So after doing a little searching around after having wow crash on me in Dalaran repeatedly since the patch I found that Blizzard is aware of the issue and working toward a fix. I also found out that the issue has been reported for at least a year and a half and 3.3.5 was just the straw that broke the camels back.
Apparently support for 64 bit operating systems hasn't been a priority for testing and users who have reported issues have been getting the update your video driver and disable your add-ons run-around for months. Since it was such a small percentage of the player base it makes sense that it didn't get much attention, but it still looks bad for Blizzard now that 64 bit systems have become more or less the norm for new computers.
So we have a slow memory leak affecting some systems which causes intermittent crashes. I noticed this myself when I upgraded my machine, but I disregarded it as being related to my choice of running with two video cards in an SLI configuration. I ran with shaders off for quite a while as they caused outdoor areas to flash like someone was turning the light on and off, but that was fixed with the release of wrath.
Out comes 3.3.5 which exacerbates this preexisting issue by turning a small memory leak into a large one. Now pretty much everyone running wow at max settings on newer hardware is experiencing regular crashes at least in computationally expensive places like Dalaran.
Blizzard's solution while they work on returning the problem to its 3.3.3 state is to reduce graphics settings. Note they did not say they would fix it, only make it work as well as it did previously. That's good enough for me I suppose, a little annoying, but good to know I wasn't doing something horribly wrong.
My guess is that stable support for todays newer hardware won't be flushed out until Cataclysm at the earliest and by that point there will be even newer stuff out there. Warcraft is rather unique in that is runs on such a wide range of systems and can be played on fairly ancient computers by todays standards with minimal impact on playability.
The take away from all of this is something most people who buy, upgrade or even build computers for themselves have known and kept in mind for years, don't overspend. The 100 rule comes to mind, you should never spend more than 100 dollars on any one computer component, including those fancy graphics cards despite how manufacturers would have you believe otherwise. I know I've broken this rule when I built my own machine, but only just barely and I still think SLI is cool. :)
Software companies aren't developing for or catering to excessive hardware as Blizzard has demonstrated, they might not even be considering it or even testing for it. Not to mention a piece of fancy hardware that costs two or three times as much will not last you two or three times as long. In the long run it is more cost-effective to buy older cheaper technology and then replace it when needed. That could be a very long time so far as warcraft is concerned seeing as system requirements have only gone up a little for wrath in six years.
Even then consider that I was up until shortly before the release of Wrath running wow on a dell manufactured in 93' a whole 7 years before warcraft. I did have to replace the video card and even then I was having issues in 25 man raids when AOEs started flying around, but everything else was completely playable at a decent frame rate and quality. Hardware has far surpassed current software needs and left us all spoiled.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
4pT10 Enrage is Liberating
I finally got the rest of the frost badges together for my fourth tier 10 piece thanks in part to the holiday boss rewarding two each day. I ran around to gem and enchant it right before going to tank for my guild's weekly raid.
It was better than I had even imagined. No more did I have to worry about timing my enrage with the readiness of the raid for maximum rage at the time of the pull. Enrage was always a little weird in the sense that you want it for the start of a pull, but you don't want to take additional damage, especially at the start of a pull when healers are getting into place and hots haven't been stacked up yet.
With the set bonus enrage is actually another defensive cooldown with a 12% damage reduction instead of an armor reduction. So you can enrage as you pull, have plenty of rage to get some decent snap aggro and at the same time take less damage while healers get situated. As an added bonus I have a talent point in King of the Jungle since I run with a hybrid tanking/DPS spec. That provides me with an extra 5% damage while enrage is active and helps even more with getting a good lead on aggro from the start.
In the middle of the fight the rage or aggro aren't usually an issue so it becomes a lesser barkskin cooldown to reduce incoming damage. There are fights where it helps more though like Bronjahm in Forge of Souls. In phase 2 he doesn't hit very much and rage goes to near zero pretty quick, popping enrage allowed me to put out a lot more damage than I would otherwise been able too without taking additional damage.
Speaking of Forge of Souls I ran that after my raid as you might have guessed, and guess what dropped off the last boss! The Needle-Encrusted Scorpion, of course. I can't even remember how long I've been trying, but I've lost the roll at least 5 times and some days I even got lucky and ran it twice, once queued specifically for it and again after as a random heroic.
