Rise of the Zandalari.

So, we think it's landing this week despite WoW Insider not being quite so certain due to a couple of interesting points. However, just to whet the appetite for those that haven't seen it, here's the trailer for patch 4.1.



So, what does the patch mean for Protection warriors? Here's a very basic list.

- Hit rating loses all of its raiding importance. Interrupts will no longer miss, so feel free to reforge it all away and concentrate on more defensive stats. Naturally, this affects everyone.
- Shield Bash is gone, so replace it on your bars with Pummel which can now be used in every stance. We shave a little time off of our interrupt, but we lose the blanket silence.
- Heroic Leap isn't on the GCD anymore, so that's a small quality of life change. Alas, it's still garbage because of the absurd restrictions placed on the ability, so don't assume it's now become useful.
- Rallying Cry, a new ability, is basically a raid-wide Last Stand. Get it on your bars and use it for any fight where the raid takes a chunk of damage; just don't forget it shares a cooldown with Last Stand.
- Spell Reflect got a 300% nerf. Ouch. Now, don't use it on cooldown with casters around, instead try to be more selective about when more than one caster is maybe lining you up.
- Shield Block will now reduce magical damage taken by 20%, assuming you take the full allocation of points in Shield Mastery (which you should). The trade off is that the talent no longer affects Spell Reflect.
- Gag Order sees Pummel replace Shield Bash due to the latter getting the bullet. It's still a useful talent for five-man heroics, but nothing to write home about if you're raiding.

Penultimately, the new Zandalari instances provide a veritable slew of tanking items - of particular interest is the ranged slot if you've not seen the Crossfire Carbine either drop or hit the AH with a reasonable price tag. All of the drops are iLevel 353, however, so while they're a step up from current heroic content, your raid gear will still best it.

Lastly, a few more things are going to be more readily available. Maelstrom Crystals will be in far more plentiful supply, your Valor Points will not be changed to Justice Points yet, and you can buy Honor Points for Justice points and vice versa.

And that's it.

Enjoy patch 4.1. :)

Wait and Bleed.

In a complete jump from the norm, today I'm going to cover a topic I've yet to cover on The Dead Good Tanking Guide. The truth is, this particular entry is probably long overdue thanks to the raid content that Cataclysm has provided. As a result, I'm duty-bound to wax lyrical about the fact that warriors don't just tank and lead guilds. They also deal damage. And when a full 50% of the normal mode bosses can be safely completed with just a single tank, it's more likely than ever that you're going to be asked to play DPS.

So, dearest readers, here it is - your humble author presents his Guide to the Arms Warrior in Cataclysm.

First of all, I'll explain why I play Arms. Basically, it's both competitive and fun. I never really enjoyed Fury, not at any point in the game, because it's always "felt" a little mindless and lacking in methodology. I laughed at Ghostcrawler's description of the Fury warrior turning up late, half-clothed and drunk because that's how I've always seen them. On the other hand, I retain my borderline-OCD weapon collection and even have a seperate bank space for it so that my weapons are not contaminated by other, more mundane, hoardings.

There is another, more group related, reason for playing Arms. In raid content when you're only doing it occasionally, it's much easier to gear up for. The hit rating cap is fixed at an achievable level, while being slightly under the expertise cap isn't as bad as it would be for Fury.

So what does Arms bring to the table that Fury doesn't?

For me, it simply has a higher level of flexibility with only a small sacrifice in raw damage to pay for it. Planting and maintaining sunders is just as easy as it is in Fury, with better access to on-demand burst, crowd control and AoE damage potential. You're also bringing the Blood Frenzy buff, which is far rarer than you'd think. Granted, the Mortal Strike reduction in healing is far less worthwhile than its previous incarnations, but it's still a "nice-to-have" quirk that the Arms warrior gets passively.

As for playstyle, it's (for me) just an absolute country mile ahead. No frustrating "rage waits", an ever-available filler in the form of Slam and a more consistent rotation with which to construct your DPS in. While Arms remains a priority system, it's a far more fluid one thanks to the gaming potential of Overpower, the judgement on getting the most out of your Sudden Death procs and the rotation crutch that is Slam.

So, here's my spec.

