zircon

Suzu, we have several non-resto druids that go to MC and even BWL with us. Moonkin is a great spec for the +3% crit aura, and they put out decent DPS too. Rogues love Feral spec Druids with the melee crit aura too, and we have a Feral spec Druid who uses all blue gear yet still makes it into the top 10 on the meters. I shudder to think of how much he'll do with a Herald of Woe and MC non-Druid set epics. Also; It's not necessarily harder than MC; it's not as linear. MC bosses up to Rag are all straightforward. You can basically get 'em all on the first attempt, except maybe Domo and Garr. Hell, my guild did it and we're definitely no superstars in PVE. On the other hand, ZG requires a higher level of individual skill and strategy for each boss fight. Even trash mobs are harder than MC. However, it typically requires less gear and allows for a few more mistakes than MC. IMO anyway.

ReMixing might be hard for you, because you picked one of the strangest and most difficult-to-remix soundtracks around! Try working with more melodic material, eg. Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Mega Man, Zelda (etc) and I think you'll find it's much easier. As Larry mentioned, there's not a lot to say that's WRONG with this. Your production values are relatively solid (though the sounds could be a little more dynamic and unique), and you work with the original tune to a certain degree. But you need to take it to the next level by adding more substance. More variations, more patterns, more cohesiveness, etc. NO

I liked your first version of this. I have to say some aspects of this are an improvement. I think making things faster and changing up the instruments was a good choice. But WTF at the production. The stereo stuff is totally screwed up, you've got clipping, lots of mud.. your earlier stuff sounded better than this, I don't know what's going on here. The actual synths are pretty cool but it's hard to hear them considering how weird this sounds to me. All things considered I don't think the arrangement here is terrible. If the production was REALLY tightened up I would say this would be pretty damn cool. As is.. no way. NO

ROFL @ the title. Fantastic! The intro.. ouch. Everything is just too lofi. If you were going for a chiptune feel you should have gone all out. As is, it is just grating on the ears. I would work on that first. The drums (etc) that follow the intro are pretty nice, but come on, they're not so interesting to have them repeated that many times before a melody comes in! You need to be doing some more stuff there or cutting way down on the repetition. When the lead synth comes in, as the VGmix people noted, there are wrong notes. This won't kill you but it's pretty noticeable (particularly to me as I'm a fan of the theme). At 2:07 we get some light variation but nothing in the soundscape is really different. You need to be introducing more material here, melodic or otherwise. Also, though the production is generally good, the lead synth seems to be playing too low. There's a lot of mud in the low to mid ranges.. nothing sticks out until the organ comes in later on. The changes in the groove there are cool, and the variations are nice too. Rhythmically everything is very simplistic. This may once again be because of the MIDI but I think you could add more swing to it to make it less straightforward and more funky. That's my opinion, at least. Basically.. the structure/arrangement here needs work. There are some wrong notes, a lame ending, little rhythmic/melodic/harmonic variation, and so on. Refine + resubmit. NO

TO; yeah sounds like a rhodes to me. This mix has some really nice production values. Effects are used tastefully, the synths are pretty cool, and the mixing is good. Unfortunately they do not carry the piece enough. The groove here (while polished) is pretty dull and plodding. The arrangement is relatively straightforward in my opinion- there is some level of interpretation here but it could use some expansion. As it progresses not much gets added to the harmony or groove either which is sort of lame.. it's the same set of instruments playing throughout. You can do better! Put those production skills to use and whip up some nifty new material, perhaps adding some epiano/synth solos. Bottom line is that this is enjoyable, but needs some refinement in terms of arrangement. NO

Cool grooves; same type of refined, polished bass+drumlines that I think we've come to expect from po!. The harmony and comping is sparse, which is par for the course in terms of this style.. but given the length of the arrangement I think it kind of hurts the mix. The changeups in the second half are cool, for sure. Overall production strikes me as good though I'm personally just not a fan of the whole vinyl-on-everything thing. I think BD + snares need substance and definition. But really, that's not a big deal. I think my main problem here would be the same as my fellow judges.. too brief, needs some sort of stronger resolution, etc. A little more refinement and this would get a yes. NO

Yes, they do take skill, but they are comparably powerful and easy to play.

