son_design's Xanga

Update from the real world

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:16:46 GMT

My lack of posting really does have a good reason or three.

1) End of semester hit, and I had to make the transition from regular schedule to finals to home for the summer.
2) I had to get a job over the summer, and combined with only getting to be with my girlfriend for a month of that, WoW and a webjournal both took a backseat.
3) My schedule hasn't evened out quite yet, so I'm not an active raider, or even a truly active WoW player at this point. I log in, I talk with the guildies, if I have time I try to do dailies or instances with friends, but I'm Exalted with SSO and have my Redeemer's Alchemist Stone. That means my doing dailies is purely for fun and cash. I do it when I feel like, which is less and less recently.

If you're (un)lucky, I might write up a short series of posts detailing my latest interest in the computer world: patches and patching executables. From the programming side of things.

In the meantime, have fun in WoW. May your loot be epic and your wipes be few.

Wow...

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:24:27 GMT

Nope, this isn't about WoW. Sorry, this is about something else I came across, that makes me cringe.

I've been looking around, and I came across a MMO known as EVE Online. Okay, nifty. Looks interesting, you become a pilot and upgrade yourself and your ship as you explore the galaxy. Oh, and it's a single persistent world. No separate servers, no different 'shards', just one huge galaxy to explore, exploit, and engage in.

Read this article, and just gape in awe. Do I condone theft like this, even of digital goods (much like the ninja'ing of guild banks)? No. But I do have an immense respect for the dedication and work that it takes to so completely infiltrate an organization like the GHSC did.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=180867

Blaarg

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:39:49 GMT

End of semester crunch is a killer. I don't have much to say, and not much that's useful.

I got my T4 gloves off of Curator Thursday, and needed the healing enchant. Wouldn't you know it, fresh out of primal life. Ugh, I hate farming those buggers. Well, a guildie needed some too, so we farmed together. Group farming is muuuuuuch easier. Especially with two druids. Dual hurricane ftw! There's your advice for the day.

In other news, one of the most funny, yet most wrong druid comics ever. Read at your own risk. Don't have anything in your mouth when you read it. I won't be responsible for your choking.

Guild Applications

Mon, 05 May 2008 20:27:54 GMT

This guy hates applications. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to get the purpose behind them. B⁴ has a wonderful post about why he SHOULD care. Yes, this is the same guy. Here's my quick rundown, and what said imbecile should pay attention to:

Guild applications are much like job applications, and both arose from the same need: the need to be selective about who to bring into the organization. It's not about WoW being a job, it's about wanting to find out before we bring you into our fold whether you're the type of person who is going to mesh with our group.

Most applications tend to have a few questions in common. They all have them in common for a reason.

1) What was your former guild?
This one is here because if we care enough to ask you to fill out an application, we darn well would like to speak to others about you, people who can give us some insight as to whether you're going to be a problem child. Nobody wants to learn about a ninja the hard way. If you're a childish moron, chances are we don't want you either. This question is for the purpose of finding out whether we even want to bother with the rest of your application.

2) Why did you leave your former guild?
This question serves two purposes. The first is to find out whether something happened to get you kicked or make you leave, or whether your interests no longer meshed with those of that guild. This can be nice to know, because if we know their goals are the same as ours, chances are you're not going to want to stay here long either. We'd rather not waste your time and ours.

The second reason is that it serves as a truth detector. We're going to check with your old guild and find out why you left. If their answer doesn't mesh with yours, then congrats! We just found out you're a potential liar, and are going to be wary of what else is said. Nobody likes being lied to, and doing so on an application for anything is going to get your application trashed. Doesn't matter if you're applying for a job flipping Warp Burgers, or trying to get funding to research the cure for cancer. (Actually, both of these serve as truth detectors, since we're going to armory your character and wowcensus your guild history anyway.)

3) Why do you want to join our guild?
If you just want phat loot, that's fine. Our guild, in particular, doesn't give a rip about loot. We see it as a tool to progress farther. We're not raiding just to get lots of purples, and if that's all you're there for, you might be in for a nasty shock when you don't get a piece of gear. It happens.

