Bang & Blame: A Knight's Tale

Du Hast mich, Du Hasst mich

2011-02-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

We are all limited to some degree by our likes & dislikes. After all, if you dislike coconut, it's pretty much standard that you will avoid it. And if you love chocolate, well, we know where that leads.

But there are more complicated emotive situations... such as my current state with WoW. I really truly love(d?) the game. And I hate it.

If you're reading this, then I'm sure you know exactly what I mean, and know exactly how I feel, at least to some degree. The myriad variations of fun to be had... playing the auction house, levelling, raiding and blogging, are all part and parcel of the enjoyment. They also compliment my always evolving and moving obsessions.

One week (or month) I'd be playing the AH like a fiend, the next it's farming rep to get that next mount or achievement followed by a run at the Lich King.

But, at the core of my enjoyment was a foundation of relative stability: Balth the Ret Paladin/quasi tank. The gear might change, the slight tweaks to character balance with nerfs & buffs may buffet him slightly, but at his core he was who he was. For 18 months he was the window through which I viewed Azeroth and the "Waldo" with which I interacted there.

Even still , I was getting a bit tired, though the coming Cataclysm promised new vistas and challenges. But there was this small, niggling issue that had been creeping up along with Cata: the class restructuring.

As the paucity of my writing may indicate, that change proved fatal to my enjoyment of the game.

Many folks play WoW for the challenge, the evolving hurdles that appear and dispatch them with extreme prejudice. The revamp of their toons was just another challenge, on the boulevard of beat downs. For me, however, the game is a place of escape and relaxation, with challenge thrown in as a bit of spice, not the main course. The class changes, however, felt like being yanked from the comfort & knowledge of the university/adult life, and being dropkicked back to the crazy insecurity of middle school.

Sadly, Balth and the class of Ret Paladin as they existed through patch 3.3.xxx was the game and class I enjoyed playing, and the way I enjoyed playing it. Holy power stacking? Not so much.
But still, my enjoyment of the WOW universe, and the peoples that inhabit the blogosphere in particular, is a place of enjoyment, camaraderie and comfort as well.

Except that it too is changing, though not all to the bad. I do wonder though... is there a net (double meaning intended) migration out of WoW, by the more established playerbase? I'm not sure, but I definitely hear some unhappy rumblings from many sides, and Cata seems to be part of that.

Is this just another ripple in the ~~biorhythm~~ technorhythm of a game moving through the stages of a new expansion? The Burning Crusade hit Azeroth long before I arrived, and the ascendance of the Lich King occurred when I wasn't really aware (or playing much) so I don't recall that either.

Or has the game essentially reached its zenith, and now progresses towards it nadir, as one new blogger (but long time WoWer) seems to think roguegogo.

What's the lifespan for a mature, advanced MMORPG? Are MMORPG years like dog years? If so, then at seven years old, the upcoming trip to the "netrinarian" for a tearfilled euthanasia is not that far off. But if WoW lives in cat years, well, then there's another decade of enjoyment left, and it's only now entering it's more sedate, mature phase.

I'll sit by, peeking in occasionally, though my focus will likely be in Rift, as I mentioned the other day... I'm interested to see where the road will take WoW. Balth is still there, sleeping somewhere in Dalaran, and Ignomeminy is sulking in Ironforge, waiting to lace the ground with fire, so I may yet ake them out to stretch their legs. But the biggest truism of life even holds true in the life virtual: you can never really go back... it's never quite the same.

In the mean time, this place will likely be filled with the musing and teethgnashing of me trying and learning the ropes of Rift.

I See a Gap... a Chasm... a Rift...

2011-02-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a while.

I played around with Balthazario a coule more times after my last blog post, but mainly to just log in, then log back off. My heart just hasn't been in it.

And then some racing buddies brought me back to Forza (XBOX racing game that I REALLY enjoy)) and then a little hanky panky with Dragon Age: Origins (wish I could say the same... "meh", IMHO)

And then Kattastrophe started rummaging around the MMORPG genre, playing a little Guild Wars and happened across a free beta for a Fantasy MMO, Rift.

I enede up with a free code and joined in this weekend past, and enjoyed it. There's a wide open final beta. For more info look here: LINKY

It's simplified in some ways:

Only 3 Races per faction
Only 4 character classes

BUT (and this is a HUGE but)

Each class can have up to 3 active character/class talent trees, and they can be switched out.

How about a Life Draining, Healer Fire mage? You got it!

(There's something wondrously evil about having both a healing tree (Chloro) and a Warlock tree active, so that you put hots AND dots.

The graphics are a bit prettier than the bulk of WoW, (except the water - Blizz did things really nice there)

The beta servers have been rock steady, even during the recent stress testing.

Give it a whirl.

Oh, and my Healy-Warlocky-mage? He's the new Balthazario.

And since I happened over here, I saw the end of an era: Righteous Orbs is shutting its doors. Tam & Chas, you guys will be missed.

Avoid Your Moody Blues, but Still keep Your Balance

2010-11-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

In my recently "Tamarized" post, You're so 133t, You're Simply Irresistable (Tamarind linked/recommended it) I mentioned gear inflation, and the importance of it was pointed out even more in the comments I received (Thanks Shintar & masith!)

Bascially, the reality as it is now, is that for any given expansion/patch level of dungeon, there is enough gear available inside for everyone to slightly out gear it. Especially once the dungeon gets slightly nerfed. And the problem only gets worse once a given set of raids is superceded by a newer release.

And still, there's a need to keep gear (and the ensuing raids) accessible to the ravening ~~horde~~ er, masses.

And release newer, tougher instances.

And provide newer shinier loot for each instance.

And prevent instances from getting too easy.

Um, I'm glad I'm not Blizzard. From what I can see, at least on the surface, it's impossible.

On the one hand,

If the raids are tuned (and stay tuned) for high end raiders, with the bare minimum of available loot (to prevent the dropped gear from overpowering the instance)

AND the followup instances are kept only *slightly* more difficult, and with a similarly "sparse" loot table.

AND the gear progression between the instances is kept low/small/whatever. (basically, instance one drops i290 gear, the next drops i293, and the next drops i296)

Then the older instances will still have a fair amount of challenge for the players.

Except for 2 things:

We have been trained by Blizzard to lust for gear, and the increased power it
gives us. If gear really isn't much of an upgrade, how interested will folks be
in the quest to get it? (conversely, if instances are tough enough, then even
small upgrades will be sought)

While nice for the top end raiders, the
above scenario will basically be a return to Vanilla WoW, and 90-95% of players
won't have access to the content, because the "middle" (average) players simply
can't won't be able to play at the level needed to succeed or make any
progression.

Another option

This is similar to what we have now, with hardmodes as well as the slow(?) steady nerfing of the instances so that over time the instances become more accessible.

BUT, you maintain the gear "sparcity" (or just very small gear bonuses/increases)

The problem here is that with nerfing, eventually the raids get "too easy" for the top tier players. Especially if the nerfing gets to the point that even hardmodes become readily accessible.

Now, I DO have a couple suggestions...

1 - keep hardmodes and heroics hard, BUT DON'T GIVE BETTER LOOT FOR THEM. I think the 10 vs 25 man equalization Blizzard has done is a great step in this line of reasoning. If people are truly serious in that what they really want challenging instances, well, tune the dungeon such that normal mode gear is sufficient for a good team to complete hard modes, but will make it hard enough that "the unwashed masses" won't.

This will help prevent gear inflation since there won't be extra (half) tiers of gear. Also, without the lure of better gear, "normal" folks won't feel obligated to run them, and they won't cry (as much) for nerfs.

A slight downside is that "good" players/guilds will be able to finish the normal modes without getting much (if any) of the new tier gear. But, assuming the hardmode is the "feather in the cap", then that should be fine.

2 - Realize that no matter how much folks want to avoid it, gear inflation WILL happen. If new content needs to be tougher than the old, (which usually necessitates newer, higher level gear) then it's bound to happen. Especially when multiple new raids get released. Even if Blizzard had made the difficulty jumps between raids smaller (ie, Ulduar was a smaller increase over Naxx, etc) it would still be a given that, once you had completed ICC, you would completely outgear Naxx.

3 - Realize that there will be content that not everyone sees, BUT ONLY HARDMODES/HEROICS. If the gear that drops between normal & hardmode, between regular & heroic are the same, then this should be fine.

If all of those are done, then I think that the difficulty of the various instances will still be fair/moderate, even at the end of the Cata expansion.

BUT, there is still a downside.

In general, the "progression" characters make as they gear up (currently) is something like this:

Quest blues/greens
Regular 5 man
Heroic 5 man
10 man regular
25 man regular
Heroics (10 or 25, depending)

If we followed my suggestions, it would be a *little* different...

5 man
10/25 man
10/25 man Heroic

Is that a good thing? I don't know, but I honestly think it could keep "most" players "mostly happy". Hey, this is a massive group of people, and it is impossible to keep everyone happy.

I would guess the top end raiders wouldn't like the "normal Joes" getting the same loot with less work, but I would also guess that the "normal Joes" would be somewhat unhappy that there would be content that they would likely never get to.

Then again, hardmodes/heroics are generally very VERY similar, with maybe one or two slightly different fight mechanics, with the vast majority of difference being how hard things hit. It's not like completely missing content, just not getting smashed as hard.

Are there other options? Yeah, but I'm not sure they could accoomodate the vast number of often contrary requirements that players put onto the game.

Happy Halloween

2010-11-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those weird adults that still enjoys getting into costume for Halloween.

Any cool Halloween coolness from the Blogoshpere?

I decided as half of my favorite TV show... (and pose a Myth)

Don't You Know You are a Shooting Star?

2010-10-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's Balth on his Headless Horseman's steed. And yes, that is him keeping up with a Violet Protodrake. No, I didn't pay 5k for the pleasure.

And, well, mounts and achievements have been a nice little distraction lately:

A wee bit grindy? Um, yeah. Especially the Wintersaber. Kattastrophe & I have been working on it since we found the trainer 16 months ago while levelling (16 months or there abouts)

Next up?

I'm 23/25 on my Exhalted achievement, with 3 different factions well into the Revered level. (Honor Hold, Shattered Sun and maybe lower City) I'm not sure which I'll finish. If I can get Honor Hold rep in regular Ramparts, that will likely be one.

Also, I've been helping Kattastrophe get her Rivendare mount (she now knows her way around there well enough, so I may not go much more). We have also been farming for the Zul Gurub Tiger (I got the lizard already) and we've also been working on the Ravenlord (so I may get Lower City Exalted in the process as well)

As far as RAIDING goes, I'm still a temp player on our main (only) raiding team, and we are now 3/12 in heroics (we gave Saurfang one attempt before calling it a night last night). There is talk about somehow helping other guildies (like me) get to see and hopefully kill the Lich King. Possibly an alt group or something. But we shall see. The last couple times a second raid group formed we ended up losing those players to new guilds. Also, since it would likely be alts of the main raiding group, I may STILL have problems getting in.

As far as the new ret stuff...

I reforged about 100 Expertise points into Haste, and that seems to be helping a bit (I went from 580 or so, up to 680 or so) I'm still expertise capped, so it was "free" Haste.

Rotation? I am getting better at it, but that's about the best I can say. I still dumb-thumb the hell out of it, and it is STILL super clunky.

Output? On Test Dummies, I am get ~6,300 DPS. In ICC last night, I managed to be 1st overall in Damage (and waffled between 2nd & 4th in DPS) We have a Fury Warrior (wow-heroes GS of 3224, compared to my 3188) that is sligtly better than me single target, but KILLS me on the small groups, small single target, "target switching" stuff. Single target I can pull a solid 10-11k. Taqrget switching, small mobs gets me down to 3-4k range (remember, this is with the ICC buff!) My Ret survival abilities and some reasonably head's up playing is what enabled me to be top damage dealer, but my actual fight by fight throughput still has me bugged.

Gear? I now have enough Justice points to buy my 4th piece of T-10(i251). The bummer is that I already HAVE an i251 chest with slightly better stats/etc: Blade-Scored Carapace Do I want to "waste" those justice points for a slight (and completely theoretical) DPS bump? Do I want to buy 2 new gems PLUS an enchant? I don't know. Especially with level 81 looming in 6 weeks or less.

Tanking: I haven't even talented my Prots spec yet. I could use those Justice points here as well, but my tepid interest in tanking right now, as well as the "free" level 81/82,etc greens on the horizon make it a difficult choice as well. Though, if I ever intend to get back into tanking, getting in the swing of things sooner rather than later would be a good thing.

We shall see...

Geek Is (By Chris Metzen)

2010-10-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I made mention of this in my earlier post, and realized most folks have no clue what I'm talking about. During the opening ceremonies, Chris Metzen spent a few minutes talking about a word. A word filled with lots of connotations.

GEEK.

And so, his presentation is a slide show of a bunch of cool things that to Chris, exemplify what "Geek Is"

(I haven't watched this to see how well the pictures are visible, but the camera does pan over)

OH! I forgot to mention, Kattastrophe Frap-sed a number of opints in the Blizzcon presentation, so if you want tosee some of it head on over. LINK

I am Geek

2010-10-24T22:04:00.001-07:00

Kattastrophe & I watched Blizzcon on TV on Friday and Saturday, and I have a few thoughts...

Honestly, I debated posting this because, as any readers may have noticed, I've already been rather negative as of late, and some of my strongest feelings after watching Blizzcon are somewhat in the same vein.

But, on another bend: I really enjoyed listening to Chris Metzen. He seems to me to be one of the more personable folks I've seen and heard from Blizzcon. His "Geek" commentary was interesting and definitely got a number of warm fuzzy memories flowing. His opening presentation, along with the occasional comments I have heard him make just seem to say that he's a really neat/nice guy.

Some of the graphics for Diablo 3 are looking fantastic. (though I have to be honest, how can they maintain a fanbase when their installments are 5-10+ years between releases?) I don't think I would buy the game (not my cuppa), but it sure is purty...

Oh, one other interesting tidbit: The Diablo guys have stated over & over, much to the dismay of one guy asking them about it: Diablo 3 will NEVER have the core game play adjusted such that ANY PvP aspect will be allowed to affect how the PvE game is played. Hallelujah!

The full preview of the Cataclysm cinematic was very cool. I don't care for Darkwing's jaw (an admittedly minor knitpick), but other than that, he's one baddass cool looking dragon!

...

During the last couple years since I've become interested enough in WoW to know who Ghostcrawler is, I've realized I don't care for his online persona. I don't remember seeing him at last year's Blizzcon or really recall seeing him in interviews before, so I was hoping that my online interpretation of the guy was wrong.

Well, it wasn't.

The guy is a self important prick. If you were to take a couple of his comments out of context, it might seem like he's just goofing around "My name is Greg Street, and I nerf Paladins."

But, if you remember his "to the ground" quote from last year, followed by the implementation of exactly that, and his often snide off handed comments (not just about pallies, but just stuff in general), I've just come to realize, he really is like that. You know, the kind pf person that when you meet them, you have the nearly uncontrollable urge to introduce their jaw to your knee, in a rapid fashion?

Hmmm.

Then again, I thought much of the "professionalism" as seen on a couple of blizzard panels (the WoW class and WoW open Q&A sections in particular) were just painful and had me shaking my head.

One woman asked (paraphrased) "When can we have a strong female character that doesn't look like she came out of a Victoria Secrets catalogue?"

The answer? "What catalogue would you like her to come out of?" with a lot of chuffing and guffawing by the all male panel. I was half surprised there wasn't any fist bumping after that reply.

I guess the boys club is alive & well down in Irvine... I wonder why more women don't work there... *facepalm*

And then there is the generic pally hating/disparaging (first highlighted by GC, as I mentioned above) It even permeated Priest discussion. In one case, a guy was bitching about pallies getting some damage from Holy (ie, it's impossible to resist). The reply was "if you're losing to a paladin, it's not the Holy aspect that is the problem." (ie, if you lose to a paladin, you suck)

And there was another guy talking about paladins, and he basically had to apologize for playing a paladin before he actually asked his question. (the crowd was rather nasty, and the panel just laughed) He questioned the "fun" aspect of the new Holy Power mechanic, and was told that it's working the way they (Blizz) want it to.

I have noticed a slight schism in regards to who (overall) likes the new Holy Power mechanic, and who does not. In general, it's the better (or fucking great) players that like it. And, it's generally the average (and worse) players that do not. This kind of falls into my concern I brought up where I mention that the difference between average and good Paladins has the possibility of making a large chasm in in-game-effectiveness between average and good players. (ie, if you're good, you can perform reasonably or even well, but if you're average or worse, you will absolutely suck)

The sad thing is that it must be intentional. How do I come to that conclusion? Because for TANKS, the Blizzard panel actually said that they want to make it so that an average/so-so player could still be effective, even when compared to a good player. For DPS/Ret Paldins? No comment. Sucks to be you.

London Calling, Now with Questions!

2010-10-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I was able to join an ICC guild run.

We had started it last week (Wednesday), with the intent of downing Marrowgar in Heroic, and seeing if we had gotten our toons/specs/etc semi-organized.

During the pre-Marrow trash (where they stack on top of each other) I was top DPS at ~7,800-8k.

"Looks like Bal has things worked out" was one comment made. It was nice, but felt empty since I would get 10-12k on the same trash pre-patch.

I don't remember any specifics about Marrow (we wiped several times before backing down from Heroic to regular) but I was still near the top.

Fast forward to last night, where it was the regular ICC team, plus 3 alt guildies (I am one of the replacements)

We tried Lady Deathwhisper (LDW) 7 or 8 times on heroic before (again) giving up and swatting her on regular. (we could probably do it on Heroic, but with the DCs, and a lack of familiarity, as well as getting late, we just wanted it done) On DW (and her trash adds), I was struggling to get 4k DPS. The tanks were doing more DPS than I was.

We then moved towards Heroic Lootship. On the way there, we dropped that dragon (no clue what the name is...)

I was late getting into that fight (connection issues) and participated for the last ~10 seconds or so.

And pulled down 11k single target DPS. With a 32k Templar's Verdict crit.

?!?!?!?

I didn't pay much attention to the meter on Gunship since it's such a unique mechanic, that DPS is almost irrelevant (I am on the away team and canon operator)

A couple observations here, with questions nearer the end:

During ALL the Lady Deathwhisper fights, I had Art of War (AoW) proc MAYBE 3 times.

Lots of small, fairly quick dying, INDIVIDUAL targets means lots of movement with little ramp up, or AoE opportunities.

I hate running that fight (LDW) with a DK tank. (I have troubles distinguishing the various ground effects and who cast D&D, etc)

I would lose Holy Power (HP) stacks between some mobs, at least occasionally.

Having guildies use large AoE abilities on a boss that has melee DPS that is MCed is a bad thing.

I have no clue how to really deal with groups of trash, let alone single trash mobs.

I don't use wings on most (single mob especially) trash since over half of it is wasted while I run from mob to mob.

If I'm lucky and the stars align, Ret *can* do some crazy stupid DPS, but aside from that rare occurrence, we (or at least *I*) am struggling.

It's nearly impossible to get into any kind of rhythm. Either you sit there spamming 1 or 2 keys, or you are overwhelmed with multiple procs, totally limited due to GCDs.

Overall, I was using CS and Judge, followed by DS or TV when it came up and Holy Wrath for good measure. If there were other mobs near, I would drop consecrate. I had Seal of Righteous active.

I switched to Seal of Truth for LDW herself (or any boss) and would do the sme, except I would swap exclusively to Templar's Verdict in place of DS. I would keep Consecrate up as long as mana wasn't a concern.

Oh, I would pop wings at the start of the boss, and occasionally hit zealotry. In my brief stints at the test dummy, I just haven't seen it help that much, and it can really complicate our rotation with little or no benefit.

So here are the questions for anyone (Ret) that might read this...

What is a good seal & HP combo and basic strategy to use against multiple, separate, "easy" mobs?

How do you have your bars set up?

Do you bother with Zealotry?

How can I save 15% on car insurance?

Lastly...

I've been readin a couple of Ret Paladin threads on various sites, and it's really disheartening. (this relates to Tam's post from yesterday, and my reply to it HERE)

Generally, the "top" type players are really enjoying the new sensory overloaded, complicated aspects of the new Ret system. (they aren't fans of its over-dependance on randmomness, but that's minor) They love the fact that to be half way competant, you need to spend lots of time practicing this & that (hours & hours on a test dummy) and then be really great at having raid awareness, Proc awareness, etc.

I would guess that a REALLY good player would beat my DPS by 20-30% right now. (assuming same gear) Pre- patch I think it would be 5, 10, or MAYBE 15% better.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that good players DESERVE a return on their abilities, time spent, etc. BUT, that type of disparity between good & average** could easily mean that a VERY large portion of players won't have the option to play new content. They'll be relegated to running content 2+ tiers (or levels) after it's "current".

Either that or Blizzard would need to nerf the content so much that those very same top players will bitch & moan that everything is (legitimately) too easy for them.

Which then leads me back to what is (IMHO) the best option: reduce the skill/benefit curve.

Oh yeah, and fix Ret. I despise the holy power crap. I don't want stacking combo points. PERIOD. That's fine & dandy for rogues and kitty droods, but (beating the dead horse) if I wanted that I would have rolled one of them.

There's a reason that paladins have remained so popular, despite being (often) underpowered: they are (or were) a fun and relatively easy class to pick up and play. There was an awful lot to gain by going from "mediocre" to "average", and still more to gain by getting "good" at the class, but still, it was a straight forward, sword & "sorcery" class. Now it feels a bit like "Street Fighter" with this combo BS.

If I am unable to "get over it" or if Blizz doesn't relent (basicaly a given) I don't know what class I would play. I like melee, but hate the whole rage thing (again, like HP, you start with zilch) I have a fundamental distaste for DKs and I obviously don't want a rogue.

Ranged (casters or Hunters) don't really interest me either.

And somehow, I don't see me healing...

**(yeah, I conisder myself average, though current issues may be lowering my self esteem a bit)

It's a Mad, MogWorld...

2010-10-15T11:45:00.001-07:00

The subtitle for it should be:

(Un)Dead and hating it

Some (Many? Most?) of you may recognize the author, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, and know him as the sardonic, ascerbic, witty reviewer of games from his “Zero Punctuation” game reviews. (I’ve embedded his review of Fable as a point of reference)

Recently, his first novel, Mogworld, has been published, and a bit more recently, I finished reading it. In a word; VERY enjoyable. OK, that’s two words, but still.

The book keeps a reasonable pace throughout, with a couple slower portions (me and my ADHD will often skim parts that get a wee bit slow, so this is a small bugaboo for me) Regardless, Croshaw’s odd viewpoint and pretty darned eloquent (though oft blunt) dialogue and prose makes for a really damned good book. In one of his Q&A vids Croshaw mentions that one of his sources of inspiration is/was Douglas Adams. I think he did admirably in that pursuit, as even Adams has his occasional slow bits.

So what’s it about?

Jim is a second year student at St. Gordon’s Magical College. His stay there is interrupted due to his untimely death.

Now, this could make for an extremely short novel except for one small thing…

“I had passed from life, from the world of struggles and hardship and big fat
women with annoying laughs, and entered a glorious new existence of utter peace,
and joy and love.

And then some git brought me back to life”

Jim had been brought back (mostly) from the dead and was a tad irked and wanted to get back to all the peace, warmth and love. Twas not to be…

During a brief stint as an undead minion for a great evil master, (in between attempting to die permanently) and especially towards the end of his employ, Jim discovered that all was not right with the world; nobody was dying (at least not permanently) and other strange things were happening. Something was rotten in Denmark. (or whatever the name of the place was)

Once out of the employ of the great evil, Jim (along with the "de rigour" small group of ragtag hangers on) went to find out the source of the immortality, and things get even more bizarre, complicated and utterly weird.

And that’s where I’ll stop my description. If you have not read any other reviews of the book, I would ask that you tread carefully. Most of them contain a MASSIVE spoiler.

Annoyingly, the spoiler is even on the back cover of the book. Fortunately, I didn’t read the spoiler until nearly the time I discovered the plot point for myself.

Does the spoiler ruin the book? No, because there’s still half+ of the book remaining, but still, (for me) avoiding spoilers is a big deal.

So:
1 - don’t read any other reviews
2 – READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Sitting in the Morning Sun...

2010-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

I was able to log on last night with the patch installed and messed around with Balth in his Ret spec. (I didn't bother with prot, since I am still new to it, and I had heard some NASTY stories about Prot Pallies having some massive threat issues)

Anyhow, here are my thoughts and observations from the perspective of a Ret pally.

Talent Tree

Um, well, this is rather odd, since the talent tree is designed around a level 85 toon. You really need to pick & chose your talents. Here's my current talent tree: LINK (and strange, it shows I don't have the top tier Ret talent, which I do. Weird)

Since I'm 80, I don't have to deal with the "wait until level X before you can use talents from other trees" but that kind of bugs me. But eh, it is what it is. I may tinker around myself, or I may just wait until EJ or others get it figured out.

Spells/Abilities and Rotation

Hmmmm.... This will require some getting used to. Art of War now has this bizarre on-screen signal thing, and took me a bit to figure out what it was.

The basic rotation is boring.

Judge, CS, Exorcism CS, CS TV (Templar's Verdict) and keep going while watching for HP procs and AoW procs. Oh, and throw in the occasional Hammer of Wrath (when you hit Avenging Wrath) and an occasional Holy Wrath.

If you are fighting multiples, replace TV with Divine Storm.

