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Through The Scope - Paragon Interview

First off, let me introduce myself as a new member of the WoR content team! My name is Tazmac, and I play a level 80 Dwarf Hunter on the Turalyon EU server, and in this series of guides I will be talking to some of the top hunters from various PvE and PvP backgrounds, in an attempt to inform and help other hunters improve their game! In my first piece, Kruf and Shaylee from Paragon [EU Lightning's Blade] have been kind enough to give an interview for WoR. For those of you who don’t know, Paragon have spent the last few months trampling Arthas and his merry band of undead nasties underfoot, achieving numerous World First kills, including the 25 man version of the Lich King and the 10 man version of Heroic Lich King.

The Interview

Tazmac - Hi guys, thanks for joining us. Why don't you start by introducing yourselves to the readers of Worldofraids.com?
Kruf – I'm Kruf and I've been playing a hunter since I started WoW in August 2006. Originally played alliance on Ravencrest in a bunch of semi-casual guilds until I joined Kawk Herders (later known as Servants of the Kawk and Underground Kosmonavts). Rerolled horde on Lightning's Blade to join Paragon last summer after Underground Kosmonavts started falling apart.
Shaylee - I am Shaylee, troll female hunter, started wow in EU beta back in 2005(?), played on Stormscale in vanilla, Stormreaver in TBC and now on Lightning's Blade in WOTLK, previous guilds until joining Paragon are Nolby Pride, Mannel and Sauna, and this character has been my main since the beginning of my wow career.

Tazmac – Now, as many people are aware, Paragon got World First kills on a number of Icecrown bosses, including both 25 man normal and 10 man heroic Lich King. How have you both found ICC Normal and Heroic modes? Are they enjoyable? And what are your opinions on the difficulty level of both 10 and 25 man Icecrown Citadel?
Kruf – The difficulty level of ICC has been a bit too low in my opinion. Right now, there are only three ‘hard’ encounters, and they are Professor Putricide, Sindragosa and the Lich King himself.
Shaylee – ICC normal modes are very easy, but I suppose that was to be expected... ICC hardmodes are much more challenging than hardmodes in ToC, which is good. Some of the bosses could use something "new" to them instead of just increased damage/hp but overall it's much less boring to farm ICC than farming ToC.
Kruf – However, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the instance, I just wish there was more challenging encounters available. An example is the gunship battle – the heroic mode is not much different to the normal one.

Tazmac – As you are performing to some of the highest levels of any hunters currently playing PvE content, if you had to give someone three tips for improving their dps and raid survivability, what would they be?
Kruf – The most important things for a raiding hunter to take into account are the correct priority rotation [Kill Shot, Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, Steady Shot keeping serpent up with Chimera for MM and Kill Shot, Explosive Shot, Aimed Shot, Steady Shot for Surv, whilst keeping serpent up], minimizing movement to reduce auto shot dps loss and correct gear choices.
Shaylee – In relation to gear choices, ARP is the way to go as an MM hunter. At ICC gear levels, the highest dps spec is always going to be MM [the theoretical difference between MM and Survival in best in slot gear is around 1500, in favor of MM] so stacking ARP is important. Your ultimate goal should always be hard capping ARP at 1400. Like Kruf said, you should concentrate on your rotation [do not use a fixed rotation] and you should always be doing something instead of just waiting for a cool-down to get ready, which basically means shooting steady shots.
Kruf – By far the most important thing as a hunter is to never stop casting – this means using all your instant cast shots during movement. Even if you accidentally cast one steady shot to many when Chimera comes off GCD, you're not losing as much dps as not casting for one second.

Tazmac - In relation to ARP, at what point do you think you should start gemming for ARP instead of agility?
Kruf – Once you have a 264 weapon or higher, you should aim to start gemming for Armour Penetration when you can get over 900 with gems. Any time before that, it's technically higher dps to gem for agility.

Tazmac - Do you feel that hunters are at or close to the place they should be in regards to utility?
Shaylee - Personally, I don't think we need more utility skills right now. The change made to misdirection was really good, we have deterrence, disengage, distracting shot and masters call, amongst other things. People should really master the use of those before asking for something else.

Tazmac - With all the talk about BM being a viable spec on various Warcraft forums, do you think it is currently a spec that would merit a raid spot?
Kruf – At the moment, not really, but it does depend on the guild perspective. If you are happy with sub-par performance in comparison to MM, then it's an acceptable spec, but I personally expect everyone to perform to their best, and I don't see the point in choosing an inferior spec when you're raiding.
Shaylee – Exactly. BM hasn't been a viable spec since the huge nerf it received.
Kurf – That being said, with BiS gear, BM damage is probably about as good as Survival's, but MM is still way ahead. If you want to be BM for grinding, 5mans, roleplay or whatever, then get dualspec, but when you're in a raid with me, I expect you to be trying as hard as you can and that includes having the right spec etc.