If you want phat loot, and don't have any (remember that Armory thing Blizzard has?), then you're telling us that you want us to gear you up, and we're going to laugh in your face, then I will personally use your application to start the fire next Saturday at The Barn. If you don't have the desire to get yourself geared up for Kara, you're nothing more than a leech. And leeches get a heavy dose of salt where I come from.

4) What times you are available for raiding?
If you're coming into our guild as a raider, you should be aware that currently we raid 3 nights a week, sometimes 4 if we don't finish up Kara. If you can't make those times, you don't get to raid. Sorry, that's just how it works. We don't do spur of the moment Kara groups anymore. However, by giving us this list of times, when we're setting up our next Kara group, we can determine when the best times are for raiding.

5) What class/spec/whatever are you?
Hm. This isn't all that hard to find out, but why should we waste our time doing the rest of our checking process if you're a rogue and we have 20 other dps members? The entire point of this process is that we don't want to waste our time, nor yours. And that's what will happen if you get an invite to our guild. DPS are always in supply. (It also lets us know whether to take you over that feral druid application that just got posted, who can act as a tank with his feral gear. Versatility will almost always win out in my book, though our guild policy is that you don't have to play any spec you don't want to.)

"And seriously, if I suck, just kick me out and be done with it, but let's not pretend this is some elite group of combat hardened guerilla mercenaries you have here. It's fucking WoW, not rocket surgery."

Heh. Hehe. Ehehehehehe. Lemme get this straight. You want to join our guild, come into Kara with us, and have us waste our precious time dealing with your stupidity when we could have brought someone who knew what they were doing, and have downed who knows how many more bosses in a single night? Oh please.

"Hey f***stick, I know where the sinister strike button is. This isn't a formal request for grant funding to continued cancer research we're discussing. I want to push the 'hurt' button over and over while standing behind the dragon."

Oh where do we start...How about the fact that raiding isn't always about pushing the hurt button over and over (aside from the fact that the hurt button you're mashing isn't the right one)? Oh wait, you want us to heal you through Prince's Shadow Novas because you darn well don't think it's worth the time and lost dps to run out of the huge frigging explosion? You want us to waste our extremely limited time running back to the top of the frigging tower when we wipe because you overtook the tank in agro and caused him to get Enfeebled? Riiiiight.

The fact of the matter is, we get a VERY limited amount of time to raid per week. That's life. WoW ISN'T our job, it's a game. That means that when we DO get the chance to raid, we'd like it to go as smoothly as possible. I'd rather not have to deal with constantly healing your arse because you don't know how to use Omen. Yeah, you drop dead, and we can rez you. But that's at least a minute out of our raid time, which means there's one less minute that we can use to try and get a good enough mix of infernals to make Prince a workable target.

Long story short, we don't want our time wasted, on any of a number of things. Fill out the application, and deal with it. You can wait a day or two. I waited at least a month before I was eligible to join the guild I'm in now, and I love it. The wait is worth it, and if you don't think so, I don't think you're worth our time.

Kara, properly now

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:23:29 GMT

I just got out of my first 'proper' Karazhan run. I started at the beginning, healing from the first pull to the last wipe. I've got ~~three~~ ~~four~~ five things to say.

1) I love you, you're wonderful, but please, when you accidentally pull Maiden, and we all have to rush in, and you ask me to Battle Rez you while I'm frantically stacking Lifebloom on the newbie tank, please please PLEASE ping the minimap with your location. Saying, "I'm off in so-and-so direction" does me NOTHING. I don't have the time to wander around trying to find your broken and beaten body.

2) Please keep the raid chatter to a minimum. It's fine to occasionally crack a joke, and if we didn't, we wouldn't be the guild that we are. But if you can't sit down and focus when we need to clear through the two guards that mysteriously respawned when we wiped, I'm not entirely sure we should be bringing you along, even though your dps HAS shot through the roof since you got the epic bow from Prince.

