New Meditation completely changes everything

So now that it's blue confirmed that Meditation is getting buffed to twice its prior effectiveness, to the point of getting back to the days of 3 piece tier 2 set bonus, I honestly don't know what to say. I mean, thanks. It's an enormous buff for me. I stack spirit like it's cool. During some raid boss fights, I've had 700 spirit. 700 spirit gives me 438 mana every 5 seconds outside of the FSR. With the old meditation, this gave me 66 MP5. Now with the new meditation, I'll get an additional 66 MP5, without being nerfed in any other way.

66 MP5 in the FSR. I average 60% of my time in the FSR. Over a 10 minute fight (Nightbane), this means I am now getting an extra 4752 mana during the fight. O. M. G.

I think a lot of the problem is that most priests liked to pretend that they were paladins. They stacked their MP5 and spammed Greater Heal Rank 1. Now, that might actually be feasible. Having close to 300 MP5, now I can spam a lower rank heal for a much longer time. Especially if I'm smart about using my Clearcasts and Bangle. This means wonders for us priests in PVE. Druids will be getting a similar buff, and shamans will be buffing their groups with an additional 20 mp5.

So the question is, why? We all know that paladin healing is somewhat OPed with their uncanny ability to spam heals on a target and never go OOM. Even in PVP, they can keep healing long after they are oom, just due to their mp5 regen and their heal efficiency. So I understand the need to equalize. But what will this mean for us priests, druids, and shamans? Will they actually use us in PVE 25 man raids now for anything other than shadow?

An interesting thought though. Now that spirit will likely come back in fashion, and dwarves/draenai are getting their fear ward distributed, are humans the ultimate PVE priests? We get desperate prayer for in a pinch, we get fear ward every 3 minutes, and we have the 10% passive spirit bonus. How about them apples.

Do all you priests who rerolled dwarves for fear ward, I pity you now. You had your fun. Now is my time.

New Patch sooner than we think?

I found this post on worldofming.com, which I read regularly. Although none of these are official, I think you'll agree that it's kinda crazy.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=1365.0

Fear ward for all?
Pain Suppression targettable?
Mana regen much higher for priests and druids?
Enhancement shaman and ret pally buffs?
33% of your +healing becomes +damage?
Soulwell for mage food/water?
Blind is a physical effect?
Shadowstep usable outside of stealth?

All this and more!

If they do this for Fear Ward, I will cry tears of joy. Paladins can tank Nightbane! Big Bad Wolf won't be a little bitch because of a bad fear. Warlocks might actually die in PVP!

The +healing to damage conversion is crazy too. I have around 1300 +healing in PVP. Having a static +433 damage because of that? Insanity. In PVE, it's around 1750....does that mean my shadow word pain will actually be worth casting?

It will be interesting to see which of these items makes it to the official patch notes and which ones don't.

Lots to Talk About

Just wanted to take some notes here about some things that I thought about tonight

1. You'd think that a patch worked on for around 8 weeks would have fewer issues than those rushed into production.

2. Running Karazhan with a new main tank, a new offtank, less than preferred healing, and random lag/DC/UI issues made for a slow start. Thanks to everyone who stuck around and worked hard to get to that backdoor tonight.

3. Running PVP with a frost mage is so much more fun than running with a hunter. Unfortunately for Gully, if anything focused on him, we were usually just about done. I couldn't deal with crowd control, silences, counterspells, and the healing debuffs. With a frost mage, namely Yimii, it made things incredibly easy for me. I was always focused. The fight was determined almost always in the first minute of the fight. If I was alive after a minute, we usually won (except for the viper stinging hunter/priest combo). We ended up winning more than we lost, and I think that our synergy wasn't even all that great, because I'm used to being a healbot. Now if I respecced to a more PVP oriented spec like 28/33/0, we'd do even better. More damage, more longevity, and less likely to be burst.

4. Azi has issued a challenge to bring your best dueling spec and he'll video tape it. SO tempting to go something like 41/20/0. Dueling spec, here I come. You aren't ready for this Azi. Bring it.

5. 2v2 with a good warrior would be fun too. Cmon Azi, lets do it! Also fun.....battleground PVP as a warrior/priest team running around. Can't wait to find a night to do that too.

