How to kill Shartuul

By request, here's a guide on how to kill Overseer Shartuul, the soloable world boss encounter at the western plateau at Blade's Edge Mountains. If you can complete the prerequisites, anyone can defeat Shartuul. Race, gender, class, spec or gear will make no difference whatsoever.

But first, the prerequisites. You have to have completed the initial Ogri'la questline to be crowned the king/queen of the ogres and acquire Honored reputation. At that point, Kronk will ask you to Banish the Demons. As a reward, you get a Darkrune. You will also gain access to the followup daily quest, Banish More Demons, which rewards you either with an another Darkrune or a Darkrune Fragment. Collect 5 fragments and you'll get a Darkrune.

Now, go talk to Gahk, who'll upgrade your Darkrune to a Crystalforged Darkrune. Now you can challenge Shartuul and kill him. In theory, that is. Personally I recommend getting at least a few Charged Crystal Foci first. When properly used, these will allow you to "reset" the encounter. But more of that later.

So, off to Shartuul's teleporter, which is located northeast of the Skyguard camp. Avoid the Felguard Degrader and walk into the teleporter. Now, use your Crystalforged Darkrune. This will allow you to take control of the Felguard and start the encounter. Your own body will be safely hidden inside the teleporter.

Phase 1 of the Shartuul encounter involves you trying to break the Teleporter's shield while Shartuul sends his Felhound and Imp minions at you.

When you took control of the Felguard, your primary skill bar got replaced with the Felguard's skills:
Mortal Strike - your standard melee attack. Use it whenever you can.
Mighty Whirlwind - Point-blank range AoE attack.
Terrifying Roar - AoE fear.
Chaos Charge - Charge attack with an AoE element. Your key to completing the first phase of the encounter.
Smash Shield - Throws your hammer to break the teleporter's shields. Use it immediately when it's ready.
Absorb Life - Point-blank AoE life drain. Requires a Charged Crystal Focus to use. It's somewhat bugged, and not really required to complete phase 1.

Shartuul will start spawning his minions after you've used Smash Shield once. The first few waves could be killed using Mortal Strike alone, but it's better to get used to the rhythm now. Pick a corner and let the minions come to you. You'll quickly notice that the Felhounds will get into melee range immediately, the imps stay back and pelt you with fireballs. When all of the Felhounds are attacking you and you have an Imp nearby, run towards the imp and use Chaos Charge at around 10 yards. The direct damage from the charge should kill the Imp, and the AoE should kill all Felhounds around you. This simple manouver is the key to completing phase 1.

The number of Felhounds will ramp up as you keep damaging the shield with your Smash Shield. Since the Felhounds don't spawn all at once, you'll find that the cooldown of Chaos Charge becomes a problem. This is where the other skills come in. If you have a large amount of Felhounds at you and no imp nearby, use Mighty Whirlwind. While it takes longer to finish than Chaos Charge, it too should kill all Felhounds who received full damage from it. Your other primary skill, Terrifying Roar, can be used to avoid excessive damage from the initial Felhounds. Fear a bunch of them. They'll return by the time the Imp gets in range. Just stay patient until all of the Felhounds have returned to you. This is a perfect opportunity to use Chaos Charge to kill all of the minions at once. Remember to keep an eye on your Smash Shield cooldown.

Once the shield reaches around 20%, all remaining minions die and a Doomguard is released from the Teleporter. This is the end boss of phase 1. He does more damage than you, so stay away from his melee range and especially his flames. Wait until he gets in range and use Chaos Charge. Immediately afterwards use Mortal Strike and Terrifying Roar. This manouver will allow you to do damage to the Doomguard while denying him the opportunity to do the same. While he's running in fear, run as far as you can and wait for your Chaos Charge cooldown to recharge. Repeat. When he is almost dead your Felguard gets stunned and your life is drained. Congratulations, welcome to phase 2.

Phase 2 is similar to Phase 1. There's no shield to break this time, only waves of minions to fight. This time you'll control the Doomguard Punisher, which has a different set of skills:
Punishing Blow: Standard melee attack. Does more damage against stunned targets.
Fel Flames: Channeled AoE attack that lets you damage enemies in front of you. You can move while it's being cast.
Throw Axe: Ranged stun with a minimum range.
Super Jump: Ranged charge with an AoE stun element.
Consume Essence: Single-target life drain.
Bombing Run: Special attack which makes you reflect all enemy attacks and deal random damage to all enemies. Consumes a Charged Crystal Focus.

The minions you'll be fighting against are Mo'arg Tormenters and Gan'arg Underlings. The Gan'arg will melee you and construct cannons. Never let them do that. If you see one channelling a blue beam, stop whatever you're doing and stun/kill it. While you have a lifedrain attack, it isn't enough to offset the damage done by the cannons. Finally, the Gan'args can shield and heal the Mo'arg. This is seen as a red beam effect. Don't let them do that either. Stun or kill the Gan'arg and he'll stop.

The larger Mo'arg Tormenters will shoot poison at you, and have much more HP than the small Mo'args. These are your main targets in this phase.

Like in phase 1, the first waves are easy and no Mo'args will spawn. Super Jump towards the Gan'arg, use your Fel Flames to do AoE damage while you melee them down. Kill runners with Consume Essence or stun them with Super Jump or Throw Axe.

When a Mo'arg spawns, Super Jump to it as soon as possible and get a few Punishing Blows through while it's stunned. Remember to activate Fel Flames, and manouver yourself so that all of the Go'args are hit. The Fel Flames have a small stun effect, so you'll both do significant damage and stop them from rescuing the Mo'arg. When Fel Flames is on cooldown, run away and use Throw Axe or Super Jump to resume your stunlock. Your Punishing Blow requires the stun to do significant damage. If you need health, use your Consume Essence on Go'arg runners. It does around 90% damage, so choose wounded targets to finish them off. If you feel overwhelmed, you can use Bombing Run to get a breather.

