World of Matticus

Matticus April 23, 2013 2 Comments

You Shouldn’t be an Officer

You shouldn’t consider being an officer…

If you can’t commit the time
If you view it as a simple title without responsibility
If you have thin skin and cannot handle flak from anyone
If you cannot be objective
If you get extremely frustrated
If you are impatient
If you set a poor example for other players
If you are not willing to act
If you cannot control your temper
If you don’t have the energy
If you have absolutely zero sense of tact
If you are routinely and consistently late to events (raids)
If you are unable to put yourself in the shoes of others
If you cannot be objective when it comes to guild matters
If you have a flair for drama
If you are only good at delivering criticism without feedback
If you view it as a free ride to loot
If you’re too new and haven’t gained respect from your peers
If you are not available for players to reach you (within reason)
If you are not reliable
If you just don’t care
If you want to date the GM (Hah)
If you don’t want to

I’m sure you can find exceptions and success stories of those who do fall under one or two of the above bullet points. Think of these as more general guidelines. It’s nigh impossible to find the perfect officer. They may have a few flaws about them but a shrewd GM can find ways to minimize their shortcomings and capitalize on their strengths. The process of becoming an officer is going to vary. With Conquest, it usually happens when I ask someone directly. I actually prefer it if players communicate their interest in assuming more responsibilities and I’ll observe their capabilities and interactions. Makes it a little easier, I think.

In the history of Conquest, I’ve had the pleasure of working with 13 different officers since the inception of the guild. We formed during the fall of 2008, when Wrath of the Lich King came out. We’ve been around for 5 years. That’s a rate of 2.6 officers per year. Now I’m curious, how many officers have served in your guild total?

Filed Under: All Stories, Guild Topics, Leadership

Matticus April 19, 2013 Leave a Comment

The Starting Zone: Episode 54 – Priests

If you’re looking for a distraction today, check out the most recent podcast episode of the Starting Zone! I sat down with the guys as we talked about Priests, the current expansion, and raiding in general.

The iTunes Link
The MP3 File
The RSS Feed

Filed Under: All Stories, News and Opinion

Matticus April 13, 2013 4 Comments

Discuss: How transparent should a guild be?

We’re now 11/12! One more kill will seal out the normal mode tier and allow us to start putting in work on the heroic modes of Throne of Thunder. Some of the players were curious as to what our goals after should be. Do we spend a little more time farming out the normal modes or do we immediately push into heroics? At first, I wanted to spend some time to farm out the week and try to get more weapons, trinkets, and 4-pieces completed. I felt that we could use a little more beefing up. But a player brought up an excellent point that you won’t actually know how much DPS you need until your raid starts hitting enrage timers of a boss. If that happens consistently, then it’s time to downshift and get the gear to help beat that timer.

The good

In that sense, it’s a good idea to share your vision for where you want to the guild (even if it’s just the short term). It seems that almost everyone has something that they want to contribute. In a 10 man, I bet that the feedback’s a little more manageable. But in a 25 man guild with a 30+ roster, it can get a little overwhelming when everyone has their own ideas. But nothing’s wrong with transparency when it comes to guild goals or even philosophy. At the very least, those who disagree with it know ahead of time what they’ve gotten themselves into. They can either embrace your style or move on and find another organization that best suits them

Goals
Values
Upcoming plans

The bad

Now what happens when transparency revolves around disciplinary action taken on a guild member by an officer? They may have been forced to sit out a night or become demoted because they were deliberately offensive to someone else or exceptionally poor raid play. I’m against sharing with other players why someone was punished. Frankly, I don’t think that’s their business. In my past experience, when an officer mentions in passing why someone was disciplined, people start talking about it and then sides start being taken which turns into a massive mess of a headache.

It’s not that big of a deal. The guy screwed up once and now they have to face the music. It’s not exactly something that’s up for debate. Having disciplinary action up for debate just causes more trouble than it’s worth. There’s no point in publically mentioning it either because then it turns into a point of public shaming (which could further exacerbate the issue and even cause them to leave). GMs have to periodically release players from their roster and there are good reasons to do it but it doesn’t have to be shared and not everyone needs to know.

