Warlock Tier 10

This post will be updated as the patch notes are changed.

Well, with patch 3.3 looming ever closer I’ve decided it’s finally time to do a review of the patch notes and take a look at what we can expect, both as Warlocks and in general. Today, we’re going to look at the new features (from a Warlock point of view) that stand out to me as well as anything notable to do with other classes, and tomorrow we’ll examine the actual (much more exciting) Warlock changes themselves in detail. Here we go!

Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.

This is a very useful change for people who want to boost lower level characters, or even for people who previously would have been just slightly too low or high to use the stone when in a normal group and would keep the others waiting. I can also see the meeting stones being used as a method of transportation now – “Hey mister, can you summon me using that stone for two gold?”. At least it might relieve the pressure on us Warlocks to do it!

Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

This is pretty self-explanatory, but simply put, they’re preventing AoE damage spells from doing too much damage by giving the spells a damage cap. If you’re attacking 10 mobs or less, you’ll see no change from how it works currently, but if you’re attacking more than 10, you’ll only do as much damage as if there were 10, and the damage will be divided equally up between the mobs. I can see why this change is needed – Rain of Fire, for example, does some pretty crazy damage sometimes, and the dps does spiral out of control.

Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.

Fantastic change for us! Our pets will be significantly less squishy in PvP now, making them harder to kill and reducing the time we’ll have to spend re-summoning them.

Lay on Hands: This ability will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. It will not place Forbearance on others.

This Paladin change is going to be great for those of us who hate fighting them – Forbearance is the debuff which prevents Paladins from using their bubbles or wings, meaning we’ll no longer have to effectively kill one three times since they will need to choose between a bubble and a LoH. So we’re just killing them twice now.

New option – Castable Debuffs: Enabling this will cause only debuffs you have cast on an enemy target to appear.

Really, it depends on how you like your debuffs (read: DoTs) to be displayed, or even if you have them displayed at all, as to how major this change is for you. For those of us who do use the default UI to manage their ticking spells of doom, this change should help quite a bit, because unless you really care as to whether that Warrior has Sundered, you can now turn off all debuffs except your own. They should be much easier to find amongst the many with this change enabled, and indeed they should also show up larger so they’ll be easier to see, too.

New option – Consolidate Buffs: Enabling this adds a buff consolidation box near the mini-map. Very short term buffs (e.g. Replenishment) and very long term buffs (e.g. Prayer of Fortitude) are filtered into the buff box. The icons are stacked here, but they can still be seen by moving the mouse cursor over the buff box. Long term buffs will move out of the box when they are about to expire. Buffs such as important procs (e.g. Art of War, Maelstrom Weapon), cooldowns (e.g. Bloodlust / Heroism, Combustion) or limited in range (e.g. totems and paladin auras) are always displayed.

You’ll never be without your beloved Metamorphosis ever again.

Enchant Weapon – Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster’s target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.

I’m unsure as to the exact nature of this change (how much haste, how often, etc), but I do have a feeling it will be a dps increase for anyone out there using it. Putting another DoT on a target is nice, but it only affects that one creature, and I don’t think it’s affected by your spell power or anything like that. A haste increase will raise your dps against anything that you’re attacking, even if you change targets, and benefits all of your spells.

• Target Effects: When this UI feature is activated, Fear, Silence, Frostbolt, and Hamstring will all now display text over the target’s head indicating what type of effect has been applied.

Nice and easy now to see who you’ve sent screaming in Fear, and who’s still to go.

Warlock T10 2P Bonus – The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.

Warlock T10 4P Bonus – Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 12% spell haste for 10 sec.

These are the two set bonuses from the Tier 10 (Icecrown Citadel raid) items. The two piece is nice, with a simple 5% damage boost to all our staple spells for each spec, and the four piece is perhaps aimed more towards Destruction and Affliction Warlocks, with some tasty hasty. However, Demonology specs which use Immolate will still benefit here, and most of them do, so this ain’t a problem. You can see what the set itself looks like at the top of the post, in case you were blind and missed it on the way down.

Overall? I’m pretty happy with all of the above, and I can’t find much to complain about. Let’s hope the same is true of next time, when we examine the fun and exciting Warlock class changes!

Vel.

The time has come to share with you the greatness that is Frost Mage AoE Grinding. Grinding on my first Mage was really what solidified my interest in the game. Up to that point I really didn’t care all that much for the game. It was something to do, storyline was decent, play style wasn’t too bad, but overall it was just something else that I could play save that I actually had to pay as I played as well. Up until I started playing the mage I had seriously considered just letting my account expire and go back to playing Diablo II and D&D and leaving this game to my wife and her friend. [Shameless plug: Wife @Fynralyl and her NaNoWriMo Blog and her friend: @Catarith]

But I was reading through one forum or another one day and stumbled onto a thread about AoE Grinding with a Frost Mage and decided to take a look. I got the general idea, hit YouTube for a visual example of what people meant by some of the terms, and then set about doing it myself. I got into it right away and found out that it was in fact a quick and easy process. However, I also noticed that several of the suggestions given were flawed. Some things they told me to do were not effective while others that they told me not to do were actually way more effective than the contrary. So, I gave up on the forums, the blogs, and the YouTube videos and did my own thing. My performance increased greatly and my leveling speed increased right along with it.

So what I am going to share with you today is what I have found to be the most effective way to perform AoE Grinding with a Frost Mage. I invite anyone who has done this themselves to join in with any thoughts, suggestions, experiences, and so forth that they have had as well. If you find something works better for you then go ahead and share it. If you disagree with something I’ve said then bring that up too.

Advice You Should Ignore
There are a lot of things that you will find in guides around the net that are not true. People will give you suggestions on how to spend your talents or which spells to cast or avoid, and while all information can help you improve on what you’re doing or prompt you to try something you hadn’t thought of before, that doesn’t mean that the information they give you is correct. Here I will cover some of the advice that I suggest you ignore. Take note of the fact that the statements I just made apply to me as well – this worked for me, but you may well find that it sucks for you and that you would rather go down the paths I tell you to avoid.

Misconceptions The following are all topics you will find discussed on forums and in blogs. I’ll tell you what many of those blogs say that I feel is wrong and then tell you what my thoughts on them are as well.

Frostbite Talent: Almost every AoE grinding guide you’ll find for Frost Mages will tell you not to take this because it will mess up your pulls. This is, by far, one of the single most effective grinding tools that the class has to offer.

Mana Shield: All of those guides that I just told you who don’t use Frostbite also tell you to use this worthless piece of crap of a spell. Blizzard has the highest mana cost of any spell you’re ever going to cast, and if you get a big pull and then find out you don’t have the mana to fire that bad boy off, then you’re well beyond screwed. You better hope you’ve got your running shoes with you. Forget this thing exists unless you’re in PvP.

Icy Veins: You’re also going to find a lot of guides that tell you that this is crucial to your grinding. Fact is, it’s not crucial at all. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly helps and can speed things up when it’s not on cooldown, but it is by no means crucial. Take the talent when you don’t have more important things to pick up instead. It’s great for having Blizzard do all of its damage in a short time, or firing off your Evocation in a shorter time, but it’s not necessary and I do most of my grinding without ever using it.

Frost AoE: General Information
If you have read my Paladin AoE Guides then you will know that I mentioned that there is no set rotation for AoE grinding with Paladins. For the Mage, it is pretty much the same. There are certain spells that you are going to cast, but not a specific order in which you are going to cast them as each pull and each situation can change what you have to do and how you have to react.

However, just like the Paladin’s guides, there are general steps that are always taken in pretty well the same order. I already mentioned the order in the Mage Leveling: 21-39 post: [Pull], Corral, Freeze, Distance, Blizzard, Clean Up

One difference that I will note right off the bat between Mage AoE and Paladin AoE is that I do not including Pulling as part of my rotation on a Mage where I do include it as a Paladin. With the mage you want everything in one spot and you want it to stay there, so pulling other mobs into the mix is generally a bad idea. So as a general rule of thumb, when you’re grinding with a Mage as soon as you’ve pulled the mobs you want, finish them off before you pull any more.

Getting Ready: Before you even begin to pull the mobs there are a couple of things you need to do. First thing’s first – Always, ALWAYS make sure you have enough mana to do what you’re about to do. Nothing sucks more than pulling a group of mobs, freezing them in place, and then wondering why Blizzard isn’t casting and then noticing you started the pull with 50 mana… Never go into a fight without mana. Second, make sure you’ve got your armor on. Personally, I suggest you go with Frost Armor when doing your AoE. Once you hit level 40 you will also have Ice Barrier, and I suggest you cast that as well as it will absorb most of the blows you take while pulling.

Once you’ve got your armor on and your mana’s up, then go ahead and start your pull.

Step 1: Pull There are various method of pulling mobs, but with mounts now available at level 20, which also happens to be when you get your AoE spell, Blizzard, the good old fashion Body Pull method is going to be your best bet. It’s not your only option, but it will generally be the best one you’ve got. So jump on your mount and run near all of the mobs that you want to AoE and allow yourself to draw agro simply by moving within their agro range. There are other methods that you can use depending on your situation which include casting a single Frostbolt on multiple mobs that are spread out, using Polymorph on a central mob and then pulling the others to it, and several others. Once you get into your 60’s you’ll have Ice Lance which is great for pulling, but otherwise stick to the body pulls.