As is always the case, many people will wonder just why I chose to leave out Incite for things like Blood and Thunder or Piercing Howl. Naturally, the answer is simple; Heroic Strike use is largely confined to periods of Battle Trance, while the added functionality of Piercing Howl and Blood and Thunder gives the Arms warrior that little X-Factor that can make him more useful than merely providing more damage. Yes, those points in Incite will unquestionably result in more single-target damage. But truthfully, I like the higher multitude of options provided by my own choices.

Stats and constructing a "rotation"

This is slightly simplified, but you'll get the idea overall. Strength is your best stat as an Arms warrior, indeed as any plate DPS. After that, you want your 8% cap for hit rating and in or around 23/24 expertise at least. Due to the way Overpower works, hitting the big two-six for expertise isn't as important as it is for other melee specs but you should still go for it so long as you're not throwing away other stats to get there. Once there, you're looking at critical strike rating, mastery rating and then finally, your only junk stat, haste. Reforging off mastery and haste for hit, expertise or crit is a good place to start, thus saving your gems and enchantments for strength and critical strike rating.

Like most DPS specs, there is no longer a set rotation to worry about; just a priority list. At the top of it is Colossus Smash, while your bottom run is Slam. Essentially, starting with Charge is a good bet for three reasons; fast gap closure, some initial rage to work with, and the critical strike buff to your first Mortal Strike. Once in range, get your Rend off and then hit Colossus Smash - you're now under way. Mortal Strike will now land with the critical strike bonus, as well as bypassing all armour and giving your first stack of Lambs to the Slaughter. After that, you're looking at Overpower and then Slam before your next Mortal Strike.

Always prioritize Mortal Strike and avoid Slam unless nothing else is available. Use your Slam hits to instead refresh Rend and Colossus Smash if required, while also taking care not to waste Sudden Death procs by using Colossus Smash again while the armour debuff is still up from a previous swing. Lastly during your normal rotation, try to avoid refreshing Rend while the Colossus Smash debuff is up, as even another Slam will net you more DPS.

The main Arms cooldown is Battle Trance, and its impact can be loosely refined to your ability to use Heroic Strike. Arms warrior opening threat is a menace to tanks, as it's common to use all of your cooldowns at the start of a pull. This means that a possible five attacks are hammering in without any armour to cushion them, and I'm not even including trinkets or the effects of Juggernaut. As a result, you'll soon learn the benefit of counting to five. :)

And that's it for now. I'm no Arms expert; that much is obvious. But I play the spec relatively competitively, and really enjoy doing so when given the chance. I recommend the maintenance of a DPS spec in this content if you can safely assume you won't always be tanking, and Arms ticks all the boxes for me.

But how about you guys? Have you played DPS this expansion at all and, if so, have you tried Arms? What's your experience with it and how much fun are you having?

Answers on a postcard, please. o/

An alternative solution for LFD.

A lot of the furore surrounding Blizzard's latest hair-brained scheme to address tank shortages in LFD has concentrated on the problems arising from the idea. While this type of analysis is all very well, it's easy to sneer from the passenger seat when you have nothing else to offer. It's my hope in this musing to provide an alternative solution to the tank shortage, while also addressing a large amount of the toxicity that revolves around using the dungeon finder. First and foremost, however, it's worth having a look at what the dungeon finder is supposed to do with the help of Bashiok:

"It's the intent of the Dungeon Finder as a tool to always present the most relevant content".

"... a tool which has a purpose to provide quick matching to facilitate progression".

I almost always enjoy Bashiok's offerings, as they tend to be both informative and witty. He (she?) also seems to inherently understand the developer thinking behind their decisions, and can honestly assess them with the community as his audience. This mix of often maniacal charm with blunt commentary gives us a rather perceptive look into what Blizzard expects the LFD tool to do.

To provide the fastest possible grouping within a level appropriate dungeon, where there are worthwhile rewards.

Nowhere in the description of LFD, neither in this pithy comment from Bashiok or from any other official source, does it state that the dungeon finder is designed to find well balanced groups, capable of working together to get through difficult five-man content. Unfortunately, that is EXACTLY what a tank is looking for when he signs up for a heroic that he doesn't outgear to the point of triviality. He wants the best group to help him, not the quickest group, and this is where the problem starts.

The LFD tool is not viable for heroic content because it cannot look for the most important factors.