6. Gruul is tomorrow. If we one shot Maulgar and Gruul both, we're headed into The Eye or SSC. Bring your A-game, and lets pwn those noobs.

Spell / Ability Rotations

OK. How did I determine what abilities I should use on the Dr. Boom test? Well what I used to do was say "how much damage does an ability do over it's course of time." For example, unstable affliction did 1600 damage over 18 seconds. But this doesn't truly give an accurate total for how DPS should go. So what I did was, I compared how much damage each spell did per CAST TIME and ranked them.

Here's how my list looked:
Curse of Doom
Unstable Affliction
Corruption
Siphon Life
Immolate
Shadowbolt

So, when I was doing Dr. Boom, I treated my DOTs as if they had a cooldown equal to their duration. I went down the list and cast each spell once. Then I spammed Shadowbolt (with a Lifetap tossed in here and there) until the DOTs faded. Then I reapplied each one. You treat every spell individually and consider your options. If the target has Curse of Doom, Unstable Affliction, Corruption, and Immolate on him, then I cast Siphon Life. In doing so, I ensured that I always used my highest DPS ability at any given moment.

Hunters can do the same thing. They need to determine which ability hits the hardest. Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Multishot, and Steady Shot. And go from the highest DPS to the lowest.

Alarion: Concerning your fire mage, if you have improved scorch you obviously want to keep 5 stacks up as much as you can. Once you have the 5 stacks, see which hits harder....scorch or fireball (damage per second that is) and then use that spell. Since your highest DPS spell is not on a cooldown, then that's what you should use all the time. Mages are easy. Rubix has a decent arcane spell rotation that's a little different, but most fire/frost mages spam one spell the whole time.

Give it a try. Check which of your abilities do the most DPS. You'd be surprised sometimes.

How I did that much DPS

So before I did any amount of DPS with my warlock on Dr. Boom, I projected to myself that I would really love to break 500 DPS. This is not only because this is how much you should have to be able to beat Gruul, but because it just seemed like it shouldn't be able to happen.

I look at combat logs every time we run Karazhan and Gruul's Lair. I can see exactly what everyone's performance in there was. For the most part, new people in Karazhan are doing around 300-350 DPS. By the time 2-3 weeks go by, I've talked to them about their specs, and they've gotten some brand new shiny epics. Their DPS usually goes up to around 400 once they do that.

Finally, once I talk to them about spell rotation. Now THAT's when they start hitting around 500ish DPS, which is enough for Gruul.

So you're telling me that with greens and quest item blues I can do over 500 DPS? Can I get a starting position in Gruul? Hold your horses. There's a lot to take into account.

1. My hit rating is 22. I missed on Dr. Boom around....once. Maybe twice. My miss rate on Dr. Boom would be close to 15%. Goodbye 15% of that 563. That means 478 DPS.

2. Then you have to take into account the periods of silences. On average, I've seen a mage be hitting him 75% - 80% of the time. Now warlocks would have more of that time casting, since we could be casting DOTs. However, I'm going to go with a loss of another 20%, simply because while you're being ground slammed, you can still be dotting him up. Loss of 20% means 383 DPS. Ewww.

But wait you say. What about shadow priests? What about curse of shadows? Hmm. Misery = 5% increase. Shadow weaving = 10% increase. Curse of Shadows = 10% increase. 25% increase worst case if a shadow priest and another warlock is there. So we're back to around 478 DPS.

Now guaranteed, I'm missing something. It's quite likely that with only 490 spell damage, I shouldn't be able to do that kinda of damage on Gruul. However, it's fun to speculate. :-D

So how did I figure out my spell rotation for my warlock? I'm going to explain my method here tomorrow, which also applied to hunters as well. So if you're a lock or a hunter, you'd best listen up. This will help you immensely (just ask Pat).

The results are in, and....

The answer is.....*drum roll please*

563.

http://wowwebstats.com/phv6ibgrnpyrc?m

And here's the link.

I was totally surprised.

And I can't talk too long....gonna be a long day. But tomorrow will be a summary post.

See you then!

The Answer is...

Well, should I say it? Only 2 people commented.

We needs more comments before I reveal the true answer!

