Friday, February 18, 2011
Burn Baby Burn!
Finally tried the Pyromancer, a WoW Fire Mage equivalent, and really enjoy the AoE spell "Fire Storm". These shots really don't do it justice.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Home/World latency in Patch 4.0.6
Originally Posted by BrianI (Source)
We have been seeing a lot of confusion regarding some of our recent changes to the User Interface, specifically in regard to the new in-game latency meters. With 4.0.6, we have split the two separate connections the client forms to our game servers into two different ratings, labeled 'Home' and 'World'.
The speculation regarding what these ratings mean has been very interesting and some of the guesses as to what the numbers actually refer to have been pretty imaginative. Some have speculated that 'Home' referred to your personal latency and 'World' was Blizzard's latency. This is incorrect.
In essence, 'Home' refers to your connection to your realm server. This connection sends chat data, auction house stuff, guild chat and info, some addon data, and various other data. It is a pretty slim connection in terms of bandwidth requirements.
'World' is a reference to the connection to our servers that transmits all the other data... combat, data from the people around you (specs, gear, enchants, etc.), NPCs, mobs, casting, professions, etc. Going into a highly populated zone (like a capital city) will drastically increase the amount of data being sent over this connection and will raise the reported latency.
Prior to 4.0.6, the in-game latency monitor only showed 'World' latency, which caused a lot of confusion for people who had no lag while chatting, but couldn't cast or interact with NPCs and ended up getting kicked offline. We hoped that including the latency meters for both connections would assist in clarifying this for everyone.
As is probably obvious based upon this information, the two connections are not used equally. There is a much larger amount of data being sent over the World connection, which is a good reason you may see disparities between the two times. If there is a large chunk of data 'queued' up on the server and waiting to be sent to your client, that 'ping' to the server is going to have to wait its turn in line, and the actual number returned will be much higher than the 'Home' connection.
"Well, great," you may say, "but what does that mean to me?!"
Not much, maybe, but I wanted to focus on how local (or network) factors can (and will!) affect these numbers.
Here are the most common causes of high pings/latency (on both Home and World):
*As of July 2010, the 'official' definition of Broadband Internet (per the FCC) is '4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream'. Anything lower than this is not 'officially' broadband.
Lowering video settings (especially view distance) has the added benefit of lowering the amount of data your connection is asked to convey, as well, so even that can be a valid troubleshooting step.
If your 'Home' connection latency is low and your 'World' connection latency is high, that frequently indicates that there is some sort of QoS congestion controls being applied to your internet connection, at either the micro (LAN) or macro (WAN) level. A common symptom would be that you would be able to chat, but not to cast.
If both connections report high latency, that means your connection to our servers, in general, is almost completely saturated, or 'overflowing'. Without making any claims where that saturation lies, that seems to have been the most common case to date.
Please refer to our support pages (such as Is your in-game latency meter showing up red? (PC)) or contact a technical support representative directly for further information and troubleshooting.
The same Blue poster also covered some Patch 4.0.6 Latency Changes
We have been seeing a lot of confusion regarding some of our recent changes to the User Interface, specifically in regard to the new in-game latency meters. With 4.0.6, we have split the two separate connections the client forms to our game servers into two different ratings, labeled 'Home' and 'World'.
The speculation regarding what these ratings mean has been very interesting and some of the guesses as to what the numbers actually refer to have been pretty imaginative. Some have speculated that 'Home' referred to your personal latency and 'World' was Blizzard's latency. This is incorrect.
In essence, 'Home' refers to your connection to your realm server. This connection sends chat data, auction house stuff, guild chat and info, some addon data, and various other data. It is a pretty slim connection in terms of bandwidth requirements.
'World' is a reference to the connection to our servers that transmits all the other data... combat, data from the people around you (specs, gear, enchants, etc.), NPCs, mobs, casting, professions, etc. Going into a highly populated zone (like a capital city) will drastically increase the amount of data being sent over this connection and will raise the reported latency.
Prior to 4.0.6, the in-game latency monitor only showed 'World' latency, which caused a lot of confusion for people who had no lag while chatting, but couldn't cast or interact with NPCs and ended up getting kicked offline. We hoped that including the latency meters for both connections would assist in clarifying this for everyone.
