Questing and Multiboxing. A Match Made in Heaven

With the realization that my ToW enables me to kill mobs 4-5 levels above me with ease, I started looking at quests again. I started by searching Thottbot for armor, that comes from quests, that's blue quality, and has +spell damage on it, and only in an item level range of 48-58. (click here for the same search.) Note, that item level and "required level" are completely different.

Once I find something I like, I follow the quest chain back, and get my boys moving! Last night I found the Royal Highmark Vestments, cloth, I know, but a great upgrade that would look great too. :) I was pleased to discover the quest chain was the "Poison Bottles" chain from Hinterlands. It's a fairly long chain that takes you to Zul'Farrak eventually, and finally back to the Hinterlands where you summon a "Spider God".

I remember loving this quest because the spider you summon at the end, is the size of a small building. It's freak'n huge.

(I never miss an opportunity to light up the bottom of a Zeppelin with my Disco Totems.)

So I gathered up the guys, ran the quest chain, and got to Zul'Farrak. I was in and out of there in less than 10 mins. I'm telling you, the ToW is just insane. I love being able to run just about any quest in game I want, and never need to get a group together.

The chain came to a rather anti-climatic end, as the "Giant Spider God" was summoned, and came out of the water. He was tiny. No bigger, if not smaller than the regular spiders all over the Troll area where you summon. I was so bummed. As it turns out, the Devs "fixed" his size quite a while ago... ah well.

I did however get my robes, and the boys are looking good.

Those with sharp eyes, or links to the Armory will notice the TTs are sporting the Helm of Exile, which is a quest reward you get from downing Jammal'an the Prophet in the Sunken Temple! I also finished the lvl50 Shaman quest, and got my Enamored Water Spirit which when used properly, is keeping all 5 Shaman topped off most of the time.

So as it turns out, questing may not give me the xp I get from grinding Instances, but the rewards are wonderful!

I'll post some pics and details of my trip to the Sunken Temple tomorrow.

Boom

Ding! (50)

As you likely noticed in the previous post, I chose to move forward, and dinged into the 50s! (if you cheat, and check the armory today, you'll see my boys are already 51 and on their way to 52.)

Totem of Wrath was totally worth it. Last night I took my boys to Maraudon, without Boom. Just the Shaman... and I TOTALED the place. Even the Princess, who is IMMUNE to Nature Damage. I'll write about that later this week.

I also used the ToW to take the kids to the Temple of Atal'Hakkar. (aka: The Sunken Temple) I tried to complete the level 50 Shaman quest, at level 50, without a tank or healer. I'll tell you about that too, in another post.

WOOT!

Boom

What will the Totem of Wrath do?

After posting the previous article about the Totem of Wrath, I realized I had done some bad math. But instead of simply changing the math in the post, I figured I could use the opportunity to talk about, and hopefully explain the difference between Melee and Caster damage, crit and hit.

First, lets talk briefly about melee. When you attack something in WoW, the server has to decide the outcome of that attack. Assuming you're attacking from the front, and hitting with a melee weapon, you have 8 possible outcomes:

1. Miss
2. Dodge
3. Parry
4. Glancing Blow (only players and pets versus mobs)
5. Block
6. Critical
7. Crushing Blow (only mobs versus players and pets)
8. ordinary hit

/phew.

Blizzard chose (wisely) to utilize an "Attack Table" to determine what happens when you attack with a melee weapon. This is how it works:

For the sake of keeping it simple, we're only going to talk about Hit, Miss and Crit.

Lets say we have a 5% chance to miss, and a 10% chance to crit. The server will then create an Attack table with every possible outcome on it, then roll a single random number. Whatever that number lands on, is what happens.

Lets illustrate it. Below we have a table of 100 possibilites. 5 Boxes are colored to Miss, 10 boxes for Crit, and the rest to hit.

After the server rolls a random number between 0 and 1, and gets .79, it would be like hitting the #79 box on our chart, and scoring a normal "Hit". The reason this is important to know, is so you understand how +Crit and +Hit items work for Melee players.

If you put on a hat with +1% to Crit, the new crit box REPLACES a HIT box. So the change looks like this:

+1% to Crit
-1% to Hit
+0% to Miss

You're chance to miss stays the same, while your chance to get a normal hit is lowered to match your new chance to get a crit.

However, if you put on a hat with +1% to Hit, the new Hit box REPLACES a MISS box.

+0% to Crit
+1% to Hit
-1% to Miss

Now for the pain-in-the-neck part. Melee and Spells are handled COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

When you cast a spell, there can only be 3 outcomes. Hit, Miss, or Crit. No dodging, perry, crushing, etc. That's not a big deal. The real difference is the Attack Table. There isn't one. (note: After a hit/crit is landed, resist is calculated, which can lower the damage, but that's another conversation.)

Spells are actually handled with TWO rolls. First to see if you hit, then to see if you crit. This sucks. Why? Because my current 6% chance to crit is really only 6% of the times I hit, and I don't hit all the time. So my 6% is really 5.64% when I have a 94% chance to hit.