Step 2: Corral For you city folks, you might note that corralling is basically the same thing as gathering up or grouping together, so that’s what you’re doing here if you aren’t familiar with the term. You need to gather up all of the mobs that you’ve pulled and get them bunched up together so that your Frost Nova will hit all of them.

This isn’t necessarily done by casting a spell so much as simply by running around towards or through the mobs that you’re pulling so that they all move closer together. The easiest way to corral the mobs does involve casting a spell, and that spell is Ice Block. I don’t use the method very often myself because I’m proficient in corralling as part of my pulling, but if you have a hard time doing it then just cast your Ice Block and go with that. By using Ice Block you make yourself immune to everything and the mobs will all run up to melee your block of ice until the spell wears off or you cancel it.

I suggest you practice corralling as part of your pulling, which is simply moving around so that the mobs get closer together, rather than relying on Ice Block as it has a cooldown that is far too long to rely upon it for every pull.

Call this step whatever you want to help you remember it. When I talked about AoE with a Paladin I didn’t bother including a Corral step because the paladin doesn’t give a crap where you are so long as you’re close to him. A Mage though, needs all of the mobs close together and he needs them there at the same time. So, I’m adding a step here that didn’t exist for the Paladin to help emphasize that point.

Step 3: Freeze The next thing on your list is to freeze the mobs in place. Your most reliable method of doing this is going to be by casting Frost Nova. It is possible to freeze them all with Cone of Cold if you put your talent points in Frostbite like I told you to, but I certainly wouldn’t rely on that. Stick with Frost Nova as it’s going to work every time so long as it hits.

As you get higher in levels you will get talent points that increase your critical hit chance, and your critical hit damage while your targets are frozen, which makes this all go a whole lot faster and smoother. But, the main reason for freezing them in place is so that you can get your distance and then cast Blizzard to hit them all at once so that you’re not wasting mana or time.

Step 4: Distance The next item of business is to put some distance between yourself and the mobs. You can do this one of two ways: cast Blink, or run. Personally, I just run a short distance and then call it good. Some people find that casting Blink is the way to go, but I disagree. The only time I use Blink instead of just running is when I am either Dazed, Stunned, or Rooted by the mobs that I am pulling. If none of those three things are happening, then I simply run and call it good.

There are a few flaws in using Blink that keep it from being my chosen method. You can accidentally blink into other mobs causing you to over pull, you can Blink over a glitched section of ground so that you basically waste the spell as you gain little or no distance at all, you can Blink into a glitch that causes you to fall through the world and die, or you can Blink out of the range of Blizzard causing you to run back towards them and waste whatever time you might have saved otherwise. I thought that Blizzard had fixed the glitches that send you falling through the world, but it happened to me last week in Redridge, so I know it’s still possible.

Step 5: Blizzard The spell, not the company. With your enemies safely frozen in a nice little corral of their soon-to-be death, cast Blizzard and let destruction rain (snow?) down upon your enemies. When you cast Blizzard make sure you put the far edge of the spell’s area as close to you as possible. In other words, try to leave as much of the spell’s area that isn’t on the mobs closer to you so that if the mobs break out of their freeze they still have to run through your Blizzard to get to you.

If you have taken Frostbite and Improved Blizzard then each time your Blizzard hits them it has a chance to freeze them again as well. Sometimes a mob will manage to escape your Blizzard without being frozen again (and again, and again), but even though you only have a 15% chance to freeze them from Frostbite, each spike from Blizzard has a chance to trigger that 15% chance so it happens a lot more than you would expect from such a small number. But, since it is a chance rather than a guarantee you never know how it might turn out.

Step 6: Clean Up Clean Up is where you have to make a decision and why a set rotation doesn’t actually exist. This is where you have to make a judgement call based on the situation.

If you still have multiple mobs that are still alive and they are not close to dying, then you either want to repeat Step 5 by casting another Blizzard, or go back to Step 3 and try to refreeze them if your Frost Nova is not on cool down.

If you have multiple mobs that are close to dying then I generally suggest you finish them off with Cone(s) of Cold or Arcane Explosion(s). Because of the extra benefits of your Frost talents I would generally suggest you use Cone of Cold for this if you know you can catch them all in it’s area, but if not then go ahead and use Arcane Explosion instead. You have more potential benefit from using CoC, but AE is the safer route if you’d rather do that for getting started.

Visual Representation
Rather than going with specific examples as I did with the Paladin series, I’m going to give you a bit more visual look at how things are done. Some of my other fellow bloggers have picked up this method, so I figured I would give it a shot myself to see how well it works for me.

Pull (a body pull using a mount)

Corral (grouping the mobs simply by positioning yourself in a central area)

Freeze (using Frost Nova, or a Water Elemental’s Freeze spell)

Distance (by running, or casting Blink)

Blizzard (there’s only one Blizzard, ladies and gents – only one)

Clean Up (Arcane Explosion in this case, Cone of Cold or other spells work too)

Esa fue una de las conclusiones a la que arribaron los profesores participantes del panel “Aborto, ¿derecho para matar?”, organizado por el Instituto de Ciencias para la Familia y la Dirección de Estudios de la Universidad de Piura.

El doctor Jaime Mendoza recordó la evidencia científica sobre el origen de la vida humana desde la concepción. Además analizó el efecto abortivo que tienen la píldora del día siguiente (AOE) y el RU 486. En el primer caso, el fármaco impide la implantación de un óvulo fecundado; y en el segundo, incluso produce la expulsión del embrión que ya se ha implantado.

El médico advirtió sobre los trastornos que produce la ingesta de estos fármacos, razón por la cual no pueden ser consumidos como anticonceptivos de rutina. “Ahora se busca ofrecer métodos abortivos más sofisticados, que involucren a menos personas, que generen menos stress, para que así pese menos en la conciencia”, indicó.

A favor del concebido
Para el doctor Percy García, los argumentos a favor del aborto “no resisten ningún análisis”. En un primer nivel de discusión no es posible opinar sobre el origen de la vida o sobre el reconocimiento jurídico del concebido, porque eso ya está superado. Un segundo nivel de discusión incluiría la prevalencia de los “derechos reproductivos” de las mujeres sobre el derecho a la vida; pero aquí el conflicto se resuelve a favor del concebido, pues el derecho al desarrollo de la libre personalidad no puede lesionar la vida de nadie.

Incluso se podría discutir la posibilidad del aborto en situaciones de conflicto como el aborto eugenésico o por violación. Aquí la lógica la exigibilidad plantea las siguientes preguntas: “¿se le puede exigir a una madre que geste su hijo producto de una violación? o ¿se les debe pedir a los padres que se hagan cargo de un hijo con severas limitaciones? “La respuesta es sí, plantear lo contrario sería a admitir que a nadie se le puede exigir sobrellevar una carga pesada”, recalcó. García se refirió también al aborto terapéutico como un supuesto excepcional, que debe ponderarse de acuerdo a las circunstancias particulares.

Sujeto de derechos
La doctora Rosario de la Fuente recordó que el embrión humano por ser persona es sujeto de derechos, y el Estado peruano reconoce su personalidad jurídica desde la concepción. “El embrión humano o niño concebido también tiene derecho a la salud y a la integridad. Las técnicas de reproducción asistida atentan contra esos derechos, por eso deberían prohibirse como ha sucedido en Costa Rica. Lamentablemente el embrión se ha convertido en el esclavo de los tiempos modernos”, comentó.

Armor penetration or agility? I’m going to give you the rules of thumb.

• Never go ArP if you’re not MM.
• If your gear has less than about 350 ArP from gear (not including gems or a trinket proc), then you should use arcane shot taking improved arcane shot talent, as well as gem agility.
• If your gear has more than 350ish ArP (this amount changes based on how much crit and AP you have), but less than 850 (again, not including gems or a trinket proc), then you should continue to gem agility, but drop arcane shot from your rotation, and use the improved arcane shot points somewhere else. To see whether this is a DPS increase, you need to use a DPS calculator for your spec and gear.
• If your gear has over 850 ArP (again, not including gems or a trinket proc) and you don’t mind being a bit of a “one trick pony” (a term Tobin at EJ coined to mean that you don’t AOE or DPS while moving well), then you can gem ArP and will get a DPS increase.

These are not going to be accurate for everyone, but they will be most of the time.  I’m going to reserve the bottom of this post for exceptions to the rules.

Part I: Beginning

Once you get to level 20 some parts of your leveling will become easier, and some will not. The first change that you are going to find is that having the ability to teleport all over the world is absolutely amazing. It’s probably my favorite trait of the class overall. For that matter, it’s my favorite trait of every class in the game.