Pretty cool concepts here.. I think I'll talk mainly about the production. One thing is that the mix IS mostly centered. That heavy synth guitar detracts from things, not because of the timbre but because of how it is used. It sits in dead center with most other things and really just takes up tons of sonic space as well. You need to work with the EQ there (and on other instruments) to make sure it does not take up so much space. Giving it some stereo reverb and delay will help too. I would also suggest perhaps automating some filtering or EQ on it to give it a bit of motion, as the very dry, centered tone begins to get grating after awhile. Your grooves are pretty cool. I like them; I think you could build 'em up even more for an added effect, and perhaps compress them so that they are more to the forefront. But that's personal opinion. They're definitely strong as is. The bass instruments here are a little on the weak side in that the tone just does not change. You want some sort of motion to all of your sounds, either from multiple oscillators interacting with eachother, or LFOs on the filters/pulsewidth, or whatever else you can muster up. I also think that while you have some great percussive variation going on, the arrangement is a bit repetitive, and the fact that your sounds mostly stay the same does not help. I think you could be more varied with your synth tones. Changing up the bass/guitar will help, but adding even more harmony instruments or perhaps having a more 'cutting' lead would sound good, in my opinion. This is a cool song. It is very close to passing, let me make that clear. Just make a few changes so that it's more dynamic and you are set. NO

Heh.. Stormshroud Yeah, Un'Goro is a nice place at your level. You can still do Zul'farrak runs (instance near Tanaris). In a level or two, hit Western Plaguelands. Felwood may be good for you too right now.

1. Caster +damage, like with Frozen Wrath, comes at the expense of ALL OTHER STATS. Unlike you guys, casters have to rely on mana. Greens with +spell damage are garbage. You have to build up a massive set of MC level gear; eg 8-10 or so pieces of gear before you start seeing changes. 2. It's not a direct addition. Only spells that take more than 3 or 3.5 seconds to cast (or so) get the full effect from the +damage. Frostbolts do not get the full effect. If I got a full suit of all BWL gear and Warlord's gear, my 1.5 second cast Mindblast would hit for about.. 200 damage more? For a FULL set of endgame, "godly" gear. So instead of 500 it would hit for 700. Of course, I would also lose spirit, mana per 5 seconds, maximum mana, resistances, healing power, etc if I took this set of gear. Wow, uber. Sorry, but casters take it UP THE ASS in terms of itemization. Rogues have it easiest of any class. Rogues is the hardest to play period. I have played every class, heck, I even started a second rogue, just to test out if it was just because it was my first character, and no, the rogue class is overly complicated compared to "I win charge heroicstrike" comboes. I meant that their itemization is best. But they are also the easiest to play. It's laughable. All of my PVE experience is spamming Sinister Strike and then Eviscerate. I apply Poisons periodically. I never have to worry about getting ganked by people near my level. Two people try to gank me? Gouge one, Blind the other, Vanish, Sprint. Low on Energy and in the middle of a fight? Thistle Tea, pop a potion or tuber, Evasion, use Blind (or Vanish and then go to cheapshot etc). Too easy. Levelling was a walk in the park.

First of all, I do play a Rogue. Second of all: 1. Caster +damage, like with Frozen Wrath, comes at the expense of ALL OTHER STATS. Unlike you guys, casters have to rely on mana. Greens with +spell damage are garbage. You have to build up a massive set of MC level gear; eg 8-10 or so pieces of gear before you start seeing changes. 2. It's not a direct addition. Only spells that take more than 3 or 3.5 seconds to cast (or so) get the full effect from the +damage. Frostbolts do not get the full effect. If I got a full suit of all BWL gear and Warlord's gear, my 1.5 second cast Mindblast would hit for about.. 200 damage more? For a FULL set of endgame, "godly" gear. So instead of 500 it would hit for 700. Of course, I would also lose spirit, mana per 5 seconds, maximum mana, resistances, healing power, etc if I took this set of gear. Wow, uber. Sorry, but casters take it UP THE ASS in terms of itemization. Rogues have it easiest of any class. That Mage AE? Yeah, it takes mana. And they don't gain it back in a few seconds like you. Nor can they do anything when they have 0 mana. You can still hit people, crit, and poison them when you have 0 energy (though you will only have 0 energy for a second or two!).

