Raiding: The Temple of Atal'Hakkar

Long before TBC was released, Blizzard decided to use a new class based reward series to encourage players to head to the swamp, and explore The Temple of Atal’Hakkar, more affectionately known as The Sunken Temple. The quests series becomes available to each class once you hit level 50, and is given by one of your trainers.

Each class has to venture deep within The Sunken Temple, and kill a series of bosses. Once complete, they each have a unique choice of rewards to choose from, that won't be found anywhere else. For some classes, the items are all quickly replaced by gear found in the lvl 58-60 dungeons. But a few end up with a reward that can still be seen in use at 70. The Shamans fall into the second group.

The Shaman's Quest is called Da Voodoo, and considered a level 52D quest. (The D means you'll need a group to head into an dungeon/instance) There are a series of 6 Troll mini-bosses that must be killed, and a feather collected from each one.

While two of the three reward options are simply "nice" gear for a level 50, (Azurite Fists, Wildstaff) it's the third option that nearly every educated Shaman grabs... The Enamored Water Spirit.

This trinket, when used, acts exactly like a normal Water Totem. It even takes up your Water Totem spot, and will be wiped out immediately if you drop another Water Totem.

The thing that makes this special, is that the mana it gives you is more than double that of a Mana Spring Totem at that level, and still nearly 30% more than a Mana Spring Totem at level 70. The difference of course is that A: it takes up a trinket slot, and B: it only lasts for 24 seconds then has a 3min cooldown.

For any Shaman, this is obviously a very valuable item to have. For a multiboxer playing five Shaman, it's priceless.

I'm working on changing my healing totem macro to have my 4 alts drop their Enamored Water Spirit instead of a healing totem every 4th use. The reason I don't use my main, is becuase of the cooldown. Up till now, when I drop healing/mana totems, my main drops the Mana Spring Totem, while the other four each drop a Healing Stream Totem. I do this because the Healing Totems stack, while the Mana doesn't. By rotating a Water Spirit Totem through each of my 4 alts, I end up losing a healing stream, but gain significantly more mana.

The other issue is the short lifespan of the Enamored Water Spirit which ends up going away before a fight is over. So I keep dropping a normal Mana Spring Totem, which last 2 mins. So when the Water spirit dies 24 secs into the fight, the Mana Spring takes over until I drop totems again. It works great, and my mana issues are gone. I can just about chain pull (no CL pun intended) :) through instances.

So it's obvious why I'd want to get these ASAP. So when the boys all hit 50, I grabbed the quest, and headed directly to The Sunken Temple to see if I could survive in there with 5 Elemental Shaman, and no dedicated healer or tank.

Holy cow was that fun.

My very first pull was of a pair of lvl 48 Elites, who both died before they got to my group. I actually LOL'd. (Is there an acronym for that? Something like "ALOL!") I proceeded quickly upstairs to try and drop the 6 Troll Mini-bosses I needed to finish my Shaman quest.

The hallways are filled with fairly large groups of mobs, which make for some crazy pulls. There are also one or two pathers, who love to throw their wrench into things if you don't keep good tabs on them. Each group included 3-5 Elites and 4-5 non-elites. That's a big pull. What eventually worked best, was to isolate the different groups.

We have 3 types to worry about. Elite Melee, Elite Casters and non-elites (all melee). The casters are the easiest to handle. They die last. Why? Because of the irreplaceable Grounding Totems. They give each of my Shaman a buff, which acts as a diversion for spells. When one of the caster mobs sends fireball (or any other spell) towards one of my guys, the spell gets rerouted to a Grounding Totem, and kills the totem instead of hitting a Shaman.

The beautiful thing about this, is that if the two casters target the same fella, and cast at the same time, (which mobs do) then both spells can be eaten by a single totem. With five of these on the ground, they can pretty much empty their mana bars into totems. When their misdirected spells wipe out 4 of my 5 totems, I simply drop a new set.

