Strategies And Raids Articles

This is the best news I've heard in a while and certainly makes me optimistic for Cataclysm (ICC's limited attempts had managed to kill my previously-high enthusiasm for the expansion.)

Interesting that they've come out and said it was them playing nanny too, "saving guilds from themselves." This was not "to help the casuals compete better", it was just momma Blizzard saying "don't raid that much!"

From http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=23425524394 (click through to read them all):

Q. How do you feel about the limited attempts mechanic that has been use in Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel?

A. We're not crazy about how they worked out. They were designed in essence to save players from themselves. In the past, some people would make 400+ attempts on new bosses. That's not healthy and at some point you're not measuring skill but tenacity. Yet, that's not what happened. Guilds just made alts to get around the limitations, and things like disconnects and accidents make losing an attempt really frustrating. We like gating because if nothing else it lets the community focus on more than just the final boss in the zone. If we do limited attempts again it would probably be limited to optional bosses like Algalon.

The other answer that made for a very happy mage today:

Q.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

This tool was built by Seriallos, a data whore and the GM of <Kamigami>, a serious casual (3 nights / week) guild looking for more exceptional players who want a fun, relatively mature, and serious raiding environment. Go check out their recruitment information if that sounds like something interesting!

They are looking for 1-2 Mages, a Holy/Ret Pally, a DPS DK, and maybe a warlock.

Introducing Kamigami Tools

http://www.stratfu.com/kamigami/

Do you like looking at the top DPS rankings on World of Logs to figure out how you're doing? Are you a raid leader that wants to know the realistic maximum DPS/HPS for a class on any given fight? Not sure which spec you should be playing to eke out the most numbers? Wonder no more! The Kamigami WoW Tools are here to answer your questions!

This initial release focuses on comparing all the classes and specs on each individual Icecrown boss (currently 25 man normal mode). It scours the World of Logs top rankings pages every day to provide a comparitive view of what the best players are capable of under ideal circumstances.

Some of the details:

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

Some people are saying it's too early to call icecrown a failure as far as difficulty scaling goes, arguing that the limited-attempt bosses will be the hard ones.

Paragon just took down BQL (5 hours), however. They're a strong guild no doubt, but even assuming it takes the top 100 guilds twice as long, we're still talking a couple weeks tops so far.

Here are their comments via a Something Awful thread about their pre-BQL work:

8/12 bosses down in a bit over 8 hours or so, quite easy to be honest

Marrowgar one shot.
Deathwhisper was actually a bit hard, took 1.5 hours.
Gunship one shot.
Saurfang 2.5 hours (less than 5% wipe on the second pull though).
Valithria 1 hour.
Festergut third pull.
Rotface one shot.
Blood Council second pull.

The rockets fired from the other ship knockback you like 4 yards in hard mode. Very challenging But yeah, the hard mode is pretty much as easy as the normal mode. I think 1 more add on your own ship.

So -- too easy? Or too early to tell?

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748763261&sid=1

• Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph are purchasable by druids as intended.
• Lovely Charms now stack to 40.
• Any player who has a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit in their bags now has a chance to receive a Lovely Charm when in a group or raid and a group member gets a killing blow as long as they are within a certain range of the kill.
• In all difficulties of the Lich King encounter, players who are tanking raging spirits are no longer valid Harvest Soul targets during phase 3, Vile Spirits in phase 3 now spawn at a greater height, and Vile Spirits in phase 3 will not be spawned as often.
• In the 10 player Lich King encounter, Raging Spirits have had their health decreased in both normal and heroic versions and then fewer Vile Spirirts will be summoned in just the 10 player normal mode.
• Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle should no longer get stuck in the air during her transformation phase.
• The Blue Sack of Gems earned from completing a random heroic Occulus dungeon is no longer tradeable.
• The Tier 10 tanking plate gloves and chest pieces now have their appropriate durability on them.

Read more posts by StratFu

Read rest of Article

I am not personally motivated by competition, although I realize many (most?) people are. This fact means I can be very surprised by the lengths people will go to for "keeping up with the Joneses."

Earlier this week Ensidia exploited their kill, and got a ban and the achievement removed (although their alts got it down, so they were able to do hardmodes this week.)

Yesterday I posted about Tasty Beverage, who server transferred but also faction transferred in order to get extra attempts.

