Hard Modes, Morale, and Raiding

There's a lot of talk at various blog sites and WoWInsider about Hard Modes, specifically in relation to Ulduar and the next patch changes with 3.2 and the new raid instances. Discussion has ranged from a variety of, you should even consider a HM until you have cleared Ulduar to people trying to achieve HM when they are far below the capability- and how devastating that can be for the raid roster. I know just within our guild there was some discussion- but I firmly feel we arrived at the best solution for us- simply put, we will attempt a HM, and give it 3 solid attempts- and based on those attempts, call it and do the boss normally, or try again. There is no reason to ever burn someone out wiping.

We've gradually been building our experience up on the towers. Perhaps we'll try 3 towers up on FL this time and see how the attempt goes- but it is nice to know up front what limitations we have in place already. As far as DPS race HMs, there is really no reason not to try for these every time- because they cost nothing. We can increasingly push ourselves harder/further. Since our focus is currently Yogg and Iron Council Medium Mode, we've been pushing through content quickly to have time to focus on these fights; it's paid off too, because we are mastering Yogg's phases, and IC would have been cleared if we would have had a second hunter Sunday night.

Recruiting has really paid off, and we've also very quickly filled our immediate needs, and hit "critical mass" as far as our roster is concerned. With our latest additions, I really feel it will definitely make our first HM- IC – Med, very possible, which will then unlock the way for us to begin working on other HMs. Guild Bank Repairs on Sunday also helped as we were working through Yogg, and we did a 180 on improving our number of attempts for the time we had available. On the whole, aside from some miscommunication on 10 man raiding (I swear bliz loves to put these things out there just to test guild mettle), our core is stronger than it has ever been, with a great group of core people. The choice is always that YOU choose who YOU raid with. I love my decision!

A New Reason to do the Fishing Daily

When 3.2 hits the live realms, players will have a new reason to do the fishing daily. Aside from the possible pet, the extra gold from vendor greys, and the possible storm jewel gems, the next patch will offer the chance for the Bag of Fishing Treasures to contain a Waterlogged Recipe. The quest available from the Waterlogged Recipe requires 350 currently to accept.

Cooks, don't get too excited. This operates in a similar fashion as the Sealed Vial of Poison. The only difference is that the Waterlogged Recipe can currently be traded. Once you start the quest, you have to deliver the recipe to Christi Stockton, a Wine Vendor located in Dalaran's premier shop- One More Glass. Frequent cooks haunt this location in search of wine and cheese for cooking dailies. Basically you talk to Christi, and she offers to buy the recipe from you. You receive 5 cooking badges, 250 Kirin Tor reputation, and of course, gold. For now, on the PTR, these waterlogged recipes are tradeable- making it possible to sell them on the auction house. This could provide a way for some chefs to get their chef hats. I personally thought it would have be neat to offer a new recipe drop this way but obviously this is not what the developers had in mind.

Northrend Children's Week – PTR First Look

One thing I did notice on the PTR last night was that they are testing the Northrend Quests for Children's Week. It starts in Dalaran. The Orphan Matron is located close the fountain in Dalaran- she offers you a choice of orphans- either a Frenzyheart or a Oracle orphan to keep for the week.

On Onyxtotemz, I picked up the Oracle orphan. To complete the opening quest and unlock the quest chains, you first have to talk to the matron about both orphan types; note, you can only pick one faction. Once you have done that, with your orphan out, you complete the opening quest.

The first three quests are The Biggest Tree Ever, Playmates, and the Bronze Dragonshire. These quests are very straight forward.

The Biggest Tree Ever has you taking the orphan into Grizzly Hills to see Grizzlemaw. Grizzlemaw is the giant tree that has hostile furblog type creatures in it. To get credit for the quest I landed inside of Grizzlemaw, summoned the orphan, and moved slightly- quest complete.

Playmates takes you to Borean Tundra to visit the Winterfin Retreat camp. Here your lil' oracle orphan will meet with the kid murlocs and you get to see some really nice dancing.

The Bronze Dragonshire takes you to Dragonblight, just northeast of the Wintergarde Keep. Once you get here and summon your orphan. At this point you realize that your orphan is going to grow up to become the leader of his tribe. He chats with an elder here for a minute, and of course, you end up with more quests.

The Dragon Queen is also in Dragonblight. You just need to take your orphan to the top on Wyrmcrest Tower, and chat with the Queen for just a bit.