One change you are going to find with your questing and such is that being able to AoE grind through your quests is going to make them fly by a whole lot faster. Some quests are not impacted by AoE grinding at all, like ones that have you bring back Mr. Mob’s head, or ones where you have to deliver an item from Location A to Location B (though teleporting can help with that), and so on. But a lot of quests involve killing a certain number of specific mobs or collecting a number of items that drop from certain mobs. These are the ones where AoE grinding really shines and where your leveling process starts burning some serious fuel.

Where you level is not especially important, just try to focus questing to some degree in areas that have a lot of mobs grouped together that are melee mobs rather than ranged attackers or spell casters. My first Mage leveled through the 20’s in Hillsbrad Foothills much like my Paladin did. The Mage I am leveling right now did these levels, mostly, in Ashenvale. If you want to follow my path then feel free, but as long as you are questing in an area that is level-appropriate for you then you should be just fine. Just remember to stay away from the caster mobs and ranged attackers as they are the only ones that pose any real threat; at least from an AoE standpoint. If you’re going against mobs 1v1 then by all means just kill everything you see.

Scope
This post is about playing your mage and getting them leveled up to 39. I am going to talk about AoE grinding a bit, but that’s not the focus of this post. That will be in the next post in this series where I discuss the particulars of grinding. If you want to find out about how to AoE with a Frost Mage then you should probably look at that post rather than this one. (I will include a link here after it is published)

Here I am going to show you how to spend your talent points, which glyphs you should get, what spells you should cast or avoid, general rotations, etc. So the scope of this post is the mechanics of leveling a mage, not the technique of casting your spells.

Important Spells

Levels 21-30

Counterspell (level 24) This is an excellent spell that should always be somewhere on your screen. I don’t necessarily recommend it be on your primary action bar, but have it somewhere that you can access it. It’s great for PvE (when facing casters), and it’s excellent for PvP. Check the macro section down below for this one.

Conjure Mana Gem (level 28) This spell creates a gem that you carry around in your bags that acts just like a mana potion, restoring amounts of mana that scale with your level. The gems you make early on in the game are always single use, but as you get to end game you will mage gems that have three uses. Creating a gem costs more mana than it returns, so note that it’s something that should be prepared ahead of time.

Ice Block (level 30) This is your first “oh crap” button. It throws a solid block of ice around you for the duration making you immune to, well, everything. The drawback to it is that you’re stuck there until it wears off or you cancel the spell. Use it when you pull too much, when you have Frostbite proc in the middle of a pull that can’t be fixed, when you’re about to die, when you’re covered in DoTs/Poisons/Disease, when you fall off a cliff and can’t find Slow Fall, or when you want to see yourself in a funny little pose since it keeps you exactly as you were when you cast it. If you have the Glyph of Ice Block, use it any time you need to reset your Frost Nova cooldown. And do not feel like you have to wait out its duration. If it’s accomplished what you need it to, feel free cancel the spell early and go back to your business.

Teleport: Darnassus/Thunderbluff (level 30) At level 30 you get access to your faction’s Druid city teleport. I don’t know what the reasoning is for putting these off until level 30, but apparently Blizzard does.

Levels 31-39

Mage Armor (level 34) gives you Resist Magic 5 which isn’t great, but not bad, and also allows you to regenerate 50% of your regular mana regen during combat. A lot of people love this spell and use it in place of Frost Armor. I rarely use it myself, but it’s still a decent spell.

Alliance
Teleport & Portal: Theramore (level 35) Here you are able to both teleport and open portals for your party to travel to Theramore. This portal actually sells pretty frequently for me on my Alliance server as it’s an easier way for people to travel to that portion of the world. Tips for portals vary on every server, so you’ll have to see for yourself how much gold you might be able to make off of it. On my Ally server this portal sells for 3-5g and I see people asking in trade chat for it every other day or so.

Portals: Stormwind, Ironforge, Exodar (level 40) You can now open portals for your party members to be teleported to these major cities. Selling portals is an easy way to make a few gold, but again it varies on each server. My Alliance server still sells all portals and these typically bring in a 10g fee each. You don’t get the portal for Darnassus for a few more level yet, but that one sells for the same.

Horde
Teleport & Portal: Stonard (level 35) You are able to both teleport and open portals for your party to travel to Stonard. This portal used to sell almost constantly as it was the shortest way for you to reach Outlands for the first time since it’s just north of the Dark Portal. Now that those portals exist in every major city you might as well forget the fact that this one exists. I do find an occasional request for it from groups that want to run through Sunken Temple on my old Horde server, but for the most part people just don’t need it anymore.

Portals: Orgrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon (level 40) You can now open portals for your party members to be teleported to these major cities. Selling portals is an easy way to make a few gold, but again it varies on each server. On my Horde server the only portals you ever really see people asking for are Org and TB, with an occasional ask for Undercity as well. The only time you ever see anyone ask for Silvermoon is when there’s a holiday event going on. For my Horde servers you’re lucky if you can get 2g for a port to any of the Horde’s major cities.

Leveling 21-30
Rotation Option 1: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Fire Blast
Rotation Option 2: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt
Rotation Option 3: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Frostbolt
Explanation: This will pretty well be the rotation you use for the rest of the game for single mobs. Basically your life revolves around Frostbolt spamming and throwing out a Fire Blast or Cone of Cold to finish them off.

As you may notice, at this point Fireball is completely gone from my rotations and it will see very little, if any, use throughout the rest of my playing. The only time I go back to Fireball from this point on is when I am fighting a mob that is resistant or immune to Frost damage.

If you feel a need to throw a Frost Nova out there to stop a mob that’s rushing into melee range then feel free to do so. If you like Cone of Cold more than Fire Blast then feel free to use it as well. I generally stick to using Fire Blast as my finishing move, but as you get higher in levels and mobs start having more hit points I begin to use Cone of Cold more frequently for the sake of having more chances to proc Frostbite and freezing the mob in place. Doing this gives you a chance of ending many of your fights without taking a single hit.

Remember that you have your Mana Gem for when you need to restore your mana. Unless you’re in the middle of a horrible pull and already running out of mana then using the Gem by itself should give you enough to finish the fight. If you need more mana than that, then feel free to use a Mana Potion in addition to the gem.

Leveling 31-39
Rotation Option 1: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Fire Blast
Rotation Option 2: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt
Rotation Option 3: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Frostbolt
Explanation: Nothing new here.

You don’t get any new offensive spells in this range, you just get higher ranks of the ones you’ve already got. Refer back to the section above for specifics.

General Tactics

There is one thing in particular that I want to point out right now. As you begin gaining more levels the mobs you are fighting are going to gain more hit points which will require you to cast more spells due to the fight taking longer. The longer a fight lasts, the more likely the mobs are to close in and start attacking you. Do not be afraid to stop casting a spell in order to save yourself. It’s alright to take off running half a second before your Frostbolt goes off. There’s nothing wrong with that; especially if you are close to dying. It’s perfectly acceptable to run away like a little girl, screaming your head off while you wait for Frost Nova’s cooldown to pop so that you can freeze the mob in place and then get back to killing him. There’s also nothing wrong with throwing a Frost Nova the second the mob comes within range and running away all together.

For a Frost Mage a strong offense truly is the best defense you can have. You defend yourself by attacking your enemies and slowing them down or freezing them in place. You don’t have to constantly be on the move and you don’t have to kite every mob that you face, but the abilities that you have give you the time and the opportunity to almost completely control the field.

I’m going to introduce now a tactic I like to call Run Through. It’s most effective when using either Frost Nova or Cone of Cold (or Dragon’s Breath if you’re a Fire Mage). It’s best represented in Rotation Option #3 up above. Assuming that you do not get a Frostbite proc from your Frostbolts, the mob is generally going to arrive near to melee range close to when your second Frostbolt is cast or in the middle of the third. I like to be aggressive on my Frost mage, so I take right to the mob’s face; so if he’s closing in after my second cast I don’t wait for the third cast I just start running into him after the second.

As you get close to the mob cast Cone of Cold and keep right on running through them. You can then cast Blink if you want or just keep on running a ways before turning around and going back to Frostbolts to finish them off. This is going to accomplish a few things 1 you’re going to deal additional damage with an instant cast, 2 you are going to put distance between yourself and the mob, and 3 you have yet another chance to proc Frostbite and freeze the target in place.

By running through a mob to do this you also open up the option of them causing a Frostbite proc from hitting you with a melee attack while you have Frost Armor on which will freeze them in place for you and make your job a whole lot easier. If you remember back in Part I, I mentioned that my hit points are just another resource for me to use, and this is what I mean by that. I’m giving away a few hit points by giving the mob a chance to hit me, but what I’m gaining out of the deal is another chance to proc Frostbite.

AoE Grinding: Frost Mage Edition
Here are your basics of AoE Grinding with a Frost Mage. For more details you will need to refer to the next post in this series which will discuss the details of AoE grinding across all levels.

Generally speaking you want to pull a group of mobs, at least 3, into a central location, Frost Nova to freeze them in place, and then move out of melee range before casting Blizzard. Now, that’s a very generalized version of it, but it’s essentially what it is. There are a lot of tricks that you can use to help you in this, and sometimes you have to sacrifice your cooldowns to make some of them work.