Just as a note about Azi and Bootz's guesses....wow you guys really have a lot of faith in me. Yes my spec is focused on raiding, but have you seen my gear? 490 +damage! To put this into perspective, Patricles has over 1000 shadow damage.

Pat and I went up to the ole Dr. Boom to play around and see what spells did more/less damage. By the time we were done, we had learned a lot about a warlock spell rotation and what it should look like.

One note, my DPS was really good on Dr. Boom, because he was a level 70 mob. My +hit rating is 22. On Gruul, my DPS would go down by around 14%. Kinda crazy, but true. (Also, Curse of Shadows and shadow priest buffs would be up, but you also have moving around to do.)

Guess you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out how I did. Bet you can't wait.

More guesses!

Also tomorrow, I'll post on what I think is probably the best way to determine what abilities you should use for DPS, especially if you're a hunter or a warlock.

Guess the DPS

OK, so I've been wondering what a poorly geared warlock can achieve on the Dr. Boom test. So I took my very own Tokanius. Check out his armory for his gear, buffs, and talents. And tell me how you think I should do DPS wise.

Note that I'm not saying how I should do in Gruul or in a raid situation. I'm saying on the Dr. Boom test itself. During the Dr. Boom test, you are allowed to engage at ranged, and you take no damage whatsoever. Thus, a warlock can lifetap to nothing and bandage without consequences.

Go ahead...I'd like to see what people think before I post my wow web stats link.

Serious guesses please. I'll give you a hint...it was greater than 100, and smaller than 1000. :-D

Karazhan: The Good and the Bad

I wanted to just summarize what I think is awesome about Karazhan, and what I think is lacking.

Good stuff:

1. The Karazhan bosses are very intertaining. From Moroes, to Maiden, to the Opera events, to Netherspite, to Illhoof, everything is pretty fun. It's much better than the usual tank & spank. Having the need for crowd control, positioning, moving around for survival, it's really a nice change from the ordinary boss fights.

2. The loot ratio. 10 people. 11 bosses. At least 2 pieces of loot per boss (3 from Prince.) This means on average, everyone will be getting 2 items every week (not counting shards of course). Much better than 40 people, 10 bosses, 2 pieces of loot apiece. You're lucky if you get an item in a given week.

3. The ranges of difficulty. To down Attumen, you can handle it with blues from level 70 instances. But by the time you hit Prince and Nightbane, you'd best have an epicced main tank and some well geared healers, as well as having some serious DPS. It really helps people get better over time instead of just smashing heads against a wall.

4. The fights that teach you how to play. Some fights are long regen fights, like Nightbane. Others are "WTF DPS PWNAGE FASTER" like Curator and Moroes. Some are a combination of this, like Prince. Others require survivability and adaptability more than DPS, such as Netherspite and Shade. These are the fights that make you a better player.

The rotten icky bad stuff:

1. The randomness. Not knowing what you'll get for Opera makes preparing a group for it slightly difficult. At least we figured out that you send a naked person in, and once they die you can reset and explain much easier that way. But not only the randomness of the fight choice, but fights like Prince where no one knows if you're going to one shot him, or if you're going to wipe 5 times because the infernals landed on top of you right as you get hit with enfeeble.

2. The ability for a single person to wipe the raid. Obviously if someone dies, it will be tough for the raid to continue. But if someone moves one step to the left or to the right......very different story. Netherspite is like this....Shade is like this. Sometimes lag can mean you twitched your trigger finger, which means a wipe. This can be extremely frustrating.

3. Repeat drops. Seriously. Can someone fix this? Seeing the same stuff from a boss gets old, and it gets old fast.

4. Group makeup. Having a lot of fights where ranged DPS is encouraged gets frustrating, not only for the rogues in the group, but for the group leaders as well. Class balance is great, but not being able to do a fight because you don't have the right group makeup? I understand that you can't win a fight with 5 tanks and 5 healers. But sometimes I wish that the restrictions placed for certain fights (warlocks on Illhoof, warlocks/mages on Oz, paladins on Maiden) were somewhat reduced.

