PvP Gear for PvEers - Can You? More Importantly, Should You?

We recently had a moonkin apply to our guild.  As our resident moonkin, I decided to look at his gear and saw several problems from not being enchanted and gemmed.  However, one of the things that I noticed was that he had two pieces of PvP gear.  I asked him a question about using PvP gear in the PvE environment.  One of my guild members thought this would be a great blog as to could you use PvP gear in a PvE setting.

First off, can you use PvP gear in PvE raids?  Yes, you can do it.  It makes your Gear Score look good and gets you into raids with a higher Gear Score for people who think that is important.  However, does it improve your output.  That is where I would like to look at what you get between pieces.  I'll start with two moonkin pieces and then also include an example of two pieces of mage gear.

Now, a note of warning.  I'm only talking about DPS and healers.  Some of the best tanking equipment is PvP because of the high stamina and high resilience.  I think the BiS tanking weapon for feral druids is the highest arena staff.  Since tanks need stamina and resilience, they may actually wants some PvP gear.

One thing that is always good to remember with gear is what I call the rule of addition/subtraction.  For Blizzard to put a certain stat on a piece of gear, they must take away other stats to balance the gear.  You will see that this holds true for both of the examples I'm going to be talking about.  It is also the explanation as to why you shouldn't take PvP gear into a PvE setting.

Let's start with the moonkin example.

Lasherweave Trousers vs Relentless Gladiator's Wyrmhide Legguards

Both of these pieces of gear are iLevel 251, so they are equivalent pieces of gear for both PvE and PvP.  Lets start with the base stats.  If you use the PvP gear, you have the following differences between the 251 T10 gear:

Resilience = + 96

Stamina = + 56

Intellect = - 36

Critical Strike Rating = - 16

Hit Rating = - 80

PvP gear is heavily reliant on resilience and stamina.  However, to add that to equivalent PvE gear, they have to take away three important stats from the gear, which is intellect, critical strike rating, and hit.  In addition, the big difference is you could be missing out on the set bonuses from the 251 PvE gear for two or four pieces.  You can see how much you are sacrificing if you use PvP gear instead of PvE gear.

Now that we have seen the moonkin, let us also look at the mage gear.  This is an example that I personally looked at because I have both pieces of this from lucky VoA drops.
   
Bloodmage Leggings vs Relentless Gladiator's Silk Trousers   

Looking at just the stats between the two pieces of gear, he is what you gain and lose using PvP gear over PvE gear.

Resilience = + 96

Stamina = + 56

Intellect = - 36

Critical Strike Rating = - 16

Hit Rating = - 80

First off, you may notice the gains/losses are the same as with the moonkin gear.  This shows that Blizzard follows a very similar pattern between balancing gear between PvP and PvE.  If you add stamina and resilience, you have to take away more important stats for PvE.

So, all this analysis means one thing.  You can use PvP gear in a PvE setting, but someone who has equivalent PvE gear will likely give greater DPS output then someone who is in the equivalent PvP gear.  And if your applying to a guild, you probably should try to get the best PvE gear you can.

I know a lot has come out this weekend about changes in Cataclysm and hopefully, I will be able to get those sooner rather than later.  I may even try to post a new blog this afternoon with those changes.

WoW Personalities and How to Deal With Them

In every aspect of your life, you have to deal and handle with several personality types.  At work, there are people I get along with great.  There are others that I could slap and not think twice about it and have no bad feelings about doing it.

However, some people think that since WoW is an online game about killing dragons and evil lich kings that everybody is a type A personality, with a push ahead attitude.  And while I think a lot of players have this mentality, there are some who don't.  Everybody plays this game for a different reason.  I wanted to take this post to kind of describe the different mentalities I have run across in WoW and how to deal with them when conflicts arise.  I'm gonna start with the most Type A personality and move down to the most Type B.
For definition purposes, Type A personalities are more of the aggressive while Type B tend to be more of a passive, subdued personality.

1) Narcissistic Asshole 

This is a player who knows he is incredible at this game and he makes sure you know how awesome he is and if you question it, he will be offended and tell you how much better he is than you.  I'm sure you have seen this in PUGs.  This is the guy who post damage meters after every single fight when he knows he is on top and he wants to drive home how great he is.  Making progress and killing bosses is secondary.  He could do it if he wasn't with all of these losers.  The best way to handle this type is to try to redirect his focus from himself to the task at hand.  He may not do it.  If he becomes disruptive, you can choose not to take him in your raids or never PUG with him again.