Eventually, the Shivan Assassin will be activated. If you have any Go'args still running around, kill them first. Like in the phase 1 boss fight, the Shivan Assassin does much more damage than you, so you can't afford the extra damage inflicted by cannons. Bombing Run is highly effective here, since the Shivan Assassin has plenty of ranged attacks that you can reflect back to her. However, she can be defeated without the Bombing Run. The key to that is to keep her stunned as long as possible and dish out those Punishing Blows. Super Jump her. When the stun ends, run away and Throw an Axe at her. Keep your Fel Flames up while you're meleeing her. Eventually, your life will be drained and you take control of her. Welcome to phase 3.

Phases 3, 4 and 5 involve you controlling the Shivan Assassin and fight two of Shartuul's pets, and finally Shartuul himself. The Shivan Assassin has 3 different "stances": Fire, Shadow and Ice. The stance changes have a cooldown, so knowing when to use each of the stances is vital.

Aspect of the Shadow: The stance you use when you need to regain health.
Death Blast: Shadow damage spell. If the target had a Siphon Life debuff, the debuff is consumed and you heal yourself for a significant amount.
Siphon Life: DoT that also heals you. Keep it up whenever you can. When it's about to expire, use Death Blast and recast Siphon Life.
Shadow Nova: Point-blank spherical AoE spell which does damage and heals you.

Aspect of the Flame: Your damage-dealing stance. It has passive 20% bonus to movement speed.
Pyroblast. Fire damage.
Flame Buffet: Fire damage debuff. Stacks up to 10. Keep those 10 stacks up and you'll do decent damage with Pyroblast.
Cleansing Flame: Removes debuffs from you. Use whenever you get debuffed.

Aspect of the Ice: Your damage-mitigation stance. Generally you want to use it for the Ice Block and switch away as soon as the danger has passed.
Iceblast: Ice damage. Deals more damage if the target is frozen.
Icy Leap: Frost Nova coupled with a self-inflicted knockback. Only occassionally useful.
Ice Block: The mage version on steroids. Lasts only 4 seconds, but it also reflects spells while it's active. This spell is literally a lifesaver.

Whew. That's a lot to remember, and the first attempts to fight with the Shivan Assassin will probably end badly. Fortunately.. you have a reset button:

Chaos Strike. Ranged spell which requires a Charged Crystal Focus. While it has plenty of effects, it's particularly useful with the Shadow stance. It applies a debuff which greatly increases damage done.. and life drained. If the target is debuffed with Chaos Strike and Siphon Life, a Death Blast will heal you to full. If you are about to die, use the Chaos Strike.

So, off to the monsters. In phase 3, you fight the Eye of Shartuul, a beholder. He moves relatively slowly, but applies a nasty debuff in melee. Stay away from him. His standard attack is a Fel Fireball. It hurts a bit, but isn't particularly dangerous. He also places stun fields. You'll see when he's casting one, so you have plenty of time to move away. Make sure you don't step in one. Stunlocking yourself is not wise. Finally.. he has a Dark Glare. It does a whole lot of damage, and if you get hit by more than one of these you'll probably die. It has a long cast time, so you have time to switch to Ice Stance and Ice Block.

Start Phase 3 in Shadow stance. As soon as the Eye of Shartuul spawns, apply Siphon Life and the Shadow Nova debuff to it. Switch to Fire stance and start applying those Flame Buffets. If he's casting a Fel Fireball, cast a Pyroblast. Otherwise keep your distance and avoid those stun fields. Counter Dark Glare with Ice Block. Immediately afterwards switch to Shadow stance and use the Death Blast just in time to consume Siphon Life and heal yourself. Reapply Siphon Life and Shadow Nova and switch back to Fire stance. Repeat. The Eye of Shartuul is not particularly difficult, but Dark Glare can kill you.

Phase 4: Hound of Shartuul. He's a melee-only mob, so you'll be spending most of your time in Fire stance. As before, start in Shadow stance, apply debuffs and switch to Fire Stance for Flame Buffets. However.. the Hound of Shartuul can charge you and apply a nasty snare. Use Cleansing Flame to get rid of it and run away. Switch to Shadow Stance before your Siphon Life expires and regain some life. You should end this phase with 100% health.

Phase 5: Shartuul. This is where you'll probably need those Charged Crystal Foci. Start in Shadow Stance as usual. Shartuul will start the fight by flooding the arena with eyestalks. These eyestalks have a nasty Mind Flay that stacks. Shadow Nova will get rid of them and heal you, but there's a small but annoying bug that will make the eyestalks ignore it for a few seconds after they spawn. If you're being attacked, it's usually safe to use Shadow Nova. Shartuul himself should be in the arena by now. Apply Siphon Life on him and run to an another set of eyestalks and Shadow Nova them too. Switch to Flame stance and start applying those Flame Buffets while casting Pyroblast. When you get debuffed, use Cleansing Flame. If he starts to cast Incinerate, use Ice Block. If he resummons the eye stalks, use Shadow Nova. And whatever you do, remember to consume Siphon Life with Death Blast and reapply it. This is a long fight and you'll need that life.

