Weekly Digest: Worst Change in 2.4, SSC Mistakes, and GQuitting Properly

What’s Happening in WoW

Mallet now has Lord Sanguinar’s Claim and the Breeches of the Avatar. I now sit at ~2050 healing without any additional raid buffs.

What’s Happening with the Blog

It’s been fairly quiet recently due to midterms. So nothing much here either!

Latest Blog Posts

Here are the posts from this week:

• By far the biggest and most far reaching consequence in 2.4: Kaliri Birds now learning how to fly.
• What is quite possibly one of the fastest times to take down Curator.
• It just goes to show that even at a high level of play, raids can still go bad in SSC.
• I took a look at the top comments last week. I never knew I had such insightful readers!
• I shared some of the worst raiding horror stories I had and that I heard of.
• An insightful from an officer perspective on what you should do if you want to leave your Guild.
• Carnage is now looking for a full time raid healer and a part time DPS!
• Looks like Blizzard’s introducing another item loot trend within Sunwell.

20 Questions by Matticus

This week I had a chance to sit down with Galadria of the Holy Light.

In case you missed it, last week BBB was interrogated via 20 questions (his blog).

Past Hits

Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.

• Encouraging Raiders to Sign up and Why

The Ill-fated Group 2

• Optimize Your Raid Groups

Trends in the WoW Blogosphere

The biggest trend at the moment is a no brainer. Everyone’s out there buzzing about the changes to 2.4 and speculating about reactions and impacts to the game.

Blog Spotlight

A Dwarf Priest - There’s several excellent healing resources to be found if you see through it. The site looks a bit narrow for me, but it still works! What’s the blog about? I think the name speaks for itself =).

Matt Likes: Priest PvP Tips vs. Other Classes. If you’re a Priest whose planning on going toe to toe against other players, you will want to take a look at this. It may not help you kill them, but it can help you survive a few seconds longer.

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Weekly Digest: Kael Dead, Progression Methods, 2 Guest Posts

What’s Happening in WoW

We killed Kael on Sunday, yay! After the reset, we were able to kill him again which proves that we are now able to put Kael down on farm. After that, the special forces of Carnage decided to run into Mount Hyjal and help out Jaina. One wipe at around wave 7 before laying the smackdown on Rage Winterchill. Our healers had a tough time healing frostbolts and we’re currently working on methods to counteract it.

For those that might be perplexed, Winterchill fires a frostbolt at a random player during the raid which impacts them ~4500+ damage and freezes them in place. Following that, there is a DoT applied to that player for 2500 per second.

Current solutions

Requirement of all players to obtain a PvP trinket by Tuesday

Here’s some advice for players who employ DKP bidding in their loot distribution.

1. Bid high if you really want it
2. Do not bid in increments of 5

I found this lesson out the hard way the other night. I had the option to bid on a Verdant Sphere which gives you the option of picking an epic neckpiece of your choice. During round 1, I placed a bid for 35. It was revealed the highest was 45. During round 2, I placed a bid for 55 thinking that no one would go for it that high. Unfortunately, I lost the item to a Warlock who placed a bid for 56. I guess I’ll need to do some more research and find me a neckpiece other then Lord Sanguinaar’s Claim.

On the PvP front, my Shaman has acquired the Vengeful Gladiator’s Mail Armor! That now brings me up to 2/5 S2 Resto and 3/5 Elemental. My goal is to become an Elemental Shaman in PvP. That seems to be what people want most these days. I’ve been thinking about what to socket them with. I’ll most likely lean towards the Honor gems.

What’s Happening with the Blog

I’ve decided to participate with a service called EntreCard. If you notice on the right side above my poll, there is a rectangular image. This service allows WoW bloggers to drop their business cards on to other blogs thereby getting traffic and raising awareness. As mentioned by TJ in her excellent summarization, the system is dominated by blogs that make money by telling other people how to make money blogging, there is no reason that it cannot be leveraged by the WoW blogging community. Why? Because you are able to approve or deny rights to blogs that wish to publicize on your blog. As such, I’m limiting blogs that show up under EntreCard to other WoW bloggers or gaming related blogs that have decided to use this service.