As is probably obvious based upon this information, the two connections are not used equally. There is a much larger amount of data being sent over the World connection, which is a good reason you may see disparities between the two times. If there is a large chunk of data 'queued' up on the server and waiting to be sent to your client, that 'ping' to the server is going to have to wait its turn in line, and the actual number returned will be much higher than the 'Home' connection.
"Well, great," you may say, "but what does that mean to me?!"
Not much, maybe, but I wanted to focus on how local (or network) factors can (and will!) affect these numbers.
Here are the most common causes of high pings/latency (on both Home and World):
- Wireless
- Packet loss
- Almost-but-not-quite-broadband*
- Addons (yes, those wonderful UI modifications)
- Firewalls (some firewalls do interesting things to latency... try playing without it to see if it helps!)
- Mis-configured or defective home routers (please temporarily bypass before anything else)
- Quality of Service and Traffic Management Systems performing packet queuing of some sort.
- Net link saturation (not necessarily your ISP, but somewhere between you and Blizzard)
*As of July 2010, the 'official' definition of Broadband Internet (per the FCC) is '4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream'. Anything lower than this is not 'officially' broadband.
Lowering video settings (especially view distance) has the added benefit of lowering the amount of data your connection is asked to convey, as well, so even that can be a valid troubleshooting step.
If your 'Home' connection latency is low and your 'World' connection latency is high, that frequently indicates that there is some sort of QoS congestion controls being applied to your internet connection, at either the micro (LAN) or macro (WAN) level. A common symptom would be that you would be able to chat, but not to cast.
If both connections report high latency, that means your connection to our servers, in general, is almost completely saturated, or 'overflowing'. Without making any claims where that saturation lies, that seems to have been the most common case to date.
Please refer to our support pages (such as Is your in-game latency meter showing up red? (PC)) or contact a technical support representative directly for further information and troubleshooting.
The same Blue poster also covered some Patch 4.0.6 Latency Changes
Friday, February 4, 2011
RIFT Beta 6
Finally got the invite tonight and downloading 169.2mb of patch data. Going to take some time in the forums, do a little research. Came across a fun Soul Selection Flowchart while reading a good summary of the Chloromancer....
Arieste
Chloro is a main healer with massive tank healing capabilities, decent group healing capabilities and good raid healing capabilities. Our weakness is healing multiple tanks simultaneously.
The limitation the Cab speaks of about our heals being on cooldown comes from misunderstanding the class. The direct (instacast) heals are meant to be our emergency heals, not primary means of healing.
The choloromancer's primary means of healing is through the combination of lifegiving veil - which converts all our damage spells to heals - and Synthesis which vastly increases our heals on the tank. The main heals of the class are the spells Vile Spores which can be chaincast with no cooldown and nature's touch which can be rotated with 1 cast of Vile Spores in between. My highest heal with Nature's Touch was a 1200 pt heal at level 26, which is pretty massive.
At later levels we also gain some extremely powerful abilities such as an instacast complete heal, which i believe is the only one in the game. Additionally, since our heals are based on damage spells, they benefit from Spell Power stat that increases them, this makes us unique among healers as there is no such stat for cleric (or any direct) heals.
One of the major concerns for the future is whether our damage spell will begin to get resisted, making it more dangerous to heal at high level. At this point no one that knows can talk about it. Up through level 27 this was not an issue.
Chloromancer's main synergies come from one of four other souls:
Warlock: Mana regen and increases to magnitude of spells (this soul makes our heals bigger).
Archon: Mana regen, wards, casting speed increase, buffs, debuffs (this soul gives us additional tools for keeping the group up and increases overall cast speed)
Dominator: Mainly CC and some debuffs (better for pvp i'm told, but great at0pt 3rd soul for pve)
Stormcaller: This soul gives us groupwide power regen, otherwise this isn't really a great choice.
Necromancer: Extra HoT and an additional free-target heal.
For soloing, using an Elementalist or Necromancer is also extremely useful for the pet.
