Moved to WordPress

I have taken the plunge and shifted the blog over to WordPress. For various reasons (read Blogger errors) WordPress suits my blogging needs better.

I have also taken the opportunity to change the blog name. It is now "The Other Tank".

I would encourage you to head over to the new site at theothertank.wordpress.com and have a look.

I will discontinue updates to this blog as of now and all future content will be over on the new site.

See you there!

V

The Art of Screen Shots - Angles and Distance

I mentioned in the last post that all you really have control of when taking a screen shot is what direction you face, how high up you are and how close you are to the subject.

This post is going to tackle that. 

There are two halves involved in the creation of a fantastic screen shot.  Firstly, giving yourself something to work with.  Secondly, bringing out what you are looking for.

In order to give yourself something to work with, it is not simply a case of finding something you think looks cool and pressing the PrtScr button.  Taking a little bit of time to explore the shot can make all the difference.

What direction you face and how high up you are (thank God for flying in the old world!) combine to give you the ability to control angle.  When you see a subject on your screen you think will make a great shot, try to remember that in WoW most objects are represented in 3d space.  This means you can fly around it, over it and sometimes under it.  The straight on at eye level shot is not always best.  In fact, moving your character around a bit can open up some very interesting and unique angles you may not have seen before.

This shot of the Stormwind dwarven quarter illustrates the concept of having to think in 3d space.  The black arrow represents the approximate spot I'm going to stand for the second shot.

Stormwind Dwarven Quarter

I chose this spot because the cranes provide a useful tool to illustrate the 3d aspect of the shot.  So this perspective shows the area, but doesn't really provide the viewer any sort of immersion.
By shifting the viewpoint to here: 


Just Craning Around 

The Art of Screen Shots

In the next few posts, I am going to run through a few of the techniques and mindsets that I employ when I am taking photos screen shots.

Taking a screen shot of something like WoW is used for so many different purposes that I am not going to try and cover them all.  What I am going to focus on is the type of screenshot that doesn’t involve a UI or dead/sleeping characters arranged in a phallic symbol.  In other words, serious screen shots of in-game locations, encounters and characters.

Taking a screen shot is pretty similar to taking a photo, just with less complexity.  You don’t need to worry about light meters, exposure and shutter speeds, but you do need to think about composition and subject. 

For me, the biggest thing about taking a great screen shot is being able to see the end product before you take it.  This is the same when taking a photo, and I think divides the good photographers from the great ones.  What I mean by this is that some people look at a building and just see the building, others look at the same building and see angles from which they could take a photo to capture that pattern in the windows, or the old fire escape stairs around the back or any number of potential shots.

Atramedes as Melee

In between dodging sonic circles, sonic bombs, sonic fire on the ground and in the air and some sort of death laser ability, Atramedes is actually (I think) a fun fight.  The best thing is, the fight only needs one tank so I can spec frost and get my dps on!

The fight itself is another Cataclysm encounter that moves away from the stand on X, do Y and Z will happen mantra and more to a mindset of making sure you are keeping yourself alive and raid aware to eventually kill the boss (like Omnotron).

The fight employs a mechanic somewhat like the insanity meter in the Ulduar Yogg-Saron fight.  Basically, if you take any sort of damage from the boss, you gain sound.  The more sound you have, the greater the amount of damage you take from the boss – so it’s a circular arrangement.  If you reach 100 sound, the boss will kill you.  TLDR: sound bad.

As a melee dps, what you need to do is very similar to the tank so I will cover both roles here.  There are a few abilities that you must stay on top of to survive this fight.  There are two phases to the fight, both of which I will go through.

Some Magmaw shots

Here are a few shots from our Guild Magmaw run tonight, was on my hunter for this one, which was a nice change from my DK.  We sent in a second team which consisted of people who hadnt really been on a raid with us before and some alts, including mine.  Was a good positive run.

The Worm's Lair!

What exactly is worm spew made of?

Angelic!

Atramedes Kill

Here are some nice screen shots of our Atramedes kill tonight :)

Coming in to land from Phase 2

Sonic Breath

The money shot!