Latest Blog Posts

Here are the posts from this week:

• A Guest post from Trackhoof helped kick off the week. In it, he discusses the synergies between a Priest and a Hunter.
• Masato, a friend, helped create a Feral Druid gear guide for beginning bears that have just turned 70.
• For those interested in Blogging about WoW, I started off with a few posts on things to do to get started and things to know before you devote yourself to it.
• Are you having progression problems in your Guild? If you want a solution, take a look at my 3 Approaches to Guild Progression.
• Masturbate much? Here’s 6 telltale signs that you’re playing too much World of Warcraft.

20 Questions by Matticus

This week I had a chance to sit down with Kestrel of Kestrel’s Aerie.

Past Hits

Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.

• The 12 Hour Raid
• 5 Ways to Survive Alterac Valley
• Tanking and Healing Prince the Easy Way

Trends in the WoW Blogosphere

Patch Notes have been strategically leaked by various Blizzard reps. Here’s a few community takes and responses to them.

Blog Spotlight

Banana Shoulders - Siha is a Guild Leader and a Holy Paladin. We’ve had a lot of conversations on the AIM Blogazeroth chatroom. She’s also a mac enthusiast!

Matt likes: The Jewelcrafting Quick Reference Sheet. I even printed out a copy. Unfortunately, since I use a laser printer it’s in black and white.

Weekly Digest: Blog Azeroth, Zul’Jin Dead, Gold Sellers on Blogs

What’s Happening in WoW

I have a very ambitious goal in 2008. I want my Paladin to eventually become a force to be reckoned with. Last night, she’s started taking the necessary steps to do it by going into Karazhan for the first time.

We’re making progress! It’s going slowly but surely. Carnage’s finest got Kael down to 57%. On Sunday, nearly 6 hours will be allocated to him in the hopes we can finally polish him off. We’ll see how that works out.

Oh and I killed Zul’Jin for the first time!

What’s Happening with the Blog

If you’re one of the few individuals who actually look at my Affiliates on the side, you’ll notice I’ve partnered up with Jinx! They’re a game clothing company. If you’re interested in showing off your Geekiness, head over and check out their offerings.

My Blogroll has continued to plague me for quite some time. One of the measures I’ve taken is displaying a list of random blogs. You can find them on the side beneath the polls. I’m experimenting with the idea of having a “surprise” web link where it will take you to another blog on my list completely at random.

Latest Blog Posts

Here are the posts from this week:

• I’ve been having some issues in Arena. It’s been mostly a Rogue/Mage/Priest problem.
• I took part in a PUG 25 main of SSC. Never again will that happen.
• The issue of a Discipline’s Priest in end game is still an important question and here’s what you said.
• If you have ever wondered what it’s like healing in endgame, I offered a 20 second glimpse into a mind of a Priest with every action and every thought detailed and analyzed.
• Some of my readers have wondered how Protection Pallies can hit 18000+ health after buffs for Zul’Aman and I demonstrated how. I also showed a quick way to mentally calculate your own Stamina after raid buffs.
• Do you juggle your raid lineup? Are you doing it for the right reasons?
• Gold sellers are taking a different approach to advertising their services. They’ve started practicing commenting and trackbacking on blogs and here are my thoughts on the subject

20 Questions by Matticus

This week I had a chance to sit down with Phaelia of Resto4Life.

Past Hits

Past columns I have written that still hold true to this day.

• Preform Leaders Revealed: 6 Ways to Attract Players into your Organized BG Group
• Guest Post: Heroic Pugs are not Heroic
• WoW Struggles: Maintaining Reputation

Trends in the WoW Blogosphere

Blog Azeroth is a new community which virtually sprouted over night. It’s an online forum where both veteran and new bloggers can go to share ideas and learn more from each other. If you’re a blogger or if you’ve ever thought about blogging, Blog Azeroth is a great place to start interacting with some of your favourite bloggers (like me =D).

