Panzerkin finally D-E-D

I found out reading Restokin:

Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor.

See, what the armor bonus did was allow you to put together mitigation gear, just like any other tank or off-tank. Now, the benefit is flat. I'll have to double check the mathes, since I really am mostly a non-mathes player, but I don't think 15% is going to be as good as max leather armor with the proper enchantments, etc.

This is really another watering down of the game, "Dungeons are hard" aside. Not only does the quest reward gear look exactly the same with small changes during upgrades, saying that you're essentially marching your way through a pre-defined route of gearing when questing, now, just as with the switch from +healing gear to just generic spellpower and the elimination of spell type specific bonuses, every Boomkin is marching along, playing just like every other.

The character of the game is taking a hit. Playstyles are becoming more standardized by the standardization of gear and gear bonuses.

How about you teach us instead? Re: Wow, Dungeons are Hard!

Wow, Dungeons are Hard! - World of Warcraft:

DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do. Which are the spells that need to be interrupted? Which are the void zones that you absolutely must get out of? Which are the adds that must be burned down (and conversely, when should you ignore the adds and focus on the boss instead)? If you aren’t sure, then ask. [emph mine]

No, you shouldn't have to ask. Nor should DPS stay in the LK theme of button spamming. Instead, the game should teach you each instance fight.

Essentially, what Blizzard's saying here is if you're not in a hardcore, first-run guild that's going to blast through the instances first, you must learn from what those guys have said. If you're part of the second wave, it's your responsibility to figure out the instances from outside of the game. You must read Thott/WoWhead. You must have someone in your guild that has already run the instance. You can't do this on your own, Nemo. You just can't!

The attitude's a cop out. If [PU]group members are going to continue to expect you to get it right the first time or they'll drop -- an attitude, it should be pointed out, this blog post by Blizzard reinforces -- then the game must include clues, preferably from the content of quest lines that teaches you how to handle an instance. There must be in-game methods to learn the lore. As much as gaming is an industry of metalepsis, how to run an instance should be taught in-game.

There's no RP reason not to think that the weaknesses and powers of the instances aren't known by some NPCs, and there's no reason not to make quests, accessible in solo PvE, that prepare us for boss battles in instances. I think I've mentioned that here before. I know I've thought it. It's not rocket science. The move's obvious. Lore in game, please.

Ding! 83

Hyjal was the right choice. That said, I feel the narrative skews too far to favor your importance. I mean, come on, when there are so many people farming mobs, I can't very well honestly think the mountain's mine or that I personally turned the tide for the World Tree. If it were written so that I'm doing something helpful, but not singular, and if the quests were written in a way so that, say, every twenty schmoes had some variation on the same quest (so that it felt let we were working together), that'd reduce the barrier to suspending my disbelief. Jal's not the most important guy in Azeroth. I'm comfortable with knowing that.

Other quick comments:

Deepholm, so far, is fairly enjoyable.

Dailies were waaaaay overcamped today.

Leveling to 83 seemed to take much longer than to 82. Not sure why.

Finished up Sirana Iceshriek while flying around doing Dalaran dailies (I decided I wanted the chef hat). That was nice closure. It also happened to give me 100 Storm Peak quests, so there's another achievement.

Ah, yes, if you want to know the difference between the Rippling Ooze Chestguard versus the slightly less powerful Tunic of Soaring Safety, I've got a great screengrab. I can't recall who said that the new practice in Cat of provided matched quest armor was a good thing, but I disagree. The before/after pic, below, should help show you why (sorry for the darkness).


See the difference? STARK.

Who cares? Where's the reward? Where's the individuality? I can barely tell I've upgraded anything... we go from rust-er to grey-er. Wow. Helmet's the same deal. I think I've gone through three staves that look exactly the same.

I liked mismatched. I liked the drinking hat. ;^)

With the new leather armor specialization that killed the clothkin combined with this cruddy quest armor upgrades, I'm really unimpressed with the quest gear. Spend a little time creating the models next time, okay?