Step 1: Pull The first thing you have to do for any type of AoE grinding is pull the mobs. The easiest way to do this is to jump on your mount and ride around into all of their threat ranges.

Step 2: Corral The second thing you have to do is get them all bunched up together. If you’re still on your mount then ride away, turning a bit here and there to get the mobs next to the others. It’s a bit hard to explain how to do that, but practicing will help you understand. The point is to get all of the mobs close enough to each other, and to you, that a single Frost Nova will catch all of them.

Step 3: Freeze The third thing you have to do is stop them from moving. The best option for this Frost Nova, though at later levels your Water Elemental gets an ability called Freeze which is a ranged Frost Nova that works just as well if not better. Be aware that in this stage you will occasionally miss some of the mobs. It’s good to have items with +Hit on them for doing this, but they aren’t required. You don’t miss very often and even when you do it can still be managed.

Step 4: Distance The fourth thing is putting distance between yourself and the mobs. The traditional way of doing this is to use Blink to teleport yourself a short distance away. However, Blink is not 100% reliable and can often teleport you right into another mob, or group of mobs, if you haven’t been keeping an eye on your surroundings. Personally, I don’t Blink at this point unless the mobs have managed to Daze me which makes you move slower. If I’m not dazed or otherwise rooted in place (nets, webs, etc) then I simply run. I run about 10 yards away and then turn around. Whatever method you choose to use for moving, be sure to turn around and face the mobs when you’re done. The optimum distance is twice the size of your Blizzard’s AoE circle or just slightly further. Going too far means that the mobs will be out of range for Blizzard, while not going far enough means melee mobs will be hitting you in the face while you cast.

Step 5: Blizzard Now it’s time to cast your Blizzard and watch the pretty numbers fly by as they all start to die. You want to position your Blizzard so that all of the mobs (or at least all that you can manage) fall within the area of the damage. You also want the furthest edge of Blizzard’s effect to be as close to you as possible. When a mob is frozen, that freeze breaks after they’ve taken a certain amount of damage, and Blizzard deals a lot of damage. So by keeping the area as close as possible it means that when their freeze breaks they still have to walk through the AoE damage to get to you. Since we also have at least one point in the Improved Blizzard talent (minimum level 20) your Blizzard now has a chill effect that will slow the mobs down. And since we have points in the Frostbite talent, every spell with a chill effect has the ability to freeze the target in place. And every time Blizzard deals damage it chills them, meaning that every time it hits it has a chance to proc Frostbite.

Step 6: Clean Up After you’ve cast your Blizzard you need to decide what’s next. If the mobs are still alive then you have to finish them off. You can do that by either casting another Blizzard if they have a lot of health, or casting Arcane Explosion of Cone of Cold if they just have a little bit of health left. If the mobs are already dead, then your only form of clean up is collecting your loot.

Notes
If you are fighting caster mobs in addition to melee, then pulling them and rounding them up into a single group isn’t going to be as easy. Until level 30 your only real option is to have the caster’s location be where you coral all of the rest of the mobs, or to line of sight the caster and coral everyone there.

At level 30 you get an excellent spell called Ice Block. It freezes you in place and makes you immune to everything for its duration. The great thing about being immune to everything is that caster mobs will move into melee range and just start attacking the ice, as will everything else. This gives you a coral method to use when facing casters as well. If you happen to be using the Glyph of Ice Block (level 30) then every time you use Ice Block it resets/removes the cooldown on Frost Nova so that you can immediately cast Frost Nova again. If my pull has gone bad I’ll use Ice Block just to let everyone come to me and start all over again.

Another thing to note about Ice Block is that it gives you a great opportunity to change the direction you’re heading after a Pull. When you go to initiate your Coral you can use Ice Block to do it and then rotate your camera to take a look around the area. Find which direction is clear of mobs so that you know which way you’re running, and have that be the direction you go when you pop out to initiate your Freeze. Playing with an AoE Mage was the reason I turned off the Smart Pivot option in my UI > Camera options. If you’re not familiar with that, it’s what causes your camera to rotate to the direction your character is facing if you rotate the camera with a click-and-drag left click. It allows me to look in any direction, for as long as I want, without having to hold down my mouse button to keep it there. If you aren’t aware, the default settings allow you to hold down both the left and right mouse buttons to run, and when doing that it causes you to run whichever direction the mouse moves. So if you hold down the two mouse buttons coming out of an Ice Block you will run the direction that your camera is facing instead of the direction that your character is facing. When you do it, go ahead and shake the mouse left and right just a hair when you first come out because it’s the movement of the mouse while the right button is down that forces your character to turn that way, but the turn is instant so once the character takes off running the way you want them to you can stop moving the mouse and use whatever method(s) of movement you use normally.

Explanation
Because we’ve combined Frostbite with Improved Blizzard, we have the chance to constantly freeze the mobs in place during your Blizzard. That is why Frostbite is so essential to a good Frost leveling spec even though so many other people claim to hate it. If you find that Frostbite is messing up your pulls then the answer to that is simple, remove your Frost Armor before you pull. If you don’t have Frost Armor up (or Ice Barrier after level 40) then you aren’t going to freeze the mobs in place during a pull because there are not chill effects to make it happen.

I personally keep my Frost Armor spell on all the time, regardless of whether or not it might proc Frostbite and “ruin” my pulls, because I can handle the pulls that other mages apparently feel are dangerous. As I said, if my pull goes a bit bad, then I’ll just Ice Block and let them mobs come to me and then Frost Nova once the Ice Block is over. The duration of Ice Block lasts longer than all of your freezing abilities, so the mobs will break free before your Ice Block wears off. If you use the Glyph of Ice Block then your Frost Nova will already be available when IB wears off so you pop your Frost Nova and then jump right back into the steps above starting at #4-Distance.

If none of those options work because something else comes along and fouls it all up, then welcome to being in a world you don’t control! In this case, put your true mage skills to the test and kick the crap out of them anyway. You’ve got a ton of tools at your disposal to handle the mobs you’re facing, so put them to use. If you need to sheep one, then do it. If you need to Cone of Cold to try to proc Frostbite for Blizzard, then do it. If you need to run around in circles while you wait for Frost Nova to cool down again, then do it. If you want to Arcane Explosion spam hoping to slay them all anyway, then do it. If you took the Glyph of Evocation at 20 as I suggested, then try to run around until Frost Nova is up again, freeze them in place, and then hit your Evocation to restore 60% of your health and mana, and then slay them all.

If the crap hits the fan, then turn the sucker on high and start flinging that crap wherever you can until you’re either the last one standing or you’re all alone in the graveyard. These are the moments that help you grow more confident in your ability to solo content, or that teach you what mistakes not to make again.

I love screwing up an AoE pull with way more mobs than I could take on otherwise and still pull it off without a single Blizzard being cast. I’ve taken out 8 mobs with nothing but Frost Novas, Cones of Cold, and Fire Blasts while running around in circles because my attempts to freeze the mobs kept missing or not freezing. It’s not always easy, but it sure is fun when you come out of it still standing.

Macro Suggestions
There are a few new macros to bring to your attention at this point.

Counterspell: Cancel whatever spell you might be casting and immediately cast Counterspell.
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

Ice Block: Stop whatever you’re doing and cast Ice Block
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Ice Block

Sometimes a big spell is about to go off and it needs to not happen. If stopping that spell is potentially more important than casting the one you’re on, then make the call and counter the spell. Heals and Mana Burns are the primary target for this unless you’re low on health and need to stop a dps spell from killing you.

Ice Block sometimes has to be cast on the fly simply to save your life rather than to help you in your AoE grinding. When that is the case, don’t bother with trying to get that one last spell off, just throw the barrier up and deal with the situation once it wears off.

Talent Points and Glyphs: Level 21-39

Starting at level 21, this is how I would suggest spending your talent points.
Ice Floes +1 (3/3) Reduces the cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block, and Icy Veins by 20%.

Piercing Ice 3/3 +2/4/6% damage to all Frost spells.

Shatter 3/3 +17/34/50% critical strike chance against targets who are frozen.

Arctic Reach 2/3 +14/20% range to Frost Bolt, Ice Lance, Deep Freeze, and Blizzard spells and +20% radius to Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells.

Cold Snap 1/1 Resets the cooldown of all Frost Spells.

Icy Veins 1/1 +20% spell haste and reduces pushback on channeled spells by 100% for 20 seconds.

Frost Channeling 3/3 -4/7/10% Mana cost of all Frost spells and reduces threat generated by Frost spells by 4/7/10%.

Winter’s Chill 3/3 Gives +3 chance to crit with Frostbolt, and a 33/66/100% chance that your Frost spells will increase your chance to crit the target by 1%, stacks up to 5 times.

Cold As Ice 2/2 Reduces the cooldown of your Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, and Summon Water Elemental spells by 10/20%.