Simple? Not really. The tricky thing in phase 5 is that Shartuul is somewhat random with Incinerate. He may cast if before or after the eyestalks, or skip casting it altogether. If you go to Ice Stance too soon, you'll risk letting either Flame Buffet or Siphon Life expire. If you switch stances too late you get hit with huge damage. Or you may get stuck in Ice Stance while the eyestalks peel away your health. Or get rid of the eyestalks and not have enough time to Ice Block. And once you get "off schedule" once, it's easy to keep messing up the timing. If that's the case, don't shy away from Chaos Strike. Get full health and try to get a hold of the timing. If you keep Flame Buffet and Siphon Life up, avoid Incinerates, get rid of eyestalks and remember to consume Siphon Life regularly.. Shartuul should eventually die.

Curing Purple Fever

Tobold posted about the relative value of purples. While mudflation and applying economic theory to MMOs isn't new anymore, there was one tidbit that caught my attention:

Raiders should learn that it is in their self-interest to spread out the epics more evenly.

While it's easy to say that one shouldn't care too much on who gets a particular epic, that won't be much consolation to people stuck in the vicious circle of purple fever.

You don't want to let other people have epics if you aren't sure whether they'll stick around or not. So you'll make arbitrary rules on who is eligible for a particular piece or loot, who won't get invites to raids etc. Naturally, all of that will just breed more distrust and envy. Eventually some people will leave, devaluing the guild of the collective benefit of their epics. To discourage that, you'll make even stricter rules, which cause more people to leave. Then, during a night of wiping at a previously easy boss because your class balance is screwed up.. tempers flare and guild breaking drama ensues.

I'm currently in the opposite self-reinforcing loop, where loot is plentiful and drama nonexistent. Unfortunately, reversing vicious circles is hard and painful at best, and quite impossible if you're deep enough into the downward spiral. To many, being an officer or a guild leader is the first time they're actually in a management position, so it's no surprise if they fail at detecting, let alone correcting these kinds of issues. But if you do succeed.. perhaps listing "Guild Management" in your resume isn't a bad idea after all.

Cloth Rocket Boots

From the French forums: There will be a cloth version of the Rocket Boots Xtreme.

Blizzard 1 - Peons4Hire 0

Blizzard just won an injunction against Peons4Hire, forbidding them from interfering with the game.

Sex, Drugs and RMT

Broken Toys has quotations from an another IGE lawsuit. Only this time it's the insiders suing one another. The feeding frenzy has begun, and I have my popcorn ready. Virtually Blind has more.

Game Over

The End

The End,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

You know the best part of killing someone? The look on their face. It's that look. Not when they're threatened. Not when you hurt them. Not even when they see my spell. It's when they realize that they will die. Right here, right now.

Punctuality and Discipline

Zanderfin's been wondering about raid punctuality. Here's my two cents.

When I joined my current guild I wondered how they were able to clear raid instances in just 3 hours. Not anymore.

First of all, signups and therefore raid tuning is done a week ahead of time. Invites start 30 minutes beforehand. If you have a tight schedule, you're expected to get your consumables, repairs etc ready beforehand and log off near the instance. When you receive the invite, you're supposed to drop whatever you're doing and start heading for the instance. You're expected to help with summoning the furthest raid members. Raid start time is when the first pull is made, ready or not. At that time everyone is in the instance. Buffs have been done and water/food/healthstones have been distributed.

During the raid itself, everyone is expected to know what the mobs do and what you should do. Certain raid markers are always reserved for specific purpose. For example, triangle, square and circle are reserved for crowd-controllable humanoids. Classes are expected to organize their duties by themselves. When that green triangle pops up, I'll always know that I'm expected to Polymorph that mob during the pull.

At bosses, there are no extensive tactics explanations. Everyone is expected to read the tactics beforehand, and 90% of the time the only discussion is about picking people for specific roles, group reassignment etc. Preferably, all discussion about specifics is done beforehand on the forums. If we kill the boss, loot is distributed quickly. If you don't bid for an item, it'll be disenchanted in 20 seconds. Meanwhile, people are being resurrected and rebuffed. Tanks and crowd-controllers are already setting up for the next pull. If we wipe, everyone's expected to be ready for the next attempt in five minutes.

During the raid, there will be one longer pause (long=5-10 min). That's enough for food, a bio break or a chance to sate your nicotine addiction.

If you have a bad connection, you're expected to notify the raid leader and preferably find yourself a replacement. If you screwed up, you're expected to admit it. Not learning from your mistakes is grounds for a kick from the raid. A farm-status boss will only be attempted for a maximum of 3 times, unless problems that led to the wipe(s) were clearly resolved and won't be repeatable. The raid leader relocate the raid to a different instance or even disband the raid early if no progress can be expected.

Sounds harsh? Perhaps it is, but it works. Nobody's kidding themselves here. We don't go to an instance to spend an evening. We go to an instance to progress as far as we can, because that's what we like. To defeat challenging enemies like a well-oiled machine. This requires a lot of self-discipline and being responsible for yourself. Nobody will hold your hand.

Self-discipline also ties to the age-old discussion about casual and hardcore players. One can attain the oxymoronic rank of a casual raider by focusing on the quality of time, not the quantity. Spend less time yet achieve more.

At worst, WoW is like work. You spend long hours doing some mindlessly dull task while trying to tolerate your mindless associates and a frothy-mouthed, always-yelling boss. At best, WoW is like work. You arrive at your workplace refreshed and eager to work. You use your skills to solve problems many thought to be impossible. Customers praise you and your boss can't wait to reward you appropriately. And you go home early.

WoW, WAR & Persistent PvP

Tobold spotted Keen and Graev compare WoW's and Warhammer Online's PvP. I've also touched upon the issue while dicussing persistence, but Tobold does point out that if you give players immunity due to barriers such as factions, someone's going to abuse it.