2.5) While we're talking about dps, please keep your dps under control. Especially if your Omen isn't working right and you haven't fixed it yet. You just got a major weapon upgrade and we're using a newbie tank. He can't handle agro bombs like our usual tank can. Keep it up and you won't get any heals from me at all. I don't have the mana to waste on your foolishness, even if I do have insane regen as a druid.

3) Every little bit helps. Especially when you're talking about your gear. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: try to get every little bit of upgrade you can. Yes, that means going to WoWhead, doing an item search, and filtering for what you need. Then go out and get it. I've known just about everywhere I need to go for a while now. I have issues getting there, but I darn well know what I need from where, and I'm working towards it. Every little bit counts. I proved that in my last post.

4) Please repair before the run. It's something of a pain when you need to go back and clear the repair guy area because half the raiders present forgot to repair before the run. Yes, that's your responsibility as a raider. I made sure to repair. I checked thrice, just to make sure. As a result, after about 7 wipes, I was only then starting to turn yellow and white. It makes a difference. Repair. Your. Gear.

5) Make sure you have a large number of buffing reagents. I never encountered this one until tonight. I've read elsewhere that members are required to bring at least 40 buffing reagents to each run, and it threw me for a loop. I couldn't understand how in the world you could need two full stacks of buffing mats within a single night of raiding. Now I do. After the aforementioned wipes (as well as two or three times as time wore on), my single stack of Wild Quillvine was almost completely gone. I'm going to have to spend something like 6g before my next run to make sure I have enough.

Yes, I know I said there were only five, and I'm already at 6, but here's a final one:
When you accept the position of raider, you're accepting, whether implicitly or explicitly, the responsibility to get consumables, and be willing to use them. Whether you farm the mats themself and cook your own food/make your own pots/whatever, or whether you just farm gold and buy out the auction house night of, you need to have lots and lots of consumables. Unless you're using a flask, you have at least two buffs that disappear when you die (and trust me, you WILL die repeatedly on anything not on farm status).

You need to darn well make sure you carry around a crapload of consumables. Period. Take out a loan if need be. Or sit out a week(unless the raid absolutely needs you, then strike some sort of deal with the guild bank to get what you need). That last isn't as bad as it sounds. Yes, you might miss the chance to get a really nifty item. But your chances of getting that item, and everyone else's chances of getting whatever THEY want, drop significantly if you aren't giving the absolute best you can.

Hopefully these tips will help someone else from having to utter those embarrassing words in /raid, "Guys, my gear just went red. Can I get a port and a summon?"

Analysis

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:13:48 GMT

Ever since last night and downing Prince, I've been thinking more and more about the fight. Everyone seems to whine about it being completely a luck fight, and I went into it expecting that. I haven't done it enough to be 100% sure, but I'm willing to bet that I'm right in drawing the conclusion that I do.

Prince is not a luck fight.

You have three main things to worry about that can make or break the fight for you: Infernals, Enfeeble, and Shadow Nova. Excepting the Enfeeble, the other two are on set timers, and can be avoided. Even the Enfeeble is 'avoided', if you don't walk into an Infernal and move fast enough. If you are melee, it is part of your job to pay attention to where the Infernals are, and when you get Enfeeble. Once you have it, you run. You should already have a route planned out to avoid infernals. All three times I've done Prince, we've been able to keep him in a position where escape is possible. Okay, I'll admit, the occasional bad placement can wipe the melee dps, who have nowhere to run to. It happens. That's the nature of bosses.

But the Infernals...Everyone whines about them, and I just don't get it. You've got warning, and ample time to see where exactly the next one will drop. Every decent guild is using some sort of boss mod (I use Bigwigs), which will certainly have a timer that says when the next infernal drops. You simply have to have someone within the ranged dps group (preferably a mage) keep their eye on the next infernal, and have everyone shift with them to a clear spot. It works like a charm. Excepting my first time, when I was simply too slow on the draw to move out of the fire aura, I've always been able to avoid the infernals. Always. And I'm keeping three HoTs up on the tank at all times (as well as dropping heals on anyone who eats a bit of Infernal damage).