Normal levelling dungeons, even level 85 ones, only need to account for the basics of character level and a crude gearscore mechanism - they're so easy they'll be completed with just a tank and a healer. Heroic dungeons, on the other hand, call for an awful lot more than that (good talent choices, well itemized gear, viable CC for the dungeon etc) and the dungeon finder doesn't filter for it whatsoever.

So, why exactly is the LFD available for the construction of heroic groups at all?

We can return to Bashiok for the answer; he talks about "relevant content" to "facilitate progression". That might seem like a swept up answer, but it doesn't explain what is meant by either "relevant" or "progression". To me, something is relevant when there is a good chance of success, not something that is almost entirely dependent on chance. And to me, progression should happen when individual players are ready for it between the chair and the screen, NOT when some arbitrary number says that their gear is ready. And I'm sorry, but expecting random players who are never going to run into each other again to routinely behave contributively is hopelessly naive. If you don't believe me, the proof is in the pudding.

Now, the erudite amongst you will have noticed that I have neglected to say anything that is exclusive to tanks. That's because the LFD tool is populated by THREE roles and not just one. No good player joining the queue, regardless of the role they play, is free of the concerns I'm discussing. And all too often in these discussions, the top quality healers and DPS are forgotten when descriptions of absolute asswipery are shared.

The most amazing act of skill I've witnessed in LFD wasn't one of my own, despite me being a tank; it was a warlock who killed four Stonecore mobs on his own after the group wiped due to the elemental AoE. He survived with Drain Life, and then proceeded to kill the mobs individually with intelligent use of Banish, Seduce, Fear and mega-kitage using Curse of Exhaustion.

Potentially rewarding bad players at the expense of better ones who carry them, is one of the most monumentally poor ideas I've ever heard, yet that's exactly what Blizzard is planning. Dishing out a goodie bag to someone purely by virtue of their role is the utter antithesis of "bring the player, not the class". What a tank wants when he joins the queue is a relatively high chance of success, in an instance that he can control. That was the case in Northrend, hence the LFD tool worked. It is not the case in Cataclysm, hence the LFD tool not working.

As far as I can see, if Blizzard want the Cataclysm LFD to work better for everyone, they have three options:

1) Make heroic dungeons easier. When you cannot possibly account for group makeup, group skill level, or what dungeon the group gets, you have to make all of the dungeons universally easier so as to accommodate. This was how it worked in WotLK, but we were promised a change in Cataclysm. This is a retrograde step that would cause an outcry.

2) Make the LFD tool more sophisticated. Ensure that it does not assign heroic Stonecore to a group with four warriors and a Holy paladin. Make sure badly itemized characters are grouped with strongly itemized ones to compensate. Ensure viable CC is in every group. This would lengthen queue times, but hopefully improve success rates as the trade.

3) Remove heroic instances from the dungeon finder altogether. Make heroic dungeons on the same difficulty as raids, while installing level-cap dungeons as the natural stepping stone into tier content; heroic dungeons should then provide the same rewards as raids. This is refining the superior dungeon model seen in The Burning Crusade.

Followers of my blog, or those who know me relatively well, will inherently know that I prefer option three; The Burning Crusade remains the pinnacle of PvE design as far as concerns me, but I appreciate its flaws and how Blizzard has tried to solve them. Not only would this step remove the horror show of trying to complete hard content with random, bad and difficult players in LFD, it would allow for faster raid preparation in the same way farming Tempest Keep instances used to during the GAP*. In addition, it would return the LFD tool to a state where the chances of success increase and more tanks would be willing to queue up to run with random players they likely won't come across again.

As always, many people will like this idea and many more will despise it. Some reasons will be good, others will be bad. But it's yet another piece that I submit to the developers of my favourite game in the hope that it will at least be considered as a viable alternative for running instances. I suppose the point of all this is to encourage people to view it in the same way I did by asking themselves what they'd do to solve the problem.

So there you have it.

What WOULD you do?

* The Golden Age of PvE.

Revitalising the "World" of Warcraft.

Very short post today, merely a quick pointer to something that definitely requires your attention if you haven't already seen it. It's a post on the WoW Europe forums from a hunter named Dergas, and it talks about why the world has become dead and suggests some ideas for recreating it.