5. Running the same thing for no reward for 4 months. Now this isn't true. It has been very rewarding seeing everyone get their upgrades and usually turn themselves into fantastic players. I admit though, knowing that I won't be getting any loot myself can be frustrating when you're paying for repair bills. Fortunately, we're getting to the point of having plenty of people geared up and ready to take on 25 man content.

Looking forward to moving on beyond Karazhan. Because with a few exceptions, most of the good points of Karazhan apply to SSC. And new content is always more fun.

Why is WoW BC getting old faster?

WoW seems to be going downhill for a lot of people fast. It's funny how the original game took people by storm, and the content lasted forever. People ran Stratholme and Scholomance probably 300 times (at least I did) and it didn't really get that old. Then people ran MC a ton until that started getting old. But people ran the same instances a lot. For some reason, that's just what people did. When they announced the expansion, the big thing was PVP to get the grand marshal gear. Now, in BC, I find myself very indifferent about the different instances. I don't know them like the back of my hand like I knew the level 60 instances. And yet I grow tired of them already.

There could be several reasons for this:

1. It took people a while to truly learn how to play their class, and so they spent more time running instances that slowly got better. Now in BC, people already know what they are doing, so mastering an instance takes no time at all.

2. The only way to get gear that totally made a run EZ-mode was to raid MC, ZG, or AQ20, all of which took a long time to achieve. Here, a few trips into heroics and Karazhan can achieve the same thing. Good gear is more easily accessible as well due to the drastic improvement of BG and arena gear, both of which are more easily acquired due to game-play time instead of learning how to play.

3. The second time around, the game isn't nearly as fun. To a point, doing the same things over and over is unavoidable. At some point, doing the same things, such as dailies and farming, becomes tedious and thus less enjoyable.

4. Fewer changes. There were patches coming out every 1-2 months back then with new content, or changes to a class, etc. We've been sitting on the same patch now for almost 3 months, if not longer. Without new additions or big changes, people get bored easily.

5. Higher expectations. We know how amazing WoW was the first time around. WoW reborn should be 50 times cooler. But remember, the dungeons are shorter, take less time to complete, and it takes less time to obtain good loot. As a result, you don't really grind for a piece of gear forever, quite like waiting 5 months for something out of MC that you really really wanted.

At any rate, I'm afraid that as time goes on, fewer and fewer people will keep interest in the game, and we'll start to lose some quality people. This will not only make raids harder to do, but it will also mean less enjoyment, since these are people we've spent a lot of time playing with.

I continue to play WoW because it's fun. But I do hope that some new content for casual's sake comes along. I look forward to SSC, but I hope that some newer things other than Zul'Aman come along as well. Because for 3-4 other nights in a week that I hop on WoW, running around doing dailies and heroics can get old quickly.

Feel free to comment with your opinions on this subject.

Was I Right? Or Was I Right?

Who called it? we downed Gruul by 7:30 server, and headed over to Mag's Lair. Nice work everyone. It well extremely smoothly, and everyone had a good time. We got some experience in Mag's Lair, which was huge for our progression.

It's a completely different story than our Kara run on Tuesday. That run was very slow moving, and we barely got through some of those bosses.

People may wonder why this is. Here is why. Let's look at our roster from Kara.

Trystery, Murien, Bootz, Wynri, Shaena, Athos, Thanosia, Eraagon, Chloes, Doofis, and Oncoi.

3 of those people weren't with us in Gruul, mostly because either they don't quite have the numbers yet. Thanosia, Athos, and Eraagon aren't quite ready for 25 man content. Some spec tweaking as well as some work on gear will help their causes. It's amazing what a difference that can make though.

I will say this though. The lowest DPS that a DPS class had was 433. That's awesome. That means that we aren't just winning because 5 or 6 people are pulling everyone else along. That means that everyone earned that kill.

In Mag's Lair, things will be a little different. In Gruul's having 6 hunters is a great thing. In Mag's, we're going to need a little more class balance. That's not to say that we can't do it. But having only 1 warrior, 1 rogue, 1 shaman, and 2 mages makes it really hard for interrupts on the shadowbolt volleys and the dark mendings.

There will be a much steeper learning curve on this one. A lot of groups just skip it and head for SSC or The Eye instead. We're on the cusp of SSC guys. Hang in there another week or two.

SSC!