Prince isn't luck based. It's organization-based. Can you keep your team organized and cohesive enough to survive the infernals, enfeebles and shadow novas while still putting out enough dps and heals to beat the boss in under ten minutes? Looking at it in this light makes perfect sense. The larger 25-mans have the same sort of mechanics, where you have to be paying attention and react, or you die. Long gone are the days of Onyxia, where you mostly just sat around dpsing. (Yeah yeah, you had to dodge some small environmental crap, but in the end, you could just sit there and button mash for 40 minutes.) Now, you have to run, jump, heal, and dps the boss down in under ten minutes (apparently one of the later bosses requires you to do it in 6 minutes. Can't remember which one though). Personally, I find this to be much more interesting than when I was watching my brother do Molten Core (Stand around. Heal. Rebuff after a wipe. Whine when nothing good drops. GG, lets do it again next week.).

I seem to see most progression-stalls styming from lack of organization within the raid. People just don't know the fights, and so everyone isn't working in the concert required to beat the boss. Fair enough, that's why it's labeled progression, and that's why you want to use a flask instead of elixirs when you're learning progression content. Why the crap does everyone seem to ignore the fact that Kara is the introductory raiding instance nowadays, and whine about the final boss requiring the same sort of tactics and mobility that later bosses do? Less whining, more practice. Get on the ball. Assign someone to watch the infernals. Think ahead. LOOK ahead. Make sure you've got a path to someplace safe if an infernal decides to eat your lunch. (What did BBBB call it? Oh yeah, Situational Awareness.)

Everyone else in the big-leagues does it. Nightly. Learn to move during a fight. Otherwise, you'll never make it past basic trash mobs, or the occasional boss beyond Kara.

How strange is this?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:52:15 GMT

I didn't make a post for it, since I didn't consider it worth either my time, or yours, but last night I was able to hit up Kara with my guild. We wiped on Illhoof three times, then said forget it and went to try Prince. The Illhoof fight was honestly just a matter of not being organized enough. People weren't on the ball, the chains were a massacre when anyone but a pally or mage got sacrificed, and having me as third heals made us too light on heals to be able to deal with it. But, I was willing to accept wiping and I understood that I was still a bit undergeared to be coming into late-game Kara (Illhoof, Prince, Netherspite, etc.), especially since I haven't had the chance to do the earlier parts of Kara. Last night was my first night, which is always going to be rough. I was just there to be a body and try my hand at healing until one of our better healers could log on.

So, after wiping on Illhoof, we decided to hit up Prince (the luck fight). One of our better healers got on, and we decided that we'd at least try Prince with me healing. That fight is more luck than raw output anyways. Well, we got him down to about 20-30% health, but an infernal decided that our heads were a good spot to land, and it being my first time, I dropped like a rock because I couldn't move my tree-arse fast enough. I got a Battle-Rez, and almost immediately ate a Shadow Nova from Prince. Down for the count, and after that it was a wipe. Annoying, but I honestly wasn't expecting to be as useful as I was for that fight.

They replaced me, and I decided that I was gonna start my Kara key chain, for rep and my own key (still have to have at least one person with a key to get in. Might as well get one, right?). I finished it up to the first fragment and called it good. Then I went looking for enchants and better gear. I've pretty much plateau'ed with my gear. I can't get much better without enchants and better drops, and I don't want to waste good enchanting mats on crappy gear, but I have to get my healing up higher. So, I looked up and discovered an interesting belt that happens to be quite a nice World Drop. Why yes, you're seeing that right. It IS a level 56 required. Look at that +healing! The stats aren't amazing, but I've got lots of regen and mana anyways. The 6spi/int I lost from equipping it are more than made up for with the extra 40 healing. I found one of them available on the AH, and bid on it (which was less expensive than buyout, and I could afford to wait...or so I thought). I got my bracers enchanted as well. Not too much improvement, but every little bit helps.

Went with some guildies to SLabs, to try and get some key frags, and possibly my nifty Idol. Well, the Idol dropped, and I beat out our other druid healer on it, so I am now the proud owner of Idol of the Emerald Queen. Woot! Best tree idol in the game, hands down. We eventually had to call that run, because we were wiping too much, and Kara invites were starting to go out. I wasn't too depressed, and promised Johansblight that we'd farm Hellmaw for his copy of the Idol.