Ice Floes is simply there to reduce the time on our cooldowns. Every spell that it effects is useful for AoE grinding as well as leveling in general, so reducing the cooldowns on those is great. Piercing Ice is just a general increase to all of our damage; the more damage you do, the few spells you have to cast. Shatter is going to increase the chance to crit when targets are frozen by 50%. That’s a huge boost to our crit and since every spell you’re going to use has a chance of freezing your target, that means you’ve got a whole lot of potential for landing crits. Shatter is the reason why we want Frostbite.

Arctic Reach helps with the range at which we can cast our spells. That means you can get off more Frostbolts before an enemy can close in on you, and it means you can cast your Blizzards from a greater distance as well. In addition to that it increases the radius of Frost Nova and Cone of Cold. The increased radius is crucial to what you do as a Frost Mage, but it’s also a hard thing to judge because neither of these spells shows you visibly how large their radius is to being with. It’s something you’re going to have to learn on your own and just become aware of. With practice you’ll start picking it up instinctively and you’ll just know when you can catch someone with it and when you can’t.

Cold Snap is easily one of the best talents you ever get. It completely resets all of your Frost spells and makes them available to you again. So you can blow all of your cooldowns, hit Cold Snap, and they’re all right back ready to use again. Icy Veins is a great spell for two reasons: 1 the increase spell haste means all of your Blizzard damage happens in a shorter amount of time (or other spells if you’re fighting single mobs), and 2 removing the effect of pushback means that you get the full bang from your mana-buck from your Blizzard even if you’re getting punched in the face while you do it. I don’t cast it on every Blizzard, but there’s nothing wrong with using it every chance you get. The haste from Icy Veins also works on your Evocation, by the way, so if you need to refill your life/mana in a pinch that’s the way to get it done.

Frost Channeling is last up on the list. The reduced mana here is the primary reason for taking the talent as Blizzard is a huge mana cost spell. The reduced threat is nice when you’re running with groups though it serves no purpose at all when soloing. Winter’s Chill is a stacking debuff on the target that gives you an additional 1-5% chance to crit each time you hit them with a Frost spell. The extra crit chance goes for all spells, not just Frost, but Frost spells are what stacks it from 1-5%. Cold As Ice is strictly to lower the time on your cooldowns.

Glyphs for Leveling
The only glyph slot that is going to open up for you at this level range will open up at level 30.

I recommend the Glyph of Ice Block for level 30 which resets your Frost Nova cooldown when you use Ice Block. It’s great for AoE grinding so that you can make sure that your pulls go off as smoothly as possible.

Some people prefer to go with Mage Armor here instead to get mana regeneration during combat, but since I prefer using Frost Armor I don’t personally recommend it. Since I can summon my own water on the fly and have mana gems I don’t really care about regenerating mana during combat. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just not my personal play style.

Gearing Up for Spellcasting
Your gear priorities don’t change: stack Spell Power and Intellect, take Stam/Hit/Crit when you can find it, and the other things don’t really matter. Hit becomes increasingly important as you level, so take it when you see it if it’s not going to cost you too much Spell Power or Int.

Again, Tailoring can provide a lot of useful upgrades for you around this level so you might want to check with a Tailor if you aren’t one yourself.

You are still going to be more likely to find a good staff at these levels that a one hander plus an off hand item, but just go with whichever you find that can give you better stats. A lot of the Inscription off-hand items open up during this level range which can give you additional spell power, so if you find a nice off hand go ahead and take it, but you’re still more likely to find a better staff overall.

And as always, keep an eye out for good wands that provide stats. If you find that you are actually using your staff for anything other than killing off mobs that are low on health, then you’re probably doing something wrong; like using Mana Shield for anything other than PvP.

Suggested Instances
I would highly suggest in your twenties that you run through either Deadmines (VC) or Shadowfang Keep (SFK) (both, if you can manage it) for good gear during those levels. You can find a staff, gloves and ring in VC, and excellent robes in SFK that will last you well into your 30’s.

In your thirties, Scarlet Monastery is the place to be. You will get gear from here that will last you into your 50’s. You can get inside the doors of all four sections at level 20 if you have someone run you through, or you can start joining LFG for it at level 28. For a mage you can find shoulders or an off-hand item in SM:Graveyard, a great robe and an excellent staff in SM:Library, and while SM:Armory offers very little, there are a couple of items in SM:Cathedral that can really help you out as well. Primarily SM:GY and SM:Lib are the areas for you to focus on, and both of them can be ran with a group of people around level 30 with little problem. Especially with your AoE skills.

Edit: (10/29/09) Added level listing for spending talent points.
Edit: (10/30/09) Finished Ice Block section near the spell description at the top and added Ice Block information to General Tactics section as well.

My blog has been nominated for an award within the CIO/IT Director category, recommend my blog for the shortlisted candidates at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate.Voting for shortlisted entries will open on 27th October

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Abraham Maslow

I will let you all in on a secret. I started researching data storage with the aim of providing an overview of data storage but the more I researched, the more confused I became. The forerunners to today’s data storage such as primary and secondary storage still exist and then we have new technologies, such as Solid State Disk (SSD) drives becoming increasingly popular. In the end, I returned to my own experiences in data storage and then it suddenly dawned on me. The reason, I was writing this article was that unlike the early days of IT, when all I used to do was to have servers backed up on tapes and carry them in the boot of my car (Yes, in those days that was the Disaster Recovery strategy). Data storage is now a behemoth.

Storage can even in this day and age be added cost effectively. The storage expo at London, Olympia on 14-15 October had many vendors exhibiting their solutions and I am providing this link as it is a rich source of vendor information. Another article that highlighted the nine data storage companies to watch shows innovative ways that are being utilised by newer entrants to the market.

The title of this blog reflects the reality. I have yet to come across any organisation who holds an IT induction for employees (even that is quite rare) that includes, a best practice session on how users can administrate their own data well enough to contribute towards the data cost effectiveness, return on investment (ROI), Total cost of ownership (TCO), energy and carbon reduction of an organisation’s data centre and highlights the data storage policy (if one exists, it isn’t often enforced either). Well, herein lies the problem. Users don’t know how to control, avoid duplication or when to delete data that is no longer required. It is then taken for granted that their data has a right to reside on the network as long free space exists within that network drive, for example.

The irony is that this is not where it all stops. Email is often used as a filing system, even when user mailboxes are given quotas. I have even witnessed organisations where quotas are enforced but archiving of data on user system hard disks encouraged, just to adhere to minimising disk usage on network storage (Obviously, no data security issues). This is even before we start discussing technologies such as SharePoint. Now, this is where it all starts falling apart, as until now users, for example, would have been given quotas on file/email but as soon as organisation’s start implementing technologies such as SharePoint, all quotas suddenly seem to vanish, almost by magic, as if they were not really required on SharePoint. Users suddenly realise that hang on, let’s just move our file estate to SharePoint. Data storage performance bottlenecks can add to these issues as well. So, in essence, what we have is a scenario where files may be duplicated many times over. Good Data storage solutions take account of these scenarios and implement solutions that address all this duplication and if implemented correctly, will save an organisation considerable finances while contributing towards their green credentials.

In summary, a data storage solution should look at an organisation’s entire data estate including file servers and document libraries. If that is not the case, in essence, all they are doing is using a hammer to drive a nail through data storage while ignoring the reasons for driving the nail through. Gartner has recently released a Magic Quadrant for storage resource management and SAN management software, and I highly recommend that it should be read prior to embarking on a storage project.

For those of us, embarking on choosing data storage solutions, I will take the opportunity to provide a quick primer on the key technologies and methodologies involved, please click on the links below, as I feel that if these technologies, are to be implemented, these terms need to be understood (Deliberately not detailing the technologies):

DAS, NAS, Fibre Channel, ISCSI, HyperSCSI, AOE, Infiniband, VTL, de duplication

Ce bine e acasa! Sa faci baie, sa stai pe toaleta ta, sa lenevesti in paaaat… Sa-ti aduca mami mancarica in paaaat…. sa fi rasfatataaa… Acum e bine, dar de maine o sa trebuiasca sa las lenea la o parte… N-o sa mai fie cine sa-mi pregateasca mancarea, cine sa-mi spele hainele murdare… Dooh. E grav.

Am downloadat cateva filme propuse de Luc1ferus. Am sa le vizionez la Cluj. Acum downloadez doar.
Mi-e dor de Alex. Abia astept sa ne revedem. ->

“Hulye vagy????!”

Am jucat in retea Age of EMPIRES cu frate-mio. Ce fain a fost. Hehe!^^ Incep sa invat tacticile de razboi, ca pana acum am jucat codat si mereu castigam. xDD

Going through the many MMO-Champion posts from yesterday, there’s a lot of info. This post is going to contain just the stuff that will affect hunters.