Why aren't we there yet? A few reasons. Obviously we need to down Gruul every week before we can pretend that we belong in there. We've taken some significant steps toward doing this. Namely, Wynri shouldn't take nearly as many crushing blows this week, which should make keeping him up a lot easier. Last week on attempt 2, we had the DPS to down him. Wynri took two crushings in a row, and that was that.

This week, Gruul will die. As long as we get the right turnout. So lets think for a minute about this timetable.

6:00 Pull the mobs before Maulgar.
6:15 Pull Maulgar himself.
6:30 Pull the guards before Gruul.
7:00 Start Gruul
7:30 Gruul is dead
7:45 Head to Magtheridon's Lair or SSC!

We know we can do it. We just need to execute. We need people to show up on time rearing to go. We need that fire in peoples' eyes. Like the night when we downed him. I could tell, we were on a mission. We need that attitude again. We WILL kill him.

A lot of people are getting antsy. They want to see SSC. So do I. Karazhan is old news for me. Been there, done that. We have to move on soon, or we're going to hit that proverbial brick wall of MC soon. This is about when people started to leave because we weren't hitting BWL yet, and we were still grinding out MC. Some people had the gear from MC and didn't need anything else. Others didn't have it yet. If we don't move on soon, I'm afraid we're going to start losing some well geared players. So we need everyone to work hard this week and prepare. Help anyone else who's in your class to make sure they know that Gruul is going down. Do everything you can to make it happen. Attitudes are contagious. Be there at 6:00 ready to pull. We have enough flasks, we don't need the Skyguard event. Lets just get grouped up and kill Maulgar as quickly as we can.

Are you ready? I am. Lets do it!

Gear Taking Etiquette

A lot of the reason people get so ticked off in WoW is because of gear. There are 3 kinds of people in WoW with regards to loot.

1. The Cartmans. Some people call them loot whores. These people will roll on anything that is useful to them, even if it's an upgrade of one stat. This becomes more apparent when the player is a hybrid (druids, shamans, and paladins beware).

2. The Dumbasses. These people don't know anything about what is an upgrade for them, and will roll on things that they don't need, and will pass on things that should be absolutely essential.

3. The Brady's. These people are so nice, that anything, no matter how nice it is, is someone else's until no one else needs it. Even if you're sitting around with a green quest trinket, and the other guys have blue trinkets, you don't really need that trinket.

Everyone probably tends to act like a Cartman or a Brady for the most part. The dumbasses just need to learn what stats are good for them. Taking some time to sit down with them and help them see what they need gear-wise and to learn what is an upgrade and what is not, is essential.

The Cartmans' and the Bradys' are tough eggs to crack sometimes. Put them in the same raid, and all of the Cartmans' will have all of the loot, and the Bradys' will have none. Not a good situation.

Now in playing WoW, you have far more Cartmans' than Bradys. So how do you deal with Cartmans? A smart Cartman (one with Kenny sharing his body) will wait until no one else needs an item before he rolls on it. Now, lets say you're an elemental shaman. If there are no other shamans in the party, you get dibs on anything that drops that hunters don't want. But when it comes to trinkets, rings, necklaces, and cloaks, you have to be more tempered. It takes a long time before you end up with a really nice necklace for all of the roles that you play.

So remember, you have a primary role. If you're a healer, you can roll on any healer loot that is an upgrade. If a DPS item drops, and no one else wants it, roll with any other healers who would want it. Make everyone who could use it roll. If they won't, then it's yours.

Just remember the following things:
1. If you've gotten an item that night, and you keep rolling on stuff, people will start to wonder if you're a team player. Yes it's frustrating rolling on the second best neckpiece and then having the best neckpiece drop. It's part of the game. Just remember that if everyone in your group is part of your team, at least a teammate got it.

2. If you're sporting an epic cloak, and an upgrade drops. And you roll and someone with a green cloak rolls, see what you can do to let them have it. It's an enormous upgrade for them, and it will make the team stronger.

3. Try to take "frequency of use" into context as well. Lets take Murien and myself for example. Murien will once in a while go moonkin or DPS in an instance. No one wants to see me DPS (QQ) so I might as well let Murien have first dibs on DPS gear. It only makes sense.