2) Focused Leader - This personality type is a person who plays the game well and has a focus on getting the job to be done.  He may appear to come across as an asshole at times, but he sees everything as an end to a goal.  He may put the goal above his own or your personal feelings.   These players are the players who make great raid leaders.  If you mess up, they will tell you that you messed up.  Sometimes, this can be very vocal.  This is not a terrible thing but some of the more type B personalities may see it as such.  If you are in conflict with this personality, the best thing to do is to try to take it at face value.  It is not that he really doesn't care about you, he is focused on the completion of a goal.

3) Caring Leader - This personality is still driven to a goal.  They play the game incredibly well and remains focused. However, they are also the ones who can also understand the type B personalities more.  Whereas the focused leader puts the goal above people, the caring leader puts the people equals with the goal.  This is the personality where you see most good GMs come in at.  They are the ones who you can always talk to about issues that you have.  To be honest, you will very rarely find yourself in conflict with this personality mainly because they realize that good people are needed to reach the goal and they want to try to build it as much as possible.

4) Consistent Player - This is where I think most WoW gamers fall.  They play the game well.  They know their class inside and out.  They are focused on a specific goal.  They work well with both the focused and caring leader.  They are not easily offended, they can take criticism, and they can give helpful criticism when necessary.  However, they also realize that at times, things are more important than the goal.   They understand the more type B personality and can even defend them when it seems the goal is being put ahead of the people.  This is also what makes them shy away from more leadership roles due the possibility of offending people.  They are happy showing up for raids and getting the job done.  The people who conflict most with this personality type is the very top and bottom.  The narcissistic asshole grind on them because of their annoyance.  The passive player annoys them because they make no attempt to become better.  They want the happy medium.

5) Sensitive Player - This is the player who can play their class well and understands the basics of the game.  However, when the focused leader puts the goal first over them, they tend to become offended.  These players are needed in every group.  You can't just have a group of focused leaders because the ones who aren't the actual leaders become the narcissistic assholes over time trying to prove themselves.  On the other hand, you can't have just sensitive players or you will get people who are not as motivated to reach a goal.  If you are in conflict with a sensitive player, you have to just be open to their point of view.  Don't belittle or mock their point of view.  Just accept it.  Tell them you understand where they are coming from but we need to head towards this goal.

6) Passive Player - This player plays with no intention of getting better.  They believe that they do what they do and you have to accept them for who they are or you are out of luck.  If you try to help them, they call you an elitist jerk.  They just want to play.  These can be almost as annoying as the narcissistic asshole, however, they come from two very different areas.  They say that if you don't take them for what they are, then you are cliquish, etc.  If you are in conflict with a passive player, you have to be corrective but be positive.  Don't tell them they suck and they will never get better.  It won't help them out at all.  Help them out by actually being positive.  With this type of player, tell them they are doing good, but we want to make you better.  If they won't accept the instruction, then be honest and tell them that they may not raid with you.

Most of the time, most people will fall into one of these molds.  Yes, you may have moments of being in one of the other areas.  I can't tell you how many AN I have been booted from after I warned people not to bug the second boss, they do it anyway, and we all die and then I start on a narcissistic assholian rant.  (I don't know if assholian is a word, but I'm creating it now.)  I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well as some of the other personalities you run across in WoW.   

    

Cataclysm Druid Changes - My Possible Moonkin Build

MMO Champion has released the previews of the druid talents for Cataclysm.  Now, I am not a theorycrafter by any stretch, but I'm going to pretend I'm one today by taking a guess as to what the end game moonkin raiding spec will be.  I will try to do one tomorrow for feral tank druids and try to come up with options.  Here is what I'm looking at right now.

It is a 63/0/13 talent build right now.  Here is my rundown of the talents:

Balance Talents

Starlight Wrath (5/5) - Reduces the cast time of Wrath and Starfire.  I think this will be a necessary talent since casting those more quickly will allow us to build lunar or solar power.

Genesis (5/5) - Increases DoT damage by 5%, which is pretty substantial for our Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and Faerie Fire.

Nature's Majesty (2/2) - Increases the critical strike damage by 4% for Starfire, Wrath, and Starfall, which will be incredibly good and important to hit whatever the new Lunar Crit Cap will be.

Improved Moonfire (2/2) - Increases the direct damage of Moonfire by 10%.  Again, more damage for one of our bigger DoT spells.  Plus, the DoT is determined by the upfront damage of the Moonfire.

Nature's Grace (3/3) - Essentially, Wrath and Starfire crits increase spell casting speed.  Very helpful, especially if you are at the Lunar Crit Cap and every spell cast is a crit.

Solar Beam (1/1) - Our first new talent ability.  However, I think this is more of a PvP talent versus a PvE talent,  but, you will need this to get one of the talents further down the tree.