I must say I earned it that time, healer went down in the beam (which happens quite often) and I took the opportunity to battle rez. I don't think they expected it as they didn't accept right away and I had to resume tanking before I could top them off with an innervate. Blew a couple cooldowns to mitigate the Phantom Blasts in the meantime, if only I could lower the cooldown of bash further or convince PUG DPS to interrupt. Boss went down and I won the trinket, yay. The 22 slot bag dropped that same run, but I didn't win it, I'll just equip the crafted 22 slot bag I made on my rogue as a contingency plan since as I suspected I don't want to run through that instance again for quite a while.
It was better than I had even imagined. No more did I have to worry about timing my enrage with the readiness of the raid for maximum rage at the time of the pull. Enrage was always a little weird in the sense that you want it for the start of a pull, but you don't want to take additional damage, especially at the start of a pull when healers are getting into place and hots haven't been stacked up yet.
With the set bonus enrage is actually another defensive cooldown with a 12% damage reduction instead of an armor reduction. So you can enrage as you pull, have plenty of rage to get some decent snap aggro and at the same time take less damage while healers get situated. As an added bonus I have a talent point in King of the Jungle since I run with a hybrid tanking/DPS spec. That provides me with an extra 5% damage while enrage is active and helps even more with getting a good lead on aggro from the start.
In the middle of the fight the rage or aggro aren't usually an issue so it becomes a lesser barkskin cooldown to reduce incoming damage. There are fights where it helps more though like Bronjahm in Forge of Souls. In phase 2 he doesn't hit very much and rage goes to near zero pretty quick, popping enrage allowed me to put out a lot more damage than I would otherwise been able too without taking additional damage.
Speaking of Forge of Souls I ran that after my raid as you might have guessed, and guess what dropped off the last boss! The Needle-Encrusted Scorpion, of course. I can't even remember how long I've been trying, but I've lost the roll at least 5 times and some days I even got lucky and ran it twice, once queued specifically for it and again after as a random heroic.
I must say I earned it that time, healer went down in the beam (which happens quite often) and I took the opportunity to battle rez. I don't think they expected it as they didn't accept right away and I had to resume tanking before I could top them off with an innervate. Blew a couple cooldowns to mitigate the Phantom Blasts in the meantime, if only I could lower the cooldown of bash further or convince PUG DPS to interrupt. Boss went down and I won the trinket, yay. The 22 slot bag dropped that same run, but I didn't win it, I'll just equip the crafted 22 slot bag I made on my rogue as a contingency plan since as I suspected I don't want to run through that instance again for quite a while.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Stupid DPS Tricks
Something I noticed repeatedly tanking Forge of Souls for my 22 slot bag and DPS trinket, DPS like to hit stuff the tank isn't. What are they thinking?
Being a bear I don't have the fancy silence abilities the other tanks do so if there is a caster its is staying where it is unless someone else takes pity on my running around and silences it for me. So this means that on a lot of the pulls in Forge of Souls I make a skull beat it in the head, run around to get a little threat on everything else (mainly to make sure the healer doesn't aggro them) then settle back down with skull and whatever other mobs cared to join me.
I then have my feral faerie fire cooldown to use to keep moderate threat on anything not in my swipe range. More than enough to keep the healer safe and surprisingly often enough to keep aggro from brain-dead DPS. All I have to say to those DPS is hit the gorram skull and try to pick a target the tank is actively tanking otherwise.
I've got a much bigger beef with healers though, for example a aggro whore mage who took over 34% of the heals in a heroic and yet somehow the healer sought fit to keep healing them. Perhaps I've grown a bit bitter over time, or perhaps I am just more pragmatic, after all the less I get hit as a tank the lower my repair bill. In any case if there is a DPS that sees fit to pull before I do, or constantly pulls aggro on unmarked mobs despite having a skull marked for just that reason, then I am going to let them die. Scratch that, I am going to go out of my way to get them killed so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. It actually makes tanking more interesting/fun.
The number of healers that would go along with my evil plan are few and far between and in fact the only healers I know that would let someone die for those reasons are also tanks. Coincidence? I think not. For the most part healers will heal everyone equally without bias. How boring.
Being a bear I don't have the fancy silence abilities the other tanks do so if there is a caster its is staying where it is unless someone else takes pity on my running around and silences it for me. So this means that on a lot of the pulls in Forge of Souls I make a skull beat it in the head, run around to get a little threat on everything else (mainly to make sure the healer doesn't aggro them) then settle back down with skull and whatever other mobs cared to join me.
I then have my feral faerie fire cooldown to use to keep moderate threat on anything not in my swipe range. More than enough to keep the healer safe and surprisingly often enough to keep aggro from brain-dead DPS. All I have to say to those DPS is hit the gorram skull and try to pick a target the tank is actively tanking otherwise.