From the patch notes:

• Tail swipes will no longer punt pets
• They redid the AOE cap mechanic- AOE will only hit as hard as it hits on 10 targets, whereas before it had a cap to damage done (probably per second)
• Resilience is now passed down to pets!!
• Diminishing returns for taunt has been toned down, and removed for most mobs. This means that if a tank goes down and you need to buy time for a battle res, you will be able to distracting shot the mob off a healer unless the mob is specifically affected by taunt DR, and then you’re still more likely to be able to get it.
• Call stabled pet now has a 5 minute cooldown (except that you can probably still get unlimited use of this by switching specs, which currently resets the call stabled pet cooldown).
• Deterrence now makes ranged attacks miss too!!
• Cower no longer reduces threat, but reduces damage taken and is on a cooldown. It will reduce the mobility of pets, unless the pet has “improved cower”. Vigilance on my pet please?
• Since avoidance on pets has been made inherent, that spot on their talent tree has been replaced with a DPS talent called “Culling The Herd” which gives both the hunter and pet a 3% DPS increase that lasts 10 seconds every time the pet crits with a focus dump ability. Gradual BM buffs ftw!
• Wolverine bite, in the cunning tree, is now triggered by pet crits instead of target dodges.
• Slight buffs to several pet special abilities:
  • Demoralizing screech on carrion bird pets has been buffed.
  • Venom web spray has its range increased.
  • Web has a similar range increase.
• There will be raid quests every reset.

From their datamining:

• New hunter tier 10 set models (HD version).
• New hunter tier 10 set bonuses are (probably unfinished) 2t10 and 4t10. Much better! No matter what they fill in for the time value on the 2t10 bonus.
• In addition to Need and Greed, they’ve added the option to roll for “Disenchant”

All in all, this patch looks promising! I have always felt that Blizzard was a little too quick to throw away any reason to run older content- when they give loot from a easy 5 man that’s better than the majority of drops from Naxx 25, they’ve effectively thrown away any reason to ever set foot in Naxx 25 again. These weekly quests, if rewarding enough, might give guilds a much needed incentive to hold a second (or maybe even third!) raid night.

Diary… I’m 50% pissed right now:

Courtesy of Chase over at Encrypted Text, some testing of the new “Vanish Fix” over at the PTRs for Patch 3.3 has had some “less than stellar” results. 

50%... disappointing...

There were a few, more usual situations in which the new Vanish was tested

When I’m standing in AoE

When there’s a ranged projectile headed my way

When I’m being auto attacked

When I’m auto attacking

When I’m in the middle of PvP combat

The results, in a nutshell:

AOE (tested: Paladin Consecration) – Failed

Ranged Projectile (tested: Paladin Avenger Shield) – WORKING!

Incoming Auto-Attack – Tentatively working

Outgoing Auto-Attack – WORKING!

PVP Combat – Failed

So, you can go ahead and read the full article for an explanation as to WHY each of these either pass/failed…  here is the link again.

The main problem seems to be any type of AOE damage knocking us out of stealth again… if the 1-second invulnerability is working properly, we should have a 1-sec window of opportunity to get the heck outta dodge before taking damage again, but tests seem to indicate this still isn’t working correctly.

I also agree with Chase at Encrypted Text that this stealth fix was never meant to be an I-Win… to think that a Vanish would remove all DOTS AND make you  INVULNERABLE for 1 second would be too imbalanced.   (That’s what a Cloak of Shadows/Vanish macro is for).

So we are about 50% of the way there… which is GOOD but not very promising when you consider Blizzard promised this to be FIXED.

So we shall see.

/stab 

Im Endeffekt ist das heutige Thema eine Fortsetzung des Posts von letzter Woche. Disruption ist die Störung des Gegners bei der Ausführung seiner Pläne. Ich möchte dies aber heute eher auf den Punkt Crowd Control beschränken.

Crowd Control oder CC gibt es ja in verschiedenen Formen in jedem MMO. Es geht los bei einfachen Verlangsamungseffekten (Snares), sei es bei WoW (Hamstring, Crippling Poison, Wing Clip oder auch als AoE Effekt mit den Hunterfallen), War oder auch bei EVE (Stasis Webifyer, Warp Scrambler und Disruptors (wobei die ein Zwitter darstellen, weil sie nur bestimmte Arten der Bewegung einschränken beziehungsweise verhindern)).

Verlangsamungseffekte können zwei Ziele haben: entweder man will verhindern, dass jemand auf Distanz geht (deshalb haben fast alle Melee Klassen in MMOs einen Snare) oder man will sich eines lästigen Nahkämpfers entledigen und ihn Kiten. Kurz gesagt, es geht darum, die Reichweite zum Gegner zu bestimmen, zu diktieren. Alternativ kann es auch darum gehen, den Gegner daran zu hindern, ein taktisches Objekt rechtzeitig zu erreichen (beispielsweise eine Flagge im Arathi Becken oder den Flaggen Träger im Warsong, das Jumpgate in EVE nach dem Jumpin und dem erfolgreichen Tackle durch das Gatecamp).

Die stärkere Version des Snares ist der Root, also das komplette Festsetzen eines Ziels. Im Endeffekt wird man dann oft zu Tontaube, wenn man solch einen Debuff kassiert und auf offenem Feld steht. Roots sind ein sehr gutes Mittel, ein Ziel in einer Killzone festzuhalten und dort zu erledigen, bevor derjenige wieder wegkommt.

Ebenfalls in den Bereich bewegungsbeeinflussende Elemente gehört der Pull. Deathgrip vom Deathknight in WoW, Magnet oder Rift in War oder Inescapable Judgement vom Templer in Aion gehören dazu. Allen ist gemein, dass man ein feindliches Ziel zu einem hinzieht, meistens in der Absicht, ihm gehörig auf die Mütze zu geben. Das kann natürlich sehr verheerend sein, weil man unter Umständen den Support, den das Ziel auf seiner ursprünglichen Position hat (Heilung, Dispell) ausschaltet, weil man das Ziel aus deren Line of Sight zieht.  Außerdem kommen so auch eigene Nahkämpfer dazu, das Ziel effizient zu bekämpfen.

Besonders verheerend kann die Kombination aus AoE Pulls und AoE DPS sein. Diese Form des Flächenbombens war lange Zeit einer der Hauptkritikpunkte in War. Dort wurde es teilweise mit Pulls, teilweise mit Stuns ausgeführt, die CCten Ziele wurden dann in der Zeit, wo sie wehrlos waren, komplett aufgerieben. Wer einmal pre AoE Nerf in eine Bright Wizzard / Engineer Bombgruppe reingerannt ist, weiß, was ich meine.

Ein anderes sehr krasses Beispiel sind Titan Traps in EVE (auch das wird es nicht mehr lange geben übrigens, mit der Dominion Expansion werden die Titans sehr tiefgreifend überarbeitet). Man benutzt einen Interdictor oder einen Heavy Interdictor und bubblet die gegnerische Fleet (bubble: man wirft eine Warp Interdiction Sphere ab bzw erzeugt sie und verhindert so, dass alle, die sich in der Bubble befinden, den Warpantrieb nutzen können), holt die Titans via Cyno rein und läßt diese in die Bubble 1-2 Doomsday Devices feuern, womit in der Regel bei 90 % der Ziele Feierabend ist (Double Doomsday proof kann man zwar BS fitten, es ist aber in der Regel eher ein krasser Selfgimp, gerade bei Longrange Fleets, wo man Tracking Mods benötigt).

Man sieht also: mittels bewegungseingreifender Effekte lassen sich gegnerische Handlungen stören und Kill/Feuerzonen aufbauen – dieses wiederum führt dazu, dass der eigene Schaden besser und gezielter angebracht werden kann, oft mit verheerenden Folgen.

Oft will man jedoch gar nicht unbedingt ein Ziel direkt bekämpfen, man will es lediglich neutralisieren. Jeder wird sich an den Heiler XY erinnern, der wie eine Betonwand im Zerg stand, nicht totzubekommen war und alles heilte. (wahrscheinlich auch, weil jeder auf ein anderes Ziel geholzt hat). Was aber passiert, wenn man den Heiler beschäftigt und in der Zeit ein anderes Ziel angreift. Man versucht also den Force Multiplyer des gegnerischen Ziels auszuschalten.  Das kann man nun auf verschiedene Art und Weise tun. Eine beliebte Technik ist es sicherlich, denjenigen einfach komplett aus dem Spiel zu nehmen mittels klassischem CC – Sheep, Fear, Stun. Oft ist es so, dass der CCende gar nicht seine komplette Aufmerksamkeit auf den CC setzen muss sondern diesen lediglich überwachen und gelegentlich erneuern muss. Oft heißt das aber auch, dass in Zeiten von Immunitäten, Diminishing Returns und ähnlichem man sehr gut aufpassen muss, dass man diese Effekte nicht zu früh auslöst, was passieren kann, wenn der CC nicht als Team eingesetzt wird sondern von einer Truppe Solokünstlern. Hier gibt es sicherlich solche, die weniger robust (Polymorph) sind und solche, die auch fremde Einmischung teilweise ertragen (Stuns, die halt nur Diminishing Returns/Immunity Timer als Problem haben).

