all very well itemized for the current Shaman HEP weights that are being thrown around at EJ.
REALLY like the new healer trinket too. It's a lot more interesting than the current badge one.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Shaman T10: GHOST DEER?
OK, I know shammies have been bitching about having to wait to see our tier 10, but it was TOTALLY WORTH THE WAIT:
Druids may be wearing yogg-saron as a scarf, but I have DEER COMING OUT OF MY NECK. Shaman Win.
-zigi
Druids may be wearing yogg-saron as a scarf, but I have DEER COMING OUT OF MY NECK. Shaman Win.
-zigi
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Zigi's Choice
The Pandaren Monk?
or Lil' K.T.?
Let's be honest- Lil' K.T. looks AWESOME... but 5 bucks of the Pandaren Monk purchase goes to an awesome charity- the Make a Wish foundation. Walking around with a Lil' K.T. is a big skeletal middle finger to sick kids and their dreams!
Eh, who am I kidding? I'm getting both.
-zigi
or Lil' K.T.?
Let's be honest- Lil' K.T. looks AWESOME... but 5 bucks of the Pandaren Monk purchase goes to an awesome charity- the Make a Wish foundation. Walking around with a Lil' K.T. is a big skeletal middle finger to sick kids and their dreams!
Eh, who am I kidding? I'm getting both.
-zigi
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Circle of Tanks
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
Yigi, Druid, 0/58/13
What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mostly 10 mans, some 25s
What is your favorite tankng spell for your class and why?
Swipe. I love it's spammability and it's high threat. I would LOVE to say Maul because it just does so much threat and dmg, but I hate the way it works.
What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
Druids don't have a very large arsenal of tanking spells, so I tend to use all of them in a normal 10 man setting. In 5 mans i rarely use Lacerate, since it takes 5 GCDs to really make it worth it.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
I hate to use the standard "swiss army knife" cliche that druids get, but it really is true. Our burst threat, sustained threat, and survivability are not the BEST, but they are all really good. So I would say, we are very well rounded. A huge strength we also have (while it's not necessarily tanking), is the ability to switch to a very solid healing spec.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
Snap threat is our biggest weakness that I can see. The only way we can REALLY frontload a lot of threat is through berserk, which only works if you have 1-3 targets and really gimps your sustained threat in a single mob encounter.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
Bosses that hit for big numbers, whether it's a spell or physical attack. Our high health pool and good defensive cooldowns really make us perform great during a Plasma Blast, for example.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?
I tank with a DW Frost DK every day, and I love it. Their AoE threat is amazing, so it really counters our lack of burst AoE threat during fights like Mimiron P3 or Jaraxxus adds.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?
I haven't tanked much with paladins in Wrath, although they seem ok. I haven't met any GOOD pally tanks on this server, so I think my view of them is skewed.
What is your worst habit as a tank?
Probably hectic fights where I tend to watch how my raid is performing rather than concentrating on tanking.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
DPS who try to run the show. I love suggestions, but when DPS feel like a certain strategy is better because it involves less DPS movement, it irks me.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
I feel like we are pretty well balanced. DKs have gotten the shaft a lot recently, but since they started so high during 3.0 and 3.1 they are about on par, if not a SLIGHT bit behind.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
Mostly just seeing how well the fight is controlled. In most fights, the tanks control the fight. If the tanks are doing their job, there is minimal movement, minimal add rampages, and an overall cleaner encounter. I do look at Omen to see my TPS on occasion, but for the most part if I am holding aggro and know I'm using the right rotation, it's all about the same.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
The fact that we are "mana sponges." Uneducated people feel like the druid class is just supposed to be a high health sponge that soaks up the hits, while they fail to realize that our high dodge and armor make us take a lot less damage than they may think.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
How to properly gear. Since druids don't have a "def cap" to worry about, a new druid doesn't have any stats to "aim" for. It's all about knowing the proper balance, and how to gem/enchant properly. The only thing that seperates leather feral tanking gear from feral/rogue dps gear is the gems and enchants.
Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
I raid with a Disc Priest, Resto Shaman, and Resto Druid healer, so I feel like in a lot of cases avoidance really ourperforms EH. If I raided regularly with a holy paladin, or raided 25 mans, EH would be much more important to me.
What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
DKs, although I understand the basics, the ins and outs are foreign to me.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?
I don't use any tanking specific addons, but I use omen, grid, and spellreminder to keep track of my threat, raid, and cooldowns respectively.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
At this point I mostly stack Agility. To an extent I DO balance it with stamina, but mostly only in blue slots (using agi/stam gems) and in certain enchants where stam is just better than agi.
-yigi
Yigi, Druid, 0/58/13
What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mostly 10 mans, some 25s
What is your favorite tankng spell for your class and why?
Swipe. I love it's spammability and it's high threat. I would LOVE to say Maul because it just does so much threat and dmg, but I hate the way it works.
