Matt and Shannon from Seattle Geekly (www.seattle-geekly.com) drop by, have a few drinks, and join in on the chaos that is Raid Warning.
Podcast: iTunes | Play in new window | Download | Torrent | Mevio
Intro Music:
“Oldskool Revolution” by Deathboy off the album To Rights.
http://www.deathboy.co.uk
http://www.mininova.org/tor/3189375
Beer:
“W’10 Pitch Black IPA” by Widmer Brothers Brewing Company
website: http://www.widmer.com/
ABV: 6.5%
BA: B+
NEWS:
Cataclysm Friends & Family Alpha begins, Closed Beta has not
http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/cataclysm-friends-family-alpha/
The Mohawk Grenades Return
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml
Player Beats Wrath of the Lich King
http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/player-%27beats%27-wrath-of-the-lich-king-comics/
Caspi from the guild Refuge on the EU-Taerar server
Wow Screenshot of the Day section now updating with Cataclysm goodness
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com
Cataclysm Echo Isles Update
http://www.wow-europe.com/cataclysm/features/echoisles.html
World of Warcraft on an iPad?
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty in Stores July 27th
Blue Posts:
Population Balancing with Tol Barad
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24630543156/tol-barad-wintergrasp/
new system will look for more of a 1:1 ratio, will likely have caps
“Right now the issue with Wintergrasp is it actually encourages the behavior of selecting a realm where your faction dominates. If the reverse becomes true for Tol Barad”
Arena Tournament Names and Zero Tolerance
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24401858154/inappropriate-character-and-team-names/
Believe it or not, the team and character names have to be appropriate or you face deletion!
Two Tiers of Cataclysm PVP Gear
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24401796793/cataclysm-badge-and-pvp-point-changes/
- The lower tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on normal difficulty and cost only Conquest Points.
- The higher tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on Heroic difficulty and will have a minimum personal rating requirement in addition to costing Conquest Points
Buff homogenization and the Blues dont like you.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/24401906297/shared-raid-lockouts-more-homogenized-buffs/
Raid buffs and debuffs exist for two main reasons:
1) They encourage you to bring a diversity of classes and specs rather than stacking whatever is highest dps at the moment.
2) They make you feel more powerful in a group than when you’re solo. For an MMO, WoW is pretty soloable, so we like for it to feel really awesome when you’re in a group.
Whenever we read “Without my buff, there is no reason for a group to take me,” our typical response is: awesome. You’ll have to figure out another reason why they should take you.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Thanks for having us on! We really had a good time and hopefully no one will hold our slurred, drunken ramblings against us.
Brilliant podcast again as usual.
Good job you remembered about the zesty clam meat and that you aren’t as funny as you think you are.
Dam i love my meat!
Keep it up
Howard – sylvanas EU
I thought the arena and shaman comments were pretty one-sided.
Arena matches in Season 5 were nuts with burst. These days wizard cleave and beast cleave comps can make a match short if they burst properly but I’ve been in numerous 2s and 3s matches that have lasted >10 minutes so not all matches are over in seconds. Arenas are DEFINITELY a different approach to PvP but I find them less frustrating (most of the time, f*** disc priests) than random BGs because you have a lot more control over the outcome. Wrangling a bunch of random people you don’t know into accomplishing a BG objective is near impossible in some battlegroups. I honestly don’t even bother unless I can get 4 other guildies to queue with me. I do look forward to rated BGs.
I may be biased in the Shaman QQ about Bloodlust being givch 05 to ICC release. One of the guests made a comment along the lines of “Shamans are already powerful on their own.” Shamans are on the bottom of the dps totem pole in progression raids (where raid comp actually matters). This is a change to benefit 10-mans. I just don’t like seeing a class-defining ability going to another class. They changed how Bloodlust functioned to make it less necessary for dps races from BC to LK and I liked that (I hated totem twisting while swapping shamans in and out of our melee group for bloodlust chaining). How many progression teams actually lack a shaman?
Sorry, I usually come off as pretty opinionated but there are people who value these aspects of the game
.
tl;dr Arena has its issues but its *typically* not nearly as frustrating as dealing with 30+ disorganized players farming HKs midfield in AV. If you give mages bloodlust then give shamans dps comparable to mages.