Now on to the part about my math being wrong in my last post. I want to warn you that this is going to get very nerdy, so if you don't care about numbers, skip the rest of this post, and just know that having 5 Totems of Wrath is worth alot more to me than I thought, as it's value goes up significantly when I'm fighting mobs 3 levels above me, as I am in instances and questing.

When I first posted my numbers, they were based on fighting an equal level opponent. This is what it looked like:

(I'm assuming 100 casts, each doing 100 damage base, while crits do 200 because of talents)

First, my toons with their current 6% crit.

Before against equal mobs
6 (miss) 0
88.36 (hit) 8,836
5.64 (crit) 1,128

Total 9,964

ToW against equal mobs
1 (miss) 0
78.21 (hit) 7,821
20.79 (crit) 4,158

Total 11,979

This equates to a 20.2% increase


You see, I only had a 6% chance to miss in the first place, so adding +15 Hit can't improve things by anymore than 5% due to the cap of 1% chance to miss. You can't do better than that. But when I go up against a mob 3 levels above me, this all changes. Because I start with a 17% chance to miss, so the ToW drops that to 2%!


Before against 3+ mobs
17 (miss) 0
78.02 (hit) 7,800
4.98 (crit) 996

Total 8,796

ToW against 3+ mobs
2 (miss)
77.42 (hit) 7,742
20.58 (crit) 4,116

Total 11,858

A dps increase of 34.8%!!!

Blizzard keeps you in "level" check, by using the hit/miss mechanic. If you try to quest too high, you miss too much to be effective. 5xToW fixes that. There's no reason I can't do level 54 quests right now, and get full quest xp! (sometimes up to 11k xp per turn in) All because of one little talent point. WOOT!

So to sum up, the ToW is a nice stackable totem, and helps alot against equal level mobs, but the further you go up in mob levels, the more return you get.

Boom

To Ding, or Not to Ding

Alright here's the thing.

My guys are all 49, and about 10 mins from 50. I stopped running quests in Felwood just before I rolled over, and went back to the battlegrounds.

I had another great night of pvp, and decided I liked AB better. I won my first match (WOOT!) then lost the second because I had 4 (FOUR!!) Oooglers following me around on their mounts taking screenshots. It was painful.

But I'm starting to feel like there's not alot more to gain from pvping in the 40s. I got each of my boys their Battle Healer's Cloak from Warsong, and they're about half way to their Insignia of the Horde pvp trinkets. But there's something special dragging me closer to 50. The Totem of Wrath.

The Totem of Wrath:
Summons a Totem of Wrath with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the chance to hit and critically strike with spells by 3% for all party members within 20 yards. Lasts 2 min.

If you're read my Stackable Totems Guide, you already know why this little totem is so desireable. IT STACKS.

That's right... the 3% Crit and 3% Hit is applied to each member of my party, PER ToW I drop. Therefore, when I drop all 5, each Shaman will gain 15% Crit and 15% Hit. Just typing that makes me want to quit my job, get home and level to 50 asap.

Lets talk about just how good that is. First, lets focus on the +Hit. If you take a look at this Spell Hit Chart I grabbed from WoWwiki, you'll notice we have an inherent chance to miss of 4% when fighting either players or mobs our own level.

Seeing as I quest and raid against mobs up to 3 levels above me, my chance to hit them with my spells is dropped to 83%. So by dropping 5 Totems of Wrath, I've instantly moved them to a 98% chance to hit. Bam. That equals DPS kids, pure and simple.

Then there's the crit. My guys are all hovering around 6% chance to crit with "decent" blue gear for their level. The ToW will put them all at 21% instantly. After doing a bunch of really ugly math I'm sure you don't want to see, I came up with these numbers.

The increased hit and crit, will add 21% damage to my group. That's like adding a 6th Shaman. That's nuts. Just from one little talent point. And that's not all.

Each of my Shaman have a Talent called Elemental Focus. The description reads:

After landing a critical strike with a Fire, Frost, or Nature
damage spell, you enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next 2 damage spells by 40%.

So with crit going from 6% to 21%, I'll have Clearcasting up more often, reducing the cost of my spells. After some more ugly math, I figured out that I'll essentially gain nearly 20% more mana on my Shaman.

So you see why it's so tempting to roll over to 50? 21% damage and 20% mana. I'll be storming Mauradon in no time. Up to this point I haven't been able to get past the first boss without Boom. But this would mean no more PvP for a while. Then again, AV becomes available at 51... oh man I am SO going to level when I get home.

Think I'm making a good choice?

Boom

Struggling to Multibox in Battlegrounds

A few days ago I told you all about my first real attempt at Battlegrounds since the disaster in the teens. I mentioned that my first WSG was a rousing success, and that I couldn't wait to go back in.

I've since run around 10 more matches... and have yet to win again.