Nature's Reach (2/2) - Increases our max range, which is essential for PvE fights to stay at max range.

Nature's Splendor (1/1) - Increases our main DoTs length.

Brambles (3/3) - Main thing is it increases your treants damage dealt.  Stunning probably won't do much in a PvE enviroment but that ability is there.

Starsurge (1/1) - This is my current favorite description for a talent.  "It fuses the power of the sun and moon."  Yes, it does.  We are badass like that.  This is a direct damage spell which I'm thinking will become part of our rotation.  The "knocking down" sounds again like a more PvP part of the ability, but it will have some function in PvE as a ranged stun maybe.

Vengeance (5/5) - Increases the critical strike damage bonus by 100% for our most used spells.  In other words, big crits.

Dreamstate (3/3) - Now, normally, I would say not to take any mana saving abilities in a tree since 25 mans tend to not have issues with mana.  However, I would take this talent because of the ability it leads to further down the tree, which will be necessary.

Gale Winds (2/2)  - This is where some of the variable points start.  If you are mana starved in a raid, you could move these points to Moonglow.  However, this just increases your AoE damage done with hurricane.  Since Typhoon is not a major source of damage, increasing it a little might help, but not much.

Lunar Guidance (3/3) - This is why you took Solar Beam and Starsurge to begin with.  While increasing the range of the Solar Beam may not be much use in PvE, having the 15 additional lunar or solar power while casting Starsurge is huge.  This will help us hit our Eclipses quicker as well.

Balance of Power (2/2) - This is our conversion from spirit to hit that we needed in order to use resto gear as our main gear.  100% of our spirit will be converted into hit.

Moonkin Form (1/1) - Duh, this is our crit chicken, our boomkin, our form.  Take it.

Improved Moonkin Form (3/3) - Increase all party members haste by 5%.  Pretty handy since our DoTs will be determined by our haste and crit rating.

Euphoria (2/2) - This is how we will change from Lunar Eclipse to Solar Eclipse really quickly. Starfire crits will equal 8 solar power and Wrath  crits will equal 4 lunar energy.  This makes sense since our Wrath cast are traditionally quicker than our Starfire cast.  Also, when we hit an eclipse, we get 12% of our mana back.  That is huge.

Owlkin Frenzy (3/3) - Damage increased by 10% when damage is done to you.  Not to shabby.

Wrath of Cenarius (3/3) - Increases Moonfire's DoT damage by 8% and can stack while we are moving.  This will help us not to lose as much DPS as when we are on the move since we can refresh it and allow it to stack up to 3 times.

Improved Eclipse (3/3) - Another tool to help us get to Eclipses faster by increasing the amount of Lunar and Solar energy we gain by 30%.  Plus, if we are damaged with a critical hit, we gain Lunar or Solar Energy.

Typhoon (1/1) - Our good old Typhoon spell.  Of course, you should pick it up.

Force of Nature (1/1) - Also, our good old treants.  Pick these up as well.

Earth and Moon (3/3) - Since we cast Wrath and Starfire all the time, this equates to a 8% more damage increase on the mob and a 6% increase in our spell damage that we dish out.

Fungal Growth (2/2) - This was a tough call.  Most 25 man raids have hunters who can frost trap which is essentially the same as this.  This turns our treants and Wild Mushroom into basically hunter traps.  The difference is you get three traps with the treants and can lay Wild Mushroom down pretty regularly.  Again, if you are extremely mana starved, you could probably transfer these points to Moonglow.

Starfall (1/1) - Our face melting, world ending, 51 point talent.  Take it.  You'll love it.

Feral Talents

I don't see any feral talents worth taking as a moonkin.  Just skip this tree.

Restoration Talents

Blessing of the Grove (2/2) - Increases the direct damage of your Moonfire by 6%.  Remember, higher direct damage on Moonfire = higher DoT damage.

Furor (5/5) - Increases our intellect in moonkin form by 10%.  This will directly increase our spellpower due to the new mechanics of intellect.  Plus, we will get some more mana back from Dreamstate.

Natural Shapeshifter (3/3) - Reduces mana cost for shapeshifting and opens up the Master Shapeshifter talent, which is more important.

Omen of Clarity (1/1)  - Pretty much the same use as now.  Makes your next cast free.  You probably still will be able to proc this by casting Gift of the Wild.

Master Shapeshifter (2/2) - Increases spell damage by 4%.  More damage = higher DPS, which is always win.

So this is my idea of what the basic moonkin raiding spec will be.  What are you opinions on this spec?  Do you think some of the abilities will not be as needed?  Do you think that mana management will be more of an issue than before?  I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this.