Blog Spotlight

4 Haelz - If I had a copper everytime I ran into a Druid blog, I would never have to worry about repairs again. She offers a fresh pair of eyes from the shape shifting professions although she is primarily a Resto Druid.

Matt likes: Encouraging Bad Habits with Good Healing

Three Druid Noob - Okay, this is the last Druid blog (this week anyway). He’s an Australian blogger that has three (3) Druids with each one specced differently. He even has a few stories to share about his dualboxing (tri boxing now, I think). This begs the question of what’s worse: Having 3 druids or having 3 healers?

Matt likes: Adventures in Dual Boxing

Critical QQ - This sharp, Troll Fire Mage certainly has a feisty approach to blogging. Euripedes has been on my reading list and blogroll for quite some time and I never show any mages any love.

Matt likes: Confessions of a Magi

Weekly Digest: Kael Still a Douche, Hunters Saddened, and Mattcast Going Through

What’s Happening in WoW

By the time this post goes out, I will have finished getting the necessary Sporregar rep to transmute Primal Earth to Water on my Paladin. No more spending gold to buy Primals to transmute Skyfire or Earthstorm diamonds!

Kael is still giving us a hard time. I’ve localized the problem down to the transition from Phase 3 to Phase 4 which has been the largest headache. All of us know our jobs and what to do. But there’s a lot of stupid mistakes going around that by themselves are minor. When combined together though, the raid caves.

Thankfully, our GM has publicly called out some of these players to step up their game. Hopefully it will have a desired effect on Sunday.

What’s Happening with the Blog

I’m still hard at work changing up my blogroll. I mentioned it before, but the blogroll will have it’s own page. My intention is to set it in such a way where when it is loaded, there is a different blog spotlighted every time.

Technical problems, but nothing my gnomish engineers can’t fix!

The hard part about blogging is finding interesting topics. It becomes much more difficult when the blogger intends to do a podcast. I am virtually committed to doing a podcast and I have some great ideas to explore. I might even go a step further and turn it into a video cast. We’ll see. I’ve always had a passion for public speaking and giving presentations. I don’t want to reveal too much for now. I don’t like to make empty promises. It’s a fairly monumental project in it’s own right and I don’t even have the technical knowhow on how to pull it off.

Haven’t quite picked a name for it, so I’m going to tentatively refer to it as the Mattcast since saying World of Matticus Offical Podcast repeatedly would get old after a while.

Lots of learning and lots of reading to do in addition to my school work, that’s for sure.

Latest Blog Posts

• Here are 4 Reasons Why I Rushed to 70. No doubt I’m a minority in this area.
• I wrote about Caster Weapon Swapper that helped Spellsurge users
• I had the opportunity to participate in the Chamber of Guilds discussion on Cliques
• After watching Guilds struggle through SSC and TK, I suggested an order for raid bosses to be tackled based on difficulty and convenience
• My class main polls have finished and Priests lead the way! Druids, it was truly a good game
• Then I ended the week with a look at 10 Personalities Every Guild Leader Need

Trends in the WoWosphere

There’s been a large outcry over Blizzard’s reversal in their stance of the ghost wolf pet (formerly a bug). Others don’t see the big deal.

I don’t have a hunter myself, so I cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like to lose the ability to tame it. Blizzard’s decision ultimately cost them the subscription of a player-blogger.

Personally, I think it was a combination of things that made him quit.

Past Hits

Past articles that I’ve written that still hold true to this day.

• Calling the Wipe
• The Ill-Fated Group 2
• One Shotting Heroics: The Secret

Blog Spotlight

Light’s Grace - It’s a brand spankin’ new WoW Blog! He’s She’s a Blood Elf Paladin (oh great, not another one). Kulrayk, the blogger, followed me on Twitter for some time and we’ve chatted for a little bit. Now he’s she’s decided to create his own blog! Go show him her some support! It’s tough to get a blog going from the start because you often question yourself and wonder if you have the motivation and dedication. All it takes is some readers.