100 Games - A part of my Collection

Out of sheer boredom I have compiled a list of my PC games (some of them anyway). I started with what my Steam account lists, and then added what I can remember is sitting, off the top of my head, in my cupboard at home. Funnily enough the list is 100 items long. 

I don't think it is by any means exhaustive, but it is a start. You must understand that I have been playing PC games for years, ever since my first Commodore 64. I haven't listed those really old games here (looking at you 5th Gear), but I'm sure you can think of a few classics.  

Looking down at the list kind of makes me wonder if I have misspent my youth somewhat, staring at a PC screen for days on end.  Somewhat sadly, my Steam game time on record (not very accurate) is at 498 hours; just shy of 21 days...  and that's just Steam! Top of that list is MW2 at 168 hours played!

And I'm not even going to mention my console games.

Without further adieu, here is my list:

Age of Conan

Age of Empires

Age of Empires 2

Age of Mythology

Alien Swarm

Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed II

Balder's Gate 2

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Battlefield 1942

Battlefield 2

Blood Bowl: Dark Elves Edition

Call of Duty

Call of Duty 2

Call of Duty 3

Call of Duty World at War

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Multiplayer

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer

Command and Conquer (all titles)

Commander Keen Complete Pack

Counter-Strike: Source

Day of Defeat: Source

Deus Ex

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Devil May Cry 4

Diablo 2

DogFighter

Dragon Age: Awakening

Dragon Age: Origins

Elder Scrolls: Morrowind

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Europa Universalis III

Everyday Shooter

Fable

FIFA (multiple)

Flotilla

Garry's Mod

Gratuitous Space Battles

Guild Wars

Guns of Icarus

Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

Half-Life 2: Episode One

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

Half-Life: Source

Hawx

Just Cause 2

Killing Floor

King Arthur - The Role-playing Wargame

King's Bounty: Armored Princess

King's Bounty: The Legend

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Left 4 Dead

Lord of the Rings Online

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers

Magic: The Gathering Online

Magicka

Mass Effect 2

Medal of Honour: Airborne

Medieval 2 Total War

Medieval Total War

Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights 2

Order of War

Portal

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Puzzle Quest

Red Alert (all titles)

RIP

RIP 2: Strike Back

RIP 3: The Last Hero

Rome Total War

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Shogun Total War

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Sid Meier's Civilization V

Smashball

Spore

Spore: Creepy & Cute Parts Pack

Spore: Galactic Adventures

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Starcraft

Starcraft 2

Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander 2

Team Fortress 2

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Titan Quest

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

TrackMania United

Warcraft 2

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Wings of Prey

World of Warcraft

Anything on that list jump out at you? Any of your favourites there? Are any not listed? Let me know in the comments below!

V

Chimaeron – seemed a touch underdone

I mentioned in my last post that we were about to have a crack at Chimaeron. On Wednesday we had a few dummy runs to see how the fight worked, seemed ok.

Last night we went in fresh, having cleared the first 3 in the one night we were all keen to have a good crack at Chimaeron. Little did we know what was in store for us, what was going through the heads of the 3 headed dragon (?).

We had a quick chat before we engaged; talking about positioning and the best way to do the collapse after the robot went offline. That was simple enough, collapse on the druid with the star, who happened to be standing right behind me.

The boss strategy itself, from a tanking point of view, is close to being boring to be honest. Main tank stands in front of him and holds agro. Off tank stands off to one side and taunts the boss when he gives himself a buff letting you know he is about the double strike. After you see the slash animation, you (as the main tank) taunt him back. Phase 2 involves staying alive with all your cooldowns for as long as you can. You will die though, no question. You don’t get any heals you see… the healers go all trigger happy and start spamming (bring back the wanding days I say!) the boss.

So anyway, we engage. Off tank and I play a little ping pong with boss, we push him into phase 2. I die shortly after. Our assassination rogue then evasion tanks him for a bit (5 dodges in a row I think he managed) and then dies. Then the boss dies.

First pull, no joke.