Meeting a Great One is the last quest outside of Dalaran. You get to take the orphan thru the waypoint in southern Sholazar Basin. Once you enter, summon your orphan, go up to the large guy on the left of the ramp.

Then it's back to Dalaran. A Trip to the Wonderworks quest has you purchasing a paper plane. You "play" with your orphan, throwing the plane back and forth. Once this one is complete, you turn him back into the Matron.

In the mail, you receive a letter from your orphan, and a mini orphan as a pet. Neat idea, but kinda freaky if you think that this is supposed to grow up to be a leader of a tribe; all in all, the quests are very straightforward.

PTR Trial of the Champion (5-Man) – First Looks

We managed to get two groups and attempt this new 5 man as it came up during our organization process. BTW, we need DPS on the PTR.

First Phase – You know all those Argent Tourney dailies.. well I hope you are good at them, and if you aren't, you need to start practicing your jousting now. The first phase is mounted, and you are jousting 3 Horde factions; these 3 groups can vary, judging by the groups we had spawn between the our two 5 mans.

If you thought Rag had a long speech, prepare to be bored- because the opening is very long. Also note: if you wipe, you get to go through it again; Let's hope Bliz changes that. You enter the room , and there's a ring with horses along the edge; Equip your lance, mount up up, and start that long intro. Each of three random factions will move in, with their respective boss. The object is to defeat each of the factions, and then each boss, on horse. The PTR was really buggy (go figure, eh?) and if you died, the client crashed, if you dismounted, the client crashed. Once this phase was over, you had to fight the 3 heads of the factions again, on foot. After that, we have no idea; it seemed to bug out repeatedly for both groups.

Here's the video- note you will not see loot etc. The video stops where I crashed from dying =) -edited, unfortunately YouTube would not allow the Kid Rock audio of Cowboy- Boo on YouTube so here's our version hosted by Blogger =)

Lootwise this instance drops epics- 200 and 213 iLevels; the list of loot is available here: MMO Champion

A Great Holiday Weekend!

Well, for those of us in US, this last weekend was Memorial Day! Despite the holiday weekend, we still filled Sunday night's raid. We had quite a busy weekend- some folks working on achievements, some old world content, and 10 man Ulduar as well. We finished up Nax, and got some of our casual raiders into the mix. There were some nice gear upgrades for some folks, and some nice offspec pieces to be had as well. We even rounded out recruitment, with just one position open- a mage slot. With the next upcoming month, I suspect we'll be seeing great progress in Ulduar, but at least for now, if nothing else we are consistent.

Off Night Fiascos

So.. in a typical fashion.. we went visiting some Old World content.. a few weeks ago.. we hit up the old world dragons.. all but the one in Azshara..lol... Last night, we started at Onyxia, completed MC.. after attuning a couple of people and alts-

remember when if you pulled 3 core packs it was sudden death?... and then wrapped that up with Rag's defeat.. which I might add still looks as epic as ever!

This followed an adventure into BWL.. but first we had to attune a few people.. so while a small group ran UBERs,, (remember that?!) We had a dance party!

We crafted a few cloaks.. and away we went to BWL...

Nef died of course.. and it was another dance party.. all in all a great off night.. finished up with some new 10 man achievements and a few BoE drops. =)

WWS != meters

Originally posted on our forums: Posted: 02 Apr 2009 08:52 pm RECAP: Interpreting WoWWebStats

Here's a write up I found about Wowwebstats that may explain more about this tool to everyone and how to read it.

You can link either the anonymous version of the report (which will use fake names and not link Armory profiles) or the 'private' version to the forums. IMO, more information is better, so unless you are doing this without the consent of the guild leaders, there isn't a really good reason to hide specs and gear. Allowing people to see specs and gear will eliminate the uncertainty when judging actions, otherwise we can't criticize a player for using a skill they didn't put points into.

WWS records DPS during DPS time, which will result in a different number than recount or Swstats which will record DPS over the time of the boss fight. As a result, there are two other numbers which become important for WWS, presence and DPS time. Presence is how much of the fight the player spent alive. DPS time is how much of THAT time the player spent DPSing. This will vary from class to class and fight to fight, but it should not vary too much between players of the same class doing the same job.

Non-damaging debuffs are not necessarily recorded as attached to a specific player, so if a warlock doesn't show a curse active, it may be because he kept up a non-damaging curse. In order to check to see if non-damaging debuffs have been put up, click on the "Raid and Mobs" section, then lick on the boss, and scroll to debuffs.