4. Come prepared as to knowing what you would like to drop. Nothing is more annoying to someone who wants an item than to have to wait 30 more seconds to find out if that would be an upgrade for someone. If you're serious, research the fight. Let there be no surprises. Find out what that proc rate is...find out if it's a true upgrade. If it isn't, then don't roll. If it is, roll big.

Don't forget that not everyone in the group is necessarily reliable. You can't be letting a newcomer have 5 pieces of loot if other people need them. If things drop and no one needs them, no sense in letting them sit there and be sharded. Might as well take it (Burdin and Azi come to mind. They aren't Cartmans, just extremely lucky. Except for Azi; he's still a Cartman, cause he's a fat short guy who yells obscenities.) But remember, these people can hop off of the face of the earth. This is one reason why I let newer people come and roll even if they haven't run with us before. If they have been running with Team Blue, then they are considered a part of the team and thus reliable. As long as the loot is being used by someone in the raid, it's helping the group.

Just try to remember these things when that item drops. People will respect you a lot more if you follow these guidelines. If anyone wants to add their own rules, stick em in the comments. I'll be happy to add them to the list.

Tough Night in Gruul's

OK, everyone who was at Gruul's last night knows that we struggled heavily. Things just felt depressing. I don't think everyone was truly prepared. Yes we had some newer folks, but you'll have that. As we get more people involved in Karazhan and filling spots, you need some newer blood.

New people aside, we had the group to kill him. There are a few mechanics healing and tanking-wise that I'll be helping to work on. DPS on our 2nd attempt was spot on. But for the 3rd and 4th attempts, it felt like a lot of people just weren't really there.

There were a few things beyond our control last night that didn't help things. Around 5-6 people disconnected or had terrible lag during multiple attempts. When you're just barely killing a boss, you can't have that. It's beyond our control though, so it isn't worth worrying about.

But there were a few things going on that needs addressed. I know that if you're reading this, for the most part you all know what needs to go on before a raid. Namely, preparing. If you're going to be late, please park your character. Please make sure that you've repaired and that you have reagents, flasks, potions, food for buffs, and whatever else you need. If everyone had done this, we would have gotten far more than 4 attempts on Gruul.

I'll be mentioning this to several people who didn't really follow these guidelines. It's common courtesy to be prepared. If you're holding 24 other people up, you may not have a spot for very long.

Also, ventrilo etiquette was discussed. I personally have no problems with keeping ventrilo lighthearted and fun. But with 25 people trying to intensely concentrate, chatter needs to be minimized during combat. Azi, I think that you know that your yelling was inapproporate, but you apologized. Apology accepted. You were frustrated, and I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing in your shoes.

I think we all need rejuvenated for that fight. Lets all try to focus on bringing our A game next week. Instead of being ho-hum about Gruul, if we start talking about it ahead of time and get people psyched up about it, we should have the right attitudes necessary to down him.

We're getting better every week. More consistency from our DPS has been key. Everyone wants to get into SSC and Magtheridon's Lair. We'll get there soon. But we've got to focus and do the little things first.

In conclusion, lets be more ready to take the leap. For those of you who have newer people in your class, talk to them. Help them to understand why what I've mentioned above is so essential. We really need to help people make the leap from casual to serious with regards to being on time and being prepared. If we can do that, Gruul will die everytime we go in there, and we can finally move on to bigger and better things.

The Economics of WoW: Part 4

So you've determined your best stat, whether it be strength, or spirit, or +damage. So now what? Should you get the items that have only that stat? Is a green item with 40 +damage better than an epic with only 35?

Lets go back to the goldfish/ice cream example. Lets say you bought 50 ice creams. You eat the first one, and it's amazing. Best ice cream you've ever tasted. You eat a second one, and a third one. Soon your brain starts to freeze. You eat a fourth one, and your head starts pounding. At that point, you're starting to wish you'd bought some goldfish, right?

That's called the Law of Diminishing Returns. For each of item A you consume, its value to you diminishes. So you may LOVE the first ice cream, and REALLY LIKE the second, but by the time you've eaten enough of them, you'd rather have something else.