It's still pretty much an FCFS rotation. Just that Art of War now procs a lot less, AND you need to monitor your Holy Power.

Watching Holy power so that you can use it only when you have 3 stacks is a pain. Having to watch for that, as well as the rare AoW procs and yet still run an FCFS makes it difficult to maintain raid awareness. Do-able, but tedious.

I know I will miss the AoW proc for Flash Heal, but maybe the HP use for the new heal (can't remember what it's called) will be an adequate replacement. We shall see.

The good news is that there's no longer blessing of Wisdom AND blessing of might. Both are now one in the same. And it lasts 60 minutes. That's nice, but our seals still only last 30.

The seals seem (from a practical standpoint) unchanged.

Glyphs

You now have three levels of glyphs, instead of two:

Minor, major and Prime. Eh, kinda cool, and a bit more customization, but minor seems to be completely useless, and major is slightly less useful. So, it seems like same as before, but with more trash-glyph options. A wait and see is in order for ay final verdict.

Gearing

Well, the idea of reforging is cool, and Mastery could be neat as well. The only problem is that you are very limited in what stat you can give up, in order to gain something else.

Most of my items allow me to give up Crit or Haste, and replace them with a boatload of semi-useless stuff. (Mastery may very well be great) The only problem is that I desperately need crit (to keep/improve my AoW procs) and now that Haste affects Crusader strike, I can't really afford to lose that either.

I do have one item that allowed me to convert 20 points of Hit. The only problem was that I was then a tad below hit cap. (I had a 0.01% miss on level 83 bosses) I reverted it without testing.

BIG NOTE Librams (for paladins) now can accept gems!

Also, the T-10 bonus (2 pc) is no longer that annoying Divine storm CD reset, it's a flat 5% damage buff. I just hate wearing an effing skirt.

Look and Feel of the interface, etc

There are some nice changes. The mouse over and slide out info on the Character Sheet are very nice, and the tips and info there is pretty helpful.

It will take a while to get used to the new party/raid group thing. I am really used to the old style. This new one looks like an improperly locked frame from Vuhdo and will definitely take getting used to.

Overall, it's probably fine.

Overall

So, what's my DPS? Against a dummy I used to be able to get 5,900 or so, with only self buffs. (no food, etc) Last night I was struggling to stay above 5k, with the occasional nibble at 5,100.

There's some ok and interesting stuff here, but overall, I'm just not happy.

I have talked with a couple others, notably a rogue and a warlock, and they seem fairly happy with things. Per the Rogue:

I'm enjoying all of the changes. Though, the only thing that actually
changed for my rogue was my DPS. I went from averaging 4.5k to now averaging
5.5k. Rotation and all that other mumbo jumbo stayed the same.

How are things in your Baileywick?

Crying... crying... What else is there?

2010-10-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

LINKY

Today (Tuesday, October 12, 2010) is the day I've been dreading since the first mention of Holy Power. From everything I read and see, it seems about as bad as I expected/guessed. (well, PvP is actually worse, if that's possible, but hey, nobody's guesses are perfect...)

Folks have bitched at how "boring" Ret rotation was. If you watch the video above, with the "new & improved" rotation, it seems focking horrid. It's unbelievably reliant on random procs, and you spam the same spell over & over & over again (crusader strike).

Wow.... color me impressed. (yes, you cast other spells, but egad, what a clunky, random POS rotation it is)

And the news from the Beta and the PTR (public test realms) is that Ret Pallies are having problems getting into Raid PUGs because of piss-poor DPS. (I've read numbers between 30% and 50% reduced DPS)

To top it off, Rets are getting sodomized in PvP because we can't dispel dots (or anything else), we can't close gaps, and we just get kited to death. Oh, and because we get kited, we can't get any attacks, which means NO Holy Power, which then translates into long cast heals and BLAMMO: deal pally.

Happy Fucking Birthday.

Wait, what's that painful thrusting sensation I'm feeling? Ewww, it's Ghostcrawler... and his T-shirt; "nerf them to the ground".

If you didn't get your Lich King kill before tonight, I guess you will have to wait until you hit level 83 or so.

Um, Blizzard? Pulling crap like this is NOT the way to get people out of the end of expansion blues.

It's very true that Paladins aren't the only ones getting cornholed here, but it doesn't change the fact that the one toon I enjoy playing has been made essentially ineffective. Not to mention the fact that I've spent the last 18+ months learning to play my class effectively, and you decide you want to completely change the way it plays, rendering my previous time & effort just about worthless.

Believe me, I had no interest in learning to play a new MMO (a major reason I never looked into LoTR Online). Now it looks like I have no choice. (not if I want to play with Kattastrophe)

The idea of Cataclysm sounded really cool. The reinvention of the geography and "political" scene seemed EXTREMELY neat. However,the reinvention of huge parts of the game mechanics is just painful. I want to play to relax and enjoy myself, not struggle to re-learn to play the same game I've been playing for nearly 2 years, let alone feel that my favorite in-game character is now sub-par, regardless of gear or skill.

I think I see HALO Reach and Forza 3 in my future.

It's More Than a Feeling: She's dead, Jim!

2010-10-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

So, I made it back into the "main" guild run a week ago Monday, and we slew the fel beast.

The "regulars" were back, but since we had helped the previous week, and hadn't done it yet (and the regulars already had a Sindy kill) the formerly missing regulars had to sit out until the ragged wings lay dormant, NAY, DEAD! on the icy edifice.

I then dropped group, but the raid leader invited me back for a little sight seeing.

I said it before, but I'll say it again here: I don't know if I'll ever have the chance between now & the end of WotLK to see Arthas again (let alone have a chance to kill him) but it's nice.

You're so 133t, You're Simply Irresistable.

2010-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

I've an update regarding Sindy, but I seem to have a mental block that prevents me from sending the screen caps to work (where I do my blogging) So, this won't be a self congratulatory post or anything about that. I shall go in a different direction, but, um, it gets a bit ranty.

Recently, whilest pondering my willy nilly progression through ICC I started thinking a bit...

Then, to compound my wee thoughts, I ran across a link to a vid of a bunch of wipes on a boss in the Cata Stonecore heroic. The video poster was Milquetoast or Floating_air_bisquit or something in that vein. (if you read blogs, I would guess you know who I mean)

And the video was pretty well done, narrated and described.

But then I read the comments. (well, a few dozen out of the several hundred)

Among them:

They better not make ANYTHING in the endgame content of cata easy. i hated wrath having no challenges.

And...

I don't know. I'm thinking many breeze by these so called, "hard"
bosses once the final game releases. Bliz will likely cave in to the crying of
"it's too hard" and I imagine addons will push the difficulty of these
encounters more in the player's favor.

In fact this game would be a lot
better if addons were removed entirely.

And in the few times people mention that with such a massive difficulty spike, a HUGE portion of folks (ie "lolcasuals") will be unable to do much of anything either with "lame" guilds, let alone the whole PuG thing. They got lit up. BY THE VIDEO POSTER.

Witness:

Normaldude 1
2 days ago Eh, the people i end up getting pug'd with wont be able to handle this.

So flip out at me, its Blizzards fault they made WoTLK a fat joke it terms of difficulty.

Milquetoast
2 days ago @normaldude 1 So stop pugging.

Normaldude 2
2 days ago @Milquetoast "So stop pugging"... what is that? Seriously, take a moment to reflect on that point of view. I hope you'll realize just how extreme it is. And how unrealistic. Given the nature of WoW, given the unbalanced population distribution on, oh, I don't know, at least half the realms out there. Again, just think about it for a bit. 5 man content should be puggable, the alternative is unthinkable - the 5 man content being inaccessible to a lot of players.

Normaldude 3
2 days ago @Normaldude 2 Absolutely agreed! You are 1000% correct!

Milquetoast
2 days ago 40 @Normaldude 3 You're hilarious. You think that being in a guild is an 'extreme' attitude. I guess you started playing during Wrath.

It went downhill from there, and "Milquetoast" got a bit nastier (as did others). But the basic fact is that so many elitst assholes seem to think that if you aren't in a top-ish tier raiding guild, with super deep knowledge of the game and your class and every encounter, if you don't eat, breath and sleep WoW, you don't DESERVE to see and/or complete any content.

Because, you know, WOtLK was so easy. After all it only took Paragon how long to complete LKH25?

Oh, wait...

And how many guilds have completed all hardmodes again? WITHOUT THE BUFF

Oh yeah...

But... but... the Brewfest boss is too easy with my 6k GS toon, and killing him only takes 15-20 seconds.

Really? If you have a 6k GS why are you even bothering? You sure as hell don't need the emblems for gear...

It's like going into (current) Deadmines and bitching that Cookie is too easy as a raid geared 80.

wtf?

And even if there might have been a desire (by Blizzard) to re-tune the brewfest boss, there's this little "patch" coming out in a few weeks called Cataclysm that *might* be taking up manpower/resources.

Please, get over yourselves. The last major expansion in WotLK took top raiding guilds MONTHS to beat. And most "fairly hardcore" guilds took weeks-months after that.

And several "serious" players (decent-very good) players simply don't have the option to be in a great guild.

There are a fair number of serious, hardcore guilds, but the vast majority seems to be populated by self centered assholes that ONLY care about the progression, and "people" are just an impediment. If you want to do progression AND be treated like a decent human being, you're shit outta luck.

Yes, quality, "balanced", hardcore/good/fun guilds DO exist, but they are few and far between.

So... you end up with lots of players pugging, playing in less than ideal guilds, etc and struggling with content (even to just see it, let alone complete it). I would guess 50% or more are reasonably skilled players that want to see content, but are in this "less than ideal" situation. And are paying for the pleasure.

Yet the uber-leet hardcore assholes feel that the WoWworld SHOULD revolve around them. Fuck everyone else that can't be bothered to take the game as seriously as they do. You can't dedicate 20+ hours a week for gearing, farming and raiding? TOUGH SHIT!

Somewhow, I doubt that the vast majority of paying players (ie, the source of corporate profit) fit into those cute little molds. Like it or not, keeping THEM happy is what has paid for this upcoming ex*-pak. Not your 1,000 days played, not your 6,200 GS or your top ranked guild.

I realize that WoW is important to you folks. I realize you enjoy a challenge, and I fully understand and respect that. I also think Blizz HAS delivered a great challenge, with Naxx, Uld and especially with ICC (ToC was tough, but yeah, annoying). It took MONTHS for world best guilds to complete them. What else can you reasonably ask for? Even now, with the massive buff, a LOT of us are STILL trying to get our first Arthas kill. So I'm not sure what all the hatred is for.

Easy heroics?

Really?

Fuck, they've been easy for all the "reel srs rayders" since they completed Naxx, let alone once Ulduar gear became common. Prior to gear inflation, they WERE really tough.

But I really don't think that the above factors are the real reason the "uberleet" are so worked up. Why? Because “logically”, the above arguments/explanations can’t explain the venom and vitriol with which the “leet” scream and yell about how easy everything is. The last 12 months have had a TON of difficult, challenging content. Yes, older content has become easier, but as I mention, so has Deadmines! It's a simple fact: leveling and gearing makes ALL old content obsolete. And, if I may be so bold, expecting Blizard to re-tune each and every instance and encounter, just to stay "up to snuff" with the latest and greatest gear is just absurd.

But, even though there are folks that scream and yell for more challenging content, I'm not so sure that's really what they want. (after all, there's probably difficult content still left for many them to accomplish, AND Cata is just around the corner)

My honest, heartfelt guess is simply this: that they want to feel special and superior. That only THEY should get access to the biggest, baddest fights and weapons. That since THEY are willing to walk, uphill, both ways, in 6 feet of snow, that they and only they should reap the "real" rewards (ie, pixels and titles/words) for all their hard work.

In the past, they could (and did) because of the massive reliance on massive amounts of game play to be able to progress, and the huge disparity of progress between the “leet” and the “casual”. The less dedicated (or skilled/experienced) players simply had no way to play the content, gain the gear, etc, etc, etc… (I seem to recall reading that only ~6% of vanilla players got to see end game content – so it truly is a “special” group that made it ... in a rather real -ingame- sense they were special, and superior)

That was then... this is now.

Since Blizzard DOES cater to (or at least considers and tries to accomodate) a more casual, less intense player, it just infuriates the leet. Because the great unwashed masses get to be just as special as they are. Even though they didn't dedicate the hundreds of hours, and aren't cutting edge skilled, they too can haz epics! They too can haz “Kingslayer”.

Oh the humanity...

After all, there ARE titles that us peons will never get (Starkiller, The Immortal, etc). We will never have any real ranking as a player or guild on our server, and server (let alone world) firsts are something we only read about. We won't get our hands on Frostmourne or get 12/12 on hardmodes. So, there ARE a lot of things that only dedicated raiders will accomplish.

And still you guys want more.

A Strange Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Brewfest Last Night

2010-09-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

Sindy's Lair

As you may or may not recall, I haven't played much lately, and while I want to learn to tank, my gear is still a tad iffy, and my skills & experience are green at best.

And so it was with more than a little shock when the Guild Leader whisped me asking what my tank gearscore was. (roughly 4825)

"Cool, would you mind off-tanking Sindy tomorrow night?"

*blink*

*blank stare*

Before I could type anything back I get

"We have a couple folks missing from our regular raid team, and we're short a tank. Wow-heroes says you're geared enough..."

So I accepted the invite and kind of dreaded coming home from work tonite. I bought a few flasks and a couple other accroutrement before heading to bed.

Today at work, I watched the "How to /Sindragosa" vid, and all the other Sindy vids I could find.

How did it go?

Well, the trash had me a bit scared, since multi-mobs are NOT my speciality, but as OT, I only needed to pick up stragglers.

After that, phases 1 & 2 went pretty well. (it also helped that Kattastrophe was sitting next to me giving me propmts)

Then phase 3 hit, and I mis-stepped and got ice tombed.

It didn't wipe us, but it sure didn't help.

After a couple more wipes, I started to get the hang of it, but was still having troubles watching my debuffs.

With all the buffs, debuffs & such, my debuff listing got shoved down below where my DBM warnings are. I couldn't tell when I was safe to taunt off the MT.

And (for whatever reason) there's no DBM button around my minimap.

I finally remembered to try "/dbm" and I was finally able to try draggin my stuff out of the way.

It took a couple fights (moving DBM bars is a pain) but I finally got it cleared and was able to actually handle the taunts correctly.

We did pretty well. Especially since a couple of us had never seen her before. One attempt we got her down to 65,800, but that was our best.

(I still hadn't moved my DBM bars in this screen cap...)

Ah well, I still haven't beaten the Professor, or Dreamwalker, or even seen Blood Queen and a couple others, but it was interesting.

I'm getting better at the 969 (even though I have to watch my bars) and I'm managing my CDs and other stuff better.

N00b tank?

Yep!

Fail tank?

Not quite as much.

The one downside is that they are staying saved and not resetting, so I won't be having any chance to get any better tanking gear. I don't even have the good tank trinkets. (my fully raid buffed, and 30% ICC buffed) health is only 52k.

For a skilled tank and raid, that should be easy sauce, but we're still learning. (me in particular)

And I've been tentatively invited for Monday.

Who Can it Be, Now?

2010-09-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

Me, that's who...

So, some time in the last few weeks, my total page visits brok the 10k mark. Woohoo!

Sadly, I wasn't around to notice. (As of writing this, it's at 10,036, so it was likely in the last few days)

What's been going on with me in WoW?

Nottalotta.

After several months of running Marrowgar - to - Rotface (and only getting t see Putricide twice) life in WoW got a tad bit boring:

- Do some dailies to get enough gold for raid stuff (pots, scrolls, etc)
- Hope I got selected to do the weekly run
- Run the same few encounters, and wipe on Rotface
- Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

Argh.

(Drat, I forgot that yesterday was international talk like a pirate day! YARR!!!)

Anyhoo, I watched Kattastrophe and her imploding guild, and just couldn't bring myself to look for a more "serious" guild, especially whenI wasn't exactly Mr. Dedicated.

So, I just didn't play. I think I've logged maybe 2 hours in the last 2 months.

So what now? Why am I cluttering up the feedreaders?

Because I will be playing a wee bit, though my goal and intent is rather narrow:

Brewfest (followed by Halloween)

Prior to some server reset/glitch, I had done about half the Brewfest achievements and a bit less than that for Halloween. Sadly, NONE of that shows up.

You see, these are the last things I need for my 310 speed mount. What a long strange road indeed. At least I will have completed something.

So, I started up WoW over the weekend, at least long enough to get the patches (wtf was up with the crap updater? I had to log onto my machine as Admin, and run WoW from the depths of my Program Files folder) and then shut down. At least I'm now ready to chase the Brewmaster title en route to getting the long road achie.

Am I "back"? I don't know. With the pending close of the Betaclysm and the world reset of the upcoming Cataclysm, maybe I will. Or not.

Cheers!

I Walk Alone - A Difference of Opinion

2010-08-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

I seem to be the only Ret Paladin blogger that I know of that is NOT looking forward to the upcoming Holy Power mechanic.

In case you aren't aware, Holy Power is a stacking effect that is accrued via a couple of different abilities (Crusader Strike is the primary one) and is consumed by doing other abilities. It is pretty much the same idea as Death Knight Runes or even, to an extent, Rogue combo points. I don't want to play a DK. If I did, I would roll one. Or if I wanted a rogue (other more than a bank toon) I would level one.

I really don't understand all the love folks have for "complicated" fight mechanics, and at the opposite end, uber simple "rotations":

11121112111 OH PROC! 3 1112111211121112

Yeah, that sounds fun. I guess it's different than the "FCFS hunt & peck" where you simply push the one that's off cool down.

We now attacks that are more tailored for multiple targets versus single targets, so we now get *2* attack rotations/FCFS combobulations.

We still have to manage mana, and as a melee hybrid, we are sort of responsible for self healing, and now we have to track something else, a 1-3 stack power, and manage with everything else...

yay?

We are losing our cleansing ability, and our convenient instant heal (Flash of Light, when talented into Art of War) our Divine Intervention is gone, Divine Protection now only mitigates 20% (instead of 50%) Divine Shield only lasts 8 seconds (instead of 12) and Divine Storm has lost all its teeth. Lastly, our Holy Wrath now does the same damage, single versus, AoE.

What do we get in return?

Simplified Blessings and Judgements (only need Light, since the wisdom part is now built in and the replenish is not talentable)

Our Divine Protection & Shield no longer shares a cooldown with Avenging Wrath (Paladin Wings)

Crusader Strike gets some major teeth and becomes our primary damage dealer.

(I got a lot of my info from mrgummage over at worldofraids.com in his very thorough description of Ret HERE)

So, with that boatload of nutkcicks, and an additional layer of hassle, we get a few (very minor) benefits. In my honest opinion, complexity, just for the sake of complexity (ie, with no real benefit) is a waste of my time and energy.

If, we had a small nerf, with baseline similar damage/utility, BUT, if you tracked this complicated BS, you then got some BENEFIT, I would be much more interested. But, adding the extra BS, just to stay where we are?

Um, no.

Keep in mind, I have not heard anything about Blizzard removing "the hybrid tax". You know, the effective loss of DPS that Deeps hybrids have to live with, because we have other abilities (healing, CC, cleansing, etc)

This means that Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Mages and Warlocks ("Pure" DPS) will continue to kick our teeth in, in our primary (DPS) role. And now with removed instant heals and no more cleansing, what is our utility again? IF we have no utility, and our DPS sucks, WHAT will be the point of Ret again? On the surface, balance seems like it *COULD* be a major issue.

But, for the sake of argument, lets ignore the whole potential balance issue, ok?

OK. Moving on.

I really don't get the interest on losing/reducing the FCFS, losing our mitigation and getting it replaced with a "single target rotation" and a "multi target rotation" while still managin mana, AND now having to manage another mechaninc (Holy Power)

If you are really watching your FCFS, (and FCFS DOES vary from fight to fight) AND maintaining raid awareness AND doing all the other stuff (cleansing, occasional healing, etc) I think that the current situation is already reasonably complex. After all, it's not like Mage, 'Lock, Warrior, Priest nor any other class has a really complicated rotation/routine.

Am I pissed? Not at all. Am I excited? No. It seems to be added levels of hassle/BS with no real benefit. I still remember GhostCrawler's "Nerf them [Ret] to the ground" comment from last year, so I am FAR from optomistic.

"Annoyed" is probably a more accurate word.

As far as Battlegrounds and all that, PvP sounds like a mess. Kite Dot Kite Dot Dead.

If you are a Ret, and you like the Holy Power aspect, can you explain, please? Cuz I really don't get it. I guess I'm missing something.

What a difference a Day Makes and Other Trivialities

2010-07-30T10:25:00.001-07:00

So I went crazy last night and gemmed myself up. (And got enchants for my new items) I picked up the Emblem of Conquest tank belt, and won an actual tanking neck in ToC (H)

The net result? (sorry for the periods, but blogspot hates lots of spaces)

..............Before....After
Str.............1290........1427
Agi ............139...........129
Sta............ 2112.........2758
Armor.......24632......24727
Def.............539..........548
Dodge........24.0%......25.6%
Parry.........20.7%......20.4%
Block..........12.6%......10.9%
Hit .............323.......... 323
Expert.......189........... 132

That took 8 new Stam gems plus a couple stam enchants.

In other news, we had an interesting Pit of Saron run last night. One guildie tanked, and three others of us DPSed. We had to PuG/LFG our healer.

We zoned in and groaned a little. None of us are huge PoS fans. We look for, and find our healer; a Priest.

With a 3190 gear score.

We were on vent where we commented on this, and we all agreed "give her a chance, but MAN that's really low gear for this run"

And we ran with it.

On a couple of the trash groups heading towards Garfrost, we had a couple semi-close calls, and the healer was practically OOM after each pull. (and the tank was being careful not to pull too much)

Just for caution's sake, I pulled Exorcism off my actionbar and replaced it with Flash of Light an instant cast heal. (I do this for Threat from Above, and it just puts FoL into my rotation, which makes for an easy solo)

We work our way to Garfrost, let everyone mana up, and start the fight. Fortunately we had Vent, because it saved our butts.

About halfway into the fight, our tank calls out "Oh shit, the healer's down! Guess we're gonna wipe."

One of our other DPS was down as well.

I called out "Ok, I'll pull back a bit and heal." If not for vent, I would have probably missed it, or would have noticed too late.

Anyhow, with a mana pot, Lay on Hands for the tank, a bunch of flash of lights and a bunch of Holy Lights, we dropped Garfrost. It was a VERY satisfying boss kill.

The sad thing about it was the healer simply wasn't up to the fight. I would really like to know how LFG put her in there. It wasn't fair to her, and it wasn't really fair to the rest of the group either.

We chatted with her a bit and she agreed to drop group. She was still on the "drop group and you get shit on" timer, so we kicked her to save her that trouble. That was not a fun vote. :( I know folks bash the whole gearscore mentality, and that "it's the player, not the gear", but there are times when you simply do NOT have the gear to handle the content, regardless of how good you are. I think she was "good enough" (though not great) if she had adequate gear. And since I was the only one in the group that REALLY over-geared the place, we couldn't carry her.

So, we re queued and got a Pally healer, this time with 3900 GS. We all cringed a bit, but it went well enough after that. She/he knew their class and spec, and had enough gear.

Well, except for the wipe on Ick & Crick. The pally was all "You guys all got one shotted. I didn't have time to heal..." trying not to get bitched at.

My response was "I didn't avoid the poison nova. You can't heal through that. Not a healer issue" and another guildie said basically the same. (I'm not sure what the deal was, but a couple of us had problems in that fight with not seeing any DBM notification. I'm not sure DBM was wonky, or what, and I *do* keep my game sound quiet, so I never saw/heard the cues)

The rest of the run went pretty easily. We took the ramp slowly, "pwned" Tryrannus and got our Frosties.

An interesting night.

Oh, and just in case you aren't a regular reader of the Pink Pigtail Inn, you HAVE to go over there and read TODAY'S POST. It's a great blog, and today's post (written by Tam from Righteous Orbs) is simply comedic genius. Truly!

Oh, and in the spirit of "Gnomenclature" I offer two comedic gnome gnames for anyone to run with:

"Gnomdacratch" (pronounced "nom da crotch") He's a gnome who was bitten by a Worgen, and got better. Mostly. He still has an unhealthy habit that shows up during melee combat...

And for our Russian gnome aficionados "Gnomenklatura". He's a Belf born in a Gnome's body, and he's making everyone around him pay for the indignity. Just remember; he's better than you are.

Multiple Tanking Sets? DON'T BRING ME DOWN!!!!!

2010-07-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Over the last two days, I managed to pick up the two tanking items I was saving for over the last couple weeks. (and for once, I logged off with my Tank gear equipped, so I can actually look at it in an easier to see place)

What I got were:

Saronite Sword Breakers (wrist)

and

Boots of Kingly Upheaval (feet)

(actually, I got them in the reverse order, which caused me a bit of an arrythmia. My old boots had defense, the new ones don't - EEK! Fortunately, the new wrists do, and my old wrists didn't)

If you click on the picture above (a screen cap of my equipment from wow-heroes.com) you will notice that I am missing 3 gems and 3 enchants (well, I'm a blacksmith, so it's actually 4 gems and 2 enchants, but eh...)

And yes, it's on my brand new items. Given what I know, I am mulling things over.

mull

mull

mull

See?

Eh-hem.

