Elitist Jerks - Public Discussion

Elitist Jerks - Public Discussion http://elitistjerks.com Post and discuss WoW-related things pertaining to subjects of shared interest. Worthless posts will be pruned and worthless posters will be banned. en-US Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:14:56 GMT vBulletin 60 http://elitistjerks.com/images/chestnut/misc/rss.jpg Elitist Jerks - Public Discussion http://elitistjerks.com <![CDATA[Icecrown Citadel "Gating" system]]> http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t81612-icecrown_citadel_gating_system/new-post.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:59:56 GMT Posted earlier on the forums:

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. We want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we're now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, we wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point we can't give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I'll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish.

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So, they are keeping the gated system for ICC, which was expected, but not in the "several weeks" portion that they are saying. In thoery, Arthas and hard modes won't be available for 2-3 months after the patch (Phase 1, several weeks wait, P2, several weeks, P3, several weeks, Arthas).

And then they are tying tries against the bosses even on normal mode now. I could see that on hard mode, but on easy mode also? But also they are taking away the rewards for killing with 0 tries lost. That makes no sense.

How is this a good thing? ]]> Public Discussion Thrawnseg http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t81612-icecrown_citadel_gating_system/ Raid DPS by class/spec http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t81169-raid_dps_class_spec/new-post.html Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:13:21 GMT I often find myself trying to get my head wrapped around the numbers of wow. To me there's something calming about crunching numbers, maybe it's because 1+1 will always be two. Anyways, Recently I was in a "heated conversation" with some friends over class dps outputs, which left me searching the log sites to see what classes are doing what damage in TOC 25 both normal and heroic.

I saw these numbers, and couldn’t help but feel as though they can’t be right, and with the way the systems work, it'd be very easy to "pad your stats" as it were, given they record raw damage, not raw damage done under normal play. What I mean by this is it felt as though a lot of them were logs posted of fights where people were throwing extra dots on trash, or factoring in AoE on fights like Jaraxxus. We all know that spreadsheets will tell you x class in y gear will do z dps, but they don't take into account the human factor, and are at best, your dps to strive for but with the complexity of fights are often unrealistic goals.

That said, I thought to bring this question to the minds of all reaches of the game, top raiding guilds, and "we do it for fun" alike. Assuming ideal raid synergy, every buff, every debuff, what do you find the average top dps to be within a raid? Do you find the numbers at the bottom of the post to be a fair assessment of the current contents "top tier dps" for their classes, or just an overly inflated average thrown off by people's own desire to be number one? Using EJ's own logs and Premonition's last posted log as a comparison, these numbers seem to be way off, yet most I see are similar. Keeping in mind these assume best gear, or near best gear, for ALL members.

Code:

DK Unholy 10643

Mage Arcane 9698

Warrior Fury 9069

Mage Fire 9000

Rogue Combat 8977

Hunter Marks 8862

Paladin 8734

Feral 8377

DK Blood 8192

Warlock Destr 8026

Rogue Assas 7953

Hunter Surv 7903

DK Frost 7807

Elemental 7772

Warrior Arms 7703

Moonkin 7672

Priest 7624

Enhance 7493

Warlock Demon 6989

Rogue Sub 6857

Warlock Afflic 6486

Hunter Beast 4830

Mage Frost 3295

]]> Public Discussion misada http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t81169-raid_dps_class_spec/