Tazmac – What are your top three favorite raid encounters ever?
Kurf – Mmm, that's a tough one. Without too much thought, I'd say Yogg zero watchers, Putricide Hardmode and Kil’Jaeden.
Shaylee – I've gotta say Onyxia, Archimonde and Yogg zero watchers. However, this isn't because of great features and mechanics, but because they have meant something to me as a WoW player. This is the only MMO I've ever played and Onyxia was the first big raid encounter for me, so killing her felt really epic. Archimonde and Hyjal overall was something I really enjoyed, and Yogg + 0 is a really tough encounter where hunters play a central role.

Tazmac – Finally, are you looking forward to Cataclysm?
Kruf – Mostly, yes. Though I do have some mixed feelings in regards to the mana -> focus change and the overhaul and simplification to stats. It's nice that the game becomes easier for more casual players, but it would be nice to keep a degree of difficulty in there too. Also, there's a huge risk of making the classes imbalanced with major changes like these, and I don't want to see hunters lacking in representation in world first kills.
Shalyee – I pretty much agree with what Kruf said.
Kruf – Then again, it goes both ways. It would be really nice if balance was as good as it is now in PvE, as this is probably the most balanced the game has ever been for the dps classes.

Tazmac - Thanks a lot for joining us and sharing your knowledge! Be sure to check back for the next installment, as I will be talking to one of the top rated arena hunters in the world!

Below is the official video of Paragon's World First kill of heroic mode Professor Putricide! Remember to head over to http://paragon-wow.com where there is a hunter discussion forum. As Shaylee says, 'feel free to ask anything, we don't know everything but we know quite a lot =D.'



Special thanks goes to Core Of The Alliance [Turalyon], Fears [Turalyon], Minazuki [Moonglade] and all of Paragon [Lightning's Blade] for their help in preparing this article!

Thanks to the folks from Immersion we have some of the first video footage of the inside of Frostmourne during the Lich King encounter on heroic difficulty. This is easily one of the hardest encounters in the game to date, and rightfully so given who it is. While many have been frustrated with the difficulty of Wrath of the Lich King's content, I think it's safe to say that the Lich King himself is more than worthy of being considered challenging.



Not enough to satisfy the hunger? Well then here's a full video from Italian guild Adrenaline, thanks to Lakratøs. It's the 10-player version of the Lich King encounter, and while these videos have been posted before, it's incredibly well done and mixes in a lot of lore elements from not only WoW itself but Warcraft as a whole, as well as some fairly intense and epic music. If you want more than just a simple kill video then this is one worth watching.

Sorry to bump down Kultcher's Building a Better Raid: The Raid of the Future Part II but this just came in.

The PTR notes have been updated again today. There were no new models or textures in today's patch but the build is labeled as the Release candidate meaning the patch should come next week.

Quote

No matter your personal opinions on the issue, you have to admit that Wrath of the Lich King raiding has been an unparalleled success from a numbers perspective. Even before the buff, the number of players who set foot in Icecrown Citadel was in the hundreds of thousands, rather than the hundreds that saw Naxxramas in its original incarnation. That’s a huge step forward.

Despite the impending exodus that the hard-core raiders are always threatening to make (and sometimes actually making), raiding in WoW is in a good place going into Cataclysm. There are still a couple of key problems that Blizzard needs to solve retain their crown as the kings of PvE. One of the two big ones is difficulty scaling – the difficulty spread between normal and hard modes often creates a big gap between the Paragons and Ensidias of the world and the completely casual guilds that leaves the “mid-core” guilds kinda stranded. That’s an issue I want to touch on again in the future. The second problem is the 10- vs. 25-player raiding dilemma, which is what we’ll be talking about today.



You might be saying to yourself, “What’s the problem? 10 mans are great!” and well, you’d be mostly right. The introduction of proper 10-man raiding has opened a lot of doors for smaller and more casually minded guilds as well as players who simply prefer a tighter raid size wherein their individual contributions mean more.

The problem comes from Blizzard’s own stated intent: that 10-mans and 25-mans are meant to be separate and independent paths of progression. It’s a great idea in theory, but as always, the devil is in the details and sometimes 10-mans just get the shaft.

First of all, there’s the loot issue. 25-man raids simply yield better (higher level) loot. Blizzard’s reasoning for this is that it’s a reward for the additional logistical and managerial overhead required to organize a 25-man raid. Speaking as someone who has organized both types on countless occasions, frankly I agree. While on the one hand having 15 extra players means each player has to shoulder less responsibility, it also means 15 extra players that can mess things up. We're not just talking about standing in fires, here – it can be tough enough to find 10 more DPS who can pull the 7k+ DPS needed for Festergut.