Contrary to what Mucro said, i think that healing ourselves is weaker for a chloro than any other healing class as the ability that creates our most powerful heals - synthesis - cannot be used on self, making our biggest heals not castable on self.
Arieste
Chloro is a main healer with massive tank healing capabilities, decent group healing capabilities and good raid healing capabilities. Our weakness is healing multiple tanks simultaneously.
The limitation the Cab speaks of about our heals being on cooldown comes from misunderstanding the class. The direct (instacast) heals are meant to be our emergency heals, not primary means of healing.
The choloromancer's primary means of healing is through the combination of lifegiving veil - which converts all our damage spells to heals - and Synthesis which vastly increases our heals on the tank. The main heals of the class are the spells Vile Spores which can be chaincast with no cooldown and nature's touch which can be rotated with 1 cast of Vile Spores in between. My highest heal with Nature's Touch was a 1200 pt heal at level 26, which is pretty massive.
At later levels we also gain some extremely powerful abilities such as an instacast complete heal, which i believe is the only one in the game. Additionally, since our heals are based on damage spells, they benefit from Spell Power stat that increases them, this makes us unique among healers as there is no such stat for cleric (or any direct) heals.
One of the major concerns for the future is whether our damage spell will begin to get resisted, making it more dangerous to heal at high level. At this point no one that knows can talk about it. Up through level 27 this was not an issue.
Chloromancer's main synergies come from one of four other souls:
Warlock: Mana regen and increases to magnitude of spells (this soul makes our heals bigger).
Archon: Mana regen, wards, casting speed increase, buffs, debuffs (this soul gives us additional tools for keeping the group up and increases overall cast speed)
Dominator: Mainly CC and some debuffs (better for pvp i'm told, but great at0pt 3rd soul for pve)
Stormcaller: This soul gives us groupwide power regen, otherwise this isn't really a great choice.
Necromancer: Extra HoT and an additional free-target heal.
For soloing, using an Elementalist or Necromancer is also extremely useful for the pet.
Contrary to what Mucro said, i think that healing ourselves is weaker for a chloro than any other healing class as the ability that creates our most powerful heals - synthesis - cannot be used on self, making our biggest heals not castable on self.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Does Not Shut Up
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Sing, Damn You!
Finally went up to grab my Singing Sunflower, with many thanks to a guide on MMO-Champion. A complete list of their recent winning guides is here.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Cataclysm Transmutation
Typically, when you use Transmute: Living Elements, you will receive 14-16 random Volatile elements (Volatile Air, Volatile Earth, Volatile Water, or Volatile Fire) in exchange for 15 Volatile Life. If you use this transmute while in one of the new Cataclysm zones associated with the Elemental Planes, however, the element into which your Volatile Life will transform will be predetermined. For example, if you use Transmute: Living Elements while in Uldum, you will always receive Volatile Air for your efforts.
Additionally, alchemists with Transmutation specialization will always receive bonus Volatile elements when completing this transmute. The bonus will be random, though, regardless of which zone you are in.
Source
- Mount Hyjal: Volatile Fire
- Vashj'ir: Volatile Water
- Deepholm: Volatile Earth
- Uldum: Volatile Air
Additionally, alchemists with Transmutation specialization will always receive bonus Volatile elements when completing this transmute. The bonus will be random, though, regardless of which zone you are in.
Source
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
It is Upon Us
Cata goes live in a few moments and everyone is ready to be a dick. Currently the Flight Trainer in SW is completely mobbed. MMO-Champion had the following advice: "Also, an useful reminder. Binding your "interact with target" key and using it after doing /target "NPC Name" is your only chance to quest." I didn't understand it at first. Now I do.
Decided to Tabard up to Northrend and hide. Figure should get a few dailies to turn in initially.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
How To Find Cataclysm Instance Entrances
Been meaning to make my own copy of this Wowhead blog entry for a while. Just in case something bad happens…
Blackrock Caverns
Grim Batol
Halls of Origination
The Stonecore
Lost City of the Tol'vir
The Vortex Pinnacle
Throne of the Tides
Blackrock Caverns
Grim Batol
Halls of Origination
The Stonecore
Lost City of the Tol'vir
The Vortex Pinnacle
Throne of the Tides
Blood DK Tanking
Every form of self-healing was nerfed in 4.0.3a. After some reading this largely due to PvP impacts at 85. In general, all healers took a hit. So naturally classes that had some form of self-healing became over-powered. This is Blizzard's response. It sure seems painful now but maybe it will work out in five levels. *sigh* I commented as such on this thread.