Healing meters may not show the full story, if you want to check healing assignments, click on the "Who Heals Whom" page. You will end up on a spreadsheet with healers on the columns and healing targets (including those healers) on the rows. Their "focus" is listed as well. The focus is a measure of how "focused" (for lack of a better word) a healer is on a single target. If you assigned a MT healer and that healers focus isn't the MT, talk to him.

Reading WWS

Clicking on a single player's name in WWS will result in a breakdown of their damage done, heals, buffs and debuffs. Let's look at a specific character

We can see percentages of damage done, crits, and misses. When WWS records a 'miss' and generates a miss rate for a spell or a physical attack, it is just counting your misses (which will be shown on the combat log as full resists if you are a spellcaster) and dividing by the total attempts. The miss rate should approach your theoretical miss rate (so 1% if you are hit capped), but does not need to be close.

If you click on an ability, you will find a breakdown of partial resists, blocked attacks, parries, dodges, and so forth. This also works for incoming damaging attacks to see how many crushing blows a tank took during a fight or what their avoidance was on average. Scrolling down, we find that we can see how many time a player clicked an 'on use' trinket, assuming we know the name of the effect the trinket causes. We can also find out how many potions, healthstones, mana gems, or other abilities the player used. Remember, WWS uses the names that the combat log uses, which may or may not match the names we use for them in conversation.

You can read DoT uptime from counting the DoT ticks and multiplying by the period of the dot (how often it ticks). This is NOT an optimal solution, because if dots are refreshed early or dispelled by the boss, you may have different values for estimated and actual uptime. If anyone knows a better way to figure DoT uptime, let me know.

What you CAN'T read from WWS

You can't tell, directly, the group makeup from WWS. This is why it is important for you to post what the raid groups were in your request for help. You can guess at who was with whom by seeing who received certain groupwide buffs (FI, Battleshout, Heroism/Bloodlust, etc.) and auras, but this is wasting time that is better spent looking for other things.

WWS handles buff uptime poorly because the combat log handles it poorly. If you refresh Battleshout before it expires every time, then it is entirely possible that WWS will show "Battleshout: 1" under the buff category. Similar problems exist with recording debuffs on a boss that are procced by abilities but meant to be maintained the whole fight, like Scorch. The debuff for Scorch shows up as "Fire Vulnerability (Stacksize)" (Where the relevant number is inserted for stack size. For a fight like Netherspite, having Scorch up 3 times may mean that the fight went through three portal phases—in this case, looking at the combat log, that is true. For other fights, a large number of scorch debuffs recorded may mean that the raid isn't keeping it up, this is very fight dependent.

WWS cannot tell you max health, minimum health or max/min mana. You can not tell strictly from the charts if an arcane mage is potting/gemming correctly or only when he is OOM. You cannot tell if a tank was kept full or barely above 75% for the duration of the fight. Assuming that the players from the raid logged in their buffs and in their raid gear, you can extrapolate some of this information, but it isn't worth it for most of the cases.

WWS does not record latency, so you can only tell from DPS time and combat logging if players are using macroes/stopcasting/etc. If you look at percentages, you may be able to tell the player's specific rotations, or area for improvement in rotations. This is merely another tool to allow players to improve their overall performance.

Things to add.. DejaWoW, World of Logs, and WoWMeterOnline also break things down differently.

There's a raid analysis section. From reading WWS, I can see what buffs were had, what people died from, or if they killed themselves.. i.e. tapping when too low on health.

By looking closely, I see about what rotation you are. Some sites are incredible analytic for spec and rotation that should be kept up, even coming close to providing %. This will tell you alot about playstyle. For example, compare my healing with Spans. I guarantee he spams CH alot more (Chain heal for you non healing types) where as I use Riptide alot in pinches and I believe I keep ES (Earth shield) up.

We have vastly different playstyles. Everybody does. Rotations are something that can be consistent- more for dps, but also, healing can change up alot depending on the fight. You can look at specific fights and see decursing etc, who heals whom, etc.

These are not just METERs, they are far more than meters, they are tools. If someone is better, (and there's always someone better), you can learn, if not from them then at least from their meters.

It's not a competition. It's about working as a team- if the goal is to live, the massive amount of DPS you did in the 10 sec you were alive DOES NOT MATTER. DPS and HPS do not matter. What it boils down to, is this is a tool that you use to learn from your mistakes.

This site does a great job of explaining how to interpret raid analysis tools.
http://www.worldofraids.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22022
An easier way to navigate the WWS meters.. there are two links in the above link that explain this far better than I can.