What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
Druids don't have a very large arsenal of tanking spells, so I tend to use all of them in a normal 10 man setting. In 5 mans i rarely use Lacerate, since it takes 5 GCDs to really make it worth it.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
I hate to use the standard "swiss army knife" cliche that druids get, but it really is true. Our burst threat, sustained threat, and survivability are not the BEST, but they are all really good. So I would say, we are very well rounded. A huge strength we also have (while it's not necessarily tanking), is the ability to switch to a very solid healing spec.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
Snap threat is our biggest weakness that I can see. The only way we can REALLY frontload a lot of threat is through berserk, which only works if you have 1-3 targets and really gimps your sustained threat in a single mob encounter.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
Bosses that hit for big numbers, whether it's a spell or physical attack. Our high health pool and good defensive cooldowns really make us perform great during a Plasma Blast, for example.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?
I tank with a DW Frost DK every day, and I love it. Their AoE threat is amazing, so it really counters our lack of burst AoE threat during fights like Mimiron P3 or Jaraxxus adds.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?
I haven't tanked much with paladins in Wrath, although they seem ok. I haven't met any GOOD pally tanks on this server, so I think my view of them is skewed.
What is your worst habit as a tank?
Probably hectic fights where I tend to watch how my raid is performing rather than concentrating on tanking.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
DPS who try to run the show. I love suggestions, but when DPS feel like a certain strategy is better because it involves less DPS movement, it irks me.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
I feel like we are pretty well balanced. DKs have gotten the shaft a lot recently, but since they started so high during 3.0 and 3.1 they are about on par, if not a SLIGHT bit behind.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
Mostly just seeing how well the fight is controlled. In most fights, the tanks control the fight. If the tanks are doing their job, there is minimal movement, minimal add rampages, and an overall cleaner encounter. I do look at Omen to see my TPS on occasion, but for the most part if I am holding aggro and know I'm using the right rotation, it's all about the same.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
The fact that we are "mana sponges." Uneducated people feel like the druid class is just supposed to be a high health sponge that soaks up the hits, while they fail to realize that our high dodge and armor make us take a lot less damage than they may think.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
How to properly gear. Since druids don't have a "def cap" to worry about, a new druid doesn't have any stats to "aim" for. It's all about knowing the proper balance, and how to gem/enchant properly. The only thing that seperates leather feral tanking gear from feral/rogue dps gear is the gems and enchants.
Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
I raid with a Disc Priest, Resto Shaman, and Resto Druid healer, so I feel like in a lot of cases avoidance really ourperforms EH. If I raided regularly with a holy paladin, or raided 25 mans, EH would be much more important to me.
What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
DKs, although I understand the basics, the ins and outs are foreign to me.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?
I don't use any tanking specific addons, but I use omen, grid, and spellreminder to keep track of my threat, raid, and cooldowns respectively.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
At this point I mostly stack Agility. To an extent I DO balance it with stamina, but mostly only in blue slots (using agi/stam gems) and in certain enchants where stam is just better than agi.
-yigi
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Showing WoW achievements in Blogger
The first thing I noticed when I started this blog was that all the wordpress dudes had awesome achievement feeds on their blog, and generally the blogger implementations were a little hack-y. Given that the armory is XML and the achievements are all accessible through that, I figured that it wouldn't be that hard to put together a Yahoo! Pipe that shredded the data and made it a nice little RSS feed. You're welcome to copy or use the Yahoo Pipe that I put together however you like, and here are a few suggestions on how to display it on your blogger blog.
Enjoy!
-Zigi
- Go to Yahoo Pipes!
You can roll your own if you're comfortable with XML and Pipes, or you can just use the one I set up here. Feel free to copy it if you want to make minor changes. - Enter your data
Server name, character name, like so:
- Select a display format
You have 3 choices for displaying the format. The first and second are both Yahoo! Pipes embedded badge; which you can choose either the image format or the list format.
For an example of a blogger blog that's using an image badge from this pipe, check out druidmain.
If you want something without images, like what we have here in our sidebar, just pick the "RSS" output from the Yahoo Pipe, and copy that URL into the standard Google RSS badge.
Enjoy!
-Zigi
Monday, November 2, 2009
The fight where HPS is DPS
Hehe... Right after I soft-whined that healing becomes less fun as the raid gets more gear, I read about this new fight that just got tested on the PTR: Valithria Dreamwalker. This fight is backwards, in that you find an NPC that is at 50%, and your raid's healers have to heal that NPC before adds can take her down. They do a lot of nasty healing mortal-strike stacking debuffs too, so the adds have to be managed carefully.
Basically, they turn the tables- in normal fights, the dpsers do the measurable work while healers support them by keeping damage off them and healing them through the unavoidable damage. In this fight it's now up to the healers to get an NPC from 50% to 100% health, while the dpsers take on a support role, and manage the adds to let you do your job.
And the achievement for killing her quickly? Healbot.
I love blizz sometimes. Cannot WAIT to see this fight on live! I think I'll make a macro "/ra cna some1 link healing meterz plz?". Yep, I'm gonna be THAT GUY.
-Zigi
Basically, they turn the tables- in normal fights, the dpsers do the measurable work while healers support them by keeping damage off them and healing them through the unavoidable damage. In this fight it's now up to the healers to get an NPC from 50% to 100% health, while the dpsers take on a support role, and manage the adds to let you do your job.
And the achievement for killing her quickly? Healbot.
I love blizz sometimes. Cannot WAIT to see this fight on live! I think I'll make a macro "/ra cna some1 link healing meterz plz?". Yep, I'm gonna be THAT GUY.
-Zigi
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