Low and behold, we were still short on heals tonight, and so they decided to give me another shot. We'd avoid Illhoof and go straight to Prince. Got in, absolutely pwned on the healing. Just the enchant and the Idol made a massive difference on how much healing I can output (makes sense, right? Lifebloom comprised 59.4% of my healing at the end of the run). I was still lowest of the three of us, but instead of being less than 1/4th of Johan's healing output, I was a mere 100,000 less. Which is quite impressive, considering he's got a larger amount of +healing, and is all-around better geared. Everyone noticed, except for me (until they told me to check out the healing meters. =O ).

We ended up wiping on Prince at 1% (effing axes...I ate another pair of Shadow Novas [one right after I rezzed], and we couldn't heal through them and his 'soft enrage' with only two healers), which pissed all of us off to no end, and we absolutely thrashed him second time around. Yes, my first boss downed in Kara was (is) Prince. We wiped on Netherspite, but I feel quite accomplished. I can't even really find the desire to complain that nothing dropped that I can use. (For those that care what dropped: T4 Helm [Hunter, Mage, Warlock], Adornment of Stolen Souls, and Sunfury Bow of the Pheonix.)

Grats to everyone who scored phat-lootz, and adeu to Madphyre, whose account goes inactive until he can grub up cash to pay again. You have a foul mouth, man, but you're a great guy to have around. You'll be missed for the next few weeks.

Finally, a picture:

p.s. I forgot this when I first posted, but I want to especially thank Johan for stepping out of the raid when one of our better healers logged in. It was either me or him, and he decided to let me have a second shot at Prince. Thanks man. I'll get you that Idol as soon as we can hit up SLabs.

A few quick notes

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:31:54 GMT

I ran (regular) SLabs last night, and we made it all the way to Murmur. I had to use my Innervate twice, Super Mana Pot, Health Pot, Rebirth, and my NS+Regrowth macro repeatedly, but we got through it. That fight is the hardest thing I've ever had to heal through, hands down (even my run through H Ramps wasn't that bad). For those of you who aren't to that level yet, Murmur is the last boss of Shadow Labs, and he has a number of tricks up his sleeve to make your life a pain, healer or not.

As a healer, there are only two of them that you need to truly worry about, if you position yourself properly. The first one is a minor annoyance: he'll occasionally draw everyone right up close to him. No biggie, but it'll interrupt whatever you're casting at the time. Luckily, my HoTs keep on tickin', and while you're flying you can cast instant spells, so I could keep Lifebloom rolling easily enough. I'm sure there's more to the move than just sucking you in close, but since I ran back out as soon as I landed, I'm not enlightened.

The second trick is the one that'll make you want to tear your hair out: Murmur's Touch. In essence, he applies a debuff to a random target, who then explodes about ten-fifteen seconds later, taking a huge chunk of damage as well as getting thrown up into the air (and damaging those around them). As a healer, this is your main concern. You have to make sure everyone is topped off, or they'll drop like a rock when they explode. Most groups tend to have the person with Murmur's Touch run to the nearby tent, so they don't go flying when they explode. Okay, that works. Except that I'm the healer, and I lose both line of sight AND range when I do so. After about the third time, I said screw it and just took it like a redwood. Obviously you have to make sure the others aren't around you when you blow up, but otherwise, any decent tree should be able to heal through it.

Regardless, I had to burn multiple CDs, and the fight lasted long enough to have the dps who died run back. Twice. But, we beat the ugly Ragnaros-ripoff, and I hit Friendly with Lower City. Onward, to Revered and Exalted!

In other news, something I neglected to mention in my last post: in the final equation, the square root on the bottom is the magnitude of del-f, and that value tells you how much your mana regen will increase by increasing your spirit and intellect by the bracketed amount. If you guys are lucky, I might just program up something so you can just plug in your values and see where you need to head and how much you'll get from it.

Ha!