Today we have a guild who was unable to kill Lich King on mains or alts given the limited attempts. They solved their problem, however, by having someone transfer in who can unlock hardmode for them and are now doing hardmodes without actually having killed Lich King:

http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/sen-jin/Premonition

This was stated in a large IRC channel. I've removed the name of the person speaking since I don't have an easy way of reaching him (he's offline):

(nameremoved) Mage in our guild got accepted
(nameremoved) Was decent at WoW
(nameremoved) Then Premo took him after they had declined him months ago
(nameremoved) To unlock hardmodes for them

And from the guildleader of the guild the person left:

Empyrea, who provided them hard mode access, was from our guild. He was promoted to full member just a few days ago.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

Just got this report in from Blood Legion: apparently the ICC zoneline is buggy if you personally didn't kill Lich King.

They had a member who wasn't in on the Lich King kill last week be unable to zone in if it was set to heroic, while everyone who did have a LK kill could. He got the message:

"You must have defeated The Lich King in the 25 Player raid before attempting 25 Player Heroic difficulty"

Summoning, however, does work.

Update: According to Juggernaut, summoning doesn't work (not sure why it worked for BL and not Jugg) but this does: change it to normal, wait five minutes, and then change it to heroic.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

...as yet another guild opts to spend cash to get hopefully less server lag and double the number of attempts, this time an extra 20 Lich King pulls to secure their Arthas kill this week.

Dear Blizzard, server+faction transfers *also* need to prevent raid ID shenanigans, not just server transfers without faction transfers. Thanks for your time. Your Friend, Kyth

The first ICC prize goes to a guild named "Tasty Beverage" which transferred to Bleeding Hollow and, with their extra 20 attempts on Arthas, managed to secure hardmodes a week earlier than they would have otherwise after failing on their original server, Drak'Thul.

When I asked for proof, the source linked: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23041984042&sid=1&pageNo=8 where they mention the extra 20 attempts they got.

Obviously from the tone of this, I'm not a fan of their behavior. You transfer for multiple reasons, and they opted to also get hardmodes a week earlier than they would have normally. Transfer one day later if you don't want people pointing out the shady behavior.

But I'm also not stupid: the real problem here is why Blizzard closed the "server transfer to get free attempts!" trick while leaving open the faction transfer loophole.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

In a move that would've certainly made a lot more friends had they made this plan clear earlier (and saved me some time angsting over how we'll make the decision each week), Blizzard posted just now:

"After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.

We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids. "

The main impact this will have on most of the raiders will be you will no longer be trying to guess how many attempts you need to leave in order to finish the rest of the limited-attempt bosses on easy-mode ("Think we can one-shot the remaining bosses this week or do we need to save two attempts? Or three?")

You will also have an easier job unlocking hardmodes next week if you didn't get it this week.

A better implementation suggestion was posted earlier tonight by Stauros, a druid in Juggernaut:

They should have made the change to be if the raid leader has unlocked heroic modes then normal mode attempts are unlimited. That makes much more sense.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

I hope everyone else has enjoyed the wonderful work of Dethkrik throughout 3.3 PTR and launch. He has done amazing work analyzing videos and writing up tentative strategies and then finalizing them once the boss is released. I couldn't think of a better way to thank him and his guild than to put their recruiting call up on the front page.

Now, this isn't blind: I actually know them, since they are on Turalyon. I have several of my alts tagged with War Machine, and have always enjoyed raiding with them.

If we had to choose People vs Progression, we'd choose good people. If you would too, but think you can and should have both, we might be the guild for you.

<War Machine> of Turalyon-US (EST / Stormstrike) is a 9 hr/week progression-focused guild for mature players, who want to put fun and camaraderie first, but still bring a serious A-game to raid times.

We are recruiting exceptional players to round out our roster, with a focus on: Balance Druid, Ret/Holy Paladin, DPS/Resto Shaman, Shadow/Disc or Shadow/Holy Priest, and an exceptional DPS warrior or DPS DK.

Details:

Balance Druid. Offset is not important.

Ret/Holy paladin. You must have experience and be comfortable with both specs. Only one spec needs to meet our gear requirements.

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do (although it might help that I haven't raided in a few weeks, so this is the first time I'm seeing it!)

This is the US (and World) first 10-man Arthas kill from Blood Legion late Tuesday night (aka Wednesday morning.)

Thanks for posting it for us, Firstaidspec, and congrats Blood Legion!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Read more posts by Kyth

Read rest of Article