Es gibt aber auch noch eine andere Möglichkeit, die Effizienz des gegnerischen Teams zu stören. Ein gutes Beispiel hierfür liefert EVE. In EVE gibt es keinen echten Stun, selbst ECM verhindert nicht komplett, dass der Gegner nicht doch etwas macht (und gegen manche Schiffskonzepte ist ECM relativ schwach, beispielsweise Drohnenboote).  Aber es gibt zahlreiche Möglichkeiten, dem Gegner das Leben schwer zu machen. ECM würde bereits genannt, daneben gibt es die Möglichkeit, dem Gegner den Saft (Capacitator) zu entziehen, seine Auffasungsreichweite zu reduzieren (Dampener) oder das Tracking der Waffen zu stören (sprich, das Ziel würde nichtmals das sprichwörtliche Scheunentor treffen). Alle diese EWar Optionen haben unterschiedliche Stärken und Schwächen, ECM kann man relativ gut kontern mit ECCM Modulen, Tracking Disruptor helfen nicht gegen Drohnen und Missiles und Damps sind etwas underpowered per se. Man muss also genau überlegen, was man machen will. Gerade beim Tournament konnte man dann sehr gut sehen, dass Ewar funktionieren kann. Aber nicht immer funktionieren muss.

Drainen kann man teilweise auch in anderen Spielen, sei es Flugzeit zu reduzieren bei Aion oder Mana Leech oder Vernichtung bei WoW (wo es im Arenametagame zeitweise das allesdominierende Element war). Im Endeffekt läuft dies oft darauf hinaus, dass man so lange aushalten muss, bis man den Gegner leer hat. Deswegen verfügen alle Leech Setups über die Fähigkeit, den Schaden des Gegners über eine gewisse Zeit zu mitigieren oder zu avoiden. Hätten sie dies nicht, würden sie schlichtwegs im Anfangsburst untergehen – und jedes gute Team, dass Draineffekte auf dem Feld sieht, wird versuchen, diese zu neutralisieren.

Ein gutes Beispiel für die Macht von Drainsetups war das neulich von mir schon erwähnte Engagement in EVE. Ohne Draineffekte hätte man den Schaden, den der Triage Carrier bekam, nicht so schnell reduzieren können. Wenn man aber nunmal Neutschiffe auf eine Revelation oder eine Moros im Siege Modus setzt, dann haben die irgendwann schlichtwegs keinen Saft mehr für die Knarren – gerade Amarr Schiffe sind hier sehr empfindlich. Umgekehrt kann man schwere Neutsetups auch nutzen, um Carrier Tanks zu brechen, gerade im Triage Mode, wo sie keine Remote Energy beziehen können. Mit Dominion wird dies sicherlich schwerer, weil die Dauer des Triage Modes halbiert wird, sprich, man muss das Ziel schneller leerlutschen um es killen zu können, zumindest, wenn es noch Support hat.

Ein anderes Beispiel für eine dem EVE EWar analoge Fähigkeit in MMOs sind Fähigkeiten, die die Castzeit oder Abklingzeit von Fähigkeiten beeinflussen. In War war eine der häßlichsten Dinge, die ein Bright Wizzard nutzen konnte, eine Fähigkeit, die alle Abklingzeiten erhöhte. Also selbst Fähigkeiten, die man an sich spammen konnten, hatten dann einen relativ langen Cooldown, was natürlich zu einem Problem wird, wenn man sich gegenheilen will. Andere Beispiele hierfür sind Mindnumbing Poison oder Curse of Tongues. Man halbiert, effektiv gesehen, die Kampfkraft der betroffenen Einheit. Da man den Debuff oft auf mehreren Zielen aktiv halten kann, kann es verheerend sein, wenn man den CCenden walten läßt, oft hat man dann einfach den Effekt, dass das eigene Team immer mehr in Rückstand gerät und irgendwann kollektiv umfällt.

Bei all dieser Auflistung wird man sich nun fragen, ja, wo sind die Multiplyer Effekte? Ganz einfach. Diese Effekte erlauben einer scheinbar unterlegenen Streitmacht den Sieg über zahlreichere Feinde ebenso wie sie bei gleichstarken Gegnern den Kampf entscheiden können, weil man den Gegner im Bereich Letalität und Support sehr empfindlich beschneiden kann. Während Letalität meistens relativ linear ist in ihrem Aufbau, (je mehr Leute, je größer die Waffen, desto mehr Aua) so ist dies beim Support, wie wir letzte Woche gesehen haben, oft nicht so. Infolgedessen ist die Aufgabe von Disruptionseinheiten nicht damit getan, die Fähigkeiten einzusetzen, sondern vorher die Ziele zu identifizieren, wo man den Feind empfindlich trifft, seine Schaltstellen, seine Nerven, sein Herz oder sein Gehirn.

Im nächsten Artikel werde ich mich dann der räumlichen Komponente der Disruption zuwenden.

This is just a short note to let you know that the venerable Ghostcrawler has posted a little something about pet avoidance, and their ability to avoid AOE damage. Here’s the link, and here’s the quote:

It is likely we will just replace the hunter pet Avoidance talent with one that increases pet dps. It is too situational to have as a talent now. Hunter pets will just take 90% less damage from creature AE the same as other pets do (meaning “for free”). We offer that avoidance as recognition that Fluffy doesn’t have the AI to get out of the fire on boss fights and likes to go in straight lines between you and a target, even if that means crossing fire.

Ninety percent avoidance should be enough to survive almost all boss AE attacks for a second or two — enough to get a heal or move your wolf (or sporebat). It isn’t intended to let your pet just ignore AE completely and stand in void zones. If you’re a pet class, you are going to have to manage the pet a little in dungeons and raids.

It was never our intent that pets just shrug off AE in PvP situations. In fact, it’s a little goofy if you think about it. We just technically couldn’t distinguish between creature and player AE before. We only go to that distinction as a last resort, since we like for PvP and PvE to work similarly. However we thought it was necessary in this case, since the complexity of boss encounters just doesn’t always leave pets with a way to avoid the AE damage. We think PvP AE damage often is avoidable (dude isn’t literally Bladestorming the entire arena at once), but we still understand that this is a PvP nerf to pets and we may buff them in other ways to compensate.

For those of you who may not have heard, the patch being tested now, 3.3, is supposed to reduce pet AOE damage taken by a little more, but completely remove the ability for pets to avoid player based AOE. It turns out that we’re going to get some more pet DPS om return, but I’ll also bet that this will be the patch where resilience and stamina starts to pass down to pets the way hit does currently.

MMO-Champion posted additional notes on patch 3.3. Of interest, here are the hunter changes:

Hunter
Beast Mastery
-Mend Pet, Scare Beast had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.

Marksmanship
-Silencing Shot additional tooltip text – Non-player victim spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec.
-Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, Serpent Sting, Volley, -Hunter’s Mark had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.

Survival
-Explosive Trap now burns all enemies for [ Ranged AP + 900 ] additional Fire damage over 20 sec. (Up from 900)
-Point of No Escape now increases the critical strike chance of all of your attacks on targets affected by your Frost Trap, Freezing Trap and Freezing Arrow. (Old – “Increases the critical strike chance of all attacks”)
-Misdirection redesigned – The current party or raid member targeted will received the threat caused by your next damaging attack and all actions taken for 4 sec afterwards.
-Lock and Load now has a 22 sec cooldown. (Down from 30 sec)
-Wyvern Sting, Mongoose Bite, Raptor Strike, Counterattack, Freezing Trap, Explosive Shot had the mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.

First off, some of this was talked about yesterday. A lot of the changes are simple implementation of their lower level questing speed boost. That said, there’s a whole lot of level 80 changes to chew on. Let’s start ruminating, shall we?

PvE

At first glance, I see that explosive trap’s damage over time component now causes a massive amount of damage. I would have to run the numbers to be sure, but this might change the way we handle aoe. Right now, I fire black arrow and explosive shots on whatever the tank has targeted between volleys. This trap went from doing 900 damage per target over 20 seconds to (for me, raid buffed) 8600 damage per target over 20 seconds.

Looking down a bit, we run into some confusing wording about lock and load. They claim that they are bringing the cooldown down to 22 seconds where it had been 30 seconds, however as we all know (and supported by testing done on elitist jerks) the cooldown has been 22 seconds and the proc chance 20% per black arrow tick since 3.2 launched.

PvP

I was about to start decrying the rapid fire nerfs these notes seem to be bringing, however I was recently reminded that patch 3.3 is when our pets are supposed to start inheriting our stats, including resilience. Making avoidance no longer protect your pet from AOE in arena might be made up for by the fact that it now has a portion of your resilience. The change to silencing shot, however, has no answer. It used to be an interrupt/silence cooldown used to help control the opposition, and it is now only an interrupt. Unless this whole time it hasn’t been locking players from casting for 3 seconds- I’ll have to clarify that with Jurgwena.

The point of no escape change is a slight nerf, although I don’t know how much of one.

Don’t forget, this is a preliminary build subject to much change. We’ll keep on top of it for you- watch for more analysis as things change.

Onyxia is a specially re-released encounter to celebrate WOW’s 5th anniversary. Today, I’ll go over the basic strategy for the fight from a hunter’s perspective. The fight has 3 phases:

Phase one

This phase is a simple single target burn that lasts until you get her down to 65%. During this time, she will do moderate raid damage and will periodically send people in melee range flying back.