I remember a really long time ago when one of my players came to me and said that they wouldn’t be able to raid that night (or for the next few raid nights). I asked if everything was okay, and she said no, she had been sexually assaulted. Immediately, I told her to take as much time as she needed, we’d still be here. Naturally, when a veteran who regularly appears in a raid stops showing up for a few nights, people notice. I started getting questions and out of respect, I had to deflect it. Even this information was withheld from my own officers because I didn’t know at the time if it was something that they needed to know. True, she never said “I’d like to keep it private”, but I felt I should’ve erred on the side of caution anyway. This is definitely one of the cases where one doesn’t have to be as transparent.

Private player matters
Disciplinary action

In the end, it’s beneficial to be as honest and forthcoming as possible. But recognize that GMs will occasionally be put into a really tough position. I’d wager most GMs are loyal to their guild first and will do just about anything to preserve it – even if it means slight deception.

I’m going to throw this topic out to you guys. One of the factors most prized about guilds (from applicants) is that of transparency. They don’t want to be left out in the dark. But exactly how much do you really want to know? Is there anything that can be left off the table?

Filed Under: All Stories, Guild Topics, Policy

Matticus April 3, 2013 1 Comment

Zone Healing

Ever play Ultimate (or Ultimate Frisbee)?

The rules are quite simple. You have two teams starting at opposite end zones who attempt to advance the disc to the other team’s end zone. Once the pull (like a kickoff in football) is initiated the teams can start jockeying for possession. A team that advances the disc to an end zone secures the point.

Kicker: The person with the disc can’t move. They can pivot on one foot but they can’t move. The opposing team gains possession whenever any pass is incomplete, intercepted, or received out of bounds .

Teams will employ different strategies to prevent the other team from scoring. One of the common defensive strategies is zone defense. Players are pre-assigned to sections of the field as they attempt to intercept and stop opposing players from advancing towards their end zone. It’s used to stop the offensive team from making really long passes. There’s usually one or two players that will close in on the disc handler. There’s different variations of it, but the key concept is that the defenders have their own sections to work with (not to mention that covering a small area instead of advancing up and down the field all the time is great at minimizing fatigue — I would know).

Gosh, I can’t wait for summer to get here.

Zone healing

Now the concept of zone healing works the same way and is used in situations where not every player is within range of the healer or where players are constantly shifting in and out of range. Sometimes there are raid mechanism place preventing you from moving or that keep you constantly away from each other. Zone healing is an approach that directs the healers to only heal the people that are within range of them. They must trust the other healers to cover the players near themselves in other areas. If you’re assigned to the blue beam of Durumu’s platform, then you can heal anyone that comes in range as the other beams are being moved around. Most raid frames have a function where the individual frames turn transparent if a player isn’t in range. As the healer, this makes your job easier. Any frames that are opaque (or solid) are the players that depend on you to live.

I understand, I have trust issues too. For the officers, zone healing is a great way to isolate which healers are true rock stars and which ones are struggling.

It’s a simple and effective healing strategy to use if the encounter demands everyone to be spread out. Let me give you some examples:

Ji-Kun

Ji-Kun has an ability called Caw. It’s a common raid mechanic where she’ll send sound waves at a player and damages anyone nearby within 8 yards. This calls for people to be spaced out around her main platform. Depending on which Ji-Kun strategy you use, you’ll have groups clearing out nests and may not have the same, consistent number of players on the main platform at all times. Be flexible.

Dark Animus

Healers will have to generate threat on the little anima golems at the start of the fight to hold them in place. If the golems are brought together, their attack speed greatly increases and will quickly snowball into a wipe. This requires everyone to stand in place. As the little golems are gradually killed near the Massive Anima, players will be freed up and can move around the room consistently. In addition, Matter Swap will switch players with their most distant ally forcing healers to react accordingly and dispel or heal any teleported players.

As a healer, you’re not going to be able to hit everybody. DPS and tanks will come and go through your area of the map. It won’t always be a set group of players all the time. Keep the players in your zone healthy!

Filed Under: All Stories, PvE Healing, Raid Strategy Tagged: dark animus, healing, healing-tactics, ji-kun, zone

Matticus March 26, 2013 1 Comment

Turtle Hate

I thought the turtles in Firelands were bad. Nope! The Tortos ones are even worse. It took us forever the first time we got there to get him. Between the stalactites, the spinning turtles, and the earthquakes, it was a huge chaotic mess.