EVE Online, on the other hand, has no such thing as predetermined factions, so players are free to punish former teammates as they please. The plurality and fluidity of player alliances ensures that no group has uncontestable supremacy, which keeps the game interesting.

Oo, shiny!

We're back in Black Temple after the holidays and proceed to Teron Gorefiend without major hitches. But then I do something completely foolish that had me cursing myself for the rest of the evening (and probably the next week). I bid on the Robe of the Shadow Council.

A caster robe with decent stats, lots of spelldamage and spell crit. How's that bad? It's bad because this item level 141 robe was worse than the item level 105 robe I was wearing, the Frozen Shadoweave Robe. Let's look at the stats, shall we?

Robe of the Shadow Council:
37 Stamina
36 Intellect
26 Spirit
28 Spell Critical Strike Rating
73 Spell Damage and Healing

Frozen Shadoweave Robe
30 Stamina
20 Intellect
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket bonus: 3 Spell Hit Rating
72 Shadow Damage
72 Frost Damage

At first glance, the choice seems obvious. Roughly the same spelldamage, but the former has more spell crit. As always, the devil is in the details, or in this case, sockets. If you equip the Frozen Shadoweave Robe with a Veiled Noble Topaz, (+4 spell hit and +5 spell damage) and a Glowing Nightseye (+5 spell damage and +6 stamina), you'll increase the stats by 7 Spell Hit, 10 Spell Damage and 5 Stamina.

Let's look at the new stats.
36 Stamina
20 Intellect
7 Spell Hit
82 Spell Damage.


Now, is 9 Spell Damage and 7 Spell Hit worse than 28 Spell Critical, which is 1.27% crit? Nope.

Let's factor in the remaining stat differences. 1 extra Stamina equals 10 hp, and 16 extra intellect equals +0.2% more crit. If you factor in Improved Divine Spirit from a friendly priest, you get 2.6 extra spell damage (10% of your Spirit) from it. So here's the final results:

+10 HP
-6 Spell Damage (rounded)
-7 Spell Hit
+1.29% Spell Crit

With my gear, that's roughly a 20 dps loss. Giving up 20 dps for 10 hp is simply not worth it. And as a final reminder, this is a comparison of item level 105 and item level 141 robes. Pre-Karazhan loot should not even compete in the same league as Black Temple loot and definitely not outperform it. I could go on a rant about how clueless Blizzard item designers are, but.. It's not the fool who asks, it's the fool who pays. In this case, me.

The End of the Beginning

The winds and the three-phase hum of the mongrels' spell pulls me back to the dreary reality of my predicament.
"Oh, ya are awake."
"You will never catch me unaware, mongrel."
"Now why would I wanna do dat, hm?"
The sound of metal clattering on rock attracts my interest and I turn my head. The troll has brought me my armor and weapons.
"Returning stolen property after the fact will not save your neck at the tribunal at Silvermoon, troll."
"But it might save yer own. Ya could have gotten it all back if ya just asked, but ya chose to.."
"I chose nothing! And no elf will ever accept.. scraps from a troll's table, assuming you ever know what such a thing is."
"Now dat is just rude. If ya do not accept a gift of life and freedom, perhaps ya will take it by force? Go on, dress up. Ya'll need yer.. scraps soon."

I grab my chestpiece and start strapping it on. I keep my blade and my bow at arm's length while I fit in the rest of my armor. There's no telling when the beast is finally unable to contain itself.

...

"Murderous mongrel. I wondered when the rampaging beast that you are would be unleashed."
"Ya'll see rampage all right. But murder requires intent and premeditation. Odderwise it's just plain old-fashioned killin'. I have no intention of killin' ya, derefore I'm not a murderer. Not.. yer murderer, anyway."
A lack of killing spirit, a fatal weakness. The limp arm is an another, and exposes her flank to my attacks. Cutting through her shoulderpads should not be a problem, but her sorcery might slow my blade enough. I'll have to sink my blade to her armpit, past that useless arm. Still, getting into position can prove to be difficult and I have to exploit any openings immediately.. If only I had Airin to distract her..
"Even Airin's blood was purer than yours. You deserve death for just what you did to her."
"Perhaps ya should have not sent it to it's death so easily. Dat's not someting a responsible master would do."
"Silence!"
I make a rising sweep towards her limp arm. If I can just cut it off..
The troll takes a half-step backwards and chuckles: "Oo, frisky, aren't we?"
"Shut up and die."
I follow up with a downward lunge, driving my blade towards her other shoulder. Forcing her to plummet to the death she planned for me might not help me get down, but will be immensely satisfying.
The troll takes a sidestep and my blade hits nothing but air. I feel magic around her and instictively turn around, ready to block her poisonous, pitch-black blade. She may not possess strength, but one hit from that accursed blade would put me at even worse disadvantage. Her blow is harmlessly blocked, but I doubt she'd have the strength to split my skull anyway. She doesn't even try to press through my defence, but feints a thrust and retracts her blade only to lunge again. My armor deflects her blow and I press my sword down towards her outstretched arm. She lifts her blade up and only barely misses my head. Our weapons clang together. I force my blade down to her hilt and push her away. I feel her magic and make a broad sweep with my now-released blade with a single arm to my back and feel a satisfying clang. And a rather unsatisfactory sting in my wrist. Damn. The cut wasn't deep, but I can already feel the blade's powers working against me. I turn around and grip the blade with both hands. There's no more time for finesse. I push my blade and complete the sweep, but she ducks and deflects my strike upwards. She lunges forwards and nicks my cheek with the tip of her pitch-black, seething blade. For a moment, I thought I saw.. it's just her damn tricks. I continue the swing and make it a full circle. The force of my blow sends her reeling backwards.