The bigger concern, I’d argue, is in the way that 25-mans can spill over into 10s. 25-man raiders essentially get to “double dip” by running both 10- and 25-man versions of an instance each week, reaping more loot, more emblems, more rep, and more experience with the fights. 10-man guilds simply cannot do this. Also problematic is the fact that 25-man raiders can step into 10s with their improved gear and basically steamroll the place, essentially stealing world-firsts from 10-man strict guilds that really have to work at them. Some of these disparities have led to 10-mans being considered a sort of “raiding lite” that shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Even for 25-man raiders, this whole paradigm can be a problem. How many guilds run both 10s and 25s each week because they really, really want to? I’d wager that a lot of guilds out there run both 10s and 25s because it’s just an easy way to get more emblems and loot. This is at least part of the reason that WotLK has brought on so much “instance fatigue.”



How can Blizzard solve these issues? They’ve sort of half-supported 10-man strict guilds with achievements like “A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity” already. To start with, these achievements need to be present every tier. I’d go so far as to say that players should not get credit toward any serious 10-man achievements if they’re wearing too many pieces (say 4+) of gear that come from any 25-man instance, even the previous tier’s. I’m sure you guys will love that idea.

There are a few potential solutions to the “double dipping” problem, but none of them are very exciting. If both instances shared a single lockout, that would reduce players’ flexibility – they mightn’t want to run a pickup 10-man for the weekly or VoA and risk getting locked from the 25, making those runs harder to organize. You could perhaps allow each player to run two lockouts per week (either two 10s, two 25s, or one of each), but that just exacerbates the instance fatigue problem and also leads to greater loot inflation.

Perhaps the best solution would be to make running 10-mans not worth it anymore for 25-man raiders. Make it so each unique boss drops only drops Emblems once per week. Once you kill it on 25, it won’t drop Emblems for you on 10 that week, and vice versa. You’d still get the loot and rep, just no Emblems.

Then again, maybe the problem just isn't worth the trouble of fixing with so many lackluster solutions. So what do you think about the 10- vs. 25-man disparities? Are they justified? Do they even need fixing? As a 25-man raider, would you be bummed or excited if there was no reason to run 10s? Can you think of a more elegant way for Blizzard to solve these looming problems for Cataclysm? Sound off in the forums!

Greetings one and all! First off, my article is later then you guys should expect it to be posted in the future, but that's because yesterday, Saturday the 13th, was my birthday! 18 hour LAN messes with your priorities. Hurray me! If you want to leave me some comments, do so in this thread or on my profile page. Now on with the Lore!

With the current known info about 3.3.3 and 3.3.5 and the pre-Cataclysm events, I thought I’d go into the lore of the Horde and Alliance’s smallest factions.


Episode 2 : For Gnomeregan!

The smallest race in the Alliance, the smartest race on Azeroth, and everyone has an opinion about these guys and gals. But what makes them who they are? Where did they come from? And what is this obsession about all things engineering?

From the recently uncovered Titan information -- by Brann Bronzebeard -- our current day Gnomes were one day Clockwork Robots, the Mechagnomes. They were created by the Titans, but for what reason we have yet to find out. What we do know is that they were afflicted by the Curse of Flesh, along with a lot of other Titan creations at the time. This curse turned them into the fleshy Gnomes we all see today, but for some reason the Gnomes forgot this ever happened.

The best known record of first contact between Dwarves and Gnomes goes back over 200 years. As the story goes, a Dwarven explorer found a small Gnomish settlement, and while the Dwarves only recently invented gunpowder, the Gnomes had a fully automated town with all sorts of gizmos and gadgets around, like Mechanical Chickens. The two races quickly grew into allies and the Dwarves allowed the Gnomes to build their capital city, Gnomeregan, in the foothills of Dun Morogh.

After fighting alongside the other Alliance races during the Second War, the Gnomes decided against sending aid during the Third War. After the war, the Alliance discovered why. Apparently a barbaric menace had risen from the depths of the earth, the Troggs, which was invading Gnomeregan. Knowing that the Burning Legion was the priority for the other races, the Gnomes decided to try and defeat the Troggs on their own.

After weeks of debate on their course of action, Sicco Thermaplugg convinced Gelbin Mekkatorque to deploy a radiation bomb that would wipe out all the Troggs, with minimum casualties to the Gnomes. Had Mekkatorque known the true intent of Thermaplugg, it may have saved their beloved city. Thermaplugg manipulated events in such a way that almost half of the Gnome race died that day, taking more casualties than the Troggs. The Gnomes were forced to abandon their fair city to retreat into Ironforge, taking refuge amongst the Dwarves.

Now that radiation levels are starting to drop, the current king of the Gnomes, High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, is set on retaking much of his city from the malformed Thermaplugg and his Leper Gnomes and Troggs. Are you brave enough to help him out? Will you help the Gnomes retake their grand city completely? And will we ever find out their engineering obsession?

Necessity is the first cousin of invention.

-High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, King of Gnomes

Next week I’ll go into that other small faction, the Darkspear Trolls! So keep up with the lore, you might get wiser.