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by Adam Holisky 
Feb 9th 2012 at 11:00AM
This is pretty much the best thing ever.
BSG ending? This is better.
M.A.S.H. ending? This is better.
The Best of Both Worlds? This is better.
Montoya asked:
Why don't we use the warglaives that the NEs have decoratively everywhere? (like Illidan's, but smaller and less flashy)
Blizzard has said in the past (a long time ago) that it wants to keep warglaives unique for players. I think it's entirely possible and indeed hope that we get some more glaives one day. They're a really awesome model, and even if they're a ultra-hard epic to get or another legendary, I'm sure the playerbase would welcome them.
Orkchoper asked:
Is the entire WoW Insider staff tacking March 6th off?
I have never actually finished Mass Effect 1 or 2, so I'll be working. As for everyone else, I believe they'll be sick.
/cough
Edges asked:
We have heard that Blizzard is trying for account bound achievements in MoP, do you think that will include titles?
It's really too early to say, but I could see it going either way.
My guess is that we'll see the philosophical ramblings from Ghostcrawler or Zarhym on this at some point. On one hand, account-bound titles make sense, especially because there are some more difficult ones that you're not likely to acquire again, and those would give your alt a bit of a status symbol and a way to let other players know you've completed the content. On the other hand, they are sort of special and tied to specific accomplishments that the hard work players put into the character has allowed them to gain.
It could go either way, really, and we'll just have to wait and see what the details are.
GT asked:
Ever notice the north half of the Eastern Kingdoms map looks like a puppy face? Whazzup with that?
I don't see it, really. To me, it looks like that thing living under my bed. His name is Fred.
Aspect asked:
Why do some people think it's ok to act so rotten in the LFR? I rarely see such awful behaviour in 5 mans.
I think it has a lot to do with the investment people are putting into their characters, along with the attitude and ego of the players involved. Raiding is still seen as a sacred thing to some -- a highly privileged activity that you can only do if you're good. People need to get over this mindset and start thinking of LFR as an entry-level activity for everyone.
Granted, some players in LFR are terrible. I've seen some crazy stuff. But the boss still died and the group still moved on. Those players who don't understand the mechanics of their class or the moderate to advanced elements of the game are exactly where they should be -- in LFR and not in a full-time raid.
If people played as badly in my guild's raid as I see in the Raid Finder, I would be nerd raging about wasting my time in heroic Dragon Soul. But they're not in heroic Dragon Soul; they're in the Raid Finder, the place to learn and have fun -- so it doesn't matter, and there's no need to get upset.
There's a time and a place to get mad about a warrior's deciding his ranged attack is the best mechanic for attacking the boss 100% of the time. The Raid Finder isn't it.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 8)
Necromann Feb 10th 2012 12:05AM
If you left during an attempt and the group kills the boss that attempt, you count as eligible for loot. They even have to wait go the time to expire as the game waits for your roll to pass.
Infinite Duck Feb 9th 2012 11:28AM
You gave me an idea. What if the world events had multiple titles? Finish it once get the Noble, finish it five times and get the Very Noble, finish it 10 times and get the Greater Noble or something. I'm not good at names. That way it give sa shout out to the people who did it a few times!
Luotian Feb 9th 2012 11:31AM
I just got done with a run of Stone Halls on my lil' shaman healer. And pretty much beat the stone boss from half-way to zero, much to the astonishment of the rest of the party that died to his shatter.
I don't think I've ever felt as cool as I did when they were geeking out in party chat about what I could do.
What is the moment in WoW that's made you feel the most epic?
Shinae Feb 9th 2012 12:11PM
There have been a few, most of which I do not remember the details, unfortunately. Most recently, I did 34% of the healing on a 25-man Alizibal kill. It was quite harrowing, and my back hurt from carrying puggers through that. ;)
Restoshaman rule!
laudickj Feb 9th 2012 12:57PM
My most recent moment was during an End Time run. We were fighting Sylvanas and the tank died during the ghoul phase. The ret paladin in the group picked her up and he both of us rotated our cooldowns flawlessly (i was disc at the time) and we managed to still down her. After that everyone in the group was complimenting the ret and me on an amazing job. What made it even sweeter is earlier in the run, the mage in the group wanted to kick me because I was in mostly PvP gear (fully gemmed and enchanted though). After we beat Sylvanas, I asked him if he still thought I should be kicked to which he didn't reply.
Side note: PvP gear does not always mean the player is bad, in fact sometimes it means they are really good but they choose to just PvP instead of PvE, so please don't judge people by their gear (unless, of course, if its no gemmed or enchanted and they don't know how to reforge).
Flarebear Feb 9th 2012 1:37PM
I remember back in Burning Crusade, when I got my holy pally to level 70, my guildies took me through Magister's Terrace to get some gear before hopping into Karazhan. On the last boss, people went down one by one from the phoenix and the pyroblast until it was only me left at 50%. He went into the whole 'swim around and avoid the balls' phase and I slowly dps'ed him down with judgement and holy shock. I think it took 10 minutes, but in the end I killed him!
It was incredibly epic, and solidified the paladin as a main for me through Cata. Also, he dropped the awesome healing ring.
Philster043 Feb 9th 2012 2:35PM
Sadly as a healer, the moments I've felt the most epic usually goes unnoticed. Because as a result, the group moves on as usual, sometimes not even knowing that they were just saved from a total wipefest.
wow Feb 9th 2012 3:37PM
This goes back to WotLK, but when guildies from an old Guild did ToC, I think it was ToC, and got to the Black Knight. We got to the final Phase and we got him down to 50% Health and something happened where everyone but me for some reason wiped and I just wailed on him. And just when I thought I was a goner, I had only 1 Health left, he died. This is when I really fell in love with the Feral Kitty. :)
Everyone was so congratulatory, coz we had wiped on the phase before, 2nd phase I think, many times. That was probably the best run I've ever had.