There are a couple of troll posts, but the vast majority of people have appreciated the OP and given their own ideas; many of which are very, VERY good.

It's rare when I come across something on the official WoW forums that pleases me, and this is the first time I've ever linked such a post on my blog - that's how good it is, and I cannot stress enough that you should read the entirety of the OP's offering as well as all of the commentary after it.

Here it is for your reading pleasure.

I suppose the only downside to this post is that it's on the European forums and, therefore, far less likely to actually get any developer attention. But such is life - that's why I recommend everyone try to put this particular contribution in as many places as possible.

"Call to Arms".

Much like the RealID fiasco, the tinterwebz have been ablaze with commentary about Blizzard's new idea for LFD, "Call to Arms". If you haven't read it, the basic idea come 4.1 is to reward tanks with a goodie bag at the end of a heroic instance that they queued for, alone, using LFD. Said goodie bag will contain the following:

- Some more gold.
- A high chance at a gem or flask.
- A medium chance at a non-combat pet.
- A small chance at a dungeon ground mount (Deathcharger, Ravenlord, White Hawkstrider).

I'm ignoring the wording of the announcement which fudges around the "least represented role" because I think everyone knows that it's designed to get more tanks in the queue. The question, however, isn't simply a case of whether it'll work or not. The real question comes in two parts.

Will it make more tanks queue Versus will it improve the LFD tool?

The reason I've used the word versus is specifically because the respective answers are "yes" and "no". What's worrying, however, is that the questions are mutually inclusive; this idea is going to encourage inexperienced or bad tanks that will exponentially worsen the LFD experience for everyone else. This possibility has already been eloquently discussed by Kadomi and I won't comment further on it here.

Another point that's worth being borne in mind has also been made by the Aggronaut. Basically, it discusses what the LFD tool was designed to do and what the result was. Your humble author shall provide a resume for you because he's kind. The LFD tool was designed to allow people to farm their Frost emblems as quickly as possible, in content that wasn't remotely challenging. It did so at a point in the content where you were almost guaranteed to get an overgeared tank or healer that could cover for just about any mistake you made. In short, timing and intent worked in tandem to provide a tool that was very successful in what it was designed for. Communication was utterly unnecessary as every pull mirrored the last.

Fast forward to a world where very few people are going to be overgeared, accompanied by content that doesn't allow tanks or healers to make up for the mistakes of others. The icing on this particular bun is a significant percentage of kleptomaniacal players in the queue who are impatient, difficult, obnoxious and rude.

I've mentioned in previous writing the logistical reason tanks aren't queuing; Valor Points have less value than Frost Emblems did. You cannot purchase better gear than you can get in raids (which 10 man tanks used to get), while reputation grinds also yield high gearing rewards. We can then include crafted epics, a liberal sprinkling of BoE's found on the auction house and the ludicrous cap on the Justice Point total that your Valor Points are destined to become. Oh, yeah - I almost forgot the raiders who hit their weekly cap through tier 11 success and, therefore, don't queue, either.

The problem as I see it, therefore, is two fold: a bad community and bad value of rewards. What is most frustrating is that Blizzard can attend to both of these issues, yet choose to address neither. Instead, they haphazardly try to deal with the effects instead of the causes in a particularly adept impersonation of Great British government. To those of rational mind, the causes are obvious - and that's what makes the proposed solution so utterly baffling.

Incidentally, it's about to get a whole lot worse in 4.1 for two reasons.

1) Tanks will do their seven heroics in a burst with guild/friends, making them less numerous at any other given time.

OR

2) The tanks that DO simplify current heroic dungeons through gear may well solely queue for Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub.

So to be clear; Blizzard have identified a tank shortage in the LFD queue. They then try to alleviate the problem by encouraging tanks to queue with baubles, but miss the fact that their solution is actually going to increase the reason people don't queue (are impatient DPS players really expected to improve their attitude with a dose of crap tanks?). In the next step, they make the problem worse by encouraging the tanks they want to queue to just stack their dungeons over a weekend with guildies and friends. All of this is laden with a backdrop of insignificant reward for potentially significant hassle.