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:16:18 GMT

I found where my revelation about Superior Wizard Oil came from. Not surprisingly, it came from the Elitist Jerks Resto thread. Go, check that post out. It has almost everything you possibly could want to know about resto raiding, both as a raid leader, and as a tree. I'll wait. I don't have anything near as interesting to post about.

Done? Good. Lots of useful info there, eh? Well, I hope that this next bit will be useful as well.

Warning! Crazy Theorycrafting Ahead!

So, over at Resto4Life, Phae (Or Mr. Phae, apparently) has calculated some partial derivatives about the new mana regen formula. In essence, this tells us the rate of change of spirit if your intellect stays the same, and vice-versa. Okay, that's nifty. And she uses it to great effect. But lets take it a bit farther, shall we?

When dealing with surfaces (equations with multiple variables), there is something called a Gradient Vector. The gradient vector is defined as:

del f(x,y) = <f_x(x,y),f_y(x,y)>

Okay, so what the heck does this mean? Well, avoiding the horrifying concept that is Directional Derivatives, when del f(x,y) is divided by it's magnitude, f(x,y) is maximized. e.g. you get the maximum rate of increase for the function at (x,y). When we apply this to the 2.4 mana regen formula, we should get the amount of intellect and spirit needed to increase our mana the optimum amount, based on what we currently have.

Since I'm sure your eyes are glazed over right this moment, lets pull some quick calculations and then maybe I'll show you how to plug in the numbers to get your optimum values of spirit and intellect.

That is one mean equation, no qualms about it. But, by plugging in your different values into the equation, you'll find that you get the <spirit , intellect> that gives you the most increase in mana regen from where you are right now.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go to sleep. /passout

Endnote: upon looking at my final equation, I notice that the function should actually be called "del f(x,y)/|del f(x,y)|". Hopefully that doesn't confuse those of you who actually understand the math I'm doing here. I'll get around to changing it. Eventually.

Optimization

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:42:04 GMT

I'm not there yet, but I have noticed myself starting to shift towards it. It's the horrid, horrid thing that end-game raiders must do as part and parcel of their life, and I don't much like doing it, even though I'm rather good at it. Hardcore optimization. Eeking out every last item-point of power, getting yourself up to insane amounts of +healing, finding just the right weapon to toss a Mighty Spirit enchant onto to make an Innervate weapon. Making yourself the best you can be.

I haven't got the drive nor the time to truly optimize myself, but ever since I hit 70 and higher level stuff became available, I've been thinking about it more and more, since I need to get myself in better shape if I want to hit up Kara with my guild, and be more than a millstone hanging from their collective neck. So, imagine my shock when I came across the wonderful person's post (Who it was, I can't remember, unfortunately. I love you, whoever you are!) that mentioned that even though the tooltip doesn't say it, Wizard Oils provide +healing as well as +spelldamage. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait! Hold the phones! You're telling me that I can, for the price of a measly 7g, get 42 +healing? For an hour? Through death?! With FIVE CHARGES?!?!

Naturally, I had to test this out. I did so, starting from the bottom up. After testing it with each of the four Oils available, I can tell you that it's true. If you absolutely MUST have that extra 42 healing, go out and plop down 7g (on Aggramar anyway. YMWV). One of those should last you through at least one, more likely two nights, since they persist through death. At 5 charges each, that's a wonderful 5 hours of buffing, for 7g. Niiiiiiiiiice.

Quick comparison of Superior Wizard Oil and Golden Fish Sticks:

SWO - +42 healing for 1 hour, 5 charges, 7g.
GFS - +44 healing & +20 spirit for 30 minutes, 1 charge, 1.2g.

With the help of my handy-dandy calculator, each charge of SWO comes out to be 1.4g. That's just a little bit more than GFS, and it lasts twice as long too, though you get less +healing and no +spirit, but hey, the two buffs stack. For an extra 7g per run/2 runs, who WOULDN'T be using this? (Especially if you're already using the Mana Oil buffs. The Superior Mana Oil costs the same, but the Brilliant Mana Oil costs over twice as much, and the only reason you'll use that one is for the +healing. This is better, AND cheaper. Win-Win!)

I hope I just made someone's day.