Biggest pressure point?

Me.

My effectiveness on this fight is practically zero. The majority of my time is spent marking turtles and assigning kickers at the right times. Leading and coordinating Tortos is a big nightmare and I start panicking whenever we get to him because I end up second guessing stuff throughout the fight. Thank goodness we 2 shot it the other night (our first wipe was due to an errant Hunter Barrage that went off when we were clearing bat trash, so it didn’t count as a one shot). It’s not always smooth sailing.

We’re now at week 4 and I’ve gotten a little more comfortable with it. The DPS has gone up leading to additional breathing room with turtles. The punters already know when to expect calls before I even make them and have started calling their turtles. But out of the encounters here so far, this is by far the most draining. I suppose it’s possible that I can eventually wean myself from marking turtles. Not quite there yet though because I’m concerned that two sets of turtle shells will go flying in and we miss out on a breath interrupt.

I hate turtles.

Filed Under: All Stories

Matticus March 22, 2013 3 Comments

Hearthstone: Why the Disappointment?

Because people got their expectations too high.

I’ll admit, I was one of them. I already knew it wasn’t going to be a game. I knew it wasn’t going to be an expansion or a new IP or anything like that. Blizzard would only save important news their own BlizzCon (or maybe E3). I’m a little amazed at some of the hate for it. They already said was going to be something small.

We can’t get hyped up for stuff like this because then we set ourselves up for a huge let down when it’s not an epic cinematic announcement or a title of sorts. In the announcement video, Blizzard mentioned they had a small team working on it. It’s meant to help you kill time. Add Hearthstone to another list of things you can do during Tuesday patch mornings.

And it’s free!

Granted, I thought it was going to be an announcement related to Blizzard All Stars, so I’m just as guilty of that. Once I heard about the announcement, everything clicked and actually made sense.

I was a huge Magic player back in the day. You can classify me as the Spike player, always looking for the power cards and investing amazing resources into it.

There are two problems that I foresee in my ability to enjoy Hearthstone:

It’s a free 2 play game. League of Legends is also a free 2 play game. I’ve invested somewhere to the tune of $1200 in League of Legends in the form of boosts, champions, skins, and gifts. If there’s any cash options, I’m so screwed .
My dad has my iPad 3. Like all the time. I haven’t seen it since January. Actually, come to think of it he probably knows how to use it more than I do. When’s the last time any father knew more about current technology than their son? I am slacking.

Depending on guild interest, perhaps a Friday Night Hearthstone is in order. I remember playing FNM and having a blast. Despite playing the overpowered Jace-Eldrazi Bant deck, I only won a handful of FNMs (I hated Jund).

It looks like it’ll be a great entry level card game for those who want to try their hand at CCGs. No word on whether cards can be traded/sold, however.

Filed Under: All Stories Tagged: hearthstone

Matticus March 14, 2013 Leave a Comment

The Heart of the Swarm

Patch 5.2 last week.

Heart of the Swarm this week.

It’s a wonder that I got any sleep at all. Actually, I managed to beat the single player campaign on hard (I’ll give brutal a run later on). Blizzard’s story team made me feel absolutely depressed halfway through the campaign but by the end of the game I was eager to see what they had planned for the next expansion. Speaking of other games, last week Sim City came out and there was all sorts of issues with the game. Certain features were removed. Amazon had to pull the title from the store for some time due to server issues.

Blizzard learned much from it’s Diablo 3 launch last year. They staggered the launch times around the world to ensure that they wouldn’t get overwhelmed. I’m sure their networking teams learned much.

But they’re not quite off the hook.

I have to replay certain missions again. Why? Because the achievement servers were offline robbing me of precious achievements!

In the Warcraft front, we’re up to Magaera this week. Got to the 7th head. A kill should be coming in fairly soon. I’m a little anxious on Ji-Kun though because I’m still not 100% sure what to really expect when I get there. I want to get my thoughts together on Tortos though. Warmed up to the fight the first few times I did it on the beta, but after two kills on him so far, I’ve already grown weary.