Waited 20-25 minutes in LFG to hit a random Cat dungeon. Got a bad group. Some Leeeeeeroy got us wiped before the fifth even had time to show up. Note to self: Yes, when you see part of an instance's cleared and lots of people running, you're probably joining a group that has no idea what's going on.

For this, I got to wait another 10 minutes before I could even LFG again. I know Blizzard's looking to change LFG to make sure you get in with people who know what's going on, not just folks appropriately geared, but for tonight, I got the short stick. /sigh

EDIT: Meant to include a /played.


One must always come clean in the midst of an addiction.

Working on rotations

With the Razer Naga, I've already added several spells into the PvE rotation, though I haven't done any of the requisite mathes. Solar Beam-ing a spell casting mob, causing them to charge you, followed by a Typhoon, is a fun way to aggravate mobs and keep damage down. But I Googled around a bit to see if anyone has The Right Way to rotate these spells I've now got at my thumb-tip.

Elitist Jerks seemed to have the best guide:

This is a compendium of information on raiding as a Balance Druid. It contains everything a beginner needs to achieve basic competence at raid DPS, as well more detailed discussion for people more interested in understanding the theory or more advanced play. The article is supplemented by the attached spreadsheet.

I haven't mathed up Starsurge, but I think it's to your advantage to cast even in the midst of an eclipse, something Jerks seems to agree with, though it's written just ambiguously enough I won't swear to it.

Casting Starfall during Lunar isn't something I'd considered closely enough. Good point.

EDIT: For some reason, I conflated Thorns and Roots, below. Honestly, I've completely forgotten about Thorns. In the Recruit-a-friend, I'm playing with a druid who is Thorning, and I caught the mistake. I should throw it onto the Naga rotation.

I may be underutilizing Thorns, which, since it doesn't set up melee mobs for Wrath-spams any more, has fallen off of my rotation in PvE almost entirely. Jerks suggests it does enough dps to keep it up. From outdoor only to ubiquitous use to nothing, it's been a real pain to keep up with Thorns. I'm also likely underusing Insect Swarm. I only use it and Faerie Fire for long fights in instances, though Jerks would have me believe that I should keep IS and scrap FF almost entirely -- "Faerie Fire: We no longer need to use this unless the raid is missing an Armor debuff." /shrug

Honestly, though, this is the sort of stuff that kills the enjoyment for part-timers like me, yet I'm just math-inclined enough (and efficiency worried) that I keep getting drawn back in. There's probably also a small tinge of worry that a PUG might get upset that I'm not using my skillz The Right Way. I don't know why. I've never been called out for not putting out enough dps.

And, honestly, for PvE, the fights are too short for maxing DPS and Innverate too good at keeping you at max mana for much to matter, afaict. Fire and forget.

In any event, Jerks' is a good guide, and the Naga really does change the way I play.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker

MMO-Champion BlueTracker:

Vrakthris
Blue Poster
#3 - 2010/12/10 12:57:16 AM
12/09/2010 4:53 PMPosted by Bucktown

Why am I being treated as though i'm less of a customer than anyone else?

It isn't that, Bucktown. It is priority in queue is given to full accounts before ones listed as trials. Now I understand that you recently upgraded online but unfortunately you may have missed the warnings that trial restrictions may remain for approximately 72 hours while the purchase is processed.

The leveling restrictions are lifted immediately, unfortunately due to possible fraudulent purchases those other restrictions are not removed until the purchase is finalized. I am very sorry for what frustration this may cause, hopefully your purchase will process sooner rather than later.

/le sigh

I wish somebody had let us know about these trial account limitations mas sooner. There's nothing quite like watching yourself get within 40 waiting in the queue just to watch it pop back up to 80. We're about an hour in, and back to 74.

Recruit-a-friend, but don't expect to play unless it's down time! Too bad I decided it'd be better to stick with Proudmoore so that I could load up a twink.