Eviscerate still hits pretty hard. Now you know how it feels to not have scaling damage My Shadow Word: Pain has done the same for the last 6 months.

Here are our problems. 1. Our primary defenses (Psychic Scream and Power Word: Shield) have been nerfed to the point of uselessness. The Fear only lasts for a short time, is on a long cooldown, and most classes can trinket out of it. Power Word: Shield is on a cooldown and now that it ignores armor, is a total joke. There are times when I will cast it and it will disappear in less than a second. 2. We are always the primary target in PVP and lack the defenses of other healing classes. 3. The Holy tree is next to useless. Most talents are total garbage, including the entire bottom half. For endgame, only about 3-4 talents are actually useful. 4. The Discipline tree has about 10 points worth of abilities that all Priests MUST have or else they are totally gimp. Other useful abilities are scattered around. The 31 point talent is garbage (same with the Holy talent). 5. We are the only casting class to not have any method of mana regeneration. Because we are not hybrids (unlike Shamans and Paladins) we are totally useless when we reach zero mana. Mages can Evocate, Warlocks can Life Tap, Druids can Innervate (or just shapeshift and do something else) etc. 6. Our main stat is supposed to be Spirit, which doesn't work in 95% of all combat situations. 7. Most of our spells are useless. Greater Heal has no utility out of 5/10 man instances, and even then, it is still rarely used. Prayer of Healing is good for basically one boss fight in the game. Renew is OK but Druids HoTs are better + more efficient, and you have to spec for it to be really worthwhile. We are reduced to spamming Flash Heal in most encounters. 8. We are the only class where if you spec for PVE you lose all PVP utility and damage dealing capabilities. Holy spec priests can barely heal better in PVP than a Shadow spec priest yet they are totally defenseless, have less damage reduction, and cannot do damage. WTF? 9. Paladins, Druids, and Shamans can all meet or beat the healing efficiency of a Priest. Shamans especially can match us with their Lesser Healing Wave which is basically identical to our Flash Heal. They also have better armor and DPS capabilities if need be. 10. We do not benefit from +crit gear unlike most clases. +crit generates more aggro and causes overhealing. Even in PVP, our damage comes from channeled spells and DoTs, thus all of our gear has to be stamina, +damage, or +damage/healing, which is hard to come by. You have to gimp yourself in some way to get it, or have full MC/BWL-level items that are very hard to collect. Trust me, we have problems. Priests have not ever been buffed. We have only been nerfed, and in your favor. As for Warlocks.. what, Death Coil? One skill doesn't make or break a battle, typically. You can trinket or Vanish out of most forms of caster crowd control on you. You can Kick our spells (possibly silencing us), stun us to interrupt (even through our "uninterruptable" abilities), cripple us so we can't run, double our casting time, hit us constantly so our spells don't go off, and stunlock us so we can't do shit. Oh, and you don't have a mana bar to rely on to do damage, so you can keep going indefinitely. I have played a hell of a lot of PVP. Rogues are still unseen killers in AB, they are VERY deadly. Same goes for WSG. Two rogues coming out of nowhere with Saps, stunlocks, and blinds = bad news for flag defense. You DPS. You are a DPS class. You are very, very good at DPSing. Too good, in fact. Rogues typically dominate damage meters in any MC-level guild. In my guild, that is certainly the case. You are the only DPS class with an instant aggro-reduction ability. This makes you very powerful. If you pick offense, and all you do is go on offense, you can't complain. You can also stunlock/sap mobs for CC. You can quickly assassinate healers, you can stealth defend an area or stealth assault an area, you can keep casters stunlocked.. and you can do tons of damage. What the hell is wrong with your role? ROFL! What itemization imbalance? The fact that any caster has to spend tons of time building up an entire equipment set just to scale their spells up by 1% while you guys can get one or two drops and double your DPS in no time? Rogues have some of the best itemization of any class, particularly with AV and the Lobotomizer, which is ridiculously easy to get. Warriors have the same "problem". You guys have not received any serious nerfs. Stealth is still your main weapon. There are ways to get around it, just like there are ways to get around any class' main abilities. The fact of the matter is, there are ways to break stealth, but it's irrelevant if you DON'T KNOW THE ROGUE IS THERE.