"You are weak, troll."
"Two points for me, zero for ya."
"This isn't a game!".
"Says ya. Now stop tryin' to hit me and hit me."
"Die!"

The curse is taking effect. Her blue robes seem to be drenched in shadows, and her eyes burn. Her blade seems less like a weapon, and more like an extension of her arm. The limp arm flays in the wind like tattered cloth. I don't have much time before the fear takes hold of me. I lunge forward, but hit only shadows. The back of my neck explodes with pain, and I feel like touched by death itself. I make a wide sweep and hear that satisfying clang which echoes in my mind. I resume my two-handed grip and lash out at the shadows. The pain finds an opening in my elbow joint and slithers in. Another snakes around my waist, and the third almost forces me to drop my blade. How did it get so fast? Or did I get slower? Where are those eyes? I must strike at the eyes.. I hear a strong breathing sound all around me, like a dragon preparing to..

"EnOUGh."
The sound seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. And not just one. Legion. The shadows flow back into a vaguely humanoid form. Her handclaw scrapes the rocks, and the seven imps are laughing at me, while the sixty-seven mouths just grin.
"it SeeMS datdatdatdat ya lost"
"Lost! Lost! Lost!"
"yer ChanCE to reCLAIm yer fre-fre-freeDOM by force."
"Force! Force! Force!"
"but FEAR not."
"Fear! Fear! Fear!"
"To-to-to-to-day IS dE day OF fORGiveness. aLL can be UNdone."
"Undone! Undone! Undone!"
"Observe."
My vision clears for a moment, and I see the blue, gold-trimmed sleeve being rolled back, revealing a blue four-fingered hand and a skeletal elbow. I hear the sky being drained. Shadows snake from the rest of the arm along the brilliant white bone, grabbing the flesh on the other side. More, and more. And more. I did not cause that wound, and in the matter of seconds it's no longer there. The arm flexes and is consumed by the shadows. How could I even hope to defeat such a thing?

"Seeeeeeeee. Aaaallllll bettttttteerrrr."

Despair grabs me by her hooks and I slump to my knees.
"Please. I'll.. I'll do anything."
The three-hundred and five mouths erupt into laughter.
"Anything! Anything! Anything!", the imps mock me.
"So nooooooooooooow ya gro-gro-gro-gro-growel."
The laughter is blue.
"Very well. I shall make ya a hero. A champion for yer people. But first, ya must reclaim de memory of de past and de rage of de present. At de ruins of Mathystra resides a lost soul who seeks a worthy cause. And near de Vector Coil ya'll find rage incarnate, courtesy of yer esteemed prince. Make sure to document everying ya see in de isles for yer fellow Farstriders. Now go."
"Where?"
"Right past dat platform."
And it is gone, along with the three imps and the three thousand mouths. When did it leave? I feel dotted pink. I pick up my bow, and it coils around my back. I look into the abyss, and take a step. The wind screams around me as I fall and..
I find myself in a cave, looking at an opening. A tauren seems to be sleeping near the campfire. I walk quietly to the night.

You are all cheaters! .. or are we?

Raph has been sparring with Tobold on the topic of RMT, and now Raph threw a curveball: Information not provided within the game is cheating. Of course, I disagree. Otherwise this would have been a very boring blog post.

The central idea in Raph's argument is that information is a mechanic. Poker would be a very boring game if everyone knew what cards the other players have. Card counting, card marking, spotters, or other methods of knowing your opponents' cards is considered cheating. Likewise, strategy guides, videos and searchable database sites provide information about a computer game. So using that information is cheating, right?

Wrong. There are variations of poker, like Texas Hold'Em, where other players do get to see some of your cards. And you are allowed to plan your next move according to that extra information. Nobody's forcing you to look at those exposed cards, but you'd be a fool if you didn't.

Raph continues by addressing a common counterpoint:

Any info you get that isn’t presented to you by the game in normal gameplay sequence is not supposed to be available to you.

* But everyone has access to the info, which makes it OK. This may not have been the case back in the mud days.

So if everyone cheats, it’s OK. :)

If you consider playing Texas Hold'em cheating in poker, be my guest. Just don't be surprised if other players do not share your opinion.

We are not playing the same game as in the MUD days. MUD admins were well within their rights to say that using information sites is cheating. It's their game and their rules. These are different games with different rules. These rules do allow players access to more information, whether it's in-game, via vendor-approved APIs and web services, web sites or from other players. The games are balanced with the assumption that players have access to all this information, just like Texas Hold'Em is balanced on the assumption that players see some of the opponents' cards. And this is an ongoing process. It wasn't that long ago when people were making the argument that WoW addons that display the name and the estimated casting time for an enemy spell were a form of cheating. But now WoW gives you that information out of the box. The developers felt that not only was using that information allowed, but that it would be required in the future. For example, at the Reliquary of Souls. A part of that encounter relies on the flawless reaction to enemy casting, and reacting flawlessly does (in practice) require knowing the spell being cast and the estimated casting time. Otherwise it would be too difficult and stop being fun.

To his credit, Raph does acknowledge this:

Because of this, designers have increasingly simply designed around the assumption that the info will be shared — that players will cheat.

But still insists that it's cheating:

In the case of something like WoW’s Armory, they simply threw up their hands, and instead said “this isn’t cheating anymore” by providing it themselves.

If you feel that seeing some of the other players' cards in Texas Hold'Em is cheating, you're free to stop playing and find a vanilla poker game. You, the player, are not the authority on what is cheating and what's allowed. The organizer of the game, or the house, is. Whether that organizer is a casino holding a poker tournament or Blizzard maintaining a WoW server is irrelevant. It's their game with their rules. If you disagree, you are free to try to convince them otherwise, or to find an another game.