I didn’t think he would be that hard, but first pull? Really? Possibly the new lootship? It was probably harder for the healers? Maybe I just simply missed something, some uber epic mechanic that bugged out on us?
Still, it got us all going and was a nice start to the evening. Atramedes seems a different prospect but still not that hard, mainly a case of dodging stuff. I will put some more thoughts up on him once we get the blind dragon down.

Till then:

Lord Victor Nefarius: Stop fighting yourself THIS INSTANT Chimaeron!

V

Blackwing Descent – DK Tanking Magmaw, Omnotron and Maloriak

Inspired by my guildmate Glowberry’s musings on healing in BWD, here are my thoughts on tanking in the same encounters. This will be a longish read so be warned.

Magmaw

The strategy we use for Magmaw only requires a single main tank, so for this fight I switch to Frost and get my dps on. I actually really enjoy dpsing this fight, not only because I can hit 20k but because I get to do something other than beat on the boss. This fight requires some thought on rune conservation and making sure Frost runes are available for the lava parasites.

From start to finish, here are my thoughts.

Until the first pillar of flame I simply work on the boss while keeping an eye on the pillar of flame cooldown. Once that starts getting under 10 secs, I stop using any abilities that use a Frost or Death rune. This is so that I have the maximum number of Howling Blasts (HB) available for the parasites.

As soon as the pillar falls on our pillar soaker who is standing at range (usually a Mage or Warlock) I run out dropping a Death and Decay over the spawn point. Once in range I then start spamming HB. I have specced into Chillblains and glyphed HB. This means that HB applies Frost Fever to all targets it hits and then Chillblains slow every target affected by Frost Fever by 25%. This gives me time to get 6 or 7 HB’s making sure that I firstly get the threat on all the parasites meaning I kite them away from the raid and secondly do an enormous amount of damage to them (this is sole reason I can hit 20k).

Once the parasites are down I switch back to Magmaw and the process is the same for the second pillar or flame. Once the main tank gets mangled (eaten), there is usually no more pillars, however this is not always the case so you need to stay aware and react accordingly if another one falls.
Once we are in the clear as far as pillars go, I simply wait for Magmaw’s head to be impaled and then go to town on it. The entire fight is just a rinse and repeat of this cycle. Hit the boss, kill the parasites, hit the boss; all whilst avoiding the fire. Cake.

Omnotron

This fight is a little more complicated than Magmaw but still not that bad once you are used to the 4 different golems. Due to the need for 2 tanks in this fight, I have switched back to Blood.

There are 4 bosses in this fight, each with their own set of abilities. Arcanotron uses arcane abilities, Electron uses electrical abilities, Magmatron uses fire abilities and Toxitron uses poison abilities.

By far the worst of these bosses to tank is Arcanotron. He has 2 abilities that make him irritating. The first is Arcane Annihilator, a fast cast that should be interrupted as often as possible. The problem is, a Blood DK only really has 1 reliable interrupt (whose cooldown is longer than Arcanotrons). The other is on too long of a cooldown, requires a blood rune and is on the global cooldown. The second ability is Power Generator, a swirly pool on the ground from which the boss must be moved as soon as possible as it gives a large damage boost to anything standing in it.

The other 3 bosses aren’t too bad from a tanking point of view, pretty much stand and deliver stuff apart from the occasional moving out of Toxitron’s poison cloud. There are however a couple of little niggles that you need to be aware of. The first is the change over, for a short period of time, you have 2 golems beating on you. This is the time when the raid is most likely to wipe as the tanks are tanking much more damage than usual. This can be partly negated by doing 2 things; making sure you have an emergency button available (Icebound Fortitude being the best) and place yourself a distance away from the activating golem where possible so that he has to run to you. Hopefully by the time he gets to you, the previous golem will have deactivated. This is possible because the golems retain their threat tables between activations.

Apart from the above, the only real movement you will have to do in the fight is when kiting Arcanotron around. Our guild employs a strategy whereby we move Arcanotron towards the group of ranged standing towards the rear of the room so that he drops his pools near them. This provides the damage boost but also gives some much needed mana regen. Occasionally the tank not on Toxitron will get a slime focussed on them, which will require some movement away from said slime.