I'll write a real response here in about 30 min.. after class

Yeah, Hunters are really an EXCELLENT class. They are not overpowered but on the verge of being there. Right now, Priests need the most work, followed by Rogues.

It's a common problem. A system where you can award point bonuses and/or penalties to people is helpful. Good players and a good leader are nice too. My guild was sort of lazy but once we got Rag for the first time, people are getting motivated. We now have a fighting chance at being one of the top Horde guilds on the server.

Between tubers AND ndb AND potions.. you should be fine. Combat pots FTW in terms of cheap stuff.

Hmm.. yeah, definitely not bad for someone new to this. I agree with Vig that things are a little oversimplified for the most part. Usually you want to BUILD on the original rather than take away from it, in terms of its harmony and progression. Making things more simplistic *can* work but only if you have some very cool production stuff going on, or perhaps soloing or something of that nature. Unfortunately, you don't have anything like that here. However, you definitely have the right idea with the arrangement; keep moving in that direction, doing rhythmic and melodic variations, switching up percussion and harmony stuff, and you'll be good to go. The production overall is a bit on the weak side but a lot better than other stuff I've heard. The encoding is on the low side for one thing, which detracts from it. You'll also want to have more variation in your synths and a little more attention paid to your mixing/mastering. For example the groove sort of gets muddied up in the rest of the mix, and it sounds like it should have more presence. I suggest hitting the ReMixing forum on this very site, reading some of my tutorials, and reading other stickied topics to get some production help. Keep it up. NO

Larry/TO are on the mark here. We're receptive to chiptunes but they really have to be above the bar, not just simple conversions to 8bit. For what it's worth, this is a good translation/conversion but on the arrangement front it just doesn't add a whole lot; though I will say the things you DID do to the melody/harmony were pretty cool. NO

Sound quality alone - eg. clipping, terrible encoding, completely wack mastering - prevents this from passing. Tons of other issues with this... the other judges pretty much covered it. I would strongly suggest in the future encoding at no less than 128kbps and using VBR (a feature of LAME) if you have to, and also perhaps hitting the Remixing forum to learn some better production/mastering techniques. NO

Larry, piano recordings typically don't have much in the high range. The instrument just.. doesn't produce those frequencies, most of the time. I would say however that the recording is not that great overall. As several people mentioned, it's mono, and for another thing the dynamics are no good (clipping in places). Try using some light compression or limiting to ensure that you keep a decent dynamic range without have clipping/distortion. Also if you can just get your hands on a better mic (or TWO mics so you can record in true stereo so to speak) that would be great too. I thought the arrangement here was pretty good. There are times where you stay a little too much in the low ranges and it sounds muddy, but that could be because of the recording. Like Vig said, some more interesting rhythmic stuff would definitely help if you wanted to spice things up. Polish and resubmit. NO