Finally, Raph says that this change is a bad thing, that we are losing the ability to teach them those lessons that come from hidden info.. Personally, I'd say that those lessons weren't worth much anyway. Lessons that rely on hidden information are only challenging for the first few tries. Security by obscurity is worthless after the veil of secrecy has been lifted. Once you learn those precious few gimmicks, the encounters are trivial and therefore boring.

Reliquary of Souls

Reliquary of Souls,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

Rest in peace. This was definitely one of the more interesting fights I've seen, and a landmark of the philosophy behind 25-man raids.

The boss itself is guarded by a very short BWL-like gauntlet, which measures the raid group's ability to move and AoE as one. It also serves as an exercise in mana management, since it's very much possible to go OOM at the gauntlet and have no mana for the boss itself.

Reliquary of Souls is basically three completely different fights stringed together. Between every phase the raid is swarmed with weak ghosts, which restore your health and mana upon death. They are effectively a reset button between each phase.

First, there's the Essence of Suffering. His aura nullifies all healing and he aggroes on the closest person for 5 seconds at a time. These abilities make him an exercise in survival and movement for everyone, not just tanks. In practice, everyone tanks him for 5 seconds, and then hands off the boss to the next person. Sounds simple, but it is harder than it sounds until everyone understands how he works.

Phase 2 is Essence of Desire. She has an aura which keeps reducing your maximum mana, so naturally there's a DPS race involved. She must die before your healers have zero mana and can't prevent the tank from dying. She also has a Rune Shield which can be dispelled and a feedback ability that deals back 50% of the damage dealt. But the interesting parts are her other abilities: Deaden and Spirit Shock. Deaden increases damage on the target, so the tank must spellreflect it back to Essence of Desire to boost DPS. Spirit Shock is a quickly-cast spell which disorients the person with aggro and deals a large amount of damage. If the tank gets hit by it, Essence of Desire switches targets and casts the next Spirit Shock faster. The trick to killing her is to interrupt all Spirit Shocks while allowing the tank to reflect all Deadens and maintain maximum DPS. In other words, an exercise in total focus and seamless raid coordination.

Finally, there's Essence of Anger. He has a stacking aura which keeps dealing more and more damage as well as a timebomb-style ability called Spite. While he has a cone-like ability that burns rage as well as mana, this phase is not about tank survival per se. It's a frantic DPS race against mercilessly increasing raid damage, much like Buru phase 2 in Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj.

The combination of all these requirements in one fight makes it definitely one of the most memorable fights in World of Warcraft, because it tests all aspects of a successful raidgroup: gear, coordination, knowledge and focus. Those that can get past it get access to the next three bosses and the final 3 pieces of tier 6 sets.

Schizophrenic set design

The Hunter’s Mark recently discussed hunter set bonuses, so I'll do the same for mage sets.

As a rule, mage set design has always been.. schizophrenic. There's the sets with simply awful bonuses: Magister (dungeon set 1), Sorcerer (dungeon set 2a), Ironweave (dungeon set 2b), Vaulted Secrets (AQ20), Incanter(dungeon set 3a). People who designed those sets have no idea of overall mage gameplay. No intelligent mage is going to stand still and let his Mana Shield absorb hits while chaincasting Flamestrike. Not only it's suicidial, it also fails to provide adequate DPS due to having to recast Mana Shield. Even a Mana Shield amplified by set bonuses is only going to take 2-3 hits at most from non-raid mobs before crumbling, which means you have to recast it. Recasting Mana Shield leaves no time to take advantage of the reduced cast time on Flamestrike, so you end up doing minimal DPS and using all of your mana while doing it.

Then there's the okayish sets, like Arcanist(tier 1), Enigma(AQ40) and Tempest(tier 6). Definitely worth collecting, but could be eclipsed by careful itemization. If you head to Molten Core wearing Magister, Arcanist is certainly an upgrade. It's less so if you have cleared Zul'Gurub or gotten most of the better level 60 blues. Still, the decent 8-piece bonus of -15% threat helps a lot.

Enigma has a spec-specific set bonus, but makes up for it by having pretty hefty stats and a nice proc for boss fights if you didn't have Spell Hit capped (most mages didn't).

Tempest is currently the set with the highest itemlevels of mage gear, so it's best by default. It might eventually be eclipsed by stuff that drops from the Sunwell Plateau, but will hold up pretty well until that. The 2-piece bonus is a bit underwhelming when compared to the equivalent Frostfire one, but the 4-piece bonus is exactly what mages need: more damage.

Then there's the nifty sets, worth having for simply the set bonuses: Netherwind (tier 2) and Frostfire (tier 3). All set bonuses are useful and the items themselves are nothing to scoff at. Furthermore, the set bonuses are useful for all mages, regardless of spec.

Finally, there's the bizarre sets. Aldor (tier 4) is mediocre as a PvE set, but has a few of the most useful set bonuses ever for PvP. Pushback immunity and shorter cooldowns on PoM/Blastwave/Ice Block. Either of those bonuses would have been welcomed with cheers if those were put into the Gladiator set(s).

Then there's Illusionist (Zul'Gurub), an another oddball set. It has the bread-and-butter spelldamage bonuses, but then mixes the promising set up with reduced mana cost to buffs and Flamestrike cast time reduction. Even pre-nerf, Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs were a non-issue. When you are buffing, you usually have plenty of time to do so. And since you can conjure your own mana drinks, you always have ample mana. Then there's the Flamestrike bonus. An okayish generic set which has a spec-specific set bonus in the end? And to get the said set bonus, you have to wear Hazza'rah's Charm of Magic, which boosts Arcane damage, not Fire. Is Illusionist a generic set, a fire mage set or an Arcane mage set? I really cannot say.