My last complaint is a personal one - namely, I'd like to know why I'm being ostracised for attempting to build up my server community. When I queue for a heroic, I always ask to pick people up in trade before hitting the button. It's rare when I don't get a full group and they're usually more pleasant as there are repercussions to being an absolute dolt while in the instance. So why am I NOT going to get the spurious reward for encouraging the server cooperation that the game is crying out for? And further, why are the excellent healers who constantly save a bad tank not up for a reward? Why are the excellent DPS who use all their tricks to cover several bad pulls not up for a reward? Yes, there are some horrible players out there; but not doffing your hat to those who do try to make the LFD a better place for everyone, regardless of role, is as big a slap in the face as you can give them.

Confused? You should be. After all, the direction from the top is hopelessly confused. And unfortunately, it's yet another example of the muddled thinking from a development team that is clearly floundering in the absence of those who've departed to work on project Titan.

The current team had better start actually listening to their players, or they'll end up with no players at all.

Here's hoping.

Protection warrior, LF Guild

Yep, Zell the tank is guildless again. Over a month since leaving Kilrogg, and the path ahead just isn't as clear as it was before. I want to thank Emelia from The Flaming Ruby, as well as other members of the guild, for generally making me feel welcome throughout my time here; all told I'd say it was a positive experience and it grieves me to leave a raid after becoming an intrinsic part of it. Unfortunately, as it always is with these things, certain policies became unpalatable and it was time to move on. I wish them all the best of luck with the rest of Cataclysm.

But where does that leave me? Honestly, I'm not sure. For the second time in less than two months Zell has found himself homeless. Both of these times have been by choice, but for vastly different reasons. While I had to escape the oppression of tell-Hell leadership before I burned out entirely, I also gave up a lot of what I loved about the game for something I believed I wanted more. Did I make a mistake? I don't think so. But the largely passive route to raid success doesn't suit me entirely either, purely because I tend to like having the capacity to change things that don't work. I suppose the biggest frustration is not really knowing which priority comes first. Maybe if lady luck had just shone a little differently, I'd be in a different situation and feel totally differently.

At time of writing (though I enjoy raiding, socialising and role-playing) I can't shake a feeling that hit me very hard in April '10. I suspect for many people in my WoW generation, that same feeling still plagues them and shaking it is part of what is pulling them down in Cataclysm. Maybe my feeling has nothing to do with it and I'm speculating badly. But a year ago, almost to the day, the culmination of hard work from a very special set of people resulted in the fall of the Lich King - and I've never felt the same about WoW since then.

I think that was the date that I completed the game. I know that sounds ludicrous in a world with constantly evolving content, but that's how it feels to me. Arthas was the quintessential end boss in a game such as this - a character that spanned Blizzard's entire Warcraft history, transcended Horde and Alliance and was one of the best known and interesting characters in gaming history. Not only that, he was the first accessible end boss for a large part of the playerbase and was a very challenging encounter that tested everyone in the group.

All of this, of course, needs to include two facts:

1) My journey to Arthas can only be repeated. Questing through the new zones, farming up reputations, clearing tier raids to prepare for the next one, levelling an alt to support the work and finally defeating the end boss of the expansion. I'm just not sure I feel the same way about doing it again for Deathwing.

2) The Arthas kill was shared with a very important group of people. Not only were they long-term guild mates, WoW players and friends - that raid added up to more than the sum of its parts. The core group of Angelsky, Zack, Flamefury, Tarokan, Arabisan, Jernau, Pawny, Rottvomit and Roarzol was VERY special.

Am I looking for a new goal in WoW? Am I looking for that "feeling" when with a certain group again? Who knows. Maybe my disappointment comes from my failing to make it work with a new guild and this is the inevitable emotional fall out; I wouldn't really know because I've never been in this situation before. All I can say for certain is that I'm not sure which direction I'm going to pull in this morning, and it's hard to be objective when most of the issues I have are personal and can't be applied across the board.

As you can imagine, I'll be posting about it when I do know. I suppose I'm swinging toward an entirely new guild project, one that captures everything that was good about the Eye of Nerzhul but also incorporates the lessons learned from my time in The Flaming Ruby. I confess to looking at where the possibilities lie because, despite feeling like I completed the game in Icecrown Citadel, I still feel as though I have some unfinished business in WoW - something to do that I never really done.

As all, I'll keep you posted. And if you see Zellvirae running around Stormwind looking destitute, don't hesitate to toss her a couple of gold. She IS homeless, after all.