Phase two

Once you get her to 65%, she takes flight and will summon a veritable army of onyxian whelps. I didn’t get a good count, but there were at least 25 on the 10 man version- and with this many whelps, their name plates were literally covering my entire screen. Use your new powered up volley here, but keep Onyxia targeted and fire more DOTs (black arrow, explosive shot, and serpent sting) at her when they’re off cooldown between volleys. Also, save your feign death for this phase- you might attract some whelp attention with all the AOE you’re doing.

She next starts to summon lair guards. These don’t last long, but they do a hard hitting AOE. Take them out.

During this time, she will take that deep breath we keep hearing jokes about- what this means is that she will pick a direction, and destroy anything in her path. Watch her carefully, and when you see an emote about a deep breath, make sure you aren’t in her path.

Phase three

Once you get her to 40%, she lands again and starts to fear people in addition to all this other stuff. These fears last 3 seconds. She’ll also cause parts of the floor to gush fire which does light fire damage- try not to stand on the cracks between floor plates. If you get feared into one, have a health pot handy. Sometimes she fears or kicks people so far/hard that they spawn another army of whelps. If this happens, you’re going to need a lot of heavy tanking, healing, and AOE DPS to get back on track. Position yourself close enough to minimize the risk of your being the one that gets kicked/feared into the caves.

That’s pretty much all there is to this fight- straight forward, and easy to outgear. The rewards are on par with the T9 content in ToC. Have fun!

[edit: don't forget the secret hunter perch.]

Source: Ghostcrawler mentioned that the attack power coefficient for volley has been raised. This skill had, before a patch a few months ago, been ridiculously overpowered. For raids where mana was not in short supply, the largest single target DPS you could get was volley. The nerf brought overall volley DPS down by 30%. Since then, our AOE DPS seemed a bit low compared to other classes’, in my opinion, however since this is rarely a factor in a boss fight, I never bothered to voice my feelings on the forums or anything.

For those of your who want to know the exact numbers, the AP coefficient has gone from 0.0586 to 0.0837. [Edit]: That appears to reverse the nerf from last time, as one commenter pointed out! (thanks Pherra!)

Yeah, literally. I feel guilty.

OK, the midsems are over … and the intersections. Talking about intersections, now i know what my problem is. I can’t get out of my mental shell of reservedness quickly. I plan things, but fail to take advantages of  random ( or non-random, but unplanned, nevertheless ) chances that come my way.  It was somewhat a  ‘rab ne …’ kind of thing ( maybe it still is ) … but i think i ‘ve missed the train … come on, people are not machines …

What the hell … i ‘m again talking crap again. FOR GOD’S SAKE MAN, JUST F**KING GET OVER IT, PERIOD.

Well, about other things, … AoE … or rather AoC … i’m a natural at initial economy building and rush tactics ( reaching castle age in 18 mins is no mean feat for a novice, though in Arabia Verde), though i’ve to work a lot on army control, … guess it will come from experience … and TT … with an extra bit of motivation, i started playing again , … happy i’ve got over my mental block of hitting a smash finally …

and Music … well, this thing, MiniLyrics rocks … instant lyrics download … awesome … i’m getting a fan of Telugumusic and Mohit Chauhan … the latest crush is ‘New York Nagaram’ by A.R.Rehman, … though i like its original Tamil version better … i’m going to debut in Ripples this yr, surely. Numb, in the end, baatein kuch ankahee si, man bawra or some bengali number … let’s see …

aoe close

AOE:  Closed my position in Arrow Energy today at $4.42 for a 2.7% loss.

In this case I have not waited for my stop loss because of ‘bad feelings’ which are based on what I am seeing on the daily price graph.  Marked in the picture you can see the all time high marked.  On breaching this barrier I would expect the price to stall before moving on – which it has.  Looking however at the rising wedge, the top barrier is a line that was an upwards trending support line – however recently this line seems to have become a resistance line, which may hinder upward movement.

At the top of the wedge, the price seems to have come out to the downside, so for now I’m reigning this one in.

That said – it may move on, and I’ll keep an eye in case I choose to re-enter.

okn open

OKN:  Pyramided into my Oakton position today at $2.94.  Oakton has risen nicely in the few short days since I took an initial position.  I am however sitting just below resistance so will need to see if we can push through that.

Looking over my last Oakton trade, its the same level of resistance that shook me out just a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, off to watch the gold price that pushed through the $1000 barrier earlier today and is now trying to get itself pushed back beneath it!

aoe pyramid

AOE: increased my position in Arrow Energy today, with an entry set last night when the market was closed.

Looking at the graph now, entry is less than ideal as with the dip today appears to be forming a small scale rounding top – but not to worry, I’ve got a reasonably tight stop in place.  Combine that with the fact the price is close to the long term high, and seeing signs of resistance here is not unreasonable.

Looking at my stats, my transaction rate is down a bit at the moment (good I reckon) but a number of shares are moving close to their stops.  So – set a few triggers, and back to my real job.

[Edit sep 28, 2009: there is an updated strategy here]

The Faction Champions encounter is the third in the trial of the crusader. Unfortunately, at this time, there are no general wowhead (or whatever) guides I can refer you to for further reading, however since we two shot made short work of this last night, I’m going to write up a list of advice I have to pass on, and go and edit it for accuracy as it’s completed more often.

First and foremost, this fight is like a large arena match. At least, that’s what Blizzard was going for. There are 10 bosses you fight simultaneously, and while they have agro tables, they periodically wipe them and try to burst someone down (usually a healer). Unfortunately, resilience does not seem to help in this fight, and many other mainstays of arena have been selectively disabled. Your raid can’t AOE, spellsteal or mind control, for example.

Luckily, most forms of crowd control still work, even though they’re affected by diminishing returns.

When you start the encounter, the group jumps down out of the stands. They won’t engage you until you pull them, so you can take your time and formulate a strategy, mark targets, etc.

• Kill order, unsurprisingly, must start with a healer. We chose the priest because he is squishy, however the tree druid has been reported to do more healing unless his HoTs can be purged.
• As a hunter, you need to focus your DPS with the rest of the raid while still contributing your traps, wyvern stings or silencing shot, and scare beast every time they come off cooldown without untargeting your first target. I wrote several macros that turned these abilities into mouseovers, and they all looked like this/cast [target=mouseover] insertspellnamehere

• Use this for scare beast (for the cat) and wyvern sting if you’re survival, and keybind silencing shot if you’re marks.
• If you have aimed shot in your build, you’ll want to include it in your rotation on your primary target, to minimize the heals it receives.
• Consider using a marks build for this fight- while is may be less DPS in an optimal patch type fight for some levels of gear, you will find some nice synergy here with scorpid stinging the melee and chimera shotting to disarm them when they are hammering on a healer, as well as viper stinging casters.
• Your raid leader will probably not assign you to “locking down” one of the other healers, because to be honest, we’re not as good at that as other classes are, and we are extremely good at providing the raw face-meltage required to quickly finish off the first healer.
• Use shamans to purge HoTs from the first target.
• Set up a rotation to keep the other healers as stunned and silenced as possible.
• While you can not use a macro to target these, zoom out and manually shoot down all the totems you can while the shaman is alive. His healing stream totem in particular could outweigh the DPS of several players.
• The first kill is the hardest- you need to get it down before their DPS kills your healers. Once it’s down, you will definitely want to take down a second healer, and after that most people would probably just focus on the hardest hitting DPS and keep the last healer stunlocked.
• As a hunter, we typically don’t worry overmuch about raid damage other than to get out of the occasional void zone. Well, that’s not enough on this fight. Your healers are going to be stretched to their limit until you take down some of the opposing DPS, and to top things off, it’s not raid damage they’re healing, it’s coordinated debuffs and attacks from all the enemy DPS simultaneously. If this happens to a healer (which is their usual choice), get their attention. Throw a freezing arrow under a ranged DPS, distracting shot the warrior, wyvern sting a caster, anything. This will save your healers mana, and allow your raid the time needed.
• Create a special raid bar for healers so you can monitor their health and debuffs- if one of them started to crash and get bubbled, find them, run over, and do what you can.
• If you’re the target of one of these bursts: deterrence, disengage, kite, and if you’ve managed to kite them somewhere far from a healer, feign death.
• If you can get two or three of these guys down without serious raid losses, you will probably win.

That’s my list of tips for the Faction Champions encounter- hug your healers when it’s over, they’ll need it.

roc close

ROC: Closed Roc Oil position today for a 3% loss.  Followed plan fairly well, but actually suspect the plan was not a good as it could have been.  The share has bounced off the rising trendline  a few times over the course of the year, and I should possibly have exited a couple of days earlier when the trendline was breached.

Anyway – all in all not a bad trade.

iif close

IIF: Closed my position in ING Industrial Fund today for an 11% gain (down on the 43% it was sitting at a few days ago!).

Anyway – stick to the plan – a profits a profit.  I will continue to watch this share as the volume seems to confirm the price action particularly well on this share – and its my view that the volume confirmation isn’t as strong on Australian shares as I see on US shares.