Finally, there's Tirisfal (tier 5). If there ever was an argument why mages should get alternate sets like most of the other classes, Tirisfal is it. It's exclusively designed for Arcane mages. For all others, Arcane Blast not only provides substandard DPS, it also is an order of magnitude more expensive than the other nuke spells (Fireball, Frostbolt). No sane frost/fire mage would ever want to make it even more expensive.

Mage Class Concerns

Vaneras has requested feedback on the mage class. I've posted on the thread as well, but here's the short version: Inferiority Complex.

Oh, you wanted the long version? Quoting Wikipedia:

An inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person. It is often subconscious, and is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extreme antisocial behavior, or both. Unlike a normal feeling of inferiority, which can act as an incentive for achievement, an inferiority complex is an advanced state of discouragement, often resulting in a retreat from difficulties.

Overcompensation? Check. Extreme antisocial behavior? Check. Advanced state of discouragement? Check. Retreat from difficulties? Check.

Is it simply in our heads? Most of it, yes. But there are some real issues, some of which I listed on the feedback thread. Since the thread rules forbade me from discussing them at length or offering suggestions, I'll do it here. Since 95% of my non-RP playtime is either raiding or preparing to raid, I'll ignore 5-man PvE and PvP completely. Off we go then.

Provide a brief description of the areas you feel are most in need of improvement (you may list a maximum of three issues and each issue should be described in one or two sentences).

• Itemization. With the change to Evocation, Spirit is even more useless than it was before, yet it's still very "expensive" to have on an item. This makes all items designed for mages objectively worse than the corresponding warlock items. Even if the differences in individual items are small, they do add up when you compare full sets of gear.
  To fix this, Spirit either needs to removed completely, made significantly cheaper or made worth having at the current cost. Cheaper Spirit would also benefit healers, who do have spell rotations which allow Spirit to work.
  Spell Peneration is an another "junk" stat. Although it's rarer than Spirit and can be useful on some Black Temple bosses.. most of the time it's useless. One way to make it more useful would be to re-introduce the concept of negative resistances. If your Spell Penetration reduces the resistances of your target below zero, he would take extra damage. This would make Spell Penetration useful in fights where the target has zero resistances, such as.. almost all of them.
  
• Comparatively low DPS, in both single-target and AoE. Partially caused by poor itemization. Even with our top-of-the-line gear and min/max:ed talents, we get outdamaged by hybrids on single-target DPS and by warlocks on AoE DPS. I admit that while this can be more about individual skill, (lack of) class synergy and gear, the effect is still real and feeds the inferiority complex.
  But there are some issues that truly require Blizzard's attention, such as Seed of Corruption. The spell itself is pretty nice. A decent amount of AoE damage that doesn't require active targeting and can be chaincasted from a distance. The trouble is that Seed of Corruption scales with other AoE while mage spells do not. Any source of damage can trigger the Seed of Corruption, so if there are other sources of AoE damage present (such as mages), the Seed will detonate immediately for 1200 damage (non-crit, without spelldamage). No AoE spell in the game can compete with the Seed of Corruption in such a situation. Either the scaling needs to be removed or introduced into other spells.
  Single-target DPS inferiority can be divided into two subcategories: Melee and shadow priest + warlock. Melee should always do more DPS than mages because melee DPS is more hazardous than ranged, but the huge variety of melee buffs and procs tilts the favor heavily to melee. Melee classes benefit from increases to their base stats, while the +crit gained from Intellect is mostly neglible. Therefore paladin, shaman and druid buffs benefit melee much more than they benefit casters.
  The other side of the inferiority is shadow priests and warlocks. A competent warlock can already outdamage a mage, but a warlock coupled with a shadow priest can rack up numbers that mages can only dream about.
  Unfortunately, figuring out a way to fix this without introducing more imbalances is hard. Mages do need some classes to buddy up with. Elemental shamans and moonkins could be viable candidates, but the synergy needs to be reciprocal. Aside from Winter's Chill (which is only benefical to Frost Shock) and Fire Vulnerability (which is only useful to Flame Shock), there isn't that much that the mage can provide. The one common thing that these three classes do have is the need for spell crit. Elemental shamans have their totems and Moonkins have their aura, so mages would need something similar. Like a Winter's Chill that worked with all spells.
  
• Mana economy. To try to keep up with other classes in DPS, mages need to sacrifice mana efficiency completely. The design philosophy behind mage tier 5 set and the whole Arcane tree is a perfect example. We need to literally burn much more mana (which we don't have) than other classes to do less damage than they do. The upcoming reusable mana gems will alleviate this somewhat, but don't remove the problem altogether. Mages would need a lot more intellect to wean their addiction to mana potions, and increased +spell crit from the intellect wouldn't hurt either. Add in additional scaling mechanisms as Master of Elements and 3-piece Spellfire set and we might have something viable there. To get that intellect the stat needs to be made cheaper, just like stamina was made cheaper for the Burning Crusade. Warlock gear would delegate those freed item points to stamina (which provides them a dual benefit), while mage gear would get much more intellect-heavy.
  

Raid Lockouts & Casual vs. Hardcore

Tobold recently discussed the effects of raid lockouts on casual guilds, so I'll cover the hardcore side.