Filed Under: All Stories

$Here’s My Nerdy Guild Trying to be Funny$

Matticus March 6, 2013 13 Comments

Here’s My Nerdy Guild Trying to be Funny

My guild has a peculiar sense of humour. After we killed Jin’Rokh last night, we move up to the bridge of doom. There’s all these ghostly adds floating on the sides and the wind just blows people off in different directions off the bridge. It’s a complete gong show but eventually we figured out how to do it. The trick is to grab each ghostly add from each side and tank them at the beginning. A raider noticed something about the wind textures.

One of my players remarks, “ Doesn’t that wind pattern look like the sine symbol?”

An officer responds, “Or the cosine symbol.”

Another player shoots back, “It’s certainly integral to what we’re doing.”

Not to be outdone, a different player pipes up, “I don’t think it’s a major factor.”

At this point, I rolled my eyes and flatly stated, “You’re all being irrational.”

Sigh.

Apparently, that’s my guild on a patch night. We were able to take down Horridon and put in some shots on the Council fight before we called it a night. I don’t know about you, but I’m already getting tired of the trash.

How was your patch day and what do you think of the new raid?

Filed Under: All Stories, News and Opinion

Matticus February 22, 2013 Leave a Comment

Challenge Gold: Scarlet Monastary

We’re down to one.

After several heartbreaking nights, my group managed to get Scarlet Monastary down on gold and went back to help finish out Scarlet Halls for me. The Monastary is arguably the hardest challenge mode in the game!

We’ll see though as we still have Stormstout Brewery to blast through before we collect our full suite of Challenge Mode rewards.

The main issues with Scarlet Monastary isn’t the bosses. It’s actually the insane trash pulls. Cooldown and ability usage must be pinpoint. We actually screwed up slightly on Whitemane and pulled extra trash when we didn’t have to but finished 7 seconds away from the Silver mark.

There’s a few pressure points in Scarlet Monastary, so I’ll walk you through the toughest ones. Make sure you come into Scarlet Monastary prepared with the 18 second Invisibility Potion. You’ll need it. The most frustrating part is that if you wipe shortly in the cathedral area, you’ll have to wait several punishing minutes until your potion cooldowns are available for usage.

Right as the Challenge Mode timer finishes counting down, you can activate your Spirit Shell to grant your party additional shi elds as they get through that first pull. Spirit Shell should be off cooldown around the time you pull the Frenzied Spirits before the boss.

cm-sm-fs

You’ll want to have a Death Knight handy. You can charm one of the Frenzied Spirits as it it gradually builds up a buff (also called Frenzied Spirit). Our Death Knight rounded them all up and applied a slow and gradually kited them around while our Shaman and Monk chained AoE stuns back to back. Now the buff increases the Spirit’s damage and attack speed by 15% and it stacks. Our fastest kill on Thalnos the Soulrender was around 31 seconds. I think the Spirit had around 40+ stacks coupled with Heroism.

In the first pull in the hallway shortly after taking down that first boss, I suggest yanking the two yellow mobs and taking them out. Odds are you’ll pull them and the big pack around the corner. As a healer, try to be the first one in so you can start drinking before the rest of your group initiates. Light off and chain your AoE stuns one after the other. You can use a Barrier here if you’re struggling, but it’s not quite necessary.

cm-sm-hall

Burn the Invisibility Potion and break out into a run across the courtyard. Go up the right stair case and hop onto the fountain walls. Make sure you don’t come out of stealth near the 3 monks sitting on the right part of that fountain. Our tank pulled Brother Korloff when he was in the middle of patrolling between the 6 monks that flank that entrance to the monastary.

Brother Korloff will charge the furthest player and unload Firestorm Kick. Be really wary of where you stand. You want to position yourself just in the area in front of the fountain so that you don’t pull the aforementioned trio of monks. As the healer, don’t be the furthest one away. Shouldn’t have too many problems with this one at all. It’s just a little long.

Once you defeat the Monk, your next task is to try to penetrate the Monastary without pulling the monks on either side. The margin of error here is extremely small. Even a quarter step in either direction is enough to pull the pack and destroy your group. Now if you pay close attention to the positioning of the monks, you’ll notice they’re not exactly lined up perpendicular to the entrance. They’re actually angled inwards. What we ended up doing was using a hard CC (like Hex) on the back right Monk. This helped increase our margin just large enough that we could get through safely.

We tried CCing both the back Monks but the back left Monk managed to aggro on to us while we were inside the Cathedral so we ended up CCing the back right one only.