Anyhow, there are 3-4 MAJOR stats for pally tanks: (and are important for other tanks, just the numbers vary)

Defense (prevents bosses from get crits on you - Capped at 535 or 540. I've heard both)

Hit (lets you not miss, which helps immensely with threat. Melee capped at 230 for a Drae Pally)

Expertise (helps reduce/eliminate parries, blocks and misses on the boss - 26 is soft cap, 54 is hard cap )

Stamina = Health

If you look at my stats above, you will see:

I am one point below def cap (or 4 points over) Regardless, a single gem swap will fix that. (yes, there are 4 blue items on me, and I have two rare gems on that blue belt :P I never wanted to invest an epic gem on a blue item, to increase defense by 4 points)

I am hit capped

I have 189 Expertise points which is roughly 24 rating.

I have 27k unbuffed

Clearly, I am not "all the way there" yet.

What is kind of scary is that, at a 4,700 Gear score (whatI have now) I am considered "ok, but rough" for doing ICC 10, which would say I significantly over-gear Naxx and Ulduar, yet I would need to gem for even MORE expertise to hit soft cap, which would limit me to only 2 more stamina gems, and not that much more health...

Back in the Naxx/Uld days, how the f**k did tanks get by with that low of health, barely being hit & def capped, and no WAY were they expertise capped?!?!?

Yes, I know they would have multiple sets of armor:

one for EH (effective health, which is basically stamina and armor)

one for avoidance (there are also stats for dodge parry and block, which I'm not even going to touch here)

one for threat

and maybe one or two or three with various resists (nature, shadow, fire, etc)

So, you could optimize one set with mega stamina and armor, while perhaps being below def cap, or hit cap or expertise cap, and have another set with defense, parry, dodge, and another with hit, expertise and strength boosts.

But wait, I *ALREADY* have 3 sets of armor - DPS, Tank and PvP. SO no, I'm not going to have multiple tank sets. Not only because of bag space, but also because I simply can't afford to buy (or farm for) multiple sets of gear.

So, I'm going to try to make a single "best of all worlds" Tank set and live with it.

As it stands I desperately need 3 new tanking pieces:

Waist
Neck
Back

(remember how I keep stressing that you should use wow-heroes/etc to check your gear occasionally? This is what happens when I don't can't easily check my tank gear)

I could also use a couple new rings, but eh, it is what it is. The bummer is that PvP gear is useless for tanking gear. It can work well for DPS, but not so much for tanks...

I t hink I'll just fix my one Def gem, add one expertise gem, and push everything else into health/stamina.

Unless anyone reading this hasa better/wiser suggestion?

Viva Li Vida Azeroth - But I'm Still Lost

2010-07-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Just like the HAL 9000 is a "one off" from IBM (subtract 1 from each letter, and IBM becomes HAL) that 2001 a Space Odyssey made, WoW took the +1 approach for Lost. (and I assume that Lost's writers were, in turn, making another homage by using the number 42)

Anyhow, I was farming for some saronite and a bunch of crystallized earth last night when I ran across something strange. It wasn't the hatch I saw, but it was the little box with numbers in it that I noticed as I (evidently) moved my mouse around. It took a second to "re-find" the spot on the screen that caused the pop up, a moment to fly down and see the hatch.

The smile, however, was pretty much instantaneous.

I'm not the biggest fan of Lost, and haven't watched it since early season 2, but I can still apprecieate the reference. As I sat smiling last night, I tried to recall any other pop-culture references I've noticed in-game. I know there are a ton, but this is the only one I can remember seeing and noticing without being prompted or reading about it.

OOH! The Shop Smart, Shop "S" Mart achie. (I loved Army of Darkness)

Even all of the ones I've read about, off-hand, I can only remember the Stargate SG-1 reference, where all/most of the folks in SI-7 have names mimicing,/derived from the SG-1 characters. (they used an anagram for Teal'c)

Or, I guess "Good news, everyone!" would also count.

After thinking about it, I googled for WoW Pop Culture references, and (of course) there's a ton. In case you were wondering, here's the wowwiki link LINK

If you want to take a moment to read them, I'm sure a bunch of them will "click" and bring a smile to your face.

I hope that this type of humor, thoughtfulness and such continues in Cataclysm. As much as I, and others, rage about Blizzard, it's still seems that the lunatics are still in control of at least SOME areas, and I would hate to lose that...

[EDIT] - sorry for the fubar formatting - that's what happens when I write it "native" and not in the html screen *stupd stupid stupid*

Dawning of Aquarius, and Reality.

2010-07-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

I didn't get a chance to raid with the guild this weekend, even though I was briefly in the raid. Too many melee, and all that. I ended up in a whisped conversation with a friend afterward. And one of the topics was on the possibility of this guild ever seeing (or defeating) the Lich King.

This person's feeling was that no way, no where, no how was it going to happen. Sadly, I agree.

In my 10-mans, there are usually only 2 of us putting out "good" DPS numbers. Even with the 25% buff, it's STILL a race to kill Festergut before the enrage. We've failed because a single 4k DPS person died. At this point with gear and buffs, that's a bit disheartening.

Tanking is usually goood enough, and healing can be iffy.

A large portion of this, is that the guild rotates folks in & out of the raids week to week. Partly this is intentional (we are, afterall, mainly a social guild, and we want everyone to participate) and part of it is just some folks can't raid every day/week we are scheduled (I missed 2 weeks, due to camping and visiting family) And overall, this doesn't bug me much.

Until I read about other bloggers making it to Sindy, etc whilest in a PuG.

It's not that others can do well in a PuG that makes my shoulders slump. It's that we can't do well in a complete Guild run that is depressing.

What happens to cause us to fail?

(I should say that we can usually make ot past Fester in 10 man, though not always. I have seen Putricide once)

We rotate our team, and usually have at least one person that has never seen this content before. And even though we don't swap toons mid-run (unless someone can't make it the second day) it still means our team's composition is ALWAYS changing, and usually has folks that are still fairly new to the fights.

The fact that most of our players are not at all hardcore, and are not uber-geared has an effect. Pungent Blight is a nasty nasty thing when your tanks have less than 40k health (buffed), and your healers can't each push out 10k heals/second.

While great gear isn't necessary, it helps overcome less than perfect gear/spec/rotation that most folks have. (I am lumping myself in there)

To put this in perspective, in the last 10 man I ran (20% buff) I was doing 7,500 DPS. A slightly lower geared Warlock (I'm at 5,600 GS and she's at 5,400 GS) was the only person at that level. Depending on the fight, we would swap #1 in DPS.

We do have a couple others that can dish out the DPS, but I rarely run with them, so the rest of the DPS starts getting a tad low.

We have new tanks that take a while to learn the swap, or are a little squishy.

We have people standing in the bad. (either new, not paying attention/whatever)

We have folks not using appropriate add-ons.

If you combine all this, even a 30% buff will be tough to progress with.

Earlier, I had thought the weekday group was doing a lot better (they have actually beaten Putricide) but it turns out that isn't the case. The only real advantage they have is that they will often run 3+ days a week.

Part of me would like to take the 10 best players in our guild, and take a few weeks to see how far we can progress. The problem is that would severely hurt the chances for the other team to do much of anything. Not to mention that there's no guarantee that we could get all 10 to show up each and every day for multiple weeks. Again, this is a social guild, and real life takes priority

On a side note, I had an offer (actually, nearly a beg) for me to tank ICC 10 man for Kattastrophe's guild, in an alt run. As much as part of me wanted to go, I had to beg off.

While I *am* def capped, I am not hit capped, so my threat gen is hampered.

I have 29,000 health, self buffed, and only 37k fully 10 man buffed.

My tank GS is about 4,400.

Doing the pre-Marrowgar trash is a cat-herding fest, which I am NOT good at.

Everyone was playing alts, which meant that there was nobody uber-geared to help pick up my (or anyone else's) slack.

Based on my own lacking, plus (the assumed) lacking of the rest of the group, I just didn't feel like beating my head against a wall for 2-3 hours. (plus, there are a couple members of that guild that I REALLY do not like, and at least one of them was in the group)

In another day or 2, I will have some better gear (one more piece of primordial saronite, and I will have ICC boots!) I will also have to see if I can get a set of ToC wrists, which aren't TOO expensive (especially with all my frozen orbs)

So, instead of the ICC group, 4 other guildies & I did a fun-run-mount-run. We did Magister's Terrace, The Ravenlord run and Zul'Gurub. None of the mounts dropped, but still fun.

Oh, and on a final note, Kattastrophe got her Cata Beta invite, and has been playing it a fair amount. I may "see if I can get her to play a pally" (eh-hem) and possibly get a feel for the new Pally mechanics. I don't want to know ANYTHING about the new areas, redesigned areas, or any of that, but getting a chance to "see it being played" (wink wink) as a REt-Pal will be worht a quick check-out.

She has been playing a Goblin Rogue (the Worgen have been disabled for some reason) so I have been trying to avoid watching (and listening) to what has been happening on her screen. ONe slight spoiler: Goblins have a TON of vehicle related quests. (ok, a few, which is still a bunch, for WoW)

Laters...

Get Down with the Sickness - Optimize your Ret DPS

2010-07-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a guildie asked me my spell rotation and all that. Alas, it's too much to type out in whisps, so I had to point him to this blog first, and then...

I eventually wrote a longish post on our forums (that, as far as I can tell, nobody read) but I thought I would bring it over here, since it's appropriate and reasonably helpful (or so I hope)

To whit:

As I’m sure most folks know, there isn’t any “real” rotation for Ret pallies. It’s “First Come First Served” aka “FCFS”. This just means using whichever spell is available, as they come off cooldown.

Where it gets complicated is in what are referred to as “clashes”. This is where two spells are ready at the same time. Figuring out which spell to use (prioritize) can make a big difference.

Without looking at gear and set bonuses (T-10 stuff especially) the “standard” order of priority for Ret spells is as follows:

#1 - Hammer of Wrath (HoW) – note – this is only used once target is below 20% health
#2 - Judgement of Wisdom/Light (Jud)
#3 - Crusdader Strike (CS)
#4 - Divine Storm (DS)
#5 - Consecration (Con)
#6 - Exorcism (Ex)
#7 – Holy Wrath (HW)

I used this rotation until very recently.

Now, once you start getting higher gear, and different set bonuses, it gets REALLY complicated. Each spell uses a slightly different set of numbers (stats/abilities like STR) to determine damage done, and each of those abilities changes with better gear, and each of THOSE is weighted differently by each ability.

Like I said- complicated.

I do not, and have never attempted to theorycraft the perfect rotation, so I am left trying to figure it out by brute force. This means either running a lot of raid and keeping track (and hoping the situations are close enough to compare)

Or using Test Dummies.

Test Dummies are far from ideal, but the one thing they do VERY well is to give you absolutely reproducible circumstances. I will do this for testing spell rotations and also for testing out new /different gear combinations. Here’s how I do it.

1 – Go to Darnassus. (I do not know the equivalent for Horde) The test dummies there are the least used, and you will have the least chance of having to wait or deal with jerks. (they are just east/before the large Colonnade as you enter the city from the “wilds”, as opposed to entering from the flight path)

2 – Reset Recount (or Skada or whichever DPS meter you use) If you don’t have at least one meter to keep track, you won’t be able to do this.

3 – I will make a choice to go in unbuffed (ie, just using one blessing, no food, pots, etc) or I will go in fully buffed. Ideally this means you will use all the food, potion and scroll buffs you can get, plus (ideally) Kings and/or Sanctuary. Kings is easy if you buy the drums, but if there are any guildies on, you can ask for them

4 – Put on your Seal of choice. For single target I use Vengeance, and for multiples I use Command. Either way, just apply it once, and it will work for you for the next 30 minutes. Casting them more often does nothing.

5 – Stand a ways behind the test dummy (dummies can dodge and block from the front!) far enough that you don’t start to auto attack.

6 – Select/click the target, move close in, and start your rotation.

7 - Keep going for at least 60 seconds. The longer the better.

8 – When you are done, move away from the test dummy (I run forward) and click to unselect the dummy, and wait a second or two so that Consecrate and any other DoTs have time to wear off.

9 – Record the overall DPS number somewhere.

10 – Bring up the specific damage done page and look at the order in which each spell/ability does damage and write the order down as well.

11 – Mana up, and make sure all your CDs are ready, make sure that no procs are still in effect (Vengeance is the big one that stays for a while) and make sure that you are still buffed exactly the same.

12 – Repeat steps 5-11 two more times, taking notes of all the relevant info. (overall DPS, most damaging spells, etc)

13 – Review the order of spell damage (what was highest, etc - see my screen cap at the bottom) Are they in the same order as before, or at least close? (or at least if two abilities are within a couple 0.1% or so) If they are close, move on to step 14. If not, repeat until you get repeatable results.

14 – Adjust your spell rotation (for me this means adjusting my action bar) such that the most damaging spell is at the top of the priority, with the next highest ability being next, and so on. (or if you are trying different gear combos, switch your gear)

15 – Repeat steps 5-12 with the new spell rotation/gear set, whatever.

16 – Compare the results between the two sets of data. Did the new rotation help? If so, review your DPS by spell/ability again. Are they still in the same order, or did things change? If they are pretty much the same, you’re done. But if there is a big change, you should probably try changing things up using the new order.

Now, a couple things to keep in mind that will, of course, make things more difficult.

- Test dummies are not real mobs, in a real raid, etc, so your results will never match exactly what happens in your raids. Try to remember to compare things after you have just finished a “real” fight. One thing to remember is that some fights are not good ones to use for evaluation (saurfang, because of the no/minimal AoE used, or any fight where you end up running/moving a lot and not attacking)

- Watch your mana and/or health, and take note of where your Judgment of Wis/Light is in your rotation. In any Boss fight, the Judgement assignments should be:

1 Paladin – Judge Wisdom
2 Paladins – One each judging Wisdom and Light
3+ Pallies – One each judging Wisdom and Light

With this in mind…

I know that I can actually boost my DPS by using the following rotation/priority:

1 – Hammer of Wrath
2 – Consecrate
3 – Divine Storm
4 – Crusader Strike
5 – Judgement of Wisdom
6 – Exorcism
7 – Holy Wrath

But there’s a problem: I will run out of mana after ~3-4 minutes, even with using Divine Plea.

Not only that, but EVERYONE in the raid suffer from reduced mana, since it gives mana back to everyone in the raid. So, if I am the only Paladin, or am one of two Pallies, that isn’t good enough.
So, even though it is a net loss of DPS, I still keep Judgement of Wisdom as my main priority (if you ignore HoW) As of now, my rotation looks like this:

1 – Hammer of Wrath
2 – Judgement of Wisdom
3 – Consecrate
4 – Divine Storm
5 – Crusader Strike
6 – Exorcism
7 – Holy Wrath

If I am in a group with 3+ Paladins, it would probably be safe to go to my “best” priority, but swapping action bars for an occasional fight isn’t worth it. (however, I *DO* have one actionbar version set up for the Saurfang fight, with my AoEs moved out of the way)

Side note -

Did you know you have 2 “easy access” action bars? The first one is the one you always see. However, if you hold down the [shift] key, and use the scroll wheel on your mouse, you should see an extra, empty set of bars. This is the one I use for Saurfang. If you also notice, you will see that if you keep scrolling, you will see your other bars (side, bottom, etc) cycle through as you scroll the wheel.

One last note.

If I am in an “easy” fight, where all I need to do is hit the boss, I will be careful and take my time getting every cast/spell in the proper order.

However, if I am in a more “head’s up” fight, where I need to pay a lot of attention (have a lot of raid awareness) I will “drum” my spells. (I've shown you that short Youtube vid a couple times now)

The drumming requires that I have my spells arranged in proper order on my action bar: (this is a screen cap from some testing) I have my left pinkie on #6, and just drum 6789 6789 6789 6789 6789 6789 6789 quickly and repeatedly. I will manually look for HoW and Exorcism to become available, and hit them as they come up.

Oh, and don't forget that Holy Wrath will do AoE damage to mobs as well (not just the undead, which it will often stun) so it can add an extra 2-3%, if you are interested.

Security Alert - no song title here...

2010-07-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, best to quote it from the horse's mouth:

Symantec says it has unearthed a server hosting the credentials of 44 million
stolen gaming accounts -- and one of the most surprising aspects of it is that
the accounts were being validated by a Trojan distributed to compromised
computers.

LINK

Symantec Link

This means that 44 million gaming accounts have had their information hacked, and a trojan is being used to see which stuff is valid/real/usable.

Please, please PLEASE! be careful which websites you surf, where you put your personal information, and make certain you are using up-to-date anti-viral software.

AND GET AN AUTHENTICATOR!

I am still (slowly) working on my talent stuff, and some other posts, but real life has intruded (I'm now working on a resume) and also, with all the beta talent tree info out there, my post is seeming more than a day late & a dollar short.

Cheers.

Glass Cannon with a Heart of Glass

2010-07-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

A little while back, my guild was wasting time around a raid (can't remember if it was just before, or just after a raid) and a few of us were meandering around the Dal Sewers.

While I will run the occasional BG (Wintergrasp in particular) I VERY rarely duel. However, a guild mage, and a guild warrior (among others) were bashing each others' heads in

I swapped over to my PvP gear, and went at it with the Fury Warrior. I won by about >< that much. (he was in PvE gear, so he hit like a truck, but had no resilience) and then went up against the mage.

Blink/stun/ice/stun/trink/HoF/bam

He was dead after not THAT long of a fight, and I was still well over half health.

I swapped gear, and let my cooldowns cool off, and the mage & I went back at it. He pretty much 3-shot me.

Granted, I did NOT use my stuns as well as I could have, but I hardly had a chance to get near him to even use them. In the first fight, I could be a bit sloppy, and survive long enough to get close to him. The second time around, not so much. Ouch. I was dead and he still had 90% health (or there abouts)

And by the way, Seal of Justice is pretty dang useful, especially against a caster. It gives me 3 extra stuns (though they are short and kind of random) which helps interrupt AND gets me 2-3 extra attacks.

But yeah, the mage & I were both shocked at how much of a difference my gear sets made. (and it was a big difference)

I also think that he wasn't "ready" for a Ret during the first fight, so I had an easier fight the first time. I was able to get in close, break LoS by running through him, etc. Whereas the second fight, he maintained a good distance and wasn't even really even threatened. Gear was one part, but he also fought better the second time.

As it stands, I have ~850 resilience in my set: LINK

Start me Up! (it's from the old Windows commercial)

2010-07-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Blizzard,

I know in your heart of hearts, that you want nothing more than to protect us from our trollish selves and to ensure we have the most social experience possible.

I know with absolute certainty that you have our best interests at heart with your proposed changes to WoW with respect to RealID. I would never for a second believe the lies that you are only in it for the money, and that your customers are simply there to be bilked.

But, let's say, for the sake of argument, that none of the above is true, and that you are only in it for the money, and customers be damned.

I mean, is there possibly a way for a large, multinational software corporation to have a massive online gaming experience, with strong social interactions built in? (oh, like AOL instant messenger, faceboook, twitter)

Could this exist with reduced trolling in the forums, linkage to a specific customer account with ban abilities and strong parental controls, yet still allow folks to have a user chosen ID and strong privacy protection?

Hmmmm... I wonder... is such a thing possible?

Nah, fuck it. Who am I to try to imagine such aa crazy, "out there", implausible idea?

Sincerely,
Balthazario

Time, Time Time... What has Become of Me?

2010-07-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

We don't have the "real" hoverboards, but clothing HAS become rather sloppy and baggy.

Yes, today is the day the Doc Brown wanted to arrive in the future, via the movie "Back to the Future". (Marty ended upin 1955 instead, but still)

Twenty... Five... years... ago...

Yikes. I was in highschool at the time.

In WoW?

Lessee...

Balth got a nice DPS necklace off Lady Deathwhisper's corpse, and is now in completely PvE gear. Nary a drop of resilience on him.

w00t

I needed one more lousy pet for my 75 pet achievement, and I learned that there is a pet floating skull pet available from one of the vendors in the sewers (in the poison vendor room)

The weekly 10 man in ICC got cancelled, so me and 4 other guildies started working on our "Glory of the Hero" achievement. We ran 4 different heroics, and completed 6 achies. (I already had 4 of them, so I only got "Abuse the Ooze", and "Watch Him Die", both of which were rather tough.

A couple pointers to anyone trying these:

Watch Him Die - Defeat Krik'thir the Gatewatcher in Azjol-Nerub on Heroic Difficulty while Watcher Gashra, Watcher Narji, and Watcher Silthik are still alive.

First, we tried Zerging twice (came close, but not quite)

Our second tactic was to have me (as OT) pull everything, then have the main tank pull Krik, and then have me survive the rest. Ah, not so much. We tried it twice with slight variations, and either I couldn't maintain SELECTIVE aggro, or I simply couldn't survive long enough.

Third tactic was to have the MT pull each group one at a time, and then have me taunt the watchers off, one at a time, as the rest of the group killed the remaining adds. THEN have me hold (and survive) the three watchers while they burned Krik. I think this would have worked if we had tried it a second time. It was elegant, tactical and cool. We failed the one attempt, and didn't try it again.

The last tactic was just back to zerging. We just burned him down. I ended up getting eaten by the adds (my consecrate & divine storm pulled them all on to me, instead of the others, which was actually a good thing) and we dropped the bad boy.

Abuse the Ooze - Defeat Sjonnir the Ironshaper in the Halls of Stone on Heroic Difficulty and kill 5 Iron Sludges during the encounter. The "funny" thing is that I had never seen any oozes before we tried it (neither had anyone else) which caused our first wipe.

What we didn't know was that the oozes don't spawn until Sjonnir drops to <40% Once we knew that, we adjuested our tactics, and that was that. It took two more times to get the mechanics right, and we got this one. Not hard, per se, but not easy, either...

Experienced Drake Rider (defeat Malygos while riding each color drake) I have done amber & ruby, but not emerald. I have recently done some Coldarra quests, so that I can now do the "Aces High" daily quest (ride drake and kill 5 drakes) so I have a *slightly* better feel for the green drake, but that will be tough. I think the best bet for this would be for us to run a "Amber Void", with 3 tanks (Ruby) and 2 Emerald (one of which would be me) which would give me some leeway to learn how to actualy fight on the green.

Emerald & Ruby Void - Actually, if I can convince guildies to just run 5 ambers, this won't be *that* hard. It just takes a little cordination. We *almost* had it in a PuG a while back, but some weird stuff happened and we went "back to normal". Between this one run, and an amber void, we could get all three voids for guildies in only 2 runs.

Zombiefest - The only hard part is collecting enough zombies without killing them. Killing 500 in one minute would be easy, if you could find them. 100 is only difficult because of collecting them.

Better Off Dred - Not hard (I don't think) but we just need to take it slowly enough that 6 of those drakkari dudes have time to spawn.

Chaos Theory - I'm not sure. Could be easy. I think it's just a healer fight, but not sure.

Incredible Hulk - Kill a Scourge Hulk with Svala's dropping sword. Shouldn't be *too* hard, as long as you can position the Hulk in the correct place AND get him to 8-10% health before the sword drops.

Less-Rabi - Ugh. I've been in two groups that tried a few attempts to get this. Trying to interrupt that third transformation is basically blind luck, and we haven't been lucky.

Another alternative would be to delay the 1st two interrupts for as long as possible, POSSIBLY allowing the group to burn him down before the third one even has a chance to start. You need a LOT of DPS. If you can get a mage to spellsteal (8 second delay) then 20k DPS *could* do it.

In other news

Iggy went into Scarlet Monestary at level 31 (whichever one was first, graveyard?) and the group ran it twice, then wanted to run library for a third run. I dinged level 32 in Library, but let me tell ya, a level 32 mage (let alone level 31) has a hard time hitting level 34 mobs.

We made it, even though we had a flub in the next-to-last fight. Either a mob ran in fear and aggroed the final boss, or my casts were shooting 90* left and targetting the boss. (I noticed one of my casts went sideways, but didn't notice who I actually targeted *DOH*) Regardless, we had a massive scramble at the end, and I died.

The entire final area was a bit of a miscue. We over aggroed too many mobs, and the tank couldn't keep them all in check. I had to pop iceblock, went OOM twice (I used my mana pot, mana crystal and mana regen - whatever the name is) even before the boss got pulled. So, by the time he got pulled, I was about done (and he doesn't get trapped in Ice Nova, if you are curious)

Still, it was an interesting group. For the entire set of 3 runs, I was averaging 93 DPS or thereabouts. We had a warrior tank, elem shammy, rogue, me, and another shammy. I was fighting for 2nd place in total damage with the shammy, and the warrior was WAAY up there. All of us we 30, 31 or 32. (all of us had a fair amount of heirloom on as well) It was crazy that as a group, we were pulling >300 DPS.

Rested EXP is nice.

I also levelled his Jewelcrafting up a bunch. He's now at 155 or so, and his enchanting is at 200. The last couple hours of gaming last night were running Balth around Barrens farming tin so that Iggy could prospect out the needed gems. (it was strange last night on my server, even shadowgems were selling for >1 gold each, so just buying gems wasn't really viable)

I am still working on the Talent tree post, and I have another "short" post about a reasonable way to optimize RetPal rotation. I'm not sure which will be first, but they are planned.

And it Burns, Burns, Burns... That Ring of Fire...

2010-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

With some recent activity on Balth, Iggy hasn't seen as much activity, but I'm still plugging along. With the 10% added monster experience (from pole dancing) I am trying to make the most of the reamining time in Summer Festival.

He dinged 31 last night, and I've noticed that there's no real rotation, jut a couple different spell choices, and the choice I make is pretty much based on how fast I need things to happen.