One important aspect of raid lockouts what also ties into Tigole's mention of fostering competition between guilds: Raid lockouts act as a pacing mechanism for inter-guild competition. If you need a certain gear level for an upcoming raid encounter, you can't just raid the previous raid encounters nonstop and have your whole raid equipped to the brim. Since you get just a certain amount of items per week, you can't compensate for lack of skill with extra time spent to progress. A perfect example of this is the Chinese guild The Seven, who killed Illidan in just 52 days. An average guild might spend 52 days just farming Karazhan to get gear to kill Gruul, The Lurker Below and/or Void Reaver. If Blizzard wants to encourage inter-guild competition in PvE, they must also discourage long raids and other unhealthy playing habits to avoid bad press. And that probably means that raid lockouts are here to stay.

Yes yes, I love Icy Veins as well!

Since everyone else (and their dogs) have commented about the mage changes in 2.3.2, so must I. Let's get the easy parts out of the way first.

Trainable Ice Block: A vital skill for any PvPer who wishes to live at least 10 seconds. The same reasoning which allowed Improved Arcane Explosion and Evocation to become core class skills applies here as well. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that it wasn't done sooner. Previously I was worried that removing Ice Block would remove one of the few spells that make the frost tree distinct from Fire and Arcane. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Conjure Mana Gem (rank 6), which restores 1800-3000 mana and has three charges: Again, a no-brainer. The current rank 6 Mana Gem was simply pitiful, enough for only a few spells. This one is equivalent to a Super Mana Potion, only on a different cooldown.

Then the juicy part. Icy Veins:

Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 25%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.

Although Blizzard did break Frostbite completely, a fix is scheduled to appear just in time for this gem of a skill. 20% Spell Haste for 20 seconds is a very nice DPS increase, especially if it also affects the Water Elemental. Some testing is required to see whether this stacks with other periodical Spell Haste effects, but I wouldn't be surprised if some Black Temple & Zul'Aman-farming troll frost mage was already drooling about the concept of being able to chaincast Frostbolts almost as quickly as the Global Cooldown allows.

As for the PvP side, +25% proc rate for Frostbite is pretty significant. Coupled with the casting speed increase it means that a well-timed Icy Veins allows the frost mage to both disable his opponent and follow up with a devastating Shatter combo before he is able to react.

..which is why I doubt that this talent survives the outcry.

The dog who yelps..

..is the dog who is smitten. Apparently 2.3 introduced changes to Warden that to one writer are quite worrying:

The changes to Warden effectively remove our ability as a community to police Blizzard's activities, and may lead to undetected violations of personal privacy, among other possibilities.

Now.. which privacy watchdog group is this? Or a concerned citizen? Perhaps some government entity?

Nope. A company that develops farmbot software. While an argument should not be discared solely on the basis on who is making the argument, I'm too cynical to think that there's no ulterior motives hiding behind the scenes.

With that out of the way, let's tackle the argument itself. Yes, polymorphism is used to obfuscate the inner workings of a program from it's users. Yes, Blizzard could snoop personal data from your computer without you knowing anything about it. But why would they? They already have your personal information, including your credit card number. As a business, they have no interest whatsoever in snooping what's on your computer. Unless you're trying to cheat in their games, that is..

However, a lone programmer could try to sneak in an unauthorized modification (and risking detection by bypassing all of Blizzard's Quality Assurance processes along the way) and collect your data for his personal benefit. So I'd consider that risk to be fairly miniscule.

But how about the whole notion of having a program in your computer that you don't know what it does? Is that a cause for alarm? It depends. Unless you are one of the few that use an Open Source operating system and have read through all of the source code in it.. making a fuss out of Warden is a bit hypocritical. Your computer is filled to the brim with software that might do things that you have no idea about. Quoting Microsoft's 10 immutable laws of security:

If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore.

If you don't like unknown software doing stuff you don't know about on your computer.. don't install it.

(via Slashdot and WoW Insider)

Edit: Broken Toys is on the case as well.

The rise, fall and re-emergence of IGE

Tobold noticed this interesting article about IGE's past and present. Apparently Blizzard's one-hour timer on gold transfers has really hurt IGE, and it had to flee to tax-free Vanuatu, out of reach of litigous players, disgruntled gun-toting gold farmers, scared-off investors and banstick-wielding legistators.

Of course, should Blizzard's efforts continue to interrupt the flow of (virtual) currency between IGE and the gold farmers one might find the island nation quite isolated..

Farewell to Karazhan?

Relmstein talks about bringing decent players back to Heroics.

However, one thing that worries me is that if the jump from non-heroics to heroics is made easier, Blizzard may end up killing Karazhan. Yes, I know that they're adding badges to Karazhan bosses, but the gear itself is at best at par with current Heroic rewards. Why should one spend loads of time in Karazhan when one can finish Heroic Mechanar and a few other instances in a fraction of the time and effort required? In addition, Heroics only have a one-day lockout timer while Karazhan resets weekly.

Blizzard originally intended the epic fire resist sets to be the carrot that would drive raiders to Heroics. However, just like a kid who hates vegetables because he's being forced to eat them, raiders opted for making new strategies for A'lar, the encounter that supposedly required all that fire resistance. Personally, I did pick up a few pieces for Krosh Firehand tanking (and I know that this fire mage ogre ignores Fire Resistance completely, I took the pieces for the stamina), but couldn't bother with the rest. The helm, the ring, the amulet and the cloak are hardly upgrades from even level 70 blues. The upcoming Zul'Aman-skinned items seem to be at par with some of the better craftables (like Spellstrike), so they may end up being somewhat popular. Since you won't be needing Revered reputation for Heroics anymore, you'll be hitting Heroics even before you have finished your Karazhan attunement. Aside from a few individual pieces (like the Lightning Capacitor for fire mages), Karazhan may end up being a dead-end in PvE content progression.