The Law of Diminishing Returns applies in WoW as well. Lets take a mage for example. Mages like spell damage and +crit. Lets say the mage is starting out with 0 spell damage and 0% chance to crit. A Frostbolt will hit for around 655. So what's better? 900 spell damage? Or 800 crit rating? (Blizzard sets 9 spell damage equal to 8 spell crit on gems) 900 spell damage means your frostbolt hits all the time for 1325. An 800 crit rating means that you crit 36% of the time. That means that your average frostbolt hits for (655*.64) + (1310*.36) which is 891. So the spell damage is better, right?

But wait, if you swapped 90 spell damage for 80 crit rating and took 810 spell damage and 80 crit rating, what happens? Your average frostbolt non-crit would hit for 1280, and your crits would hit for 2560. Your average frostbolt would then hit for (1280*.96) + (2560*.04) = 1331.

What does this mean? It means that the Law of Diminishing Returns applies in WoW as well, although it needs worded differently. Each +1% to crit benefits you in the same way. However, the more +crit that you have the less valuable it becomes. This is because the more +crit you have, the better chance there will be that +damage will be more beneficial. The same thing goes with +damage. The more +damage you have, the better chance that +crit will be better for you.

Another thing to think about is how Blizzard handles items with only one stat versus items with 2 or 3 stats. If an item only has stamina on it, it may have 60 stamina. However, an item of the same level might have 30 int and 45 stamina on it. The more stats an item has, the more of each stat it is given in general. This is why the set pieces often have a good bit of a lot of different stats, as opposing to the tailoring pieces that have a ton of very few stats. The tailoring pieces may be a lower level than the set pieces, but depending on how important those stats are to you, it may be beneficial to keep one or the other.

Another note: You need to know where you're at. If you have 500 spell damage, it's a completely different situation than if you have 1200 spell damage. The stats that you have drastically change what different stats mean to you.

As such, try to be as well rounded as you can be. Don't just stockpile one stat. Try to get a balance of all of them. In most cases, this will do you better than just having one or two stats maxed out. But don't take my word for it....try it out for yourself.

The Economics of WoW: Part 3

So now that we've discussed the difference between Blizzard's "item pricing" and what you'd consider your item pricing, how do we take advantage of this? There are several ways to take advantage of the difference in opinion between Blizzard and you. One way is to determine what stat to maximize.

Lets take a DPS warrior as an example. When comparing strength and agility, 1 strength = 2 AP and 1 agility = 1 AP + .03 % crit. Strength by far outranks agility. Sure 33 Agility means 33 AP and 1% to crit, but 33 Strength would mean 66 AP. So strength is better than agility. But we know that Blizzard treats strength and agility as if they are the same. So warriors should be going after gear that has no agility and lots of strength. (Now this isn't necessarily true, but for this explanation assume it's true.) This is because instead of getting a neckpiece that has 15 agility, you could potentially get a similar one with 15 strength that would be worth more to you.

When you start comparing stats like this, you can begin to look for gear that has your very best stat, and start stacking it. For example, subtlety rogues and survival hunters get 15% increase in their agility. Human holy priests and resto druids get a 15% increase in their spirit. Arcane mages get 15% increase in their intellect. So stacking these stats only makes sense since you get an inherent bonus to them.

In my next post, I'll explain why you don't only go after this one stat that is your best (which seems like common sense, but there are some reasons you may not think about.)

The Economics of WoW: Part 2

OK, so when I left you hanging last, we were talking about $100, and choosing between ice cream and goldfish. So, am I drunk AND high? Nope. And here is how it relates to WoW.

The way that Blizzard creates stats for items is as follows. Depending on where you can acquire items, they have X number of points to go into them. It's kinda like an RPG when you're starting out and you get a certain number of points to go into traits for your character. Then they place the points in different places depending on how they want to itemize that item.

Now depending on where the gear is acquired, the item level is set at a certain value. For example, just about everything that drops in Karazhan has an item level of 115. Compare that with heroic epics which are around level 110. Arena season 2 gear is level 136.

OK, so items with a higher level are better, right? Well, that depends. If you compare the arena season 2 priest healing headpiece to the Headdress of the High Potentate, it's no question which one is better for PVE and which one is better for PVP. If it had stats for PVE on it, the season 2 would outrank anything from Karazhan. But it has stats designed for PVP. It has no spirit, and little intellect on it. But it has a crapton of resilience and stamina, which aren't worth nearly as much in PVE for priests.