First off, I'm a good player. I don't claim to be the best of anything, but I feel I can safely say "I know what I'm doing". I was a successful FPS (First Person Shooter) player and I held spots on several respected Counter Strike teams. WoW PvP, being significantly easier than FPS, is very within my range of ability, and I truly enjoy it. Multiboxing however, is taking time to learn.

Rarely are you picked out by the entire other team and rushed over an over when you play one toon. Once you're playing 5, you are SO worth it. :)

But there have been other issues. The "oogling effect", where players simply stay mounted and follow you around to take screenshots. It's terrible. Because the rest of the players blame me for them not helping.

Then when one of your toons die, you can sometimes spend alot of time recovering, trying to get your toons back in a group.

I was also victim to the terrible "Fear Bomb". As a multiboxer, FBs are your worst enemy. Demending on which directions your guys run, and how fast, you may never recover. As Shaman, we have two defenses to this.

1. Always have a Tremor Totem or two on the ground to break fear as soon as it hits.
2. Use your PvP trinkets.

The PvP trinkets are seriously expensive (2000+ Honor) which is easy to farm at 60, but takes much longer at 48. So my guys don't have the Honor to buy them just yet. The Tremor Totems have GOT to be a hotkey. And for whatever lazy reason, I still haven't set that up. I have them in my Totem dropping macro, but when you see a Priest or Warlock rushing you, you may not have 6 seconds to cycle through all your totems.

So tonight I'll put Tremor Totem on my Nostromo in a slot of it's own... then again, maybe I just need two different Totem macros.. one for Tremor and Grounding Totems (my panic defenses), and one for the rest. That way I can switch up the order as needed, and still only take up two slots... yeah. I dig that. I'll let you know how it goes. (can you tell I type as I think?) :)

Anyways, as I said, I did terrible. I tried to get a group of 5 buddies from my guild to come with me, but there just are not enough players who have lvl 40ish toons sitting around. There's not a whole lot of reason to keep a toon in the 40s.

Dispite the hate tells, I persevered. I kept going back in, and kept modifying my macros. It was tough to keep going, but I wanted to pvp.

Last night I decided to queue up for Arathi Basin, to see if my pvp improvements would show up where they failed me before. I was pleasently surprised. I took some advice I got on the forums over at Dual-Boxing, and I spoke before the match started. Here's what I said:

"Hey all. I'm multiboxing 5 Shaman. I'm new to this, so I may make mistakes, and I apologize ahead of time. Just hollar and tell me where you need me."

I was suddenly surrounded by players, saying "Cool!" "Holy crap check this out!" and even a "Don't worry about it bud, you'll get better. Just keep trying!". I was shocked. With this new team behind me, I set out and had a GREAT match. I was playing significantly better than I did before.

After taking the Mill myself from 4 other toons, they decided to rush my guys. But this time I was ready. I managed totems, I kept Bloodfury and Elemental Mastery up, I targeted the right players, and my boys only died once each the whole match. It was incredible.

I was multibox/pvping. I found my groove and was feeling success. We actually ended up losing the match, but only by... wait for it... ONE TICK. (10 points. 2000/1990) It was a fantastic game and great fun.

I unfortunately had two "Oooglers", which didn't help. So I did alot of traveling to keep up with the Alliance surge. Several of their players were either pissed, or just found it fasinating to attack me. After I'd swoop down and take the Mine from 3 players, they'd come back with 4 or 5, over and over, no matter how many times I'd kill them all. (I had a helper)

They kept trying new strategies, but I'd simply adapt. After they gave up, I ended up traveling around to find the action.

The point of this post is to encourage you. First off, avoid the BGs till the 40s. Second, avoid the BGs unless you have excellent blue gear on all your toons. (carebearing will do this for you.) Last of all, don't let the jerks discourage you, like they did me. Stick with it, and get in as many matches as you can. You'll figure it all out eventually, and when you come out, you'll be shocked by how easy PvE is. :)

Boom

Blizz Cast Episode One Online! (blizzcast)

The very first episode of "Blizz Cast" (blizzcast), the official Blizzard audio podcast, was released today. It starts with an excellent interview with Samwise Didier, one of my favorite Blizzard artist. He's currently the Art Director and Concept Artist at Blizz. The Transcript includes several examples of his artwork.



After the interview, Drysc (Community Manager for US forums) and Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan (Blizzard Lead Designer) both discuss the next (and assumed final before WotLK) patch, 2.4 featuring the Sunwell Plateau Raid Instance. SP will include a new, top end 25 man raiding instance, as well as a 5 man instance.

Click the image above to listen in, read the transcript or to see some of the new screenshots.

I can quit anytime I want.

I swear. I can. Look at that pic... what's in the middle of all that WoW crap... that's right... a pic of me and my beautiful girlfriend. HAH! Told you I'm not addicted. Multiboxing is a totally normal addiction...

Boom

Edit: WAIT! Not addiction! I meant to say it's a totally normal addiction. /phew