Solo:

Cast Pyroblast
Cast Scorch Repeatedly until almost dead
Cast Fireblast for the finisher (instant cast so speeds things up)

If the mobs are getting close, I *may* cast cone of cold

If they reach me, I will cast Frost Nova and run, rinse repeat.
If Frost Nova is on CD, I will just make sure I have mana shield up, and spam Arcane explosion til they are dead (usually against multiple mobs)

If there are 2 or more mobs, I will sheep one (if possible) then burn the other one down. If there are 3, I will often pre-emtively run TOWARDS them, Frost nova them and pick one and burn him down with scorch/fireblast ASAP.

Then if/when one or more gets close, I will arcane explosion them, blink and repeat.

In a 5 man

For tank aggroed multiple mobs:

Flame strike until I pull aggro,
Run them back to the tank,
Frost Nova them in place
Run out and spam flame strike again

For single "trash" mobs

Arcane Missile. It's the lowest DPS, but essentially starts DPSing NOW, which is good. Otherwise I will still be casting when the mob drops.

Mini-bosses

Open with a Pyroblast if there's time before the tank pulls.
Spam Scorch and one Fireblast near the end

Bosses

Again, open with Pyro, if there's time
Spam Fireball. It's about identical in DPS to Scorch, but it's more mana efficient (tested this in Theramore on the dummies there)
Toss in the occasional Fireblast as it comes off CD

On single targets, I get about 60-65 DPS, and if there are more mobs, Flamestrike can get me up to 150-200 DPS.

So, if anyone has any comments on the good, bad and/or ugly of my playing this, lemme know!

Oh, one question for level 80 Firemages: I was the "victim" of my first living bomb on Balth the other night (Wintergrasp). Nobody else was around for me to damage, so I just sood there and healed/waited it out. Is it dispellable or cleansable?

Toodles.

Reservation - The Desire to Tank, but the Fear that Prevents it

2010-06-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

Tanking from the point of View of a DPS:

Since I'm reasonably durable, and because I know how cahllenging some fights can get, I am usually pretty lenient with Tanks. This is especially true with a lot of mobs, and even more true with a lower geared tank. If I'm not attacking the same target as the tank (either due to stupidity on my part or target switching on theirs)it's pretty darned easy for me to yank aggro.

As long as the healer doesn't bitch at me (which has happened once recently, in HoR during the run from Arthas - though the tank wasn't bothered evidently) I don't sweat it much.

The only time I will get a bit testy is when the tank is reasonably geared (at least from a GS number - as mentioned before, I don't inspect folks - I don't have the time) and when the healer keeps getting aggro, and I have to keep playing damage sponge because I have to keep taunting mobs off the healer.

Sometimes I think the healers are standing a tad too close, but with so many fights I realize that LoS is an issue, so that they NEED to be close-ish.

Then again, on other fights like the current Holiday Boss (Athune), with the bevy of mobs that keep spawning, I can fully understand how it's pretty much impossible to keep all the mobs on the tank. In these fights (especiall with a lower geared tank) I will actually turn on Righteous Fury and run as Off-Tank to help keep mobs off the healer. (an interesting PuG story about last night later in this post)

So, I am understanding, but when I see a tank NOT doing the basics (consecrate, stomp/whatever) to at least get SOME aggro, I will groan, and bitch to myself. As long as I don't get bitched at ("Watch aggro, nub!!"), I'll suffer silently.

Tanking from the the sword & board perspective:

I can sum this up in 2 words:

"Oh, Shit!"

Especially on nights like last night, where I offered to tank on a 4/5 guild run. "Unless we get an ICC heroic, then I'm bailing".

And what do we get?

PoS.

~~Piece of Shit~~ Pit of Sauron

I wanted to bail, but the guildies said "nah, you'll be fine".

As ide from a slightly overeager group of DPS on the first couple groups, things went smoothly all the way to Ick & Krick.

We didn't wipe, but we did lose 2 DPS. But, I was happy with my performance overal to this point, because I kept the mob moving out of the green, didn't get more than one at a time, and the actual Boss fight seems to have gone well enough.

And then came the ramp from hell. You know, large groups of multiple mobs, including several casters? Yeah, that slice of hell.

We didn't get there quickly enough to avoid the first 2 groups, so we slogged our way up. We had a couple deaths and a couple REAL close calls, but we still made it.

I was asked several times if I was using Consecrate, and yes, I was.

If you're at all interested, my initial way of going in was:

Start running in
Hand of Reckoning (to damage one, and also to taunt)
Avenger's Shield to further taunt, damage, slow and silence
Drop Consecrate when I get into the middle to get more AoE aggro
Hit Holy Wrath to stun them and get even more aggro.

And then try to tab-tab-tab-tab. Which never works all that well. It will select a new target, but often will not actually TARGET them, until I cast something.

This means they will have the red circle below their feet, but my toon will not auto-attack, and some spells won't cast. (fortunately, Judgements will, as will Crusader's strike)

So, we slowly trudge our way up the ramp.

From there on out it was pretty easy, with only an occasional Righteous Defense.

The final boss fell without much ado.

So, I can fully understand loss of aggro on large groups, but there's still need for SOME work.

(by the way, if you read this half way through, I inadvertantly hit [enter] twice and it posted it.)

Do You See What I See?

2010-06-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

When you’re in a movie theater, or other event where there is tight seating, and you and/or other folks will need to get in and out of the seats, there’s an odd bit of decorum people use, yet it seems to be different for everyone.

Think about it.

When you are the one trying to move across the row, do you face the folks in your row? Depending on the seating, and how large or small you are, this could lead to a “thump –thump” as your butt-cheeks slide over the head of the person one row in front of you, and could lead to an overly intimate view of your crotch by the person in your row.

Conversely, the only alterative is to essentially stick your ass in the face of the person you are passing, which will eliminate the butt-thumping, but makes it a bit more likely you will spill your beverage and/or food on someone’s head. And give someone an up close and personal view of your tushie.

I will usually face the folks in my row. Why? This leads to observation/question/preference #2.

#2 (no, not THAT kind of “#2”) If you are the one sitting, which way would you prefer someone else pass by you? Crotch-facing or ass-facing?

Personally, I hate having someone’s ass in my face. Especially a stranger’s.

And this leads to an odd WoW thingie: I’m melee DPS, so unless I’m fighting a dragon, I’m usually staring at the ass of various bosses. Distinctly unpleasant on some fights, like Festergut, where the Boss is farting. A lot.

Are Boss crotches any better? Not really.

A Manic Monday, After a Long Weekend

2010-06-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

Due to a change in vacation policy at work, I needed to use up some of my accrued vacation time, so I took this past Friday off. Katt joined me, so we got to play a little (ok, a lot) of WoW starting Thursday night.

Thursday night - started and finished the Summer Festival stuff. Painful and long, but made a LOT of gold doing it! (I think about 600 all together?)

Friday Night and early Saturday - Ran 10 man and 25 man ICC up *to* Fester. Couldn't get past him either time. (I became Exalted with Ashen Verdict though!)

Saturday evening - I went and ran "For the Alliance" and got my bear. I had done Thrall and Bloodhoof a few months ago, but got to finish it.

Sunday evening - Katt's guild was messing around and decided to run Karazhan. WoW. That was a VERY cool dungeon! I'd never been in before, and all I can say is WOW! Then, literally as I finished Kara, I got a guild invite to run Ony 25. I'd never done it before (10 or 25), so that was neat. I'd been in a fail group before, so seeing it done correctly was nice.

Lessee... other randomness... I saved up enough Frost to replace my PvP belt with a decent PvE one.

I am working on a basics of Ret-Pal talents, so I hope to have that up in a few days. It's a fair bit of work though.

Ruby Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Whenever.

2010-06-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

I've been playing WoW for about 14 months now. I dinged 80 in December(ish) and have only been raiding since ICC.

The only Naxx I've done is a few weeklies, and one guild run that went through 2 of the quarters.

Weekly raids are ALL I've done in Ulduar.

I've attempted ToC 25 man once, but never finished it (made it to Anub). I've never even been in ToGC.

I've been late to the party. For any boss fight, all I (or any raid members) need to do is look stuff up on Tankspot, or read strats in any number of other places. Not a good thing or bad thing, but there it is.

Now comes Ruby Sanctum. For the first time I am (pretty much) ready to go. It's new content, and I am probably geared enough to try it. I think the guild has enough geard members to try as well.

I have no illusions about being server first or ANYTHING like that, but the thought of working through the fight that isn't essentially farm content for others is exciting.

This is the first time I can say that I'm excited about content. As I said last post, I probably won't see it until later, but I intend to try it by hook or crook.

Just to be there.

In other news, I only need one more primordial saronite for my boots. WooHoo!!

Oh, yeah, I got a new pony (top pic) I got VERY lucky; according to my wowarmory stats, I only killed Rivendare 19 times.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - I have No Choice

2010-06-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday again, and we get our weekly server maintainance today.

And a frikking patch.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a fan of REAL ID, I think it has a whole HOST of exploits and ways to antagonize and ruin folks.

Ruby Sanctum? Um, sure... but I won't probably see much of it until I get through the Lich King kill.

Then there's THIS little gem:

The functionality of the Vote Kick feature in the Dungeon Finder will now
behave differently according to a player's history with the system. Players
using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely
abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option
will have no cooldown. For players who frequently abandon groups or vote to kick
other players, the Vote Kick option will be kept on a cooldown. This
functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon
Finder changes.

Wait, let me get this straight; if there's an asshole in my group that we manage to vote kick out, the game will remember this and will work to prevent me from doing it again?

FUCK YOU, BLIZZARD!

You have created a system that enhances and encourages douche-baggery, and now you want to make it even MORE difficult to get rid of them?

You already make it impossible to ignore someone after the group breaks up (if they aren't on your sever) you already have a "once per run" maximum on the numbers of idiots we can boot.

And now this?

As a DPSer for the most part, I am pretty much at the mercy of any tanks or healers that want to be an asshole. Mainly because we then have to sit and wait for another one.

If we do manage to boot someone, we still have the high likelihood of THEM being a jerk, and at that point we are S.O.L. and stuck with whomever we get.

And now, you will make my sanity preserving decions follow me?

Seriously?

Again, all I can say is fuck you.

In the 200+ randoms I have run, I have voted to kick 3 times. That's all.

Twice more I *tried* to initiate a vote kick, but I had joined a group already in progress that already had kicked someone, so we were stuck. I have ignored/voted no on a couple other occasions.

I do not abuse the kick system, and it's rare to see others doing so.

I already despise the LFG heroic grind. While assholes aren't the majority of folks running them, there are MORE than enough of them around that 1/3 of my runs have some sort of actively annoying jerk in them.

Most times I will put up with the crap, rather than prolong an already tedious and annoying process. It is only with great hesitation that I will (and the rest of the group will) go through the hassle of vote kicking.

But now you've taken this lame, pretty much already broken tool, and made it even less useful.

Thanks for giving griefers even more power.

If you wanted to do something to help, allow us to rate each other, and track THAT. Or at least keep track of how often a person is voted out. If they get voted out too much, give THEM a time out.

The First Time... Ever I Slew Your (Rot) Face

2010-06-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have probably wiped 20+ times on the S.O.B., and I finally got to be a part of dropping him in a puddle of his own ickiness.

Bastard.

The 10 of us then ran over to give Putricide a try. (lesson: it helps if you open the valves in Rot & Fester's rooms - doh -)

We then wiped a few times, but eh, since only 1 of us has ever fought him before (not me), it went well enough. For giggles, after we had given up on him for the night, we ran over and got the "free" badges (killing some Vyrkul, can never remember the name) and we wandered into say "hello" to Dreamwalker.

It was amusing, for the minute/minute & a half that we lasted. None of us (other than the RL) knew anything about the fight, so it was interesting to see. I am going to suggest that we actually give it a few tries WITHOUT knowing strats. Just to see if we can figure it out. (although, the RL has seen and defeated her, so has Kattastrophe, who sits only feet away and can watch/comment)

---

In other news... we ran Magister's Terrace a few times... Kat went with a guildie and got the Phoenix pet, then we ran it a couple times, and I got the chicken mount: Swift White Hawkstrider.

If you want to see something hysterical, find a Draenei Pally, with Crusader Aura on, watch him run on teh hawstrider. After being hit with baby spice.

---

Prior to yesterday, I had run Stratholme about 8 or 9 times. I was doing it for rep, and a couple times was to run one of Kattastrophe's alts through it.

And then yesterday, I found out he drops a rather rare mount: Deathcharger's Reigns.

Here's a possibly gut churning bit: because it is a BOP drop, and it has no vendor value, it is *possible* that the dang thing dropped, and I didn't bother looting it.

When I am running rampant through a low level istance, I will keep stuff of value (in gold) and will ignore other stuff. Balth isn't an enchanter, so I don't DE anything, and the few auctionable items are hard (for me) to tell from just gold-lewt stuff, so I just loot everything and vendor it. 25-50 gold per run, depending.

So, if the reigns had dropped, I doubt I would have bothered reading what it said. I would have noticed the lack of a vendor price. That *might* have given me pause, especially for something purple.

But no guarantees.

So I ran the instance in "speed" mode last night a couple times with no luck. I have run it only 11 times, so it's likely a long way to go before I will get it. That being said, I cleared about 75 gold for all the crap I vendored. (and maybe 30-40 minutes total, and not very efficiently - I should be able to run/clear once every 8-10 minutes or so) At 6 runs per hour, 25 gold per run, that's 150 gold per hour.

That just about matches the gold per hour rate I get doing the Argent dailies.

If you're interested in what/how to do a speed run, go here ya go:

---

Oh, I got a nice drop of Saurfang (25) on Saturday: Polarbear Claw Bracers.

These now replace my Wrathful bracers (for PvE), and all together, I get an increase of 35 strength or so. Because:
- They have intrinsically 5 more strength
- They have a gem slot already (so as a blacksmith, I can put a second on)and the wrathful did not
- They have hit instead of resilience, so I can replace a +10 STR/+10 Hit gem with straight +20 STR gem.

They are identical in gearscore (big deal) but they are an actual good upgrade, so I'm jazzed!

w00t.

---

Oh, and I think I need only 1 or 2 more pieces of primordial saronite and I can make my nifty boots.

---

Things seem to be looking up with the guild. Again, I like the folks there a bunch, and I hope they are feeling more the same. We shall see.

Satisfaction - At What Cost?

2010-06-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

The other day over at Hots & Dots, Cassandri brought up a video log about a guild (called Big Crits) that was progressing to 25 man Lich King, and documenting the progress in a very "reality TV" type of way. Hots & Dots Link Here. It's a very interesting video, and seeing the tidbits from the raider POV and the leader POV as well as the culture was very revealing.

For me, this was rather topical, since I had had a brief interaction with a guild that seems to be in a similar "mode": i.e., the guild's progression is paramount, and any individual is only a cog in the machine for that progression.

As I mentioned before, that is wholly unacceptable to me. But this got me to thinking, clearly this type of guild exists, on multiple servers, and represents a truly dedicated hardcore attitude towards raiding. Obviously, there is a panoply of variations, but there seems to be a reasonable spectrum of "cores" that progression type guilds seem to fall into. (as opposed to PvP oriented, or RP oriented, which I assume have their own spectrum, but that's something I know very little of)

So, in very basic terms, here's the spectrum guilds as I see it, from least "hardcore" to maximum hardcore. (yes, there are all sorts of variations, as well as variability of membership within each "type")

1 - Completely social. There is no internal organization for raiding or even Heroics.

2 - Social guild that runs heroics as a group, but that's about it.

3 - Social that runs progression raids (ICC, either 10 or 25). Participation is "as wanted by the toon". Real life ("RL") and "fun" take precedence to any progression. Anyone can join as long as there's room.

4 - Raiding as social. A semi-core group of regulars. Most members are usually there, but no social pressure if you can't make it. having fun while progressing is the goal.

5 - Moderate progression - a pretty static group of people that raid. RL and such are allowed, but some commitment is required. This is the first "type" where being friends and good rapport is not needed: this is a raiding guild first & foremost. (friendships may still be there, but is not necessarily needed)

6 - Dedicated Progression Raid - You had better be there. Missing is grounds for /g kick. Generally the same group that starts is the same group that finishes.

7 - Hardest core raiding - Progression of the guild is paramount. Performance and functionality for each fight is paramount. Very good performance is not a guarantee that you will raid.

For me personally, I prefer somewhere in the 4-5 range. Kattastrophe's guild a 5, or maybe a 5.25. Big Crits is clearly a 7. I don't know, but I would assume that Ensidia and paragon are also. I would guess that Tamarind's guild is a 4, and Single Abstract Noun (the WoW Blogger reader's/writer's guild) is a 1.

Where do you/your guild fit? Did I miss anything?

Oh, and here's a question I *need* to ask: does a "7" guild exist pretty much exclusively for the benefit of the raid leader, and their 2-3 officers/etc? After all, from what I cans see, the only players "guaranteed" as spot during the final boss will be the raid leader and his/her cadre. Everyone else is expendable/interchangeable.

Does the benefit of being a part of that organization make it worthwhile to everyone else?

(or are there "7" guilds where the RL and cadre will pull themselves out for the raid/guild benefit?)

Later!

WoW and that Sweet Emotion

2010-06-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

OK, so the angry kid above isn't playing WoW (it's either CounterStrike of Unreal Tournament, I can't remember which) but I think it's still apropos for "those" moments that we all have.

And if you heard the audio clip from Paragon's Lich King 25 Heroic Kill, you get to see the other side: the cheering, excitement and joy. (Sorry, I can't find the clip/link)

WoW definitely has the ability to set our emotional meters swinging wildly and strongly. (I am speaking mainly from a PvP and Raiding perspective, though I suspect RP would have similar points) I have a couple ideas, and I'd also like to hear any others that you may have.

The Personal time and effort investment

You don't succeed in raiding or PvP without spending a LOT of time in the game:
- leveling your toon
- working on gear
- learning to play your toon
- learning the basic fights (both raids and PvP have pre-planned tactics)
- learning to play as a team

Even if you aren't "in character" (in an RP, or anthropomorphic sense), you have still put several hundred hours into any character that is "ready to go". In my own experience, the more time I put into a task or objective, the more emotionally invested in that given thing I will be. It seems that most people I've known are the same way. Time may or may not equal money, but time most certainly seems to be equate to emotion.

So, when something doesn't go as planned, failures of some sort, or negative interactions with other will hit a nerve and we will likely have a negative response.

Conversely, when you FINALLY drop the boss, or get up to an arena rank, or beat a tough team, the exhilaration is amazing.

Thems is Peoples behind those pixels

Maybe this part gets driven into the ground. That voice you hear over your headset, and those pixels dancing in front of your avatar are the visible "face" of other folks. People aren't bits of code and they will almost always have *some* type of impact on you.

Whether you despise them, love them, or simply don't pay attention to them, they are an integral part of the game and how they interact with you can be a huge part of any feelings you get int the game.

Combine this with with the emotional investment we have, and the results are demonstrated every day, both in-game and here in the blogosphere.

Rools iz Rools

If you ever played pen & paper D&D, with the DM (dungeon master) sitting behind his screen and rolling the dice to determine your fate, there was almost ALWAYS a way to bend a rule, create a rule, or just do something out of left field. The only limits were imagination and patience.

WoW doesn't have that flexibility or intimate level of interactivity. Let alone an imagination.

So we are all stuck playing within the rules of bit, bytes and teraflops that were created by the designers. Much to the QQ of folks on the various forums and blogs.

How does this affect our gaming in any emotional way?

Let me ask it this way: how do you feel about somewhat arbitrary laws in your city, town, state, county, etc? Especially ones that you feel are either draconian or ones that almost encourage irresponsibility?

If you're anything like me, they will piss you off. Either because they restrict you too much, or give too much leniency to assholes.

-But I WANT to go to Ironforge Airport without fear of banning or booting!
-Stop the gold sellers, botters and the like!

Hmmm?

The sad/frustrating part of this aspect of our emotional interaction within/around the game, is that its effect on us is almost universally negative. Perhaps you could argue that the story telling, lore and questing are also part of the "rules", and can be EITHER annoying OR good (or completely banal) so that "rules" aren't always a negative... *shrug*

The Mirror

How we deal with ourselves and our time with WoW is probably the biggest factor, although others can certainly be a huge part.

If you had a crappy day at work, school at home, what ever, you can probably bet that your real life (RL) is going to have an emotional impact on how your time in Azeroth will go. It is very possible (and often a hoped for side-effct) that playing will relax you and get you out of your rut or mood. But that's not always the case.

This is especially true when you put yourself into a part of the game that tests you. Either via PvP against other players, or in Raid content WITH other players (and all of THEIR own issues, problems, and joys) You will be trying to successfully perform a task, and you will either succeed or fail.

This can be viewed from a group perspective (did we win/down the boss or did we lose/wipe) or it can be on a much more personal level (how did I do? did I stand in stupid? Did I help those I should have? Did I kick butt?)

It's under the lens of the latter part of the individual, personal review that you can get you down. ESPECIALLY if it is reinforced in any way by any of the previous "emotional modifiers" that I mentioned above. You can end up happy, sad, or any of the other myriad positions on the spectrum of emotional state.

And you know what? That's ok. As long as whatever state you are in doesn't become "clinically relevant", having an emotional response to the game, even negative ones, is OK. It's what makes you who you are, it's how you grow, learn and stay human. (or cyborg for some of you)

I almost deleted or drastically edited my post from yesterday. I don't want to QQ *too* much, but hey, it's all part of who I am. I'm a grouchy, competitive, social person. While my primary reason for bloggin is the interaction and community, I *do* still think of this as a scrap book of my gaming. Not just the good and that, but also some of the less fun parts.

So, did I miss anything? Majorly screw something up? Let me know...

And There Will be, Sorrow...

2010-06-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

Time for Deep Thoughts... though I'm no Jack Handey

Last night's raid was a first for me: I just felt nearly incapable of doing what was asked.

Was it avoiding the defile on on Lich King? Nope.
Was it dropping the buffet on Sindragosa? Nope.

I simply could not keep myself alive.

On the Four Horseman.

To be fair, I've never been deep into Naxxramus before. I had never seen the Four Horseman, didn't know the strat. When the RL asked:

"Bal, do you have a Tank of Healer off-spec?"

"Yeah, I have a tank off-spec, though I'm not great."

"How is your healing in your tank spec?"

"Um... not great"

In case you are in the same boat as I was early yesterday evening, I'll explain this fight in VERY basic terms.

1 - There are 4 bosses in this fight that each need to be fully engaged, or any single one of them will AoE and wipe the raid.

2 - The "first/front" two bosses will be dealt with by DPS, "real" tanks and the healers.

3 - The back two bosses need to be engaged, and the two people engaging them need to be able to survive. On their own.

4 - Once the front 2 bosses are down,the rest of the group will come back and take care of the second 2 bosses.

5 - Oh, and there are these stacks you have to watch out for, so each pair of tanks has to switch off so that the debuff can wear off.

GULP

So we went in, with me and a Blood DK on the back bosses. I was supposed to heal both of us.

In case you aren't aware, Pally gear (Ret & Prot) has zero intellect on it, so our mana pool is rather small. While my Ret spec has a fair amount of haste (about 375 or so) I don't think my Prot gear has ANY.

Can you say looong cast time? (even without stalls/interrupts?)

Anyhow, I have Seal of light on, and swapped my binding so that I was judging light (both replenish health) I'm healing the other guy, trying to heal myself, I pop Lay on Hands-

DEAD.

WIPE.

Not even close. (Also, I wasn't paying attention, and I think we both ended up with 4 stacks of the debuff) I also think that the front group was having some issues themselves.

Oh, did I mention the group?

2 Tanks, 2 healers, with 2 ranged DPS.

It was entirely a guild run, but I think only 1 or 2 of them had ever seen this fight before. The tanks were both 1st time raid tanks, (though they did quite well) and it was mentioned that we were trying to 2-heal a fight that really needs to have 3 healers. Lastly, most of the toons there had a GS below 4,500. YES, I realize that folks beat this without so much as a full T-7 set, but gear is usually needed to help folks that lack experience, which we did.

We tried it once more, and one thing crystallized for me in my tanky-healy duty. The DK & I are both melee classes, and I actually need to be hitting the bad guy to regain health. Similar to the DK. The only problem is that if we are both in melee range of our target, I was out of range to heal the other guy.

Hell, ignoring the other guy, I was having a tough time healing myself!

And So...

Well, one of the other Pallies had to leave (it was a bit late) and we got a 3rd healer in. It took another 3 tries, but we finally got past it. In addition to my inability to survive (let alone heal another) I did one dummy move that irritated a couple of the folks.

In previous wipes, the RL said to stay put, they would rez us. The last wipe, nothing was said, so I figured we didn't have anyone with a self rez available. So after a few minutes of nothing being said on vent, and no visible movement, I released. Well, everyone else DID get rezzed, and I now had a whole passel of mobs to go through that had respawned.

"Where are you, Balthazario?"

We had a 'lock, so they ported me in, but it was with some consternation.

Harumph

I've never felt like I couldn't handle any responsibility I've been given before. (granted, most of the time its just "KILL IT!!!" but still...) I logged off last night feeling pretty crappy about my performance. Doubt about my actual performance and *my* perception that I was being looked at askance, left me feeling pretty discouraged about WoW overall, and me in particular.