It is also important to remember that you cannot hit the bosses while their shields are up. Thankfully they are only up for a relatively short period of time, namely from 45 to 30 energy. Once you pass 30, feel free to start beating on the boss once more, which in my case gives me the much needed Death Strike heals and blood shield.

This fight is another rinse repeat type deal, except that you need to be aware of what boss is activating next (usually this falls into a pattern after a couple of rounds) and make sure you are positioned correctly as well as proper use of cooldowns. We found it very messy until everyone was fully aware of how to interact with each of the bosses abilities. We are now at a stage where we can get them down in 3-5 attempts.

Its not too bad once you get a handle on it, just need to stay aware of what’s going on.

Maloriak

I started off as the add-tank on Maloriak, but we decided that wasn’t working so well so I switched to tanking him instead.

The shifting red/blue/green phases have no effect on the main tank at all; they are a problem for the dps and heals to worry about. What you do need to concentrate on in those 3 phases is controlling the flow of adds. Maloriak casts 2 add summons per coloured phase. He has a total of 18 small adds and 2 large adds. A small add cast summons 3 adds each time. The large add cast, which occurs at 25% summons 2 large adds. The key to this fight is controlling and killing the adds.

The strategy that we employ is as follows. I, as the main tank, interrupt the first cast of the first coloured phase (red or blue) then let the second cast through along with the following 2 casts of the second coloured phase (red or blue). This gives a total of 9 adds prior to the green phase. In the green phase these adds must be burned down by your dps as fast as possible. If not Maloriak gets kinda pissed and starts hitting you very hard indeed. If the adds don’t die, you most likely will.

However, whilst you are madly popping cooldowns to stay alive, you need to interrupt the 2 add casts in the green phase. These are really important. If they make it through, you will have 3 or 6 adds without the green vial debuff, meaning you won’t be able to kill them, meaning you are much more likely to die. Try very hard to interrupt these casts.

Thankfully the time between casts is longer than the cooldown on your Mind Freeze (MF) so it is possible to only use MF. Be aware that the cast will always follow an arcane storm, so don’t jump the gun and interrupt the storm, let the assigned dps handle that one. Abilities like Curse of Tongues really help here.

The red/blue/green vial phase will occur twice. By assuring that only 9 adds are released each time, you allow your add tank to survive, meaning you don’t wipe. If either tank dies, just reset the fight by running out.

The last phase, which occurs once the boss hits 25%, is a dps race. Maloriak has a 7 minute enrage timer and the first time we killed him, we did it in 6 minutes and 58 seconds… so high dps is a must. In terms of tanking this phase you need to make sure you avoid the fire where possible. There is no cast bar for this ability, but if you are standing in it when it is cast you will be thrown up in the air and suffer moderate fall damage. I finally worked out how to avoid it last night. Before each cast he will stop hitting you and stand in the one spot with his arms in the air. This is your queue to move. Simply strafe to one side as fast as possible. Note that if you don’t move early you will still get caught even if it ‘looks’ like you are out of the fire.

I tend to always move in the same direction, clockwise, so that I always have a direction in which to move. This ends up with me doing tight circles around the boss for the entire last phase. The add tank is kiting the 2 large adds this entire time, don’t even attempt to kill them, just focus on the boss.

I guess that the main tank doesn’t have to be the one interrupting the boss, but because you are always targeting him, it is just easier than sacrificing a dps during the green phase. This aspect of the fight really is key to getting him down. In future gear tiers, the off tank and healers may be able to handle more than 9 at a time which would change your interrupt pattern but for now, 9 at a time is about the limit.
So far I have really enjoyed these fights; they feel a more challenging than Wrath with a lot less room for mistakes. We have just ventured into Chimaeron’s lair so expect some more thoughts on that fight once we get him down.

Until then:

My demise accomplishes nothing! The master will have you! You will drown in your own blood! The world shall burn! Aaaghh!

V