The non-elites are easily diverted too. I drop a pile of Stoneclaw Totems which keep them busy long enough for me to kill the Elite Melee mobs. After I drop all my totems, I focus on the first Elite Melee, and send 5 Lightning Bolts their way. (I can't use Chain Lightning, or it will grab too much agro from the non-elites, and they end up ignoring the Stoneclaw Totems) At this level, a second volley will likely drop them. So a pull goes like this:

1. Drop Totems
2. Target Elite Melee 1
3. Channel Lightning Bolt (the Bolts start off towards the mobs)
   
4. Soon as they cast and head towards the mob, channel a second Lightning Bolt
5. As soon as the second channel starts, select the second Elite Melee. (There is a delay between the time my main selects a target, and the time when my alts can /assist that target, so I have to change targets ahead of time.)
6. By the time the first Lightning Bolts hit the first Elite Melee, and pulls the group, I /assist my main, and each Shaman has the second Elite Melee targeted.
7. The second volley heads off towards the first Elite Melee, and I start casting on the second Elite Melee even before a mob gets to my group.
8. The Elites die, I wipe out the non-elites with either CLs or maybe five Magma Totems
9. Then finally I fire off at the Elite Casters, who at this point are still trying to cast at my Shamans, only to have their spells eaten by the Grounding Totems.

This worked amazingly well.



I quickly found myself peeking around a corner at the first miniboss. I was pretty nervous about this. I had no idea how hard he would be. So I filled the tiny hallway with twenty totems, popped EM and BF, then sent a storm of lightning his way.

He dropped before he got to the group. I ALOL'd.



I worked my way to all 6 Trolls and got the items I needed to finish my Shaman quest, but I was WAY too hyped up to go turn it in. I wanted to see how far I could get! So I headed to the basement to trigger the 6 Snake statues, and fight my next ST Boss, Atal'alarion. He dropped quickly too, and I figured I needed to head upstairs and fight something bigger.

I found my way to the Draconian area, where the pulls include swarms of Whelplings and a few Dragonkin. The first pull was a wakeup call. These guys hit hard, and I didn't have a tank. I lost two Shaman on my first pull, but survived. I changed up my strategy a bit, and found dumping Chain Lightning into the elites after pulling the whelplings, helped up the DPS.

I had a quest to kill Jammal'an the Prophet, and I really wanted to see if I could pull it off. The groups of Trolls that guard his room are notorious for fearing groups of pugs into other groups, and quickly wiping everyone. Knowing this, I first started pulling them all the way into the previous room, which is a tactic used by most experienced players... but I noticed really quickly that I was killing them really fast.

So instead, I stayed in the room I pulled them from, kept a Tremor Totem up just in case, and ended up DPSing them down before they could fear. It was great fun.

I was nervous about fighting Jammal'an, because the other bosses up to this point were "mini-bosses", which this was the real deal. I read strategies on him, and discovered the Troll that pulls with him (a second boss) is a caster. /evilgrin

So I dropped a pile of Grounding Totems for the add, and proceeded to down Jammal'an the Prophet before he even got to us. Beautiful.



After that I continued on towards the final boss, but found myself facing 4 of his Dragon minions, who turned out to be immune to Nature Damage. This means no lightning bolts, no chain lightning, no earth shock. All I have is Flame Shock, and some fire totems. It was terrible. I wiped many, MANY times while I worked out position, spells, etc. But eventually I made Shade of Eranikus.

Eranikus hits very hard. VERY hard. But I hoped I could DPS him down before he got to my group. I dropped the totems, fired up the boys and woke the sleeping Dragon. He was immune to Nature. He hurt us. He hurt us like he was enjoying it. I think I saw him smile.



I decided that was enough, was thrilled to get this far on my own, and called it a day. The only boss I didn't face was Hakkar, only because you have to do a quest before hand to summon him, and I've yet to do it. Ah well, I'll be back.

Boom

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.