Anyway, take a hard left when you’re inside the Cathedral and start working on the pulls. There’s three major multi-mob pulls that can annihilate your group. Space out your stun cooldowns and healing cooldowns. For example, our Monk and Shaman used their stuns on the first pack. I used a Barrier and our Death Knight used Army of the Dead on the second. Use the pillars to line of sight pull them. Your interrupters should just pick a Purifier and lock them down while AoEing.

If you can get within striking range of Whitemane and Durand with 4:30 left, you should be in good shape. Stay close to each other so that Durand doesn’t get too far off. Assign specific interrupts for Mass Resurrection and Dominate Mind for Whitemane. You can let Smite go off unchecked as it’s easily healable. We screwed up here and accidentally pulled a Scarlet Zealot in addition to Durand. Use your AoE cleaves and single target abilities to get rid of that Zealot fast. Make sure he doesn’t cast Heal on the boss.

Good luck! I know I made it sound easier than it actually was. Scarlet Monastary will end up being one of the longer ones your group is working on just due to the difficulty of the trash and the potion cooldowns.

Filed Under: All Stories, Challenge Mode Tagged: challenge mode, scarlet monastary

Matticus February 20, 2013 1 Comment

Heroic Garalon Killed: What a Buggy Encounter

After two and a half weeks, we finally scored a kill against Garalon. Every encounter after the first six progression hard modes is an exercise in patience and grinding. Our first (and only) Spirit Kings kill was a huge sigh of relief. By comparison, the Garalon kill was falling out of the chair from exhaustion. During the pulls pulls where everyone gets a good look at the new mechanics, people play a little more cautious. Everyone’s testing the boundaries of what they’re capable of. They’re experimenting with their specs and retuning themselves specifically for that fight.

But once people start getting the hang of it, it gradually gets easier. Once the strategy is ironed out and the team is exposed to the rest of the phases, it’s a mammoth of a DPS and healing check.

Our kill on heroic Garalon mirrored our kill on normal. I swear Garalon was mid-air just before the enraged Crush was about to connect. Healers were busy throwing as much DPS as they could in the final seconds. All the pulls earlier on in the night were all over the place. It’s easy to tell when players are losing focus.

They trip into the crush-zone.

They’re sloppy on Pheromone passes.

They get caught by the cleave.

Chalk it up to nerves. Maybe they’re gripping the mouse too hard. Who knows? Everyone deals with anxiety and pressure differently. Garalon’s pretty damn nerve wracking as it is.

All the strategies that are used on normal still apply. Keep the DoT classes working on the legs while the ranged players focus down the torso. Melee players will be jumping from leg to leg. We like to open the fight with Heroism but it’s not uncommon for it to be used in the final sub 33% phase.

We opened our Pheromone kite order with 2 tanks, then all the ranged DPS, then all the healers. You might want to pick a melee player two as the final backups in case your kiters suffer casualties along the chain.
Players that are next on the kite order should be in position when the current kiter has anywhere from 6 – 9 stacks as you’ll be passing around 13.
Given the option, it’s okay to get rid of the Pheromone before a crush even if your stack isn’t near 13. I had to hand mind off at around 10. Had I waited to pass it after the crush, my stacks would have reached 15.
The kiters near the stairs should leave a few gaps in Pheremone puddles as they drop them. This gives more path options for the kiters further on down the assignment chain.
Crush is no longer coupled to Pheromone passing. Have a raid-wide defensive cooldown planned for each Crush.
Healers should spike low health individuals in the few seconds leading up to a Crush so that they don’t take lethal.

Healing Priests

Spirit Shell gives you an edge. With two, it’s possible to alternate that on Crushes.
Atonement DPS on legs (especially within the blue circles) is a major plus.
Echo of Light is also amazing.

As a Shadow Priest, I feel like I’m the worst DPS class on this fight. Maybe it’s just me. Nothing like seeing myself in 16th place consistently.

The next boss for us is heroic Lei Shi. Right now, our biggest hurdle is consistently handling the Protectors as they spawn at the 20% intervals. They seem to ace and crush our healers quickly. How did your group handle them?

Filed Under: All Stories, Heart of Fear, Raid Strategy Tagged: garalon, heart of fear, Heroic