I've got a much bigger beef with healers though, for example a aggro whore mage who took over 34% of the heals in a heroic and yet somehow the healer sought fit to keep healing them. Perhaps I've grown a bit bitter over time, or perhaps I am just more pragmatic, after all the less I get hit as a tank the lower my repair bill. In any case if there is a DPS that sees fit to pull before I do, or constantly pulls aggro on unmarked mobs despite having a skull marked for just that reason, then I am going to let them die. Scratch that, I am going to go out of my way to get them killed so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. It actually makes tanking more interesting/fun.
The number of healers that would go along with my evil plan are few and far between and in fact the only healers I know that would let someone die for those reasons are also tanks. Coincidence? I think not. For the most part healers will heal everyone equally without bias. How boring.
Reduce Your Lag Time 100ms
Perhaps even more depending on how slow your fingers are. ;)
I was recently made aware after over a year of pressing buttons that your spells aren't actually cast until you let the key go. This means that when you go to cast a spell quick to interrupt something or stop someone from dying with a heal there is an extra delay in the time it takes for your finger to not only hit the button, but to lift back up as well.
I only found out about this after I stumbled across an add-on to fix it, SnowfallKeyPress. Of course I didn't believe it as first, but I tried it and sure enough my spells were cast when I let go so I installed the add-on and sure enough they cast right away.
After trying the add-on out in a few instances and raids it was immediately apparent to me that my timing was a little off from what I was used to. Most noticeably was when I was healing I was often healing the wrong person because my heal went off before I had switched targets. I had never noticed how good I had gotten at synchronizing my target switching with my heals. That passed pretty quickly once I got used to the new rhythm.
The second thing I noticed, which is actually beneficial this time, is that I find myself able to interrupt much more reliably. Short cast times or catching an interrupt just as it comes off of cooldown, much easier now. This is why I will be keeping this add-on around.
When I started looking into this it appears many popular add-ons provide similar functionality of their own; so if you use an action bar replacement add-on or something like clique then this add-on might not do anything that isn't already being done.
I was recently made aware after over a year of pressing buttons that your spells aren't actually cast until you let the key go. This means that when you go to cast a spell quick to interrupt something or stop someone from dying with a heal there is an extra delay in the time it takes for your finger to not only hit the button, but to lift back up as well.
I only found out about this after I stumbled across an add-on to fix it, SnowfallKeyPress. Of course I didn't believe it as first, but I tried it and sure enough my spells were cast when I let go so I installed the add-on and sure enough they cast right away.
After trying the add-on out in a few instances and raids it was immediately apparent to me that my timing was a little off from what I was used to. Most noticeably was when I was healing I was often healing the wrong person because my heal went off before I had switched targets. I had never noticed how good I had gotten at synchronizing my target switching with my heals. That passed pretty quickly once I got used to the new rhythm.
The second thing I noticed, which is actually beneficial this time, is that I find myself able to interrupt much more reliably. Short cast times or catching an interrupt just as it comes off of cooldown, much easier now. This is why I will be keeping this add-on around.
When I started looking into this it appears many popular add-ons provide similar functionality of their own; so if you use an action bar replacement add-on or something like clique then this add-on might not do anything that isn't already being done.
Friday, May 21, 2010
True Evil
There are plenty of times where people can be inconsiderate, selfish or mean, but once in a while you come across someone purely evil. The type of person that should be locked away from society or squished under a large rock.
I've just started leveling my mage with a friend in outlands starting with hellfire peninsula. We both grabbed the one PVP quest to cap the three bases in the middle and figured we'd do it when we happened to go by.
Well we tried one night and a level 80 priest was there waiting to kill us low-level types. We go down in one or two hits. Corpse run back and my friend gets away, I don't. I can totally understand and forgive someone attacking a flagged player in a PVP location without looking at their level, once. If you go out of your way to kill them a second time knowing you won't get anything out of it then you are just a jerk. It was late and we gave up for the evening.
The next time we go and cap the first one only to be steamrolled seconds later by a hunter and paladin who then proceed to camp our corpses. I was about to give up when I decided to flip to my main, get some help and trounce the punks. We did.
Capped the other two without any competition and headed back to honor hold to turn in our quest. This is when asshattery turns to evil and the paladin, Renderence of Perenolde, swoops in on a flying mount and decided to one shot our low-level alts in town.
Funny how he didn't want to attack our mains of his own level, but had no problem attacking characters over 15 levels lower.
It is one thing to attack someone in a PVP area who is flagged, no matter the level or reason, since if they are in the area and flagged they are sort of consenting to be killed. Even still it isn't nice to gank lower level toons.