So lets tie this all in together somehow by looking at 2 pieces of gear with the same item level.

Ring of Recurrence
Item Level 115
15 Stamina
15 Intellect
19 Spell Crit Rating
32 +damage and healing

Spectral Band of Innervation
Item Level 115
22 Stamina
24 Intellect
29 +damage and healing

These items according to Blizzard are the exact same. According to whatever formulas they use, it seems that 7 Stamina and 9 Intellect are equal to 19 Crit Rating and 3 +damage and healing.

But ask any mage or warlock which one is better, and it's an easy choice. Unless you're tanking someone like Krosh in the Maulgar fight, the Ring of Recurrance is a lot better. So how can this be?

It's the same as the goldfish vs. the ice cream. The person selling the goldfish and ice cream are assuming that you like ice cream twice as much as goldfish. Because to him, 2 goldfish = 1 ice cream. But this is where you need to decide which one you like best.

The same thing applies to WoW. Blizzard is giving you a set number of items that you need to choose between. The key is not choosing the gear with the highest item level according to Blizzard. An example of Blizzard's scales is 1 Strength = 1 Agility = 1.5 Stamina = 1 Intellect = 1 Spirit. But for me as a priest, my scale is more like 1000 Strength = 1000 Agility = 10 Stamina = 4 Intellect = 2 Spirit. So my item levels would be a LOT different. An item with 50 Strength on it? Worthless to me. An item with 50 Spirit on it? Much much better.

So your job when choosing your gear is to determine which stats mean the most to you, and figuring out what it means to Blizzard. If Blizzard ranks that stat higher than you do, then it isn't one you should go after. If they rank it lower, then go after it as much as you can. It's the single best way to get the most utility out of your gear. Your goal is DPS, or threat per second, or mana regen, or healing per second instead of happiness points. And your job is to maximize that given the items that you have access to in the game.

There will be a lot more posts upcoming about this subject, and I assure you, some will be almost as entertaining as the first post was.

The Economics of WoW: Part 1

Most of you probably know that I was a math/comp sci major in school. Most of you probably don't know that I was an economics minor in school. The reason I didn't stick with econ for very long was because I was terrible at theory. So take everything that I say about this topic with a grain of salt. Expect B grade material at best.

We all make real life decisions about what we buy. We manage our money (or in some cases mismanage) so that we have the ability to buy things that we want. Things that we need. But how do we do this? My answer is through some basic math equations.

They say that money doesn't buy happiness. Well it can't always, but it doesn't hurt, right? If you didn't have enough money for food, you'd be pretty sad, right? Me too. So you must have enough money for food. Assuming that you have money for food, clothing, shelter, WoW, and any other basic necessities, where does the rest of it go? Why for pleasure of course.

Well, not always. Some of it is invested in the future, but we're going to assume that you're dying tomorrow...(don't worry, there is indeed a reason.) So you have to spend your money to get as much pleasure out of today that you can. How do you go about doing this?

Well I for one would determine what would make me the happiest, am I right? Perhaps a trip to outer space would be cool. But I definitely don't have the money for that. Lets take the simplest example...lets say you have 100 dollars. You have the chance to purchase two items. Goldfish or mint chocolate chip ice cream. Now the ice cream costs you $2.00 while the goldfish cost only $1. So you can buy 100 goldfish, or 50 ice creams.

Ahh, but you tell me that you can buy 50 goldfish and 25 ice creams. Yes you can. However you want to spend it, for all intents and purposes, you need to trade 1 ice cream for 2 goldfishes.

So what's the next step? You need to know which one you like best. Do you like ice cream twice as much as goldfish? Lets say that you do. Then it doesn't matter which one you get. You'll be just as happy no matter what you do. But lets say you like goldfish just as much as you like ice cream. Then why not get 100 goldfish. That gives you 100 happiness points when getting the ice cream would only give you 50 happiness points. (no better phrase in the world for this....admit it. You wish you'd thought of happiness points.)

Now, before you think I'm nuts, my next post will make it all clear how this relates to itemization in WoW. Bet you can't wait.