Between this, and a couple of implied/perceived failures of mine during our recent failed attempts at Rotface, I think the group has me pegged as "one of those pallies". While I do NOT think I was any type of failure during Rot, I clearly didn't perform all that well in Naxx (that last encounter in particular)

Perhaps I have been getting too used to the ICC buff, and my 8,000+ DPS numbers, but my overall DPS for the night (barring my "tanking" interlude) was only 4,400. That pretty much sucks, by ANY measure, if you consider my "skill" and gear. I'm not sure how I could have bumped it much to be honest. That almost makes it worse.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the group of folks in this guild. They seem to be good people and I like running with them. But, I have this gut feeling that the sentiment is not reciprocated by the guild leadership.

Casual Raiding

This isn't a guild that uses World of Logs (a subscription service that records your raids in intimate detail) or that pays much attention to the "back pages" of Recount. (you know, damage taken - which implies damage avoided, # of interrupts, stuns, etc - the "other" stuff you can do, both good and bad) Heck, as long as DPS is cranking along, they don't seem to pay much attention, other than "is the group doing enough?" (we are). I *agree* that not putting too much value in Recount can be a good thing, especially just the "front page" (damage/DPS numbers)

However, the bummer is that your value to the group, be it raid or guild, then becomes a very subjective thing. Did the RL see you taunt that add of the healer 3 times? (doubtful, since he's not the healer) Or the other clothies other times? (I don't think so) Did he realize it was me that cast the ghetto priest buff multiple times after wipes? (nope) Did he see you and another established guild member having troubles combining oozes? (I think so - though it isn't clear "who's fault" it was, but again, one of us is an established guildie, the other isn't) Did he see you die stupidly that one time? (yep, he did)

My only "response" to this type of stuff is that some of it did happen, but that overall I am a VERY productive member of the group. Some of my assistance could be borne out by looking deeper into Recount. If they only look at the front of Recount, they will likely see me as top Damage and first or second in DPS, which could be a bad thing (see, he only cares about DPS)

So, I have this feeling that I will not become a full member of the guild any time soon.

By the way, Naxx seems like it must have been an awesome place to raid in, "back in the day". I can believe that some of the fights must have been monster pains to get past, but the look of the place, the neat and different fights, all seem like it could have been a blast as well.

OH! In case you don't read Kattastrophe's blog, they got past Sindy the other night, and have started work on Arthas. It was neat to watch them... I saw at least one Sindy fight where they had her down to 70,000 health, but still wiped. Seeing the final kill was great! Good job folks!

Step by Step

2010-06-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

A quick post today.

I know I've blathered on quite a bit about using PvP gear for PvE. I was digging around my blog andwasn't sure I actually had one single post that covered most of it. Mainly because I would learn/realize something, post about it, and then I would learn more and post more.

So, in an attempt to make things a bit more reader friendly, here is all I have to say about...

PvP Gear for Use in PvE

What items are possible "easy" upgrades? Well, there are PvP items for just about every slot you have, but some are better than others. Places to AVOID using PvP items would be:

- Replacing any Tier slot (head, shoulders, chest, legs, hands) Unless you have EVERY Tier item, and a PvP item would still be an upgrade. Most of these slots would be filled with "Furious" gear, which should be last on your PvP upgrade list (let alone your PvE list)

- Replacing any item that has a nearly equivalent ilvl. If you have a choice of a ilvl 264 PvP item, and an iLvl 251 PvE item, the PvE item will (most likely) be better for you. The only exception here would be if you (for example) had a hunter necklace that was an upgrade (maybe had Str, Hit ang Crit) but you are a Warrior, and a "DPS PvP" item might still be better.

All the PvP items you will want will be bought using honor. (unless you get a lucky drop in VoA) Don't just buy the cheapest one you can get. The cheapest ones (Relentless items) are also the "weakest". For not *that* much more honor, you will get a much better item.In order of likely "need" and/or value:

1) Back or Wrist or Neck - Depending on what you have currently equipped, one of these will likely be your first choice. They are all "Wrathful" which are ilvl 264, which means they are VERY good items. The one you chose, is the one that offers the best stats upgrades: ignore resilience, and armor in this evaluation (unless you are a tank)

2) Waist & feet - These are "Relentless" items with an ilvl of 245. Not great, but still far, far better than any pre-heroic item (and better than many heroic items as well)

3) (probably #1 for Pallies) This is for for Paladins only. (unless there is an equivalent item for other classes, which I'm not sure of. Maybe Elemental or Restoration Shammies?) You can buy the Deadly Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude from the Apprentice Arena/PvP goblin vendor in the sewers under Dalaran.

OK, so you can buy the stuff. What to do next? review your critical stats to make sure they are still where they need to be. These are things like:

- Hit
- Spell Hit
- Experise
- Defense
- etc (stuff that applies to your class & spec)

If using one of the PvP items lowers one or more of these, be prepared to re-gem and/or re-enchant an item (or two, or three...) to get it back to where it needs to be.

Which gems & Enchants to use? I'm glad you asked because this brings up the other item I wanted to mention

BANG & BLAME - NOW WITH PAGE 2!!!!

Yes, I've gone and sold out. My blog now has a page two, and therein I attempt to collate, organize and link any information that I deem useful, important and or worthy.

LINK

Obviously it will be a work in progress until I can get most/all of my useful stuff included. (how much of my stuff is useful is up for personal debate, but that's another story)

Enjoy.

DPS, Gear, and Metal by Numbers

2010-06-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to ramble here a bit about gear, both PvP, and PvE, and some pitfalls associated with them. I don't do any theorycrafting, but I do discuss some test dummy numbers and numerical stuff, so if you don't like that type of stuff, I guess I'll see you next post...

Wagons Ho!

The first upgrade to mention was my PvP belt; Relentless Gladiator's Girdle of Triumph. It's got some really nice stats, and, like every other PvP item I've picked up, it's a significant upgrade over my previous PvE item.

My PvP Gear summary If you look at each item, overall, they are an upgrade.

EXCEPT for hit. According to the sites I visit (wow-heroes among them) I 229 need points of hit, and I was at 223. So I gemmed my belt buckle with a +20 hit, and we're good to go. (if you look at the "summary page for my PvP gear, you will notice that I lose a fair bit of AGI, but that translates to about 1.5 Crit points (NOT %) so I am still at a net gain in Crit.

Now, even though they are clear benefits, there are a couple downsides:

1) As I noted with my waist, the PvP gear will have different stat allocation than PvP gear. So in my case, I replaced a waist that had moderate hit, with a waist that did not. GOTTA WATCH THAT!!

2) It is entirely possible that someone will inspect your gear and go "wtf up with your PvP gear?" Especially with me, where I have 4 pieces currently. All you can say is that the PvP gear you have is absolutely an upgrade over the item it replaced (it better be!)

3) PvP gear will give you a higher gearscore than you really "deserve", and your output (heals, DPS, whatever) may not meet expectations. With my 4 pieces of PvP gear, my gearscore is ~5,530, which looks nice. However, I would say I am only as effective (assume equal skill/class/spec player) as someone about 5,400. If you're reasonably skilled, it won't matter, but it is worth noting.

Moving On

So... I did a bit of raiding and a little acquisition this weekend. I was able to get the Blade-Scored Carapace from Saurfang 10 man. (One neat thing I learned is that mmo-champion's listing/links includes gems & enchants!) Since this would replace my T-9.5 chest, but NOT remove my 2 piece T-9 bonus, I was pretty jazzed.

I also had 95 frost emblems, which made me even more jazzed! Now, assuming I used the new chest piece, RAWR said the T-10 helm was the item to get. So, off to the vendor I go, and I get the new item.

A slight aside here.

I have noticed that since I replaced my old weapon; Orca-Hunter's Harpoon with Ramaladni's Blade of Culling, that I was not always proccing "Art of War" (AoW) which causes my next Exorcism (or Flash of Light) to be instant cast. If you look at the picture below, it should be kind of obvious why:

(Click on it for a larger, more legible version)

What it shows is that I lost 66 crit, and 112 Agility. I don't care if Agi is a Hunter stat or not, the Crit I got off that weapon was AWESOME. All together I lost about 69 crit points (~1.55%)

OUCH!

Now, if it were "just a stat" and had no real world benefit, I wouldn't care. BUT, as I have mentioned, I am actually losing out a bit on my DPS because AoW isn't proccing all the time. (usually at the beginning of a fight, but it occasionally happens mid-fight as well)

So, I did something NOT "called out" by Elitist Jerks, and I added a Crit gem to my new chest. The other 2 gems are standard Ret Pally: 2x +20 Str gems.

Back "On Topic"

So, with my gemmed and enchanted chest and helm, I headed over to a test dummy to see how the new 2 - piece T-10 set bonus (I now have Head & Shoulders lol) plus the new chest.

*sigh*

Not.
So.
Good.

My DPS with my old gear was about 4835 (+/- a bit) and I could bash away on the test dummy essentially non-stop as long as I popped Divine Plea (DP) occasionally.

My DPS with the new gear?

4835 (+/- a bit)

AND I ran OOM before DP came off cooldown!

AND I had even more troubles with AoW not proccing.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

*deep breath*

OK, what happened?

First off, I lost my T-9 2 piece set bonus (Your Righteous Vengeance talent now has a chance for its damage to be critical strikes)

So, I lost some critical strikes from my Righteous Vengeance. This lowered THAT damage, and also (probably) contributed to fewer crits overall, which then lead to AoW not always being up.

Um, overall, that isn't too good. It explains (possibly)a net "zero" for DPS gains.

What about the whole OOM thing? (OOM is "Out of Mana")

Let's see, losing the T-9 wouldn't have any effect. BUT, I GAINED the T-10 2 piece set bonus (Your melee attacks have a 40% chance to reset the cooldown on your Divine Storm ability)

Hmmm, this means that I will be casting Divine Storm a fair bit more. HIGH mana consumption, and only "so-so" single target.

Clearly, losing the T-9 set bonus and getting the T-10 bonus is Not worth it. (at least not on Bosses. I need to try it out for trash)

Moving On

So, what if I use the Helm, and store the chest, what sort of DPS will that get me?
4850 (+/-)

I'll be honest here and say that I have no effing clue why this didn't do better.
I expected this to really kick butt. No such luck.

And THEN

The last combination of gear is the old helm, with the new chest. Keep the T-9 bonus, lose the T-10 bonus, but gain a bit of crit & other "stuff". Given the results of the previous, I won't hold my breath. So?

4995 (+/-)

Again, I have ZERO clue why this combo is better than the other 2. Not by a squinch, but by a LOT. (well, at this point 150 DPS seems like a large amount)

But What Does It All Mean?

The only thing you can really say about the whole thing is that number crunching, widgets (like Rawr) and other bits can only help so much. Training dummies are much better, and "in raid" testing is even better yet. Perhaps the best theory crafters out there can avoid this, but I don't play that game.

Anyhow, just because an item has better stats, it doesn't mean it will be an actual upgrade. Item interaction plays a big role in overall gear performance. Sometimes you will need to hold on to that piece until such a time when it WILL make a difference (like holding on to my T-10 helm, so that when I get another 2 pieces of T-10, so I cen get the 4 pc bonus)

Other times things can be a real upgrade, but you need to be extra careful about stat itemization. Some of this might be "core"stats for your class (like hit, or other hard & soft caps) that are easy to catch and adjust, other times it will be more subtle (like my own crit issue) where it will require you being aware of how your toon plays, and realizing that all things aren't behaving quite right.

Actually, on this point, it may actually be worth going back to the Orca harpoon and seeing if all that crit would improve the DPS. Or, perhaps, some combination of the above would be good/better for trash.

Test Dummies for Dummies, perhaps?

Dunno.

Double Vision, Tunnel Vision

2010-06-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

(photo by Jill Fehrenbacher, part of her "Tunnel Vision" series LINK )

Alas, this is my usual vista when I play WoW. I tend to get very focused (or zoned out, if you think about it) and I will often miss things. Part of it is the often mind numbing aspect of RetPal DPS (hounding the action bar to hit spells *just* as they come off CD) or trying to avoid the fire/slime/bad AND DPS, etc etc, and I just don't see what's going on

Twice with one group in Forge of Souls I was last man standing, and didn't even realize it.

Similar things at least once a week, that I just don't recall.

"Stealing" ore from someone else because I didn't see them in a struggle, 5 feet away trying to mine, but getting nabbed by a mob.

Etc etc etc

Now, As a "mindless DPS", you can usually get away with this, ESPECIALLY when you out gear whatever content you are doing. But if you get into anything challenging, either personally or as a group, it will cause problems.

A brief sojourn off the path (did I mention I distract easily as well?)

Last night for our frost run, we (Kattastrophe & I) went into Violet Hold. WOOHOO! Fast easy run!

Well, Until the first boss, yes: Xevozz.

Now, keep in mind: I am geared pretty well. About 5,400, with pretty good itemization, gems and enchants. Kattastrophe is 5,700 +, and is healing through Sindragosa in 10 man.

The tank is knowledgeable and does his job, but he's rather low geared (3,200 GS, or there abouts). A few times, I wasn't paying attention and yanked aggro off him, but with Katt's healing, it went well enough. There was a boomkin with us that was keeping pace with me in DPS as well, and a third DPS I am completely unaware of who/what they were.

Regardless, aside from the tank, and maybe an extra DPS, we outgeared the crap out of that place, and neither the boomie or myself really had much chance to get into our rotation before most mobs died.

Yeah, there were a couple mobs I'd have to scoop up that went away from the tank when they spawned, but other than that, easy peasy.

Until Xevozz. Did I mention him?

I've fought him once before. I think. (I have the VH achie, so I must have, but I have zero recollection of it)

So, we start the fight against Xev (he's the first boss we get) and it's going a little slow. Even with nearly 10k total DPS, he's barely dropping in health.

BOOM! - tank's dead

BOOM - I'm dead

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! everyone else is dead.

huh?

"Ah, according to wowwiki, the tank needs to kite the boss away from the orb things."

Try again.

A little bit better on DPS, then-

BOOM! - tank's dead

BOOM - I'm dead

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! everyone else is dead.

Now, this isn't just me getting too much damage and not paying attention. It's pretty darned near instant (faster than I could see the damage and try to click something - 29k health gone, in less than a second or two) This time the tank simply had trouble getting the Boss to follow him.

Last attempt, I put on my tank gear and Righteous Fury, and they have me try to kite him.

It worked better, even though I'm having to taunt every time my taunts come off CD. I die, but the rest ended up dropping him.

The best we could figure is that the tank was just so low geared that he had trouble maintaining enough threat to kite, especially with 2 strong DPS, PLUS I'm not sure at that low GS if the tank was def capped (regardless, Katt said he needed a LOT of healing - he was a squishy tank) so that he also had to fend off a CRAPTON of healer aggro as well.

Not a fault of the skills of the tank. He did quite well overall, and the rest of the heroic was uneventful, aside from everyone thanking everyone else for sticking it out (and a couple big shoutouts to Katt for some awesome heals)

Back on message (sort of)

So after our frost run, Katt wanted some help levelling her mage. For her, (at level 69 or so) the LFD queues have been >>20 minutes (if she even gets into one) so we decided to run through one of the Zangarmarsh instances. (Steamvault)

Overall, uneventful, but I hadn't noticed that the final boss could really hit hard on occasion. Well, I was just rolling, BOOM! I got killed. (He was less than 1%, so Katt's mage was able to finish him off)

Katt calls it a night, and one of our online buddies asks if I could give her a hand getting a little exp and rep with Honorhold. (She's on her lvl 74 Prot/Ret pally)

We go into ramps (reg) and I pretty much steamroll the place. The only downside is that she didn't get any rep. (she wants to buy epic flying, so rep discount would be nice)

So, she buys the key, and we decide to run it in Heroic. Now, I've tried to solo the place before in Heroic, and I *know* it's more than I can really handle solo. So, I ask her to DPS when she can, but heal as much as possible.

Overall it worked, but we BOTH suffered from not paying attention.

- Me, I wouldn't notice that she was taking damage (or had died) and I just kept on doing the 969, and tabbing between mobs.
- Her, she would focus on healing me, and not notice that she was OOM, or that she was really low on health, and would get popped.

Now, there was only one or two cases where I simply didn't have aggro and she got attacked. Those I should have taunted off, and she would have lived. The rest? Neither of us were sure, but probably a combo of a few things that led to her deaths (4 or 5 times I think)

- The instance is really near the limit for a tank of my skill and gear
- Neither of us are all that skilled at the class/role we were each doing. She's a good priest healer, and I'm a pretty good Ret Pal. I am less than skilled as a Protadin, and she's not all that familiar with RaidRet.
- Tunnel vision on both our parts

Now, the good thing, was that we both improved. I actually started to get the hang of keeping up 969, Sacred Shield (SS) and Divine Plea (DP) and keeping things moving, target switching and such. (the darkcasters in there are a major pain. The layout isn't great to LoS, and 3 or 4 together of them hit like a truck) She also got better (or learned about) using repentance and such.

The one thing I never thought to ask/mention/suggest was for one of us to Judge Wisdom, and the other to Judge Light. I use Wisdom as a habit. If I were to guess, I would think she did as well. Much pain might have been avoided if we had been careful.

Regardless, we cleared the place without a wipe, though fighting Vazruden and Nazan was a close thing.

Our combined single target DPS wasn't all that great (I'm a bit less than 2k in Prot spec, and she was well below 1k - remember, she was healing too), so that Nazan landed before we had killed Vaz. By this time, I was having mana issues (not sure why) and by the time my friend died (Nazan was at 33% or so) I was essentially OOM.

My health was REALLY low, mana was barely there, so it was a race to the death and I wasn't sure how it would end. I kept adncing and moving to avoid as much fire as I could, kept judging wisdom as it came off CD (or I had enough mana to even cast it) and casting Divine Storm to get a bit of health back (which sucked the mana well dry). Finally the scaly bugger dropped, and we relaxed.

While I'm still not back to my "A" game, the challenges of playing a VERY different spec and playstyle, as well as a fairly challenging environment (H Ramps was, for me at least) definitely sharpened me a bit.

I may even try tanking heroics in LFD now. (though I am still petrified about getting an instance I will get lost in, or one that has a tank/kiting/etc mechanic fight that I'm unaware of) ButI really need to stop running heroics as Ret: it's mind numbing, boring, and teaches me to not think or pay attention.

War Pig, or Battle Goat - More General PvP Gearing Thoughts

2010-06-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

In general, there are 4 typesPvP gear, each with it's own level of investment to get:

Heirloom PvP Gear, purchased with Stone Keeper Shards.

Crafted PvP gear. This will generally be iLvl 187 or there abouts.

Honor/Mark purchased PvP gear. This can be Potent! (especially the Wrathful stuff!)

Arena PvP Gear. Purchased with Arena points with a minimum rank requirement (hard to get for a noobie)

Well, there's one other place to get PvP gear, though it may not be perfect:

Outdated Heroic/Tier/Epic gear! (you know, the T-9 stuff, your Heroic drops, and maybe even some T-10 stuff that got replaced by ToC and/or ICC gear)

Huh? NONE of that has any Resilience, the bread & butter of PvP!!!

True, but it will have AWESOME "normal" stats for whatever spec you play, AND, you will likely have 10-12 gem slots that can accept resilience gems. Either Mystic King's Amber (a JC cut) or Kharmaa's Grace, which you just buy with Stone keeper Shards. Both of which are +20 Resilience. That's 200-240 resilince right there!

(thanks to WoW gem-finder for the easy search & filter)

And then you can add:

Arcanum of the XYZ - Add 20-25 resilience (depending on particular one, there
are SEVERAL) to a head slot.

Earthen Leg Armor - Add 40 resilience to
legs

Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience - Add 20 resilience to your
chest

Inscription of XYZ - (like the Arcanums, there are several) Add 15 resilience to your shoulders

(thanks to epicenchants for the easy to use search/filter)

That's another 90+ resilience there, for a bare minimum of 300 resilience. Not too shabby!

While this won't be a truly "Epic" (let alone Gladiator) set, it will still be epic in its own way, and will get you a "full set" of PvP gear for only the cost of a few gems & enchants. (just remember not to throw away all that old gear!)

Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle

:P

TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!!

2010-06-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Well, it would have been tomorrow, if I had finished this post last night. In case you can't read that picture (I can't) it shows that I am currently Revered with the Kalu'ak, and am only 890 reputation points from being Exalted: 20,110 out of 21,000. I will get that with 2 quests this evening.

So I can get my fishing pole: Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole

Though I'm not entirely sure why I want it. Part of me would like to get the "Salty" title, but since I've never even been able to show up for a fishing derby, OR catch either Old Crafty or Old Ironjaw, that may just be a fit of fancy.

And, at roughly 7:30 pm server, my second Mysterious Egg should be hatching. My first one had a cobra hatchling, which is worth maybe 10 gold. (I already have one, so no value there)

BATTLE!!!!

One gripe many people seem to have on our server is that a LOT of people will ask "do we have WG?" or "when can we do VOA?"

The implication being that the folks asking are looking for a benefit (going to the WG vendors, or VOA loot) without even showing up to help fight for WG.

And that is a gripe I can get on board with. Don't whine about not getting VoA, if you aren't willing to help fight to get it. We are constantly outnumbered in WG, and very rarely win it anymore. (at least when I'm on)

A couple of asides.

As I have slowly been accumulating PvP gear, it is becoming apparent that my survivability is increasing, though it isn't consistent. Sometimes, I will go after one guy, get jumped by 2 more, and destroy all three.

Other times, I will go after one lone guy, and NOTHING works: none of my stuns have any effect, my bubble won't cast, and I die in a VERY lopsided 1v1 fight. Even if I blow my CDs and avoid being stunned too much, I do MAYBE 10-15% damage to them, and then I'm wiped. If it matters, I have ~27k health when PvP ready, ~500 resilience and 14k armor. My PvP Gear Score is about 5,560. (HERE'S a link to my current PvP gear progress)

I can understand that a well geared PvPer (like a full arena Wrathful set -ouch!) will be nearly immune to my crits, but none of my stuns rely on that: Hammer of Justice, Repent and Seal/Judge of Justice are all instant cast or effect on hit. (I PvP with Seal of Justice active - it procs a diminishing return stun 3 times) This is a total of 5 stuns I should be getting, and yet there are other players that are 100% immune to them.

WTF?

Overall, I would say the bane of my PvP experience lately are fucking bubble fucking priests. I don't fully understand how they work, but they are 100% immune to my attacks, and yet can still DESTROY me while immune. I'm not a fan of Locks or Rogues, but I'm learning to bubble, trink, cleanse, etc to counter them.

Just in case you think the Pally bubble is "ZOMG! OP!": our bubbles have severe limits:

1 - EITHER it's only a 50% damage reduction OR 100% reduction BUT *our* damage is cut by 50%
2 - only lasts 10 seconds
3 - is dispellable/breakable (Warriors, anyone?).
4 - has forbearance AND a 3 minute cooldown.

From what I can tell, NONE of the above are true for priests. I would welcome some insight into how to fight them, so comment away! (I believe they are "just" standard priest bubbles that absorb X amount of damage, but they are spammable and come off CD much faster than I can burn through them)

I'm not a fan of CC spam either. Seal of Justice has diminishing returns that does NOT reset. Unlike Fear. *cue dramatic sigh*

Now, on to some of the "fun" bits: wading through the enemy and just wiping the floor with them. This is where my asides FINALLY come full circle. Some of the "easy" kills are no doubt due to better gear, but I realized last night what the most likely cause is:

Multiple stacks of Tenacity. It's amazing what a little extra health, healing and damage dealing can do for a plate wearer. (though it does nothing against CC)

Hmmm....

Shiny Happy People - Or Not...

2010-06-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

It has definitely been one of those weeks and weekends.

Last week (the Memorial Day holiday weekend, for those not stateside) a good friend of mine at work had a heart attack and died. He was only 46. Saturday was his funeral. That was a tough thing to see/attend, but I’m glad I went.

Nothing like a case of human mortality to give you pause and to make you think about where you are, and where you are going.

Even if you aren’t on any major path in your life, or if things aren’t going as you had hoped, just take a second to reflect, and to appreciate what you have. As my dad loves to say,

Any day I’m looking at the flowers from the top is another good day.

It’s not a mantra I live by (though I should), but it does give some perspective.

We will all miss you Jon.

To top it off, two more got laid off during the week.

*sigh*

In other less depressing news, things in WoW have been a mixed bag.

Iggy the Mentor

I have been making slow progress leveling Ignomeminy. I generally run one instance a day, and do some questing along side.

In recent days gallivanting around the Redridge Mountains, I have run across a couple human Pallies that are very new to the game. These folks (guys or gals, not sure) were not dumb, were not mooches and seemed genuinely interested in the game. BUT, they were very lacking in some very basic knowledge:

- There are websites that can help with WoW?
- Why bother using the auction house?
- What’s a dungeon finder?
- Agi helps me attack faster and stuff, right?
- I got tailoring because I heard you can make good money selling bags (a Paladin, remember?)

Some of the questions & comments may seem like they come from a complete doofus, but while /whisping them, it became VERY clear that they were not stupid or anything like it. It’s just that if there was no direct, in-game mechanic to teach them, they didn’t know much, or very little, about a given thing. “Learning by trial and error” is fine, for a couple small things, here & there. But trying to learn all about WoW that way is just not practical or realistic.

Between the two, I probably spent a good 2 hours wandering around, chatting, questing, teaching and stuff. (I even logged on to Balth to craft some gear for one of them)

But the whole thing highlights the single biggest failure that WoW/Blizzard has to deal with: an absolute, fundamental and unequivocal failure to educate the truly “new-to-the-game/genre” player.

Where to How?