World of Warcraft Premium Subscription - An Idea for Blizzard

I don't know if this is more Blizzard or Activision, but it seems more and more services are becoming premium pay for services.  From the remote AH app to talk of paying for extra character slots, there seems to be a lot of things people are paying for.  Is there a market for it?  Most likely, yes.  When you have the number one MMORPG in the entire world, there is likely someone who will pay for this.  Just like paying $25 for a horse.  However, I would like to pitch and idea to Blizzard on how to make this and more services available that would encompass all of this and make people feel like they are getting a value.  I call it the World of Warcraft Premium Subscription.  Here is my idea of what it would include:

1) Remote Armory/AH App Service - $36 value per year
2) Additional Character Slots - $5 value per year
3) Free In Game Pet Once a Year from Blizzard Store (No Plushy) - $10 value per year
4) Free Rename/Look Change Once a Year - $10 value per year
5) Free WoW Magazine Subscription - $40 per year

You could charge an additional $10 per month to the current WoW subscription and nobody would argue about this and you would seem like you are not screwing the community to death with $3 here and $10 here and $5 here.  Plus, you still make about $20 profit per premium subscription.  You could even reduce the price to $9 per month and still make money per premium subscription.  If you made it $5 and ate some of the cost for the app, in game pet, and rename, that would be even better. 

Plus, you can do some cool things outside of the subscription for premium members, like an extra Blizzcon ticket sale just for premium members (how many people would you get signed up for that alone) or a meetup at Blizzcon for premium members where you get to meet the Blizzard developers.  It does not cost you any more money and lets you give some additional benefits to those who would support your game through a premium subscription fee. 

Podcast and Gaming Music - What's on My Zune!

That's right.  I said it.  I have a Zune.  I have an iPad for my internet browsing and a Zune for my music listening.  I hold no alliances.

In a more serious blogging note, I am trying to find something until I can time to sit at my gaming computer and write the gear with Emblems of Triumph or  lower for mages, moonkins, and feral tanks for new level 80s.  However, until I have access for all of that, I decided to go through some of my favorite podcast as well as some of my gaming music while I'm raiding/playing WoW.  Let me start with podcasts.

PODCASTS

Bind on Equip - This has become the first podcast I listen to as soon as it updates.  It is incredibly informative and is a lot of fun to listen to.  I also enjoy the spots where they put in cash sponsor's names into pre-made commercial slots.  They also do something that a lot of WoW podcast do not do and they bring what is going on in their actual lives, not just their WoW characters.

The Instance - This is one of the first WoW podcast that I have ever listened to.  I still enjoy it to this day.  I will say that their content has gotten a little blue as of late, which has made me enjoy it a little more.

Raid Warning - Fair warning:  Do not go to this show for WoW content.  Yes, they have some WoW content, but it is stuff you will hear elsewhere.  They have two great things going for them.  One, the class round tables are incredible to listen to.  Second, the hosts get drunk and some of the funniest stuff comes out of their mouths.  And sometimes, in to their mouths.  Also, this was started in the Totally Rad Guild, so I heard about this one before most people ever heard of it.

Outlandish - Funny podcast again.  The music parodies rival any of the best WoW parodies you probably have ever heard.  The add on commercials are awesome.  The 3.5 segments are incredible, even if they get absurd at times. 

Weekend Confirmed - This is my one non-WoW podcast that I listen to and this goes back to my love for 1UP Yours.   

MUSIC

Most of the time, I just turn my Zune Desktop Player to shuffle and let it keep going.  However, there are a few albums I will listen start to finish while I'm raiding.  Here is my list without any commentary because everybody is going to have different music taste.

The Platinum Collection by Queen
Greatest Hits by Survivor
The Very Best of Meat Loaf by Meat Loaf
The Wall by Pink Floyd
Greatest Hits by Boston
Greatest Hits by Guns N' Roses 

This is by no means a complete list of my favorite music, but these are some of the highlights.   What are some of your favorite music/podcast to listen to.  I'm a classic rock fan, so I tend to go that way, but I'm sure people have some of their favorites as well.

Updated Eclipse Mechanic - My Thoughts on Stuff Unknown

I usually don't do a lot of pure speculation post, but I'm gonna try on this one.  We know that the Eclipse mechanic is changing in Cataclysm to a bar that tells whether you are closer to the lunar eclipse or the solar eclipse.  If you cast nature spells, it moves you closer to the lunar eclipse.  If you cast arcane spells, you move closer to the solar eclipse.  Here is how I'm thinking some of this maybe useful, if it does work like I think it will work.