Yeah, Hexxer is the hardest boss in the instance by FAR. From what we've done of him, we've concluded that you really have to have a good group composition to beat him; for example, lots of high damage melee classes to keep up the pressure, a few good hunters to take down totems and multishot shades, and at least one Warlock to curse the shades and take a bunch down. But as for Hakkar.. how'd you wipe on him? He's really easy. Here's our strat for him. Final Boss - Hakkar This is an interesting fight. Positioning is a little tricky, so here's a map. Hakkar is the green ball. The MT (and ONLY the MT, along with a hunter/puller) is the red ball. Hakkar is pulled to him by the Hunter/puller, who then drops down to the rest of the raid (the white ball). Note that BEFORE the pull is made, the healers must all make sure they are in range of the MT and in line of sight. The MT should not move either. Strat: Throughout the fight, "Sons of Hakkar" are pulled from the lower left and lower right platforms. It's usually a good idea to have TWO people on the lookout for sons to pull, eg. a shaman and a warrior w/ a bow. Start the fight with two sheeped near the main raid. One is killed at a time, and that leaves a poison cloud. The raid (except for the MT) must touch the poison. Hakkar does a life leech attack, and for every person that is poisoned, he takes damage. This is how the majority of damage is done to him. A constant stream of Sons must be pulled, so as soon as poison wears off, another one should be sheeped and ready to go. To make the fight faster, a few (3 or so) ranged DPS classes like Hunters, Mages, Warlocks, or Rogues w/ good bows should go to the lower left platform (they are the yellow ball). They will be here as often as possible, leaving the rest of the raid to kill sons. HOWEVER, THEY STILL MUST RUN TO GET POISONED WHENEVER A SON IS KILLED! After getting poisoned they can run back to the DPS spot. As long as sons are getting pulled and the raid is getting poisoned every time they can, Hakkar will go down after 10-13 minutes. No one should be dying. In regards to healing, this IS a long fight so Druids w/ Innervate are very useful. Everyone should pop potions and tubers whenever possible. In the space after a life drain and before the next son is pulled, people can bandage. All cooldown abilities should be used as often as possible because the fight is so long, and they may be usable several times - Innervate can usually be used at least twice in one fight. The MT requires quite a bit of healing and should be topped off at all times, as Hakkar has very powerful melee attacks. Even an MC-geared, Protection spec tank can take up to 50% of his health in damage per hit, so it is absolutely crucial that at least several Priests and several Shamans constantly throwing 1.5second cast heals on him. The people who are not DPSing Hakkar in the lower left and not healing will be killing sons whenever they come up. One other thing to note; Mages are important for this fight to keep the sheep sgoing, so they do need at least one healer to watch them carefully.

Razoregore down

Don't base your opinion on Drama from forum posts. Shattered Hand is a messed up server; the main guild in competition with Drama, "Death and Taxes", are a bunch of assholes that will do anything to cover up their lack of skill, from allying with Horde guilds to get easy rank 14s, to having Horde players repeatedly wipe Drama raids on Kazzak (but letting in DnT raids), etc. For the record, Drama did not exploit at all. They got the first worldwide Nef kill legitimately. Most guilds got kills within 24 hours after. There was no hotfix for their strat.. that's total BS. They've had him on farm status since the second they first beat him, their strat has never changed. They are the #1 guild and deserve that status. In regards to Rag, there were a few glitches where you could get him to not use his knockback abilities. I think one involved wiping before the fight so he wouldn't do it (or was it not submerging?) Anyway, I know that lots of guilds did it, and when they hotfixed him all of a sudden lots of guilds couldn't do the fight. Drama was one of the ones that could. We're just trying Razorgore now - kiting IS involved, it's just not the traditional figue 8 shaman kiting. MCing legionnaires works fine, several guilds I know do that, but we're not doing it that way currently. edit: Also, just talked to someone in Drama, they think that Ragnaros was ultimately a harder fight than Nef. It only took them 3 weeks to beat Nef, and longer to kill Rag.