Maybe this will change with Cataclysm, maybe not. How could things be changed to help?

- don’t rely on loading screen “hints”
- create entire optional quest lines for each topic. Make the “?” marks a different color (like they are for dailies).

Such as:
- pick 5 herbs, skin 5 animals, make 5 bolts of linen and mine 5 nodes of copper, and a couple “feaux” greens from an NPC or two, to be disenchanted, all “freebie” and done without learning an actual trade.

- part 2 would be taking them to various NPC crafters who explains what benefit each type of craft has to offer, in addition to the use of each relevant collection trade: some ore to a blacksmith, leather to a leatherworker, cloth to a tailor, herbs to an alchemist, strange dust to an enchanter, and copper to a jeweler. Maybe you get to keep them as your first greens?

- part 3 could be to sell a few items on the AH, and use the profits to buy something else on the AH.

And for completing the questline, you maybe get a class specific (or maybe trade specific) set of tools, gear or equipment. And a good bit of exp for each step.

WoW’s got Talent!

As for talents, well, I think several bloggers have pointed this one out, as well as a good partial solution: quit charging for spec changes. My thoughts would be as follows;

- again use a quest line that walks you through the very basics for each class (and a walkthrough/intro to each spec!)

- possibly give “cheat” abilities, and a test dummy, so that you could try out each basic talent function, with a full 10-20 talent points, that last as long as you are in the training room.

- re-spec for free until level 40, or maybe 60, and reduce the cost overall, at least until you hit max level.

Trinity –now in 3 flavors!

The basics of raiding in 4 simple quests. (or maybe 2 or 3, if you aren’t a hybrid) One quest introduces the whole concept, and the other quests would give you a ”boosted” ability to do a particular function (tank, DPS or heal), within an NPC group, and would teach (and test) you for each one

-1 NPCs get to escort YOU while THEY tank, DPS and heal. You just get to watch and see what the whole thing means. It can be run a couple times to see different tanks, healers and DPS classes. Ideally, each run would show a “near miss” by one of each type (lose threat, over aggro, and poor heal) to highlight the functions. Each one would only be 2-3 minutes and 1-3 encounters to keep it short and watchable.

-2 How to DPS and watch threat. IF you do too much DPS, the baddy pulls off the NPC tank and eats your face. If you stop soon enough, the NPC healer might be able to heal you and let the tank regain agro.

-3 How to tank. The NPC player-mobs can pull *some* aggro, so you have to work at it, but as long as you keep the bad guy beating on you, you “pass”.

-4 (or 3, if your class doesn’t have a tank spec) How to heal. The basics: keep the tank alive, help out keeping DPS alive, and don’t get so close to the baddies that you get healer aggro.

The Fourth Wall

While I'm sure you know that there is a mega-metric shit-TON of online information available about WoW online, not all the new players do. Even the most basic places like wowhead, wowwiki and thottbott are (for me at least) daily helpers in my meanderings. But clearly, a LOT of folks don't know they exist.

How could you approach this? Well, in-game, it would require that the game break "the fourth wall". That is, the game (or a movie, or a book) exists within 4 walls. Three walls internally, with a fourth wall separating us (the reader/player/viewer) from the action.

Breaking the fourth wall is when the actor, in-game-avatar, or whatever, talks directly to the reader/viewer. You know, when the actor looks directly at the camera and winks? Or when the comic book character explains just how silly the situation is to the reader? THAT is "breaking the fourth wall".

And, as far as I can tell, there's no reasonable way to pass on the needed information (about online resources) without blatantly breaking the 4th wall, (and very much breaking the immersion) Maybe THIS would be a good use for loading screens?

Then again, I don't think Blizzard much cares for the non-official info sites, even if they are the lifeblood of their game.

*shrug*

On the Road Again

Balth has now joined a guild. It’s a fairly social guild, though they do have groups running ICC in 10 and 25. I know very little about them, and have only done the weekly with them. We shall see.

He’s also been doing the oddball activity… he now can buy Oracle Mysterious eggs and is only 2 more days from being exalted with the Kalu’ak.

He’s also run through both Razorfens. While an easy task for him, it actually came in handy, since Iggy had the chance to run through Kraul the other day.

OH! He has now soloed “Threat from Above” a few times now. I ran it once, and BARELY survived, ran it the next day with 75% of my health, then died twice on the third day (not sure what happened, but it was ugly) and then finished it.

And he and Kattastrophe have run Zul’Gurub a couple times for the cat and raptor mounts. No luck as yet, but I’m slowly building rep with the Zandalar tribe :)

A couple more thoughts about guilds.

I actually had a Vent interview with another guild that was a bit more of a raiding guild, but I don’t think I’m a fit. Basically, it would be a moderately long wait before I *might* get a spot, and even then, they are taking the fairly hardcore approach that a given raider may be switched out for another raider, so that they can progress. (If a given fight favors a given class, and is not ideal for another class, they will get switched)

I would much rather play in a guild that lets me play as a regular team member, even if it slows down progression, and not simply be a guild component/tool, that gets taken out of the “tool box” and put back when a better tool is a better fit. (yes, I’m calling myself a tool :P )

Please note that this is simply my own preference, and not a reflection on the guild in question. The folks that interviewed me were quite nice, and VERY honest about the situation. Clearly, they have a goodly number of players raring to go and that want to play that way. I just don’t think it’s for me.

Kattastrophe has had her own progression and guild work. I think, over the course of the whole weekend, they put in 8-10 hours beating their head against the wall that is Sindragosa.
Kattastrophes Happen That’s just too much time in the Citadel for me.

Iggy Pops and Burns

2010-06-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

So, um yeah. That's li'l Iggy. With a Beer mug in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Thanks to fishing, ganking and a niggling for a change of pace, he's now pushing level 25. It's interesting, and a COMPLETELY different style of playing.

And I desperately needed help figuring stuff out.

Thanks to some great guidance from Gnomeageddon as well as a nearly verbatim following of Euripides/Critical QQ step by step fire mage guide, I am slowly making headway.

Part of my reason for getting a bit "Mage-y" for this post is actually inspired by the mis-information post that Larisa did over at Gnomeageddon's site. It was a moderately tongue in cheek list of "real" mage attributes, and among them was agility. While the "Agi" itemization stat is NOT important, player agility most certainly is:

OK, admittedly at Patchwerk you can just stand on one spot and spam one or two
nuke buttons. But apart from him and a couple of other exceptions, you actually
need to be pretty movable as a Mage. Somehow you’re supposed to manage to move
out of crap on the ground or evil things coming for you through the air, and
STILL make your several seconds-long spells go off, resulting in pretty yellow
numbers on the screen. A good Mage can nuke on the move. If you’re slow like me,
there’s nothing else to do but to place yourself in front of the dummies in
IF,running back and forward, until nuking on the fly is a second nature to you.

Agility. It’s a must-have for your mage.

When it comes to soloing/questing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough, how important mobility is.

It's kind of odd, actually when I think about it. After all, on Balth, I have to run hither & yon to get into melee range. With Iggy though, it's the opposite: I run hither & yon to stay OUT of melee range. Even with mana shield, a mage is one squishy little target, so mobility (and planning!) are crucial.

Take for example, the Tharil'zun's Head quest. It's listed as a level 25 group quest. Tharil'zun himself is a level 24 elite, with 3 or 4 mobs around him.

Getting there is pretty straight forward;

- 1 target a mob with pyroblast at max range.
- 2 do an immediate followup fireball
- 3 throw a fireblast and (usually) kill the mob, even before he gets to you.
- 4 if he's still not dead (and is likely running in fear to the next group) nail him with Arcane missile (you don't need to turn to keep him in front, AM does it automatically.

If it's a caster, tap counterspell between 1 & 2.

Just repeat this step 6-8 times, and you are nearly there. There's one mob you may get that pulls a second (often a caster) This one is a *little* different:

- 1 target first mob with Pyro
- 2 sheep the second mob (I save casters for last, since they melee like little girls,I can stand toe- to toe with them)
- 3 wait until the 1st mob gets close then Frost Nova
- 4 run (or blink if you're bored) away to give you some room
- 5 (& 6 & 7) Fireball/fireblast/missile the mob to death
- 8 pyroblast the second mob and continue as normal.

The only thing I didn't mention is make sure you have you buffs and protections up (arcane intellect, frost armor, dampen magic and mana shield. For the above trash, it isn't really necessary, but it helps.

AAAnyhow...

So, all the trash, up to Tharil'zun's group is gone. The big problem now is that there is usually a "guard" mob, right at the entrance to his little area, and to get him in Line of Sight (LoS), you have to get REALLY close.

So sheep him, and run out to a good distance, and target him with pyroblast, then fireball and (sound familiar?)

Do the normal pyro attack & kill the second mob in the area, which will leave you with Tharil'zun and another mob right next to him. As mentioned earlier, Tharil is a 24 elite, so you need to be able to focus on him without interruption, so take out the guard first:

- 1 Pyro the mob/guard
- 2 sheep Tharil
- 3 kill the mob/guard (fireball, etc)
- 4 RUN LIKE HELL! (just run far enough that you get out of combat and Tharil goes back to his hole, all alone)

Now, re-buff, mana and heal up, and head back in.

- 1 Pyro
- 2 fireball with a fireblast follow (maybe, depends on distance)
- 3 FROST NOVA
- 4 run to distance and fireball. (possibly fireblast as well, if mana looks ok)
- 5 when he gets close, BLINK
- 6 he should be low now, and if you have the mana, just arcane missile him to death
- 7 if he's still got a good amount of health, run & dodge until Frost Nova comes off CD, and just burn him down.

Fireblast and arcane missile are spells I like A LOT, but they cost a ton of mana, and depending on how often Tharil manages to clobber you (and your mana shield) mana may be an issue, so be careful.

What I *hope* comes across is that during this fight, you need to be running, dodging and using all your mobility (and your mobility reduction on him) to stay alive.

It's not that hard and I never died trying it, but I did have to run to safety a couple times before I figured it out.

Sitting on the Dock of a bay, in Orgrimmar

2010-05-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Warning: Rambling post is rambling...

I'm not sure why, but I have decided to try to get both Old Crafty and Old Ironjaw for the cross faction fishing achievements. I've spent hours in Ironforge (well over 1,000 casts) and have yet to get Ironjaw, so I gave up on that for the moment and decided to do something a little different.

Namely, running through a few old world dungeons that I never ran. And getting a couple odd pets. And stuff.

First has been my attempt to get the Higher Learning achie, via reading all 8 special books that spawn around Dal. I've been working on it hit & miss for sevral months, and recently got my 7th book. My last is the one downstairs in Dal.

I got bored & tired with THAT, so I decided to get an OOX of my own. I already had the one from Hinterlands, so I spent a couple daysin Tanaris, killing pirates & the like until the quest finally dropped. Thottbot says it has a ~0.1% drop rate, and I think it's right on the money. (I also ran a few low level quests to keep me occupied during my "occupational cleansing" (killing all the pirates, etc, several times over)

During one of my forays over there, I decided to run a one of the instances inside the Caverns of Time; the one to free Thrall (and get that Hat from Don Carlos)

I've also gone and gottent he Keys for Sholomance, run current Stratholme, cleared Gnomeregan, Razerfen Kraul and Downs, and then, finally, ran into Ragefire Chasm. (oh, and I *did* get my own OOX, the last quest dropped quickly in Feralas)

So, I ran Ragefire... and there I was... "safely" inside Orgrimmar, so I decided to make a quick run over to the Valley of Honor (the arrow in the picture at the top) and try to fish up Old Crafty. I made it there without too much trouble (no deaths, and not much trouble from the guards)

I fished there for an hour & a half, tucked in behind the waterfall in the corner. I didn't catch him, but I didn't get ganked either. I called it a night.

Last night, I fished for a half hour, and then it started. *>GANK<* (mind you, I am only quipped with a tabard, fishing pole, hat and PvP trinket) I hang around my corpse for a bit, and I notice that they are camping my corpse. I release, run back a ways, and then switch over to another toon.

Ignomeminy

He was at level 8 when I started the night, (no heirlooms, but plenty of low level enchants on his grey equipment) and ended up the night a couple bars from level 12.

Still without heirlooms, but with a couple green items and a bare twinkling of an idea how to play a mage.

I went back to Balth a couple times, but still got ganked, so just kept playing Iggy. He has no primary professions as of yet, and I'm not sure I will bother. But it is nice to get a little Alt Time, even if I'm not sure I will ever doany more levelling.

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, but Gearing Isn't so Simple

2010-05-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

I continue to upgrade gear, and just got lucky in an ICC 10 man run, where I got a nice axe and some gloves.

In the mean time I've also acquired a PvP neck and back.

And this is where things get interesting and difficult for a couple reasons:

1 - As you upgrade from one gear "set" (ie, I have a 4 pc T9 set, and am starting to get T-10) does losing a set bonus negate the benefit of single item bonus? According to Rawr, I should keep my T9 gloves and NOT use my new non-set pieces (THESE, if you're interested) I will need to spend time on an attack dummy to see if that's the case or not. It is entirely possible that the set bonus will make it such that having LOWER gear actually gives me better DPS. Sucks, but it can happen

2 - Different gear sets (especially going from PvE to PvP) will have different stat balances. For example, for my PvP set, I have my Herkumel War Token and the Medallion of the Alliance. (My PvE set still has the Pyrite Infuser)

Now, the medallion is an essential PvP item, but there's a hitch: the Pyrite Infuser has 95 hit and the medallion has none. And so, until today, I had been entering PvP (BGs) without being hit-capped: HUMONGOUS OOPS!!!

Fortunately, I noticed this before I bought my PvP cloak, and chose one that had hit on it.

So, all I'm saying is don't just buy or equip the highest ilevel piece you can without looking at your current gear in its entirety. And sometimes even tools like Rawr won't tell you everything, and you will have to spend 30-60 minutes beating on an attack dummy ( fully buffed, if possible!)

One last thing. I will be t4ravelling for the next several days. Granted I'm not a "post every day" blogger, but it will likely be a full week before I get back on.

Toodles!

EDIT -

The new gloves beat the old gloves by about 300-500 DPS, depending on fight to fight variability.

Also, as a friend recommended switching from Barbed Ymirheim Choker to the Wrathful Gladiator's Pendant of Triumph. That was also another 100-300 DPS better.

In both cases, Rawr said recommended the opposite.

(one other interesting thing - I couldn't measure a significant increase in DPSwith my food/elixir/scroll buffs and without. If there is a difference, it's less than 300 DPS for me)

Hey there, Mr Blue; Here's a Question for You

2010-05-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

The latest incident with the alpha, MMO Champions and "the NDA" (or whatever leverage is/was being used) seems to highlight, or at least put a really fine point on some rather bizarre, and somewhat counterproductive and simply weird behavior for the company.

If you combine this with their apparent corporate "slapdash" approach to communication, as highlighted by Larisa at the Pink Pigtail Inn

Then there are the fundamentally wrong-thinking things that Blizzard (via the Blue posts) that leads you to believe that they have zero clue how their own game is being played:

We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command
with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE.
Righteousness can remain a tanking seal.

The joke being that SoR is NOT really a tanking spell.

So, you look at this kind of stuff and it makes you cringe. The good news is that they aren't always so oblivious. Quite the contrary in fact... There's evidence that Blizz is listening, they care, and even have a sense of humor. (erm, sorry for any UK folks:"humour")

When there was a crazy amount of grief over storage limits (especially for tanks needing various sets of resist armor), Blizz created Foror's Crate of Endless Resist Gear Storage And the subquote is priceless:

"The bottom of the crate is leaking. Leaking tears..."

Granted, it was only used in a public test realm (PTR) but still.

And though it seems that the blogoshpere is pretty much ignored by Blizz, there's some evidence that the biggest of us can get some notice as well:

In honor (uh, "honour") of Big Red Kitty, the BRK-1000. "Smells faintly of raspberries".

And there's even some evidence of a more practical side as well: the Hammer Pick which simply replaces you mining pick and Blacksmith hammer with a single item. Neat!

And, of course, there's the Grand Poo-Bah of customer relations between Blizzard and Ezra Chatterton, the boy that was given quite the royal treatment thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation.

Some of these things are new, some are old,some are pre-Activision and some are newer. I can't really pin it down.

All in all, it seems like we're dealing with the Three Faces of ~~EVE~~ erm WoW. Talk about schizophrenic!

And so, with much meandering and confuzzling, I come to the reason for the title of this musing:

Mr Blue, can you and your company reconcile and explain the wildly disparate
communication and understanding that Blizzard seems to have with its player
base?

Plastic Man or Invisible Man?

2010-05-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

I think I'll weigh in briefly on my thoughts about the Real ID thing, where your friends can see your real name, your email addy, and ALL your alts. It's gotten bashed for safety reasons by several bloggers (such as Kattastrophe) and I can't agree enough about the possible dangers.

But dangers aside, what do I think of it just on the functional side?

Let me phrase it this way: I sincerely wish you could log on "invisibly", such that you will not show up on any list as being online (XBOX Live lets you do this). You wouldn't show up in guild, friends or pals lists. As it is now, if I want to traipse around Azeroth semi-incognito, I need to use an unknown alt, or play on a different server.

But, I really don't wanna do that.

You see, I call Balth my main for a reason: he's really the only character I enjoy playing. It would be nice to farm, piddle around/whatever and not have to worry or feel bad if folks want something. If I'd rather sit in Ironforge trying to catch Old Ironjaw, than join some guildies on a frost run, and not feel pressured, well, that's what I'd like to do.

The whole RealID thing seems to me to be a step in the wrong direction. Don't get me wrong, there ARE some nice aspects to it, but I'd honestly rather have a session-by-session option to opt out.

Stairway to Heaven at the Ledgerdemaine

2010-05-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out in the Ledgerdemain, in the hallway upstairs. Out of nowhere I'm a sheep! It was a 30 second spell, and I was able to click out of it. And it was called something weird like bangmana or something.

A serious "WTF?!?!?" moment.

(BTW, not sure anyone knows this... I sure didn't. Ledgerdemain means "sleight of hand". Who knew? lol)

Then, later in the evening I get this:

Evidently Minigob Manabonk has been around a while, and you get a neat wand.

SWEET!

I tried to cast it on Kattastrophe, but selected the wrong thing, and ended up sheeping the Tree (vendor) right outside the Alliance in...

Ah well, just wait for it to come off CD...

HEY!?!?!?!?!? It's one time use.

Ah well, a neat idea...

A bit earlier, I had run Stratholme with one of Katt's alts, and I got the following:

Too bad there isn't better lewt for the Argent Dawn or the Argent Champion (20 exhalted factions) achies... I wonder how many have tabards... I think I have only worn 10 different tabards thus far.

Random ramblings are... random!

Righteous Brothers and Roy Orbison: You Got it!

2010-05-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

Bad puns and not-so-clever name games aside, I've been reading Tam & Chas over at Righteous Orbs for as long as I've known about WoW-blogging. I never understood where their blog name came from:

Stratholme. Righteous Orb.

Right...

You see, I've come to the unpleasant realization that I spend WAY too much gold in WoW, much of it on silly, inconsequential crap.

For example:

The Elwynn Lam

Well, maybe that's not the best example because it only costs Champion Seals and not gold.

Well, the "good" news is that each Quartermaster also sells a slow speed ground mount for 400 gold. And I've bought 4 of them lately. Plus some gems and enchants.

And Elixers

And scrolls.

And so.

We come back to Stratholme. Huh?

Well, I've been grinding out a bunch of quests, reputation (Kalu'ak) and the like
and noticed I can grab a hefty 300-500 gold per day just piddling around.

It also occurred to me quite recently that a level 80 can run through Stratholme in about 20 minutes (for the undead side) and run away with !60-80 runecolth, a boatload of scourgestones (and Argent Dawn rep) and probably 100-150 gold worth of loot. (probably more, if you were to actually auction off the loot and not just vendor it all) And that's just from clearing one side. (note - you need MUCHO bag space. I went in with 20 spots, and had to get picky about what I kept)

And during one of my sojourns into Stratholme, I received a Righteous Orb as loot. It was at that moment that I had my epiphany, my moment of clarity.

AH HA!!!!

...said I, and I was thoroughly amused.

The moral, point, purpose and reason of this post? Gold is easy, and every once in a while, you find something neat, even if it's only a name.

Poetry in Motion... In Westfall

2010-05-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

This is a post-in-prose, as suggested by Liana over at Disciplinary Action in her "Elevated Discourse: Eleventh Hour Challenge". My challenge? To visit and comment on Westfall.

In Rhyme.

You have my apologies ahead of time... ;)

There once was a well armed Drae Ret-pal,
Who cringed as he visited Westfall.
He said to King Wrynn,
with a punch on the chin,
"TAKE CARE OF ALL OF YOUR DAMNED PEOPLE!!!"

hmmm... that won't work on ANY level... (and no, I don't like King Wrynn - I've mentioned it before)

Let's try again...

Crossing plains,
Crossing fields,
Seeing pain,
Tossing heals.

Murlock gurgles,
Gnollish paws,
Defias burgles,
Empty laws.

Savage battles,
Ore a-plenty
Dying rattles
Level 10-20.

Learning cooking,
Herb collecting,
Autumn looking
Meat dissecting.

Retribution, Judgement, Divine Storm, payback.
Dead... Mines... Mine.
VanCleef blood, Cookie's gutted, now I'm on the way back,
To give Wrynn a piece of my mind....

Wild Horses and Other Oddities

2010-05-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

You ride your little pony, and I'll ride mine, athankyuverymuch! This is my Balth placeholder DK on Velen. VERY FIERCE!!!!

So yeah, I changed realms and used the better balanced battlegroup to try and actually get my Children's Week quests/achies done. Even though we lost this particular bout in Arathi Basin, I did manage to capture 3 flags/territories and got my Disgracin the Basin Achie.

I have to admit, being in a BG that's relatively balanced was actually kind of fun, even if we did lose.

During my EotS BG, where I got my flag cap, I was amused to be among the top in a couple different stats (Killing blows, damage done, etc) Clearly there was another Pally that wasn't trying for the Achie, possibly a n00b? After all, it's been confirmed that (during non-children's week) the flag is noob bait, aka it's a bug light, and there is no real use in capping the flag 2x. (unless he was just griefing us Children's Week hopefuls)

One things I seem to notice on my new server: I won't sasy that the Alliance plays that much better than on my old one. But it does seem that the Horde are not quite as on-the-ball either.

It seems the Horde simply don't run Wintergrasp that much. I ran my fourth WG last night on this server, and they had tenacity. Compared to my last couple attempts on
Velen where WE had it (2 stacks, actually) in my last couple battles, this is big.

But, after my first WG run last night, I got my own 3 weekly PvP quests done, plus I was shared two more (but only finished one so far) I was able to turn in 52,000 honor and got my PvP necklace. Only 17 more WG Marks of Honor until I can get my shoulders, and a gawdawful number more BGs so I can finish my full PvP set. As of now I have (in order of accrual):

Wrathful Wrist
Relentless Feet
Medallion of the Alliance Trink
Wrathful neck

After all my hoofing around, I manged to complete the Children's Week trials and tribulations, and am now a Patron:

One other last little tidbit..

Last night, during my semi-daily Frost run, I got queued into Azjol-Nerub. Along with me were a 3,000 GS shammy Healer and 3,300 GS Warrior Tank.

The other DPS & myself were well into the 4k-5k range. My first thought was -uh-oh... this could get tough, especially with a relatively low-threat tank (which will force us to slow down), and with a low gear healer, the longer fights could be problematic.

I couldn't have bee more wrong.

Not only did I NOT pull aggro off the tank, the healer did a freakin AWESOME job keeping everyone alive. We even got the Hadronox Denied achie!!!!

We did get into a bit of trouble on Hadro, but we all kept our heads and dropped the S.O.B.

As has been said many places and many times: GS ≠ skill .

AWESOME JOB, FOLKS!

He Got Knocked Down, Didn't Get Up Again

2010-05-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, being a RetPal is kinda like that: big, in your face, and moderately disturbing. But it's not without its occasional joy.

per esempio

I had just finished a successful fight in Wintegrasp and was heading over to the vendor by the Mammoth to investigate getting a set of Titanforged Shoulders of Triumph (Thanks for pointing out the guy, Cynwise!) My Carbonite (yeah, I still use it) was flashing that there was a Hordie flying around WG Fortress. I didn't see him, so I flew on.

As I was perusing the wares of Champion Ros'slai, and found my shoulders (I don't have enough WG Marks of honor yet), the Hordie, a Druid in flight form, swooped down.

I mounted up and promptly lost him. However, there was an Ally toon on his helicopter giving chase to something and I foollowed.

Yep, t'was the druid.

The three of us circled around, high above Wintergrasp fortress, and the druid wouldn't sit still. I hoped he would sit still. He NEEDED to sit still.

I had a plan. It was one I had tried before, but hadn't worked yet.

He finally stopped moving, high above the fortress, and I flew another dozen or so feet higher, directly above him.

I dismounted, promptly started falling, and cast Hammer of Justice, and, in passing by him, I meleed him.

Before I hit the ground I cast Divine Shield. I grunted as I landed, but walked away without damage.

*splat*

The druid wasn't so lucky.

[EDIT] after re-reading this, it may not be apparent what happened for those who don't play Pallies:

I cast Hammer of Justice on the druid, which stunned him for a few seconds. The melee/autoattack "dismounted" him so he started falling.

While stunned.

Do You Believe in Magic? ... or Silly Travel Hints?