1) Loading Lunar Eclipse before a boss - I do not know if the bar will reset after each fight, but if it does not, this could make for an interesting mechanic.  On trash, you would have more incentive to use Wrath versus ever using Starfire.  Also, Hurricane is our most used trash mechanic, which is also a nature spell.  I could see where you use nature spells to get yourself into the lunar eclipse state so that you can have full lunar eclipse right at the start of the boss fight.  In other words, you are talking about increasing our burst DPS greatly at the start of a fight.  This in turn may lead to the second thing, which is...

2) Moonkins More of a Threat in PvP - As if Starfall wasn't enough, if you can front load your Lunar Eclipse and can bust out with 25k + crits of Starfire right at the beginning of PvP, you are talking huge up front burst damage.   Of course, they will break this for arenas by resetting your bar at the beginning of arena fights.

3) Moving Less of a DPS Loss - Nothing hurts me more than getting in a fight like Festergut and just as my Lunar Eclipse procs, I have to move to a spore.  I know because that means that at best, I will be able to reapply my Insect Swarm and my Moonfire, but no huge Starfire crits.  With this new mechanic, it moves it away from a strict timer to something that can be used over time.

4) Nature's Torrent Will Be Used When The Bar is in the Middle - From what they have said of this spell, it sounds like it is going to push the bar, one way or the other.  This is the thing that I hope will give us more variety.  If we can't front load our Lunar Eclipse, I could see where after we apply Faerie Fire and DoTs, our next spell will be Nature's Torrent.  This will move the bar one way or the other and tell us which to start casting.

5) Degradation Over Time - I can't imagine that they will let us stay at one state for any longer than about a minute.  I can imagine that after a minute, the bar will return to the middle if no action has taken place.  We can still front load Lunar Eclipse if we are fast, but it won't be forever.  The longer before it returns to the middle, the better for us moonkins.

6) Eclipse at Level 10 - This is honestly the most exciting thing for me.  While I'm sure moonkin form will still be down the talent tree, if somebody puts points into Balance at level 10, they get Eclipse immediately.  It will be interesting to see how the mastery system will affect Eclipse.  My guess is that higher mastery will give higher crit chances on Eclipse or increase your haste.

So what are you thoughts on the new Eclipse mechanic?  I am very optimistic for what Cataclysm will bring to the moonkins in the game.  And, Blizzard, please don't take away our owl form.  Don't do to us what you did to the trees. 

Golf and WoW - Is It Possible?

Over this Memorial Day weekend, I actually got to go play two rounds of golf with my family, one on Friday and one on Saturday.  I am not an expert by any stretch.  In fact, I shot a 60......on the front 9.  If you know anything about golf, par for the entire course is 72 usually. 

However, I am very good at video game golf.  I have always loved the Hot Shots series as well as the Tiger Woods Golf Games.  So when I heard the news that the goblins are building a golf course in Azshara, it got me thinking on all the fun things that could be done with a World of Warcraft golf mini-game.  Think of all the possibilities.

1)  Gambling - Get a few friends together and place a bet of 100 gold per hole and make it like a skins game.  That would be an awesome way to have some legitimate gambling in WoW. 

2) Engineering - I could definitely see rocket powered golf balls that could drive the distance of a par 4.  Or a club that added extra power to your swing.  Or a parachute golf ball that will open at the height of the arc and travel down slowly.

3) Tournaments for Pets/Mounts - They could put on tournaments like the fishing tourney where the winner would get an incredible prize, like a pet or a mount. 

4) Ganking/World PvP - Wouldn't it be awesome if the golf course was a kind of world PvP where you had to gain control of the golf course and then you have 3 hours to play golf.  In addition, you would be open on the golf course.  Couldn't you see a rogue using a seven iron to fight off a ganker.  They could even make golf clubs as actual weapons.

5) Golf Cart Races - When I was younger, this is what would get me in trouble at the golf course.  My friends would race the golf carts around the course.  I could see the golf course having golf carts that come equipped with weapons, etc.

This is one of the best ideas I think that have come to the game in a while and if they implement World of Warcraft golf, it would be something fresh and new to do in the game.

Later this week, I'm going to be writing a blog on  how to get almost all your gear for mages and moonkins before you step foot into your first raid and I will be throwing up my recommended pre-raid, emblem only, gear.

Also, I mentioned this on my Twitter feed, but Redhawk's Gaze got a mention on Bind on Equip by Wemb.  I wanted to thank the show for talking about the blog.  I would highly recommend checking out that podcast.  It is one of the best podcast on the internet and one of the few podcast that I listen to about WoW.