Found a decent thread on DK Tanking by someone who has been in the beta a while and even wrote a sim. More to do. But… there's always the Warrior or Paladin… :)
Found a decent thread on DK Tanking by someone who has been in the beta a while and even wrote a sim. More to do. But… there's always the Warrior or Paladin… :)
This Was Completely Unexpected
NO WAY! The patch is taking longer than initially expected? WHAT? *smirk*
Shattered
OH NOES! Sindragosa is gone! There's a big flaming birdie sitting on a castle. We prolly should kill it…
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Fill In Appropriate Boxes
Found this anger on the WoW Mage Forums:
You win blizzard I give up on mage... 11/16/2010 11:07:14 PM PSTNaturally he gets a few "WTF are you talking about?!" to which he replies:
Moncheche
Okay....so this patch we are nerfed again....yet in a BG a pallies shield is crit hitting me for 6k when he is lvl 75. A rogue is dominating BG from lvl 10 on.....and now I blink is so bugged I cannot blink out of any of the 1000 stuns you give other classes....so I quit....3 lvls from 80 and I am so sick of this. Whenever mages get a boost up to the damage that we should be doing you listen to ever other class and nerf us. Don't worry about 29 rogues ambushing in BGs for 3k...no that is not a problem, the problem is a mage at 77 has a spell that at 2.5 sec cast time might crit for 5k. Don't worry about pallies one shotting people with the shield at 29....nope....mages can possibly get the time to get 4 AB stored up. You wanna make things fair?? Okay how about this....I could go on....but why? Seriously....you ain't going to fix it...so I just going to lvl a pally, lock or rogue since those classes are apparantly all you care about
- Any stun....don't care if it is a pally hammer or sap or cheap shot or kidney shot or charge or (seeing the point here?) gets immediately dropped when you damage the stunned victim.
- Drop the saving grace from vanish and make it a 50's spell....heck you made Blizzard that high!
- FIX BLINK!! It has been bugged since day 1....
- If you are going to reduce our damage then reduce our casting time
- Let spellsteal steal any buff...not limited to (OMG you cannot steal a pally bubble)....
I wish...I really wish it was something that I am not seeing or doing....The following response could definitely come in handy!
It might even be the fact that I am not lvl 80.....but when you get so fed up with not being able to do anything until lvl 80...it gets depressing.
Life in this game starts at lvl 1, not 80. Pre-80 you aren't going to BG....period. Oh sure you can, but don't expect to do anything. Either your dead before you can get the spell off...or whatever you are casting at is dead before the spell goes off. This even applies to dungeons as well. Sure on Bosses we get some decent DPS, but trash mobs you aren't going to touch with anything but instant cast.
There isn't a class that I can duel pre-80 that won't stomp a mudhole in me, unless that person is either afk or braindead.
Warriors.....we cannot get away from, might gain a few secs if your frost spec'd....but thats it.
Rogues....forget it....ambush, vanish, ambush....your dead
Pally...don't try, your either fighting a stun/shield, or a holy one that just uses his seals to heal himself up without being able to counterspell it.
Priest...dot you up, fear, heal, repeat
Druid...Cat form....then see rogues entry
Locks.....you aren't getting a non-instant spell off....forget it
DK....about the same as warriors, just a lil faster to grave
Shaman....well our aoes hit everything.....oh wait....totems don't take aoes since they aren't...wait....why again wouldn't a totem get hit with an aoe....oh right....totems are apparently in a magical world where aoe hit everything but them.
hunters.....ya i got poly off on pet....but now I'm dead.....oh I got the hunter poly'd.....but now I'm dead from the pet....
So again....without bringing UI's or any outside programs into the game....how does a mage survive??
Aeriya
Dear:
[ x ] Moron
[ x ] Loser
[ ] Ganker
[ ] 12 Year Old
[ ] Twink
[ ] Troll
[ ] Level 2 Alt
[ ] l337 d00d
[ x ] Whiner
[ x] Fruit of the Stupid Tree
[ ] Other
You are being flamed because:
[ ] YOU DIDN'T READ THE STICKIES.
[ ] You forgot to search.
[ ] You posted a "Class is Overpowered" thread.
[ x ] You need to learn to play your class.
[ x ] You need to learn to play the game.
[ x ] You have no concept of class balance.
[ x ] You're just an idiot.
[ x ] You posted a Omg-i-got-killed thread.
[ x ] Your model brain is defective, leave until you have one that works.
[ ] You have an unhealthy fixation on horses.
[ ] You lost a fight to my class and came here to cry about it.
[ ] Someone told you my class was easy to beat, you found out otherwise, and now you're complaining.
[ x ] You posted a total lack of understanding about my class.
[ x] You posted a total lack of understanding about your class.
[ ] You don't know which forum to post in.
[ x] You made a ridiculous claim.
[ x ] I don't like your tone of voice.
[ ] You fell from "the tree."
[ ] You posted false information.
[ x ] You just plain suck.
[x ] Your balls are only of random weight.
[ ] YOU POSTED A MESSAGE ALL WRITTEN IN CAPS.
[ ] You are not civilized enough to post in these forums.
[ ] You mispeled evry sengle wurd.
[x ] Youhavenotlearnedthe?pointofpuncuationsuch?asspacingcommasandper?iods.
[ ] You are too stupid to argue with.
[ ] You are extraordinarily bad at [detecting ()/posting ()] sarcasm.
In punishment, you must:
[ ] Play a paladin to level 80.
[ ] /delete yourself
[ ] Suffer at least three nerfs.
[ ] Play a FULL prot spec Warrior to 80.
[ ] Drink out of a spitoon.
[ x] Fetch me a shrubbery.
[ ] Go aggro the murloc.
[ ] Spend an entire day in Barrens general chat.
[ ] Apologize to everybody on this forum.
[ xxxxxxxxxxxx ] Get to 80. Then QQ
[ ] All of the above.
In closing, I'd like to say:
[ x ] Learn to play
[ x ] Never post again.
[ ] I've found more intelligent things floating in the toilet.
[x ] STFU.
[ ] Learn to post.
[ ] Learn to read.
[ x ] No one cares.
[ ]Post this nonsense with your main.
[ ] Tranny scum!
[ ] The Paladin forums are that way ------>
[ ] All of the above.
Thank you, have a nice day.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Falling Out
Heard great things about the Fallout games yet I've never tried any of them. Found a site that features "Revived" versions of the first two games. Torrenting them now…
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Out in It
Aenara decided to finish up Dinner Impossible. Needed Strand, Eye, and AV. Lost them all, of course, but it wasn't too bad. Was actually top damage in Strand, tied for second on kills. Sort of surprising yet maybe not. Moonkin are incredibly versatile and rather annoying to face.
Look at that. Horde had the rest of the damage. *sigh* Rated BGs are going to be wonderful. So tired of the slack-ass Alliance fools in our battlegroup. At least we still own Wintergrasp. *snicker*
Look at that. Horde had the rest of the damage. *sigh* Rated BGs are going to be wonderful. So tired of the slack-ass Alliance fools in our battlegroup. At least we still own Wintergrasp. *snicker*
They Can Do That??
Whoa! Found a Rogue who has the 80 inscription on his BoA shoulders!! The Armory doesn't indicate if it's active or not. Hrm. The Horde Rogue isn't on Martini's account, but the Horde Druid is…
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Ready for Phase 2!
Took care of Tripping the Rifts on Aenara and Favor at the following spots in Northrend:
- Earth: Grizzly Hills, Zeb'Halak (15.7, 36.1) [lvl74]
- Fire: Zul Drak, Reliquary of Pain (32.3, 45.7)
- Water: Icecrown, Deathspeaker's Watch (60.4, 21.9)
- Wind: Sholozar Basin, Savage Thicket (48.1, 25.4)
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