2010-05-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

I am lazy. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Especially when it comes to travelling around Azeroth. It would probably say something nice about me if I enjoyed traipsing around, gawking at all the scenery that the Blizz-Devs creasted for us, alas, that isn't the case. I want to get from point A to point B ASAP.

Which is why I always wear my Runed Ring of the Kirin Tor, and my Argent Crusader's Tabard: I ~~like~~ love the free teleports they provide.

So, it is with this travelling time frugality in mind, that I gve you a hint (mainly for Alliance) to easily and fairly quickly get to southern Kalimdor. And all thanks to the Children's Week quests!

Let's say I want to get to Un'Goro (I was making the Skeleton key and needed to do the Fire Plume Forged quest at the Volcano) the from any oddball place. My travel route would normally look like:

1 - Hearth to Dal (1 minute)
2 - Portal to Ironforge (1 minute)
3 - Fly to Menethil Harbor, Wetlands (3 minutes)
4 - Boat to Theramore (1 minute)
5 - Fly to Un'Goro (5-6 minutes)

It's nearly a 10-12 minute routine.

For your edification, I propose this:

1 - Hearth to Dal (1 minute)
2 - Fly to Sholazar Basin (flight path - 3 minutes)
3 - Mount & Fly to Waygate, at 40,83, Southeast of The Mosslight Pillar. ( 1 minute)
4 - Mount up and ride down to the flight path at Marshal's refuge, and yer done! (1 minute)

(this is the waygate)

EDIT: Thanks to a kind anonymous commenter, there's an even BETTRE way:

1 - Hearth to Dal (1 minute)
2 - Portal to Caverns Of Time (1 minute)
3 - Ride to Gadgetzan, Tanaris (2 minutes)
4 - Fly to Un'Goro (1 minute)

THANKS!

I'm a-Leavin'... On a Jet Plane!! (or a server X-Fer)

2010-05-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

The four Balths you see with red dots are mine... and you may notice that I'm no longer on Velen with my 80 Pally, "Big Balth". I moved him over to Lightbringer (Whirlwind BG) last night. (I also created a Drae DK named Balth, either to play, or possibly as a placeholder if/when I return Big Balth)

Did I find a perfect-fit raiding guild? Did Kattastrophe switch and find a great guild?

Um, no...

The reason?

Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake

huh?

Well, as you may all recall, there is this fugnastic achievement along the path of getting this (via the "What a Long, Strange Trips It's Been" meta achievement). And what, pray tell is that achie? The dreaded "School of Hard Knocks".

If I had known this prior to doing a number of the achies, I would never have started. But I did, and so now I am.

Please note; I'm not THAT big into mount collecting, nor am I really that much of an achievement whore.

BUT, I have been slowly, doggedly, beating my head against the many long, tedious and uber-grindy achies so that I could get a 310% mount. I hadn't realized that one of the achies needed required some painful at best quests/requirements, like capping a flag in Eye of the Storm (EotS)

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you'll recall a few things about me & PvP:

1 - I'm not that good at PvP
2 - I have a low tolerance for frustration
3 - Velen/Retaliation are not exactly good for Alliance PvP

To put this into perspective, in the BGs I've played in since I hit level 80, I have:

- lost every single game in Warsong Gulch (WSG)
- have never capped or returned a flag in WSG
- only seen 1 flag cap by Alliance in EotS
- never capped a tower or flag in Arathi basin (AB) or Alterac Valley (AV)

Now, to be fair, I haven't played many of either AB or AV since Dinging 80, but I have still tried a handful.

Now, combine this slightly wrongwise slanted data with the requirement of doing them for the achie, and you can easily see that it is pretty much a sure thing that I would never be able to get them on the Velen server.

"Well, don't worry about it, just forget about it."

Easy for you to say. Now, many parts of the holiday quests are entertaining or at least garner a grin or two. BUT, many of them are multiple hour slogs across Azeroth to pee in a fire, or grovel for candy. And I have been grinding them. It would piss me off to no end to leave all that hard, grindy work to waste, if not toget something out of it.

I did give a couple shots on Velen. In fact, it was during one of these attempts that I saw my first Alliance Flag cap on EotS. But it was also during this same game that someone (Ally) managed to grab the flag and run, but wasn't able to capture it, because we had ZERO towers.

FYI, the server balance is 62% Horde, 38% Alliance.

So, I asked around, and heard some good things about Lightbringer and put my $25 on the table.

FOOP!

I'm moved, ran into an ex-guildie, and got invited into a guild. (no clue what this guild is like, but hey...)

So, I get into WSG, and it's a quest-fest. folks grabbing the flag, dropping the flag, and generally being silly. Pretty fun & funny.

Yeah, I took my turn grabbing, then dropping, the Horde flag.

My next WSG was a closely fought 3-2 loss. Tough, a bit frustrating, but at least a GAME. Not a one-sided domination.

And then over to Wintergrasp (WG). We won in what seemed like a moderatly balanced fight. Alliance was defending and we won, after dropping one tower and out-lasting the Horde. They had dropped one wall (west side) and had damaged the wall into the main courtyard. I was out near the towers, so I'm not sure how ahrd fought it was. What I can say is that we dominated for a bit (20-4 for vehicles) and then the Horde came back to tie the vehicles 12-12.

I died a lot, and killed a lot. (and the quest 3k honor, 10 stone shards were a nice addition)

So, am I paying $25 to get my Proto-Drake? Possibly, or at least I'm paying that $$$ to get a CHANCE to get that.

But seriously, WHAT are we trying to t4each these orphans? Btw, I think that they should be doable "by the group", not per each individual. That would encourage teamwork, and give most folks a fair chance at it.

Oh, I did a little bit of tanking in Utgarde Keep (UK) and Utgarde Pinnacle (UP) both in normal (not heroic) mode. If I only ned to tank 3-4 things, I'm OK, but when it comes to huge mobs, especially when mixed with casters, I struggle to get/keep aggro.

And I got wheedled into OT-ing Naxx 10. I did OK for a while, then failed miserably on that large Dog. Evidently Righteous Fury fell off, and, since it was my first time in there, nobody really explained it, so I had no clue = FAIL. Ah well.

OH!!!! One last thing. I have been running ICC 25 mans with Kattastrophe's newest guild. Mainly a Saturday start, and Sunday-struggle. After the RL said "NOBODY START THE GUNBATTLE, OR I'LL BOOT YOU!!!" I ran over to the dude to get my jetpack, and clicked quickly.

Too quickly.

Evidently the "jetpack-dude" and the "start the fight dude" are right nexxt to each other.

Oops.

(we didn't wipe, and I didn't get kicked, but I felt - and still feel - like a fucking imbecile)

We finally made it past Saurfang.

Later!

Blinded me with Science! (or number crunching)

2010-04-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

(click to see enlarged - green rows are currently equipped)

So I'm slowly gathering more Frosties to bump up my gear. As of now, I've got the 4 piece Tier 9 (Conqueror Turaylon's Battlegear) and I have one piece of T10, the shoulders (part of the Lightsworn Battlegear)

I never got the T9 shoulders, so when I had enough frost emblems, the shoulders were the obvious choice.

(note, my first Frost purchase was the Might of the Ocean Serpent cloak. My previous one was SO bad that it, along with its gem slot, gave me a MASSIVE upgrade, more than the others)

So now, I am getting to where I will have enough to buy a second piece of T10, and I am considering what the proper order of the upgrades should be:

- Which item should I buy first?
- Is the 2 pc T10 an upgrade to the 4pc T9?

Well, if you look at the top of the page (and click the picture) you can see my handy dandy little spreadsheet comparing all the items and describing the relevant 2pc and 4pc set bonuses.

The first and biggest thing I notice is the difference between the chest pieces: I go from having Armor Penetration (ArPen) to Haste. (with a bump in numbers overall as well) I seem to recall haste is pretty good, but can't for the life of me recall how useful ArPen is.I sat around googling, until I went to the usual place (EJ HERE) and saw that haste is unequivocally better.

Now, the bigger question is if the 2 pc T10 bonus (40% chance to reset timer for Divine Storm) is a bigger benefit than the 4 pc T9 bonus (additional 5% chance to crit with Judgements)

On a gut level, the 4 pc T9 bonus would be better for single targets, since divine storm is only really good for multiple mobs. BUT, the speedier DS, along with the other stat increases makes me wonder.

And in case you're wondering, I haven't used RAWR in a while, because Character Profiler has been giving me troubles, and manually upgrading stuff in Rawr gives me a headache.

I still need to get some better trinkets and librams, but I really despise "on use" items, which most of them seem to be. Eh, maybe I should just go with the Herkumel War Token. :P

Buy Buy Baby, Good buy!

2010-04-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Some folks love their sparkly Pony, some love their Pandaren Monk, and still others love their Frosty the WoLK special edition pet. Lots of goodies for real dollars.

Overall, they aren't my thing, but certainly don't have anything against them. While I *do* enjoy collecting pets and mounts, they are an activity for me, and aren't worth any "real" money (ie, real money transaction, RMT) Um, let me qualify that; I don't think they're kinda neat, I just think they're worth the list price.

The question begs asking: what WOULD I be willing to pay money for?

- I *would* be willing to buy pets, but only in the $3-$5 range.

- I'd also buy a really cool mount, but only for $10 or so.

- I think $$$ for Heirloom gear is reasonable, but with similar restrictions (only purchasable by a level 80). Also, I think heirloom should get bumped a tier or two. Or make a set of tier ~7.5 or something similar. BUT, I think putting this at a premium; maybe $15-$20 per item, and only if you already have higher level gear already. (ie, you have a T10 shoulder, you can buy this BoA "heirloom" T9 shoulder, etc) I know I'm probably alone (or at least in the minority) in this, but after grinding out a shit-ton of Triumph badges for my Ret spec, and slogging through a second, Tanking set, I am sick to death of running Heroics. I would pay decent money to skip this step, athankuverymuch!

- A custom “skin” with something cool looking; better looking armor, costumes, etc. Something akin to Dartol's Rod of Transformation or the Iron Boot Flask but isn’t dispelled by mounting, etc. $5- $10 (MAYBE that high)

- Along the lines of a full custom costume/skin, possibly alternate looking items. “skins” that would change a specific slot/item type to look like something particular.

I’m with some others that don’t feel like I should pay, just to get decent service. Larisa, over at the Pink Pigtail Inn (and a lot of others) would pay more for better customer service. LINK. Me, I’d rather they just provide a reasonable support for the $$$ we pay as it is. I’m sorry, I don’t care that it’s “only a game”; it still shouldn’t take them 5-7 days to respond to a ticket. If they are backlogged with stupid questions, well, that would seem to me to indicate that the ‘as provided” information from Blizzard is so pathetic, that it invites lots of dumb questions. Or (and I’m being a bit mean here) that they have lowered the bar so much that it has now enticed the floor lickers to play.

Sorry, but “overloaded tech service” is not a valid excuse. It means they are a) being cheap (and giving profits to Activision) b) don’t charge enough or c) simply don’t care. None of these are acceptable.

And, by paying extra, that seems to me like it would encourage the same piss-poor service we get now for the “normal” folks. *BZZZZ* wrong answer.

Overall, I would like things that would make the current game look better (cool looking skins) or make the current game a bit less “grindy”, while trying to avoid breaking the game.

Anyhow, what would make you guys shell out a few bucks?

Loken in the Halls of the Moutain King. (or lightening)

2010-04-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Be Still my Heart

So I've gotten back into the random LFG a bit lately. I need more than 1 T10 piece, if I'm gonna have a chance at getting into successful ICC25 raids. (or even 10 mans) (My GS is now ~5040 or so)

The other night a guildie (shammy healer) and her friend (a pally tank) and I an a few Heroics.

We ran a few of them, and they all blazed by. The last one seems a bit more remarkable, simply for the speed of it. We were in Halls of Lightening, and it was the three of us, plus one generic DPS (a newbie in 3500 gear) and a mage in 5,500 gear.

At first, I was topping the meters, but less than halfway through, the mage got his thing going. I was doing a consistent 4,300-4,500, and he would finish a number of fights at near 6k. NICE!

As we went through, I noticed that Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) was saying we had completed a couple bosses in record time. I wan't paying much attention to the actual times, however.

Then came Loken. It took 24 seconds. *goggle* For the entire heroic, the mage had done ~33% of damage, I did about 30%. The tank & other DPS were at 22% and 15% or there abouts. I think the entire run was only about 9 minutes. Just crazy.

It was a fairly interesting set of heroics, for the speed & hilarity alone, if nothing else.

Oh Boy...

And then there was last night. I queued up, vowing to drop if I saw Pit of Sauron (PoS) or Halls of Reflection (HoR), and live with the timer exclusion. I'm simply not interested in struggling.

And of course, I got PoS. We hoofed it over to the right, and off the ledge and engaged the first mobs/pats. Nobody had noticed, but we only had 4 of us: Bear Tank, Tree Healer and 2 DPS (me and a Hunter). Evidently the 5th was DCed. Things weren't going very smoothly, and I was already regretting not simply dropping group the mement I zoned in.

The tank, said he was having computer issues, so he bailed. We then waited for another tank and a 3rd DPS.

The new tank (a Prot Pally) had a 4,800 GS, the Hunter had 4,700, the Treeler had 5,500 and me right at 5k. We ended up getting a pretty low GS Priest (3,800 or so. Can't recall for certain)

And we progressed, albeit a bit slowly. DPS wasn't really an issue, but the tank sure was. During the fights, the Tree kept getting munched on (he stayed abck as much as he could, but many of the fights have LoS issues). The hunter pulled aggro, and so did I (especially when I taunted of the tree munchers) Nobody died (the Tree was pretty freakin awesome) but the tank just could NOT keep aggro.

We made it past the Frozen Boulders Boss, and even dropped Ick & Krick without much issue. We went up the dreaded hill without TOO much trouble and got ready to go through the tunnel.

Ouch.

The tree Hotted up the tank as we entered, and the mobs pretty much ignored the tank and went right after the healer. I manged to taunt off a couple times and we got the whole group to the center. I lost track, and before I realized, the tree was dead, and the tank was nearly so. I Laid Hands (LoH) on the tank, buying us a bit more time, but we went down, one by one. The only survivor was the Hunter thanks to Feign Death.

I could have saved myself ~8 gold and ran to safety, but I was still trying to actually save the wipe until pretty much the last second. Ooops.

We revived, entered and gave it a second go. The results were simlar, though a bit faster wipe. (mainly because the tree used his battle rez, and LoH was still on cooldown for me)

We all come back in, and the tank, healer and one of the other DPS were arguing.

Tank - Healer, don't heal until we get to the middle!

Healer - I'm a Druid, I *HAVE* to get the HoTs on or else I'll never keep up. You *SHOULD* be able to maintain aggro over 2 lousy HoTs!

DPS - The tank should be able maintain aggro over that!

The hunter (who ahad gotten the good bow from the first boss) said "Sorry guys. I really only wanted the bow, but I can't stick around through this." and bolted. He HAD stayed after the bow dropped, AND through a second wipe, and didn't leave until the recrimination & arguing started. I didn't blame him a bit. (by the way, he was regularly beating my DPS by 100-200 points, AND in total damage, evne with significantly lower gear. The guy was good!)

So, then the tank dropped group, so it was me and the last DPS. I appologized and dropped.

By this time, Wintergrasp had started and ended (and we lost) so not only did I get a 15-20 gold repair bill, I didn't get my Frosties, and I couldn't even run WG for some honor.

I said fuck it, and just went out and did my fishing daily (terrorfish) and got some fish for my buff food, then called it a night.

I KNEW I should have just dropped group the moment PoS came up, and just ran WG then called it a night.

Meh. I really don't have any patience for that. Boo-frikkin-hoo.

Over the Hills and Far Away, to the Land of Deverry

2010-04-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

The following is me recommending a series of fantasy books I've been reading for about 20 years. If that sort of thing interests ya, please read on. Otherwise, I'll see you in a bit with another WoW post.

Back in 1989, during my third year of college, a roommate brought in a book he owned but hadn't read: Daggerspell, by Katherine Kerr. It was a sword & Sorcery type of book, which I enjoyed, but it had a completely different take on things. This book was based in a Celtic universe, with feudal clans, the magic of Dweomer, and the reincarnation of souls through an 800 year saga of mistakes frustration and redemption. I was seriously hooked.

It, along with the 5 books that followed while I was still in school dealt with numerous intersting plots, races heroes and a villains. Maybe a *tad* more romantic that I normally like, the books had a depth to most of the characters that let them live and breath in your mind. While it may be a bit less "high literature" (which I feel Lord of the Rings is) the story, world and characters matches (maybe exceeds?) Tolkein's monumental work in a combination of depth and breadth. (in my most humble opinion) The writing style is easy to read, but the story is as complex and wonderful as a Celtic Knot

Over the following 20 years, I followed as books have been slowly published, and as of now, after a total 15 books, it seems that the saga may be over.

If you have the time, inclination and interest, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Here's the list:

Act one: Deverry
1.Daggerspell (1986)
2.Darkspell (1987) — later reissued in an "author's definitive edition"
3.The Bristling Wood (1989) — US title; issued in the UK as Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood
4.The Dragon Revenant (1990) — US title; issued in the UK as Dragonspell: The Southern Sea

Act two: The Westlands
1.A Time of Exile (1991)
2.A Time of Omens (1992)
3.Days of Blood and Fire (1993) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of War
4.Days of Air and Darkness (1994) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of Justice

Act three: The Dragon Mage
1.The Red Wyvern (1997)
2.The Black Raven (1998)
3.The Fire Dragon (2000)

Act four: The Silver Wyrm
1.The Gold Falcon (2006) - US title; issued in the UK as the fourth book of The Dragon Mage
2.The Spirit Stone (2007) - US title; issued in the UK as the fifth book of The Dragon Mage
3.The Shadow Isle (2008) - US title; issued in the UK as the sixth book of The Dragon Mage
4.The Silver Mage (2009) - US title; issued in the UK as the seventh book of The Dragon Mage

I hope you read, and I hope you enjoy!

Knights in White Satin, and Guilds in Their Tabards, More Drama is On Tap

2010-04-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

We're getting more & more information about the upcoming changes to our classes in the looming Cataclysm. I see a lot of what looks to me like homogenization. Even prior to Cata, we are seeing it, at least in small areas. (I'm using paladin stuff as an example, since I know the stuff better, but I know it's happening elsewhere)

You don't want a Paladin?

Get your Drums of the Forgotten Kings for Blesssing of Kings
And long as you have a Warrior (Battle Shout)
and a Shammy (Mana Spring Totem)

VIOLA! Pally buffs are now a complete non-issue.

And now with some upcoming nerfs in Cata (among the, DPS (Pallies) will lose some dispel abilities) as well as some spreading of benefits (mages now get the bloodlust/heroism ability "time warp") and you have to wonder if there is any intrinsic value in ANY of the classes.

"Bring the player, not the class" is the mantra. Which in many ways is all fine and dandy.

BUT. Let's take a look at some other upcoming changes that Cata will bring... specifically the guild "buffing". With this change, unguilded players (or players that only have a small "personal guild" or a guild of 2-3 friends) are going to be at a distinct disadvantage.

This in turn will drive players that normally would not join a large guild, into trying to join them. Now, with class specific abilities, a player has some intrinsic value that he or she can bring to a guild. With the homogenization? Not so much.

As of now, it's possible that there is a guild out there that needs your class/spec. (we need disc priests or elem shammies, etc) As the homogenisation progresses, it's less likely that will happen, as it's quite likely that one of their current members already will have the ability that is needed.

Things are not exactly peachy for the un/under-guilded now, but I see Blizzard's emphasis on guilds exacerbating the difference between the haves & have nots.

As of now, the biggest disadvantages are that you're stuck pugging most of your raids & content, and you probably don't have easy/cheap access to all the crafting skills/professions.

With the new changes, there will be a number of advantages (such as guild crafting recipes, etc) that will only serve to compound the gap. So either the un/under-guilded try to find and fit into guilds (with lots of possible drama) or they simply deal with yet another disadvantage.

Between this and some of the fubar changes that Blizzard are making to the classes (Tree is no on CD?!?!?) I'm getting a bit (*hint* understatement) disheartened about Cataclysm.

I'm not sure I even want to hear/read/see what Blizzard has in mind for Paladins, and Ret pals in particular. "Nerf them to the ground" still rings & stings my ears.

All We Are Saying... Is Give Peace a Chance

2010-04-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a year since I pulled myself from the wreckage of the Exodar, yet another casualty of the nobility and their quest for power. Prior to that, it was the loss of Dreanor, and before that, the loss of Argus.

All because of the insatiable lust for power and domination that nearly all nobility seem to have.

Obviously, there are a few that can see above the drug-lust for power, else we would have not made any headway in our fight against Arthas. Thrall, Proudmoore and Velen come to mind, but even they have their deep flaws.

Thrall with his inability to set aside the warmongers that are his friends. In our dealings with Orc on Dreanor, we Draenei could see the nobility, the fierce spirit, and the loyalty within them. It's too bad that it can be swayed so easily, and Thrall seems unable to completely set aside his more virulent associates, and move forward for the greater good.

Jaina simply has a blind spot the size of Icecrown Citadel. Her soul is good, but her judgement could lead us to ruin.

As for Prophet Velen? He's lead us during our flight, and has maintained his vision of truth and the Naaru. But he has no concept of the world we now live in. He seemingly cowers in the bowels of Exodar's wreckage. He needs to stand firm and help lead. Perhaps the loss of the Exodar, with the treachery involved, has finally started to break his spirit.

I am afraid.

I have seen the hearts of our allies and our enemies as well, and the future bodes ill.

After a long hunt around Northrend, I finally picked up Arthas' trail and joined forces with Highlord Fordragon. THIS was the fight I had been meant for HERE was my chance.

I circled the battlefield on Ebbla, my netherdrake, waiting for my chance to judge, to vent my wrath. Time for Retribution.

As I dove into the starting fray, I say Putress and her minions readying the catapults. I pulled up and bellowed to the forces of light, both Horde and Alliance.

"FLEE! The forsaken await!"

In the clatter of steel on steel, my voice was lost, and down rained the plague. Man, Orc and Sourge all fell to that foul fume. Even Arthas dropped to his knees.

I shrieked in impotent rage and I circled, waiting, hoping for a chance to sate my anger and bloodlust. For even now, as a potent blade in the service of Naaru, I am not equal to the task of taking on the entire mass of the forsaken.

Not alone, at least.

As the last life ebbed from Highlord Fordagon I heard a piercing shriek from the south. Ebbla reared and starting clawing the air to evade this new threat. My eyes followed the sound and my eyes watered as I recognized the Red Dragon Flight approaching, then cleansing the battlefield.

We plummeted down to join Alexstrasza as she stood before the Wrathgate.

"Your dalliance has cost both the Horde and Alliance countless soldiers!" I bellowed.

She lowered her head, and exhaled a searing breath, just to remind me who I was speaking to. Whether she heard me or not, she instructed me to take Bolvar's shield back to King Wrynn. Judging by her smugness, and her mundane instruction, it was clear she HAD heard me, but wouldn't let a mere Paladin talk in such a way.

She stood there, condescending, gloating in her less than timely victory, her feet grinding the ash & blood of the fallen into the rock before the gate. we had met before, as her human aspect, and we did not get along. Even though I had earned some of her respect, I couldn't risk angering her more.

I did as she commanded, and returned to Stormwind, with the relic of defeat lashed to my back. I had no desire to bring this news to Varian. HIs temper is well known, and it did not disappoint. Only Proudmoore's sanity kept him in check. After a brief and tense teleport to Orgrimmar and conversation with Thrall, Varian sent me to Undercity to bring Putress to justice. He and Proudmoore followed.

As I stood outside the sewer of Undercity, the wrecked bones of Lordaeron, the stench brought me to my knees. We were supposed to enter that?

With self righteous glee and anger, King Wrynn blazed a trail through the forsaken, through an unending labyrinth of filth and fume. I charged through battle after battle in the hopes of living to breath fresh air again. But onward and deeper we went, until Putress finally fell to our blades.

And then Ego stepped in.

We could hear Thrall's bellows as he commanded his own troops to cleanse Putress' evil from the place. Varian, true to his nature charged in to kill Thrall. I stood frozen in disbelief, my mouth hanging open in utter shock.

This man, MY LIEGE, tried to kill one of the few hopes for peace and cooperation between the Horde and Alliance. My grip on my polearm clenched, as I tried to figure out who I should kill. I would not stand and let futile lust for power destroy THIS world as well.

As I raised my weapon, getting closer to Wrynn's neck, Lady Proudmoore ported us back to Stormwind.

I don't know if she did it to save Thrall from Wrynn's blade, or to save Wrynn from mine.

"It didn't have to be like this" was all she said as she fled the throne room. I'm still not sure if she, or anyone else saw me, or knew what I was going to do.

I love the Alliance. I love the people of Azeroth.

I despise the nobility.

In case you are wondering what just happened here, this is my take on the whole Wrathgate questline. Chas over at Righteous Orbs did a wonderful writeup with his own view of these events from the point of view of his Forsaken, LINKY HERE. Color me inspired. I'm not an RPer overall, but after watching the whole story unfold and the little RP backstory I *did* have for Balth, I thought this could be interesting...

If You could Read My Mind, you would be afraid....

2010-04-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

We all know that gearing up is the grit & gristle of WoW raiding. You can't do the raid if you don't have the gear. For most folks, that means grinding heroics and such to get their Triumph and Frost badge gear.

Then, it's on to farming ToC and ICC.

