Posts with tag gray-matter

Ahh, Eclipse. The talent the moonkin love to hate, or do we hate to love it? I don't know. It's a complicated relationship, but I would be surprised if there is another talent out there that stirs up as much emotion as Eclipse. On one hand, it is the savior of raiding moonkin everywhere. Without it moonkin would not be raid viable, and would be stuck with what some consider to be a very boring rotation. On the other hand, it can be a source of despair when you look at the WoL parse and face tough questions from a raid leader.

It is widely accepted with in the moonkin community that Eclipse is broken, but many moonkin don't seem to understand what the real issues are. In this post I will take a look at the common misconceptions about Eclipse, and highlight some of the issues that make Eclipse a broken talent.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Tales of a Priest discusses tunnevlsion for healers, and how to prevent it with better mod placement.
• World of Matticus's Lodur brings is more PUG tales, this time detailing the Val'anyr curse.
• Gray Matter asks, was Chill of the Throne enough to keep WoW raiding under control until Cataclysm? Should it have impacted DPS, too?
• Forever a Noob keeps the great rogue advice coming. Deathbringer Saurfang is your next target.
• This is our last link of the day, but it's the most important. Vigilance, a new warrior blog, honors the memory of a fallen guildmate. Rest well, Revanx. A word to the author, from me personally, is that you guys are not alone. Hang in there.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Episode 11 of the Hunting Party Podcast is available for download!
• The team lineup for the MLG tournament in Anaheim upcoming in just a couple short weeks has been officially announced.
• Mania's Arcania speculates on how many new hunter pet families we'll get in Cataclysm, or if we'll get any at all.
• Episode 64 of the Twisted Nether Blogcast is in a round table format, featuring bloggers Graylo (Gray Matter), Honorshammer (Honor's Code), Matticus (World of Matticus), Saresa (Destructive Reach) and Stoneybaby (Big Hit Box).
• Speaking of Honor's Code, the blog has started a series on setting up a UI for Protection Paladin.

If you choose that category to talk about the race change or patch 3.3, you are automatically awarded the points.

• Restokin on the the latest druid change and the new LFG/LFR system.
• Gray Matter takes a look at a new simulation tool gaining some attention, SimCraft.
• Diabolical Minds takes a look at the hybrid tax.
• Eviscerated has a nice list to level your enchanting from 1 to 450.

Finally, Azeroth United is interviewing Kristin Lindsay of Child's Play on November 2rd during a UStream broadcast. They're also raising money for Child's Play, and you can support them over on their site. A good cause for a good charity.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Episode 62 of the Twisted Nether Blogcast is available for download, with special guest Spooner of Spooncraft.
• Gray Matter discusses the ups and downs of Rawr for Moonkin.
• Not only has OutDPS released episode 10 of The Hunting Party Podcast, but they have a new author on board to tackle hardcore raiding. Today, Heroic Anub'Arak!
• World of Matticus asks, why play a healer?
• This World of Warcraft chalk art is pretty incredible! Really old, but also really cool. It's worth a second look.
  

This post on Gray Matter has some pretty insightful thoughts about the much-maligned Hit stat. We've posted quite a few times about Hit with the various classes, and yet it's still fairly hard to get a handle on -- most people know their class has a "hit cap" that they have to reach to keep any of their swings or shots from missing, but other than that, they haven't really tangled with the stat much the way they might have some of the more core stats for their class. But Grey Matter argues that "Hit is sexy" -- despite the fact that, unlike other stats, Hit is required just to make your class do the right thing (rather than doing it better), Graylo still likes the idea, and actually likes the balance that Hit requires. No matter what ilvl your gear, you still need a certain amount of Hit on it, and the balancing job of keeping your hit cap met versus providing other stats on your gear is what Gray seems to like about Hit. While other stats just go up and up, Hit is the great limiter -- having more of it frees up space on other gear for more pressing stats, but you still have to balance out the pieces you wear to try and meet the cap.

To that extent, I agree. I do think that Hit is a relatively arbitrary stat (we know what it means in real life to be Stronger or have more Intelligence, but Hit is really just designed to keep game levels in line), but on the other hand, Gray's right -- because you need a certain amount of hit in your gear, it does become an interesting balancing game of "do I need this more powerful piece of gear, or this weaker piece of gear with some extra Hit on it?" It does a nice job of mixing things up as an endgame-balancing mechanic.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Big Hit Box gives a rundown of enchants for Enhancement Shaman.
• Gray Matter responds to the official Druid Q&A from the eyes of a Moonkin.
  
• 4 haelz responds to the Q&A from the eyes of a Resto Druid.
• Forever a Noob walks Rogues through Ulduar's Assembly of Iron.
• And OutDPS walks Hunters through General Vezax!

In the absence of a ranged weapon or wand, Druids, Shamans, Death Knights, and Paladins all have an interest in filling the little slot directly to the right of their weapons with something good. You won't get the stats from idols, totems, sigils, or librams that pure classes will get from that slot, but with luck you'll significantly improve a core ability or two. However, because these items usually affect only one or two spells or attacks, they tend to be somewhat hit-or-miss in terms of usefulness, and many specs go for a while without having anything particularly good to put there.

Graylo at Gray Matter takes a look at the new idol available to Balance Druids from Ulduar-25, the Kologarn drop Idol of the Crying Wind. After running the math on its stats versus the Balance idols available for badges (Idol of Steadfast Renewal and Idol of the Shooting Star), he reaches the conclusion that this new i-level 226 item is a significant DPS loss compared to its i-level 213 cousins, even if the Druid in question is using Glyph of Insect Swarm and has the 2-piece Tier 7 bonus granting 10% additional damage to Insect Swarm. While I think it's probably a damage increase on very high-mobility fights, Graylo's math is pretty damning. It's hard to argue that a Tier 8 idol providing less than a third of the damage granted by a Naxx piece represents ideal gear scaling.

Bears in Ulduar-25 are looking forward to their first upgrade since the i-level 128 (!) Idol of Terror, but I'm not too sure about other classes. Do you have some hard choices ahead of you, or do you plan on using an older piece?