Shinanji
Killik Feb 9th 2012 4:31PM
@philster I'm bad at healing and often get complimented on my skills when I really screw things and let people's health get super low. I guess players only appreciate the healer when they realise they could have died :)
Tyranith Feb 9th 2012 11:34AM
About the shared achievs, i wonder what will happen with achievement that grant a reward.
a posibility i was thinking was that each achiv with a reward has 2 marks: an acount mark and a personal mark. you would only get the reward if u have the personal mark checked.
another possibility would be that only the first char to get the ach. get the reward for "free", and then the other chars could go to an ach vendor who would sell them the mounts/pets/titles/etc.. for some gold.
toughts?
R. Feb 9th 2012 11:33AM
"What's happens if you pop deterrence with mirrored blades as a death Knight casts death grip?"
Not sure about that one, but if you use a glyphed grounding totem against a DK using Death Grip, it brings them to the totem.
Zuktaw Feb 9th 2012 11:33AM
"GT asked:
Ever notice the north half of the Eastern Kingdoms map looks like a puppy face? Whazzup with that?"
True Story:
When I first saw the map revamp, I thought it was a panda & wondered if they were prepping to make Panderen a bigger part of the game.
arkhan Feb 9th 2012 11:35AM
I was running LFR with my Blood DK and was able to roll need on Eye of Unmaking (Melee DPS trinket) and won it. How did this happen? And yes, my role was definitely tank, not DPS.
Do tanks get a bonus for tank _and_ DPS gear? If so, why?
Cricket Feb 10th 2012 9:21AM
More likely is that the item itself is marked as both tank and DPS, which happens rather often for ambiguous ones, like say caster items that have neither spirit or hit are both heal and dps, or many trinkets with mainstat+mastery or mainstat+haste.
Saikoujin Feb 9th 2012 11:39AM
"Why do some people think it's ok to act so rotten in the LFR? I rarely see such awful behaviour in 5 mans."
If we represent 5man douchebaggery as x, where x= Lx((Tx(a*Tp))+(Hx(a*Tp))+(Dx(a*Tp)), then the amount of douchebaggery in LFR would equal
[2(Lx(Tx(a*Tp)))]+[6(Lx(Hx(a*Tp)))]+[17(Lx(Dx(a*Tp)))]
Lx = number of loot per boss
Tx = number of tanks
Hx = number of healers
Dx = number of dps
Tp = average time played in years
a = average age of player
I am by no means a mathematician.
byronius_prime Feb 9th 2012 1:12PM
I LOL'd!
/highfive
Grovinofdarkhour Feb 9th 2012 1:55PM
Based on your definitions of Tx, Hx, and Dx, and knowing that LFR takes toons for the three roles in the same proportion each time, then your formula becomes
[2(Lx(2(a*Tp)))]+[6(Lx(6(a*Tp)))]+[17(Lx(17(a*Tp)))]
which essentially assigns 2 portions of blame to each of the 2 tanks, 6 portions of blame to each of the 6 healers, and 17 portions of blame to each of the 17 DPS. While I think we can agree that the douchiest participants are generally more likely to remain DPS as a method of avoiding responsibility, I think the formula as it currently stands unjustifiably magnifies the effect, and lets douchey tanks off the hook almost completely.
The larger problem I see, however, is that in its current structure, overall douchiness increases as average age increases, and based on experience I would believe the inverse is true; overall douchiness also increases as average time played in years increases, which I haven't seen evidence of. To correct these I would suggest the following simplified formula:
2(Lx(-a))+6(Lx(-a))+17(Lx(-a))
the cumulative effects of which are to assign each participant the same douche factor regardless of role, make higher age equate to being less douchey instead of more douchey, and make no adjustment for time played in years.
If we keep at this, I firmly believe we can build a working model of LFR Douchebaggery.
Saikoujin Feb 9th 2012 2:15PM
@Grovin
Ah yes, I do believe you'd be correct on the weights of douchey-ness being applied equally among all roles. Good call on the inverse to age too!
I think I did pretty well though for pulling that out of my ass :-p
Grovinofdarkhour Feb 9th 2012 2:28PM
You didn't just do well, you broke amazing new ground. An hour ago I never would have considered that LFR douchebaggery could be quantified. You made the bold leap, my friend; I merely picked at the edges.
And I already see major flaws with my own formula, but I'll wait and see if anyone else wants to jump in first.
andysdavis Feb 9th 2012 5:39PM
Based off of what both Saik and Grovin have written, if I may, I think I've come up with three seperate equations, 1 for each role in LFR:
X(t) ={[Lx/(a-Tp)]*(t/25) * Ep(t)}/DB
X(h) = {[Lx/(a-Tp)]*(h/25)*Ep(h)}/DB
X(d) = {[Lx/(a-Tp)]*(d/25)*Ep(d)}/DB
X(t) = % of d-baggery caused by tanks
X(h) = '' caused by healers
X(d) = '' caused by dps
t = total number of tanks expressing signs of d-baggery
h = '' healers expressing signs of d-baggery
d = '' dps expressing signs of d-baggery
Lx = total number of loot drops (in most cases a constant, usually 4 or 5 I believe?)
a = average age of the players
Tp = total time played (I made this inversely proportional and subtracted from a because I've noticed in many cases, the longer someone's played the more likely they've been to be jerks and in the case of our equation, increase the % of d-baggery they cause. This is simply a matter of opinion of course and is never always the case.)
Ep(x) = self-percieved (and always entirely inaccurate) level of importance and superiority of x to others around them in the raid. Also known as Epeen. Note however, that because of the presence of d-baggery caused by x, Ep(x) > 0.
DB= total amount of D-baggery present in the raid.