Well, just so you know, there is another way. Especially if you're like me and get really tired of PuG Heroic runs and/or don't have access to farm raids.

We Be PvP

Many days & weeks ago, someone mentioned that the Wrathful Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph are pretty good for PvE, simply because they are ilvl 264, and are easily purchasable.

After a glance at Cynwise's recent list of PvP gear for 3.3.3 LINKY it became glaringly obvious to me that I could use more than that to fill out my PvE gear needs.

In summary, here's the list of top level, "easily" available (ie, purchasable with only marks or honor, no PvP rank needed)

■Head: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Neck: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Shoulder: Titan-Forged (ilvl 251)
■Back: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Chest: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Wrist: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Hands: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Waist: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Legs: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Feet: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■1st Ring: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■2nd Ring: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Trinket: Medallion of the Alliance/Horde (ilvl 264)
■Trinket: Battlemaster (ilvl 245)

(f you want more info about them, visit Cyn's site!)

Now, most of these are NOT something I would get for PvE use, simply because Triumph & Frost badges can get you better stuff (mainly your 4 piece tier 9 and 10 stuff) But keep in mind, that tier gear will only fill 4-5 slots.

What about your wrists?
Feet?
Cloaks?

For some classes/slots, of the non-tier badge gear is pretty good, but in some instances, the PvP gear is actually better (ie, the PvP cloak for Shammies)

In other places, PvP is your only alternative to farming. The Wrathful Bracers are a good case in point, but there are others.

For me, the next obvious one was the foot slot. My then-current gear was the Death-Inured Sabatons I bought as exalted with the Ebon Hold. They were a decent buy for only 52 gold or so. But, a quick look at the list of PvP gear, and you can find Relentless Gladiator's Greaves of Triumph.

The chart below here shows a stat by stat comparison of the two, assuming they are both gemmed with +20 strength gems (which for PvE is what a Ret should be doing)

They are a substantial gain across the board, with the slight exception of crit; the PvP gear drops your crit by 7 points. BUT, as most Ret Paladin websites will tell you, STR should be your first choice for gear, and with this, you gain 23 strength for a small crit loss. (not to mention 78 extra stamina and 159 more armor)

The best thing? Both of those pieces were at the lowest price bracket for PvP gear; only 34,000 honor each. (or, if you chose, many PvP pieces can be bought with "spare" triumph badges)

But I HATE PvP!

Ok, valid point, but you can actually get a moderate amount of honor without ever seeing combat or participating in a "live" Battleground.

How?

Every week in Wintergrasp, there is at least one quest that is a "PVE-ish" collection grind. You might need 10 bone arrows, 10 horde armor pieces or 10 flame thingies, all of which are obtained by killing the NPC mobs in Wintergrasp, NOT by killing/fighting other players. They can be done (and are more easily done) when a battle is NOT in progress.

There's also the frequent quest to kill 10 Horde (or Alliance if you ARE Horde) And the neat thing? NPC Horde/Alliance mobs are all that's required. It doesn't need to be a live player.

Anyhow, each of those quests give you about 10 gold, 3,000 honor and 10 Stone Keeper Shards.

Remember, Stone Keeper Shards (from any source, including Heroic Boss Kills) can be converted directly into honor by purchasing commendations from the vendor in Wintergrasp.

So, with the occasional Heroic run that gives you Shards, as well as the above easy & quick honor sources, you should be able to buy a "cheap" PvP item within a week, or two. (or sooner if you have unspent honor)

It Feels Like the First Time...

2010-04-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the very first time...

On Saturday night, I got invited into a half PuG 25 man ICC. My first time into a 25 man.

I turned off all my unnecessary Add-ons (Carbonite, Gearscore and a few others) just to minimize any DC/connection issues. I don't know the GS of any of the other players, but I heard I was among the lowest there. Buuut, I was told that as long as I could maintain 5-6k DPS, it isn't a problem

So, I managed to die once on trash before marrowgar (still not really sure what happened) but other than that it went pretty well.

Me & a friend were doing about 6,200 DPS and were sitting about 8 or 9th on the meters. I was pretty happy with that, at least until that time I died. I re-buffed (food, potion, etc) but forgot to hit my Seal.

Ugh... DPS going DOWN!

v
v
v
v
v

I ended up in 19th spot on the meters before I realized it. DOH!

So, we mangled Marrowgar, shouted down Deathwhisper, and pillaged the Gunship fights. One shotted them all. I'm not sure how many died here & there, but it wasn't really difficult, and the deaths were few.

The guild that was runnning it was Knights of Disorder (Velen) and they did a very VERY good job of handling a bunch of PuGs, being fair, and running the raid well.

My friend was also whisping me additional info, since I had never made it past Marrow before this. What's funny, was I had asked Kattastrophe what to do (she's been all the way to Rotgut or Festerface, or whomever) and her reply? "No clue, I just heal them."

Harumph! lol

So, we got all the way to Saurfang.

By this time, I had crawled all the way back up to 11th or 12th on the meters again. Actually, I should qualify that, I was moving up in total damage done. My actual DPS, while pretty nice (to me) at 6k or so, was near the bottom. Yet, I was at least contributing my part to the fight.

And Saufang... kicked our butts 4 or 5 times. I didn't die, but we couldn't kill him before the enrage timer went off, and we just ran back to the boat and let it reset. The closest we cam was getting him down to 3%, and then watching his health climb back up to 7%, 11%, 14% and then 15%. Grrr.

Runaway!

Using the strategy we did (melee attacked Saurfang with ZERO AoE, while all ranged killed the Adds) I don't think we had enough geared melees. Myself included. (again though, even though my DPS here was only 4,500, I was still climbing the total damage meters - then again ALL melee DPS folks had dropped because of that)

Without re-stacking the melee DPS people, the only thing we *might* have been able to do was to let melee take 2-3 AoE attacks, after each group of Adds. (like maybe cast Consecerate and one Divine Storm) and then go back to strictly single target.

The only problem, as I'm sure any of you will know: one single solitary screwup, that aggro's an Add, would almost certainly wipe us. I'm not sure we (melee DPS) could have pulled it off, but it may be worth a try.

Now, I have an invite to complete the run (or try some more) but it starts tonight at 6pm server time. (which, cooincidentally, is my normal time - Pacific time) I will still be at work when it starts.

Thanks to Xarlexis's idea (my friend that was helping me out) I now have an "AoE free" rotation on my action bar 2 (the one you scroll to see) It made avoiding the AoE a LOT easier. Thanks Xar!

I do have to admit, just poking 3 different spells (Judgement, Crusader Strike and Exorcism) for the majority of an 8 minute fight was pretty boring.

tap

yawn

tap
tap

yawn
yawn

tap...

Though it got a *little * bit more interesting when he got down to 20%, since that activated Hammer of Wrath, so I got FOUR, count em FOUR spells to use.

lol

Regardless, it was fun to do, even if the Saurfang fight didn't go well. But it's clear I need to gear up a bit, even if I wasn't anywhere near the lowest damage dealer...

OH! A couple other things I wanted to ask...

as I mentioned in a reply to my last post (an April Fool's post, btw) it occurred to me that I might be causing problems by using pictures & videos in my posts. (for example, in my unemployed April Fool's post, I included a picture of Google's "Topeka" page, as a hint about the nature of my post) Now, since many folks use a reader, and can't see the images, the value of the images is sorta lost.

So, to you my sundry readers, should I coninue putting in images? I know my posts can get a tad long, and wall's-o-text can get tough to read, and they sometimes help out.

Should I keep them?

Also, as the folks on SAN forums have mentioned; dark backgrounds with light text can be difficult to read. (white on black in particular) does the color of the text & background bother you guys? (though again, anyone using a reader won't know or care :P )

Toodles.

Money for Nothing

2010-04-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a still unstable economy, as well as some outsourcing, it looks like I will be having more time on my hands, as well as a bi-weekly check from the State of California.

For playing WoW.

After clicking around the internet a bunch, I do really think I'd be happier in WoW if I just went balls out, and tried to get into "hardcore" shape. And now I'll actually have the time to do it.

Now, I don't expect to be in a group of the level of Paragon or Ensidia any time soon, but I definitely want to see LK die in hard mode.

It's Not Me - Just Pixels on a Screen

2010-03-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

As you guys probably know, Kattastrophe & I have been trying to find the right guild. One that raids "enough" but is "fun enough".

A family member on another server is in a guild that is trying to recruit us. As it stands, I sincerely doubt I will make the switch, but Kattastrophe is still trying to decide, and postred about it HERE. Any thoughts or ideas you guys may have would be appreciated.

As for me not wanting to change, there are a bunch of reasons. One of the biggest is that this guild is Horde. All the other things set aside ($$$ to server switch AND faction switch) I just don't want to be a Belf. (or a Cow, in another 6-8 months)

Do I really care about factions that much? From a lore or "us vs them" side, no I don't.

For me it's about the aesthetics. True, Dreanei (males) aren't exactly "good loocking" (though the goat girls are cute!) But the rest of the Ally character models are "good enough".

When I was a younger man...

20 years ago, I would have played Horde, probably on a PvP server, and would likely have gone the RP route.

Now? I just like the look & feel of the Alliance cities and characters. I chose a Drae simply because it was different. I've "been" an elf, human and a dwarf countless times. (and gnomes are a "fun" race, not necessarily a "srs bzns" gaming race for me)

Where's Waldo?

And then there's the fact that my toon is simlpy a "Waldo" for me. (it's a Heinlein reference HERE, that was the first use of remote control or telepresence)

Anyhow, when I play Balthazario, I am not in the character at all. I am not "in" the game world nor am I immmersed at all. Balth is simply a remote control wrecking ball that I use to interact with other avatars/toons and the environment.

If only he didn't have that goofy Russian accent. :P

But All Games Aren't this Way

Now, to counterpoint my lack of immersion in WoW, I *DO* get immersed in other games. For instance, I've been flying around the galaxy in the starship Normandy, along with Shepard, a Krogan and a few others. (Mass Effect 2)

This game is VERY linear and does a good job of storyteling (folks that hate semi-interactive cut scenes would hate it) It's a bit mystery, a bit action, and all around an interesting story. In fact, I think I like the story here more than I did in the first one.

Some things are better, some worse... but I can say that I miss the Mako. (I'm one of the few people I know that actually enjoyed buggying around on planets)

EDIT - I have heard that this post says "I don't like playing WoW." That isn't my point at ALL.

No, this means I simply don't take on the role (RP or whatever) when I play. When you play multiplayer HALO, I seriously doubt that the players are "feeling like they are the Master Cheif" or anything. They are simply using the game as an extension of themselves (like an RC plane or RC car) :)

THAT is how I feel.

ANGER!... ANGER!... Master of Puppets is Pulling Your Strings!

2010-03-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

This post is only tangentially related to WoW (ie WoW co-inspired it), is rather long and maybe a little deeper into thought that I ought to go.

It's inspired by Taramind ("Don't go wasting your emotions") in which he ponders the possible reasons for all the WoW-rage, and he posits that it's simply because it's really one of the few acceptable emotions that you CAN express. Either that, or they just keep mum.(I'm horrid at summarizing, he says it SO much better and the comments are awesome as well, so PLEASE read it if you haven't!)

I think he's definitely on to something, but during my looong drive home, I got to thinking (yes, a dangerous pursuit for me)

Maybe a lot of that anger is real.

To put this in perspective, or at least explain my perspective let me 'splain a bit about myself.

I'm not young, I'm not old: I'm about as middle age as you can get. I'm 40. I don't have the hormone driven angst & anger of youth, or the senile acceptance of old age (though I do want those whippersnappers OFF MY LAWN!) I sit ~~happily~~ in the middle, betwixt those extremes.

And yet I rage. Road rage, nerd rage, rage against the machine, et cetera, ad nauseum. Though, to be honest, most of my anger can be traced to two sources:

Idiots

and

FUCKING IDIOTS!

In most cases, it's not people actively and intentionally being jerks, assholes or morons, it's just that they are completely self absorbed and absolutely clueless that they exist in a world with anyone else.

They cut in line, they cut you off in traffic, they stand in line at the fast food joint, talking on their phone, and can't be bothered to chose their food prior to being asked what they want.

They write a check at the grocery store for $1.83. (and don't start writing ANYTHING until they find out the total) Or, even worse, they make the same purchase with a mixture of pennies, nickles and dimes.

Or they're too lazy to pull into a parking space correctly and either take up 3 spaces, or they block you in after you've already parked.

The result?

Only now,getting angry and/or acting out is socially acceptable.

"Back in the day", being a jerk, being loud or any of a hundred plus other behaviors would get you socially punished. People would stare, laugh or act in some way that would reinforce that you were "behaving badly in public".

Nowadays, an Olympic medal winner gets photographed at a party with him using the medal in a manner that makes it look like he's getting a blow job, and when he gets disciplined for it, a hue & cry goes out that he's being treated too harshly.

We ignore the families with children screaming like Murlocks and their dirty feet and asses on the table at the restaurant.

We actively cheer the hecklers, even when a performance is good.

Everything is on video, or photographed by cell phone, and all manner of ugly behavior is nearly idolized and the assholes' "15 minutes" lasts them a life time.

Our society actively promotes nasty, disrespectful behavior.

Then everyone gets upset because they are either an asshole that gets angry just because they can, or it's one of the folks they're being an asshole to, and THEY get pissed off at the the whole thing.

OR MAYBE...

It's just a figment of the electronic, internet age. The actions & behaviors aren't really any worse than before, it's just that with all the media we are exposed to, maybe we just see it more vividly.

After all, here in the US, violent crimes of almost all types are down from years past, but the news would have you believe otherwise. Assaults and abductions are down, yet they get prime coverage; if it bleeds, it leads... or so goes the mantra.

(though I'll be honest, I don't think the anger & disrespect we see are the same as the news, I honestly believe the "people behaving badly" is a real phenomenon)

Did I talk myself in a circle?

Probably... but it was an interest line of thought for me... even if I am an angry S.O.B., railing at the misfortunes of age, and the prospect of rolling down the back side of the hill that I am now going over.

Shot Through the Heart, and I'm to Blame

2010-03-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I give PvP...

a bad name...

This takes placeon Argent Dawn, US. This is my 3rd Balthazario Pally and he's a member of "Single Abstract Noun" (aka SAN), the blog-people guild. This is the guild envisioned by Tamarind (and started in the EU HERE) and expanded to the US by Miss Medicina (HERE) The SAN Guild Forums are HERE. As an FYI, the US chapter has ~275 players, and we just broke 400 toons last night. WOW!!

AAAAnyhow... back on topic.

To be honest, there's a small amount of ironic humour here. Earlier on the night in question, Cynwise was on, and I was bemoaning my sad PvP abilities, which I whined about yesterday in my blog. Ans, as befitting a PvPer and blogger of her caliber, she chatted with me and gave some input and good ideas. (thanks, btw!)

Later in the night, after Cyn had logged off, I trundled my level 16 Pally into Elwynn Forest, and through the oddity that is Goldshire.

There are a couple duels going, and a bunch of folks milling about. I'm looking around for anythig untoward (I had been hearing a lot of "ugh, Goldshire is nasty!" but honestly had no clue -at the time - what the problem was) There was no RP going on (which I have barely seen ANY of) and so I'm getting ready to go about my business.

And in comes the Duel Challenge.

The name pops up, and I scroll around trying to see who & what is challenging me. As usual in a crowded area, I can't find them (is there a hint to finding them, by the way?)

I take a slow deep breath and click "accept".

The countdown starts... 4... 3... 2... 1...

A couple seconds go by and I'm sitting there waiting for an attack so I know who I'm supposed to be dueling.

FINALLY a fireball plasters me. AHA! A Mage!

Crap.

I then get locked in ice, and a moment after that get some meteor shower or something (sorry, I don't know my mage spells) This is the time I realize that I am fighting a level 20 mage. At level 16.

Oh boy...

As I wait for the ice to wear off, I hit Holy Light to heal a bit and charge after the mage.

Sssslllllooooowwwwllly. Friggin Ice bolts.

I run towards him, Judge, melee hammer of Justice to stun/ interrupt him melee him a bit and I drop him to nearly half in 2-3 seconds.

He starts to run and -WTF?!?!?

Oh yeah, friggin blink. Le-sigh.

Repeat the previous steps, except I started totake a LOT of damage. So I pop Divine Protection (my shield wall) My health is ~10%, I hit Gift of Naaru.

By the time I'm out of the ice, I'm back to full health, and the mage is actually pretty close.
>
I charge after him - Ice Bolt - Blink - He casts, I charge in, beat him up.

Repeat. Well, mostly, this time I used holy light.

And he's now healed once (potion?) and is back below 1/2 health.

I attack, stun, hit, run, blink, ice bolt... yada yada.

After 3-4 repetitions of this, he's dead.

Wait! I Just won an honest-to-god duel! Against an "equivalent" player! (actually, 4 levels higher- I'm only a 16!)

I heal him and bow to him and we go our separate ways.

I didn't think to armory the guy, so I have zero clue about his gear, spec or anything.

Anyhow, the guy is probably new to PvP, and doesn't really understand the advantages he had, because, even level aside, in a wide open area, a Mage *should* wipe the floor with a Pally.

The guy did a number of things "less than ideally". Well, 2 things that really stand out:

- He stayed too close.
- He seemed to only use long cast spells.

Many of his other tactics were good ideas, but not used optimally. If I were to fight a Pally (if I were a Mage) I would do the following:

- Ice block
- Blink to maximum ranged DPS range.
- if still iced, maybe hit one "fast" cast spell
- as soon as ice wears off - Ice bolt to slow down
- INSTANT CAST/WAND LIKE A MOFO!!! put some damage on that Pally and keep it coming- as soon as the pally starts to get a *little* close, I run away until Blink & ice block are available.
- repeat the above steps until pally is dead.
- A Pally will heal when trapped, so remember that his heals can be slowed/interrupted.

Yes, use big DPS, long cast spells on occasion, but they leave you vulnerable. Most of your damage (IMHO) should be instant cast (or wand if there aren't any) If you are standing there for 3 seconds while casting, if he isn't locked in a trap, he will be running after you.

As a ranged caster, with some AWESOME traps/etc, never EVER let a Paladin get within 30 yards. You can simply kite the poor bastard around, without taking any damage at all. Yes, Pallies can bubble then heal, BUT, we can only bubble once every 2 minutes. And yes, while self healing is a bugger, a Ret or Prot shouldn't be able to heal faster than a caster can DPS.

Also, a (lower level) Pally can only heal when stationary, so if he's running after you, he isn't healing. KITE HIM!!!!

Later.

CRYING!... crying... Whiny post is whiny

2010-03-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

Yeah, here's my national (international?) "Whiney Day" post. Since I prolly whine too much anyway, I'll keep it short.

The reason I don't like PvP is that I pretty much stink at it. I've mentioned this once or twice, I believe. Why do I stink?

- Is it my gear? Well, while that doesn't HELP the situation, I don't believe it's the main problem.

- Is it my spec? Again, my spec doesn't help my situation, since it's havily slanted towards PvE, but I have a couple "PvP-ish" things (reduced stun times and the like) in my talent tree.

So nope, those aren't the big reasons.

Basically, it comes down to poor hand-eye coordination, poor situational awareness, a lack of deep understanding & familiarity with the toon and its abilities (aka - lack of practice)

Back in the day, I played a lot of HALO 2. Now, for me, "a lot" was 15+ hours a week. If you compare that to a teenager that can easily put in 30+ hours, it isn't a lot, BUT for any "normal" person, that's a lot.

When I first started, I really sucked. I was ranked at a skill level of 15 or 16. (rank went from 1-50, with 50 being the best) My ability to spin & shoot and all things "twitchy" like that were pretty bad. However, I really liked the feel of the game, and put in a lot of time learning the maps, learning jumps and all sorts of other "tricks" and things. No glitching or anything, but learning to use the map to my advantage.

After all that practice, my hand-eye coordination got a *little* better, but with the rest of the practice & learning, I managed to get my skill up to a 27 or so. A bit above average.

After 500+ hours of playing, I went from being a truly bad player to being a "so-so" player. In one of the last games of it I ever played, I was in a game with two 40+ skill players. I went 0-25 before I got my first kill. Humbling to say the least.

So, for WoW PvP, yes I *could* spend a lot of time learning the maps, practicing my spells,etc, and getting really familiar with my toon. And I would get better.

A *little* better.

Part of my distaste is that I'm a bit too lazy to put in that type of effort, but it's also combined with the knowledge that, even with TONS of time spent getting better, at the end of the day, I would have improved to average (or maybe a squinch above).

That really isn't much of an incentive...

On a happier note:

HAPPY St. PATTY'S DAY!!!

Signs, Signs, Everwhere a Sign...

2010-03-08T09:52:00.000-08:00

We went and saw Alice in Wonderland over the weekend, and I noticed Curfew signs around the theaters. No, not the one pictured (it's a googled image). These just said Curfew Enforced, with no mention of age, parents, etc.

This was at the Galleria at Tyler (aka the "Tyler Mall" in Riverside California)

A part of me (once I figured out what it meant) was like YES! No little punks running amok!

Then another part of me bristled STRONGLY about it. It doesn't affect me in ANY sort of negative way. I'm 40, not particularly fond of kids, and I get annoyed to no end dealing with youthful vigor and asshattedness.

Anyhow, it got me to thinking & wondering about what WoW would be like if some sort of Curfew were enabled. Assume for a moment, that something like a juvenile curfew COULD be implimented in WoW. Also ignore the complexity involved with the wide array of time zones (ie Eastern time US, and say Brisbane time Oceanic)

In this "wonderland" existed, would you WANT Blizzard to have a curfew, so that we could have only adults playing after a certain hour?

The tipping point for this post cam rather late on Saturday night, as I was levelling a toon in the Single Abstract Noun guild over on Argent Dawn US. (a blogger/reader group started on both the EU and US AD servers, as hosted by Tamarind and MissMedicina, HERE [EU] and HERE [US] respectively)

Argent Dawn is an "normal" RP server, as in no world PvP. This means griefers have to be a little more creative in their grief.

So, I'm levelling up from levels 6-8, doing the quests us Space Goats need t odo, over on Azuremist Isle. The only problem is that it's REALLY tough to empty your bags, get quests, turn in quests, train or pretty much anything else WHEN SOME ASSHOLE KILLED ALL THE NPCs.

Not once.

Not twice.

But thrice.

Twice it was the same Troll DK, and the other time it was a Mage & Rogue (not sure what races - I didn't get close enough/notice) It was roughly 4 am server time when the last attack occurred.

Needless to say, I was rather pissed off, and wanted all asshats to die and GTF off the server.

Now, as much as I hate that kind of crap, but there are a couple reasons I would NOT want a curfew:

1 - I think it's nearly as likely to be an adult doing that crap as it is a youngster
2 - I really dislike arbitrary restrictions (ie, at a certain age, you must stop playing at a certain time)

So, even if it were possible, I would not want to have a curfew. (having parents monitoring their kids would be nice, but, if implimenting a curfew is nearly impossible, asking for parental involvement with many idiot kids would require a miracle)

Now, I don't have any great psychometric analysis for why I feel this way, or any peer reviewed papers that I can reference. It's just my gut that tells me that I don't want it, even if doing such a thing might improve my time in game a bit...

How do you guys feel about it?

Poof Goes the Magic Dragon

2010-03-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm running around doing my dailies, and while collecting whositwhatsit egg sacs, NPC_Scan alerts me that Vyragosa is nearby.

w00t!

I ran across her a while back, but she refused to land, and I didn't have the gear to survive her attacks. So I ran away and vowed to get her at some later date.

It's now a later date... and this time?

Well, even though I *still* couldn't get her to land, I *was* able to survive her attacks. With Frost Aura on, she hits like a paraplegic kindergartner (no offence intended to any paraplegic kindergartners OR anyone else...) So, with my mighty Exorcism spell, I burned her into the ground (with one or two Hammer of Wrath) Yeah, casting once every 8-10 seconds means the battle takes a while...

If you look *really* closely in the screen cap, you can see my DPS for the fight: 2418. So, for the duration of the fight, using Exorcism & HoW exclusively, I still managed to get nearly 2.5k DPS. I dunno why, but I do find that kinda humorous. (like a joke, not the bone)

In the loot, I got some leather helm that is now sitting in the AH, about 10 gold and some frostweave. *shrug*. Not too shabby for simply flying by...

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been on a spending spree with the Dalaran jeweler. Well, I finally dropped the remaining 2,000 gold.

Runed Ring of the Kirin Tor

This puts it just ahead of the ring it replaced (bloodshed band) I lose some hit (not a big deal- I'm way over cap anyhow) gain a little stamina, a bunch of expertise (which I still don't really understand) and I lose 6 strength. Not perfect for DPS, but eff it, because:

I gain one MASSIVELY nice thing: an extra teleport back to Dal.

Yes, I'm lazy like that.

Also, I had remembered reading somewhere (probably at Critical QQ, Cynwises' Battle manual, or maybe even Gnomeageddon) that there is a really nice bracer available from the PvP vendors:

Wrathful Gladiators Bracers of Triumph

Even without gems or enchants, they are better than the piece they replaced (can't remember what they were, but I can look them up from a recent RAWR save) Also, since I have been looking to put together a set of PvP gear (via honor and emblems, not arena) this works out PERFECTLY. I get an upgrade for my PvE gear that also happens to be a really nice piece for PvP.

And all for a "mere" 43,000 honor points, plus another 10k honor for the uncut cardinal ruby. (and 20 gold for the gem cutting, and 120 gold for