Yes, well, most everyone else says it's impossible to tank the new ED dragons with one tank tanking and we do it that way better than rotations. Ragnaros isn't a hard fight, no matter how much you'll disagree with me on that -- learning it and not being able to spend all the time in the world on him like you can Lucifron are two different things. If people have trouble with Ragnaros, they're never getting anywhere in Blackwing Lair and beyond until they hammer him out. Razorgore is technical like Majordomo -- the 'hard' part is only in learning and executing your tailored strategy. The actual fighting of Razorgore is onpar with General Drakkisath in UBRS, except Razorgore occassionally throws out AoE fireballs for 700ish. Razorgore is slightly harder for the Alliance (horde has Earthbind totems and can kite cleanly), Vael is slightly harder for the Horde (Paladin's BoS ensures healers never get on the hate list until late for Burning Adrenaline). Vael is a DPS burn fight; it's not hard at all. Like every single boss fight you figure out positioning, boost FR for his fure pulse, then go to town on DPS. The only reason it took people so long to beat him was the cockblock before patch 1.8 -- you only had one hour every 12 hours to fight him. Broodlord is the third hardest fight in the instance, with Chromaggus taking the lead and Nefarian second, and even Firemaw matches Broodlord in stress factor. Broodlord's hate is very, very, very touchy the entire time. He hits with Mortal Strike for 4-6K non crit, and knocks back the tank which in turn reduces their hate by 75%. You do a tank rotation with at least four Warriors; if more than one dies it's game over -- once the surviving two get knocked back and lose that 75% hate healers and DPS immediately go topside; instant wipe. Hate is literally so shaky that wanding is literally the only way to go with him, and even THAT *WILL* pull hate if you take too long; Hunters are the main source of DPS on Broodlord because they can go balls to the wall and then FD -- if it gets resisted they stop and wait until they can perform it again. Plus, you're still in the 'active' suppression room while fighting Broodlord, so you're dealing with respawning groups of whelps, Dragonkin, and Taskmasters (think mages with Warrior hits). Plus, the actual units reduce attack, movement, and magic speed by 80% so if the ROgues aren't on top of the units the tanks get slammed hard. Chromaggus is... a bitch. It is a very fun fight, but it's incredibly difficult and *VERY* long, and yes I would rate him higher than Nefarian (which seems to be a pattern; Majordomo and Chromaggus are fights that take excessive control and really attentive crew and are before the final bosses, whereby Ragnaros and Nefarian are more encounters to entertain you that while are still hard, are more technical in nature than groundbreaking stuff). Healers are constantly dispeling magic, removing disease, abolishing poison, and uncursing -- AND they're trying to keep the tank alive during Affliction: Bronze, which is an AoE stun for 2-8 seconds with random timers. The types of breaths he uses really determines how hard he is; for the longest time he wasn't switching breaths and was only using Shadow and Frost. If you get Fire (Combustion with Conflageration) and Arcane (Time Lapse), it's damn near impossible to get past him that week. Nefarian is most definitely hard due to the fact that you're essentially dealing with the opening of Razorgore event to a degree (but with mobs twice as difficult, and twice as many), as well as Onxyia +2. Depending on which classes are 'gimped' repeatably determines how much easier the fight can go for you -- you get Priest gimps a lot and the tanks are going to die because Druids and Shamans/Paladins alone can't keep the MT(s) up due to the massive damage Nefarian puts out. He's still touchier on aggro than Broodlord or Onyxia, and you're constantly dealing with the chance of enemies if Warlocks get gimped, plus at 20% you'll have to deal with 50+ 60 elite Constructs (remember how hard those fuckers hit in Scholomance? Yeah.). So, yeah, Nefarian's easier than Chromaggus, but he's not easy at all. People were up to Broodlord by the first few days, and his first death didn't occur until 2 weeks after release of the dungeon even by the elite guilds, the drakes go by pretty fast though Firemaw is a bitch, and Chromaggus wasn't kill until the 6th or 7th week after launch. Nefarian fell the first time to Pacifist or Elitist Jerks the first time almost a month after Chromaggus went down (though, to give them credit back then you could only attempt phase 2 Nefarian (Lord Victor Nefarius > Nefarian) once a week). So yeah, 2 and a half, nearly three months before the final guy fell, whereas people were at Ragnaros within 3 weeks in MC, and he fell to Ascendent Sky a month and a half after release -- before Dark Iron gear came into play -- and some people want to say that a boss where most of the raid was still in blues is harder than one where most 1everyone in the raid has their tier set completed is harder? I don't think so. Rag was bugged for awhile. he got a lot harder at Rag 3.0, so I'm not surprised people beat him early. Vael in addition was also made harder recently. Finally, Razoregore is going to be made more difficult for Horde as they are going to make the mobs unkitable - that's why my guild is trying non-kiting strats, which makes it tougher. Also, Nefarian was beaten by DRAMA first on Shattered Hand. I would know as several of my IRL friends are in it and it was a huge deal. He was on instant farm status afterwords.. he's not that hard of a fight, apparently.