Ding! 82

Requisite /played output:


Quick notes:
I've spent too much time going back and forth between Hyjal and Vashj'ir trying to decide where to level. Waaaay too much time. I like the story in Hyjal better, but thought I enjoyed the visuals with Vashj'ir. But after the quest line named after Stones songs (and perhaps they're covers of someone else? -- and note that I love the Stones; it's just the lack of imagination), I finally quit Vashj'ir and decided I'd run Hyjal to its finish. The seahorse combined with the stupid air cave and tired quests was too much.

A MacBook 2.26 GHz is approximately equal in hardware performance as my new tower with the old GeForce 8500 GT.

/timetest from SW to IF on Fair with the tower gave me:
Low: 7.1652
Max: 477.241
Avg: 47.169

with High:
Low: 2.438
Max: 210.373
Avg: 18.675

I'll post MacBook numbers later, but for now it's hosting the trial account for Recruit a Friend. Not sure if that'd be apples to apples.

Right now, I'm gaming with Fair settings on the tower with draw distance (the only thing that really affects gameplay -- Can I see the mobs/sparkly collectable?) set to Ultra. I think that's a fair enough compromise. Man, I'm tired of seeing GeForce GTS 450 give-aways on WoW Insider. I want a better card.

Ah yes, two links to share on the hardware front.

1. Great review of all cards at each price "point" (I hate that term, price point. I understand it, but isn't "point" enough for casual use?)
2. Great guest post on WoW Insider talking about upgrading your box to get ready to play. Heck, it even covers if your computer is stuck on AGP.
3. Compare that super-useful post to this commercial for Nvidia masquerading as a hardware post at WoW Insider. ;^)

If I was buying today, I think I'm down to either the...
MSI R5770 Hawk Radeon HD 5770 1GB ($150 after rebate)
or the...
MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB for $210

... depending on how serious I want to get about graphics. Honestly, the 5770 feels a little like a tide-me-over card, so I think I'll keep using my 8500 GT until I puke and then hit the GTX 460 (or whatever's the best deal with those specs when I finally give in). Still, $50 is a lot of Steam games on sale!

Back to notes:

Recruit-a-Friend levels you much too quickly. It's also crappy if you immediately quest together. The intro-to-your-class quests in Shadowglen, at least, cannot be accessed by a non-elf. I tried making a warrior gnome, thinking I would have access to the elven warrior trainer quests. No luck. You get two early, then no more quests until you take the road south out of Shadowglen, leaving the elf at level 7 and me at 5. Stuff's picked back up now that we're out of Shadowglen, though. Minor complaint.

Also annoyed with the inability to trade with a trial account. I completely understand why, but we've got one well geared twink with as much gold as she can carry and one poor gnome sap who barely has cash to train, much less overgear himself. Would it really have killed Blizzard to allow you to carry, oh, 20s from some benefactor, with your trial? We're already leveling like it's going out of style. I don't know that a few pieces of level-appropriate gear would be a serious issue.

I think that's about it. I feel like I'm leveling too quickly in Cat as well. I haven't had much time to play, especially with the new recruit a friend diversion, but when I do, I'm leveling pretty quickly, especially considering that I'm still running dailies and taking time to run /timetest, etc.

New integrated vs. old discrete video cards

I've recently been playing WoW on my MacBook, which does fine (ob a huge step up over my iBook G4 from a few years back!), but not great. That MacBook also had a copy of Vista Ultimate on it that I'd been using with Boot Camp. I'd put away my dedicated Windows tower to save space during a move, and hadn't pulled it back out.

Enter Anandtech's System Buyers' Guide last month. I've built three systems now, and none of them involved me really canvasing every mobo out there. I usually rely on a combo of Anandtech, friends' input, and Newegg reviews. This time, though I have an older discrete video card (MSI's overclocked GeForce 8500 GT with 256MB of VRAM), I went ahead and got the budget board Anandtech recommended, which comes with ATI Radeon HD 4250 integrated video. I also bought the AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz they suggested and upgraded the Crucial RAM they had listed to something that looked like it was legitimately paired for dual channel use. The rest (case, power supply, hard drive, optical drive, and, of course, Vista) is all recycled from my last box.