A line gets crossed though when you follow someone obviously no longer interested in PVP and ambush them. In a grossly unfair fight no less where you have no chance of losing.
These types of people go to a special hell with toy trains and mohawk grenades.
I've just started leveling my mage with a friend in outlands starting with hellfire peninsula. We both grabbed the one PVP quest to cap the three bases in the middle and figured we'd do it when we happened to go by.
Well we tried one night and a level 80 priest was there waiting to kill us low-level types. We go down in one or two hits. Corpse run back and my friend gets away, I don't. I can totally understand and forgive someone attacking a flagged player in a PVP location without looking at their level, once. If you go out of your way to kill them a second time knowing you won't get anything out of it then you are just a jerk. It was late and we gave up for the evening.
The next time we go and cap the first one only to be steamrolled seconds later by a hunter and paladin who then proceed to camp our corpses. I was about to give up when I decided to flip to my main, get some help and trounce the punks. We did.
Capped the other two without any competition and headed back to honor hold to turn in our quest. This is when asshattery turns to evil and the paladin, Renderence of Perenolde, swoops in on a flying mount and decided to one shot our low-level alts in town.
Funny how he didn't want to attack our mains of his own level, but had no problem attacking characters over 15 levels lower.
It is one thing to attack someone in a PVP area who is flagged, no matter the level or reason, since if they are in the area and flagged they are sort of consenting to be killed. Even still it isn't nice to gank lower level toons.
A line gets crossed though when you follow someone obviously no longer interested in PVP and ambush them. In a grossly unfair fight no less where you have no chance of losing.
These types of people go to a special hell with toy trains and mohawk grenades.
Another Dream
It started out going to work, but I got to pull into the loading dock which appeared as a garage rather than the parking lot. It was Thanksgiving and I was offered three platters of goodies to take home.
I was also asked to watch a coworker's mice for a day sometime in the future. This surprised me even in the dream, but I still agreed.
When I go to leave I open the garage door to find that just outside there is a lot of junk piled up, old bicycles and stuff. It had obviously been there for a while and somehow I had gotten into the garage anyway.
It didn't seem to matter because I got out again in whatever mysterious way I got in and found myself next in my parent's back yard in a red canoe with my mother and grandfather after I had unloaded my goodies.
I took out a small packet of tiny Oreos (like quarter inch diameter tiny) and opened them. They were vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other with white frosting in between. I offered then to my mom then had some myself.
Looking around I notice the terrain is quite different from reality and about half the backyard is flooded. The water was perfectly calm where we were which would usually be a hill.
It was probably no coincidence that things started to move soon after I noticed that. From the treeline on the back edge of the yard a tall grey dead tree floated upright towards us narrowly missing the boat. The tree was missing all but the very stubs of its branches.
A second dead tree floated out and that one bumps the end of the canoe sending us speeding down the hill where we stop in calm water again at the bottom.
At this point I am made aware that we are trying not to get wet for some reason and the canoe, now made of raw rough wood, has a hole in it. My mother and I climb out to shore without getting wet to try to find something to patch the hole inside.
After getting back up the hill we turn around to find my grandfather sitting on the patio at the bottom of the hill in front of a slider door out from the basement, he was all wet and told us he was going to sit there to dry out.
Next we go through the house and down to the basement to go out to the patio. A pterodactyl swoops down and grabs something off the patio and flys off. I then notice a pair of babies which are covered in bright red fluffy down with white spots. We go out to bring my grandfather inside and they come at us nipping and pushing. They seem rather strong for their size. The dog get out in the process and goes after one. I get the dog back in and go back out to help trying to keep one that followed me from getting in.
Then I wake up to my alarm clock.
I was also asked to watch a coworker's mice for a day sometime in the future. This surprised me even in the dream, but I still agreed.
When I go to leave I open the garage door to find that just outside there is a lot of junk piled up, old bicycles and stuff. It had obviously been there for a while and somehow I had gotten into the garage anyway.
It didn't seem to matter because I got out again in whatever mysterious way I got in and found myself next in my parent's back yard in a red canoe with my mother and grandfather after I had unloaded my goodies.
I took out a small packet of tiny Oreos (like quarter inch diameter tiny) and opened them. They were vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other with white frosting in between. I offered then to my mom then had some myself.
Looking around I notice the terrain is quite different from reality and about half the backyard is flooded. The water was perfectly calm where we were which would usually be a hill.