Old as the hills card
I was suspicious that I'd wasted $10-15 on integrated video, but figured it was worth $10 of my time to go with Anand after I tried to find another board that was cheaper without. Nothing without integrated video in this price range absolutely jumped out at me from Asus or Gigabyte, which were the two brands that seemed to have the best reviews, or MSI, which I've used in a previous build and was suggested here by Anand. There was one with two PCI-E slots for SLI, but it had some northbridge compromises that seemed questionable, and the chances that I buy two video cards down the road is pretty slim. Chalk up the extra cash to not knowing enough about mobos, I figured, and got Anand's suggested budget MSI board.

But after playing with the new mobo and old card a while -- I finally finished up GTA:SA and messed around with GTA:IV some more -- I started wondering how today's integrated video matches up with three and a half year-old budget gaming discrete cards.

So here are the results. With Doom 3 with randomly selected video settings I felt were best, the 4250 integrated chip gave me 17.5 fps. With the 8500 GT, I got 139.4. I must have pooched some display setting, as I did edit the config file by hand to get widescreen on my monitor, but you get the idea (and I didn't feel like pulling the GT again). The 8500 killed the 4250. In GTA:IV's benchmark test, I got the following.

Integrated 4250

Discrete 8500 GT

Statistics Average FPS: 14.71 Duration: 37.52 sec CPU Usage: 40% System memory usage: 56% Video memory usage: 96% Graphics Settings Video Mode: 800 x 600 (56 Hz) Texture Quality: Low Shadow Quality: Low Reflection Resolution: Low Water Quality: Low Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x2 Night Shadows: Off View Distance: 10 Detail Distance: 10 Hardware Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate Service Pack 1 Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 4250 Video Driver version: 8.17.10.1059 Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device) AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor File ID: Benchmark.cli

Statistics Average FPS: 30.42 Duration: 37.02 sec CPU Usage: 77% System memory usage: 58% Video memory usage: 97% Graphics Settings Video Mode: 800 x 600 (56 Hz) Texture Quality: Low Shadow Quality: Low Reflection Resolution: Low Water Quality: Low Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x2 Night Shadows: Off View Distance: 10 Detail Distance: 10 Hardware Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate Service Pack 1 Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT Video Driver version: 260.99 Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device) AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor File ID: Benchmark.cli

That seems pretty telling. Though the GT seems to be plenty for Doom 3, it's pushing it in GTA:IV. To play with eye candy, I need a new video card. With the integrated video, though, I'm barely playing at all and the processor is downright bored -- 40% of the processor has anything to do. With the 8500, the processor's at least working a little at 77%. Once again, the GT is doing loads better than the new integrated chip.

I'll give WoW a shot tonight when I reactivate. Cat seems to be just enough of a push that it might give the 8500 a quick test. The GT looked great in Nagrand when I first bought it, but I didn't play much with it in WotLK, and basically stuck with the MacBook. I just hope I'm not dying for one of the $250 cards WoW Insider's giving away (a deal at $190 at Newegg right now though a reliable model will run you $210) once I do fire things back up.

Regardless, the real lesson is that hardware can make the game. For GTA:IV, the improvement is a clear one. GTA:SA looked great, but IV requires a multi-core processor, and these four cores plus the 8500 have proven a big step up over the MacBook (though I was too stupid to run a benchmark before blasting the Boot Camp partition). Here's to hoping I'm pleasantly surprised tonight.

And the secondary lesson is that integrated video still sux0rz. Almost anything discrete is a step up. If you're stuck on a box with integrated video, go to Newegg or, heck, eBay and grab whatever you want, and enjoy Azeroth anew.

And though I enjoy the relatively inexpensive nature of building, upgrading, and recycling towers, I did briefly consider Alienware's m11x during its Black Friday sale for $599. I think that version, however, had an even less powerful processor than the Core 2 Duo offered at $799 now, and I didn't bite in part because I already have a decently powered MacBook.

Regardless, the m11x has the NVIDIA 335M with a Gig of VRAM across the line. The size looks good and battery life for normal work, when you switch the 335M off, is pretty good. If I was considering a laptop purchase and played WoW, I would wait for the next hardware bump and then grab this laptop ASAP.