It was probably no coincidence that things started to move soon after I noticed that. From the treeline on the back edge of the yard a tall grey dead tree floated upright towards us narrowly missing the boat. The tree was missing all but the very stubs of its branches.
A second dead tree floated out and that one bumps the end of the canoe sending us speeding down the hill where we stop in calm water again at the bottom.
At this point I am made aware that we are trying not to get wet for some reason and the canoe, now made of raw rough wood, has a hole in it. My mother and I climb out to shore without getting wet to try to find something to patch the hole inside.
After getting back up the hill we turn around to find my grandfather sitting on the patio at the bottom of the hill in front of a slider door out from the basement, he was all wet and told us he was going to sit there to dry out.
Next we go through the house and down to the basement to go out to the patio. A pterodactyl swoops down and grabs something off the patio and flys off. I then notice a pair of babies which are covered in bright red fluffy down with white spots. We go out to bring my grandfather inside and they come at us nipping and pushing. They seem rather strong for their size. The dog get out in the process and goes after one. I get the dog back in and go back out to help trying to keep one that followed me from getting in.
Then I wake up to my alarm clock.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Something to Remember Me By
PVP is all about the dying and everyone and anyone will die at some point. In an ideal PVP world all things being equal everyone would lose half the time and win the other half.
Once you come to terms with your own fleeting mortality you can come to appreciate sharing a little something with whomever got that killing blow.
For starters I like to share a faerie fire with rogues and other druids. Rogues have to burn a cooldown if they want to stealth, but druids are out of luck until it wears off. Nothing annoys a stealthy player more than not being able too.
The next step up, once you have the resilience to survive long enough to pull it off, is to leave your enemy with a 5 combo point rip. Which brings me to a story about why druids and paladins should avoid each other in 1 on 1 combat.
I was nearing the end of an Arathi Basin and things were not looking good. I stealthed up to the lumber mill and found a single paladin guarding the flag, but standing just inside the building pacing and jumping.
I still needed to assault a flag with my orphan so I took a chance hoping they would not attack and would of been more than happy to retake the flag right after I was done. They attacked instead.
It was quite the fight, each of us burning pretty much every cooldown we had over the course of the fight, some of them more than once if they had cooldowns under 3 minutes. Each of us had killed each other three times over when we both ran out of tricks.
I went down in a last stitch effort to heal myself before getting a hammer of wrath to the head (which was followed by one of those nasty instant exorcisms), but I still still had a full power rip ticking away which took that paladin out seconds later while spamming flash of light. It was a laugh out loud moment.
Alliance lost that battleground before I even got the chance to rez and I requeued for another random battleground and got Isle of Conquest. Usually I run up and fight at the workshop then fall back and defend the keep, but this time I listened to some yahoo that told a couple groups to take the hangar. It sounded like a nice change of pace so I went with it.
I met that same paladin up at the top as they ran in to attack, I pounced on them like white on rice and they just bubbled and jumped off the edge. :(
Once you come to terms with your own fleeting mortality you can come to appreciate sharing a little something with whomever got that killing blow.
For starters I like to share a faerie fire with rogues and other druids. Rogues have to burn a cooldown if they want to stealth, but druids are out of luck until it wears off. Nothing annoys a stealthy player more than not being able too.
The next step up, once you have the resilience to survive long enough to pull it off, is to leave your enemy with a 5 combo point rip. Which brings me to a story about why druids and paladins should avoid each other in 1 on 1 combat.
I was nearing the end of an Arathi Basin and things were not looking good. I stealthed up to the lumber mill and found a single paladin guarding the flag, but standing just inside the building pacing and jumping.
I still needed to assault a flag with my orphan so I took a chance hoping they would not attack and would of been more than happy to retake the flag right after I was done. They attacked instead.
It was quite the fight, each of us burning pretty much every cooldown we had over the course of the fight, some of them more than once if they had cooldowns under 3 minutes. Each of us had killed each other three times over when we both ran out of tricks.
I went down in a last stitch effort to heal myself before getting a hammer of wrath to the head (which was followed by one of those nasty instant exorcisms), but I still still had a full power rip ticking away which took that paladin out seconds later while spamming flash of light. It was a laugh out loud moment.
Alliance lost that battleground before I even got the chance to rez and I requeued for another random battleground and got Isle of Conquest. Usually I run up and fight at the workshop then fall back and defend the keep, but this time I listened to some yahoo that told a couple groups to take the hangar. It sounded like a nice change of pace so I went with it.
I met that same paladin up at the top as they ran in to attack, I pounced on them like white on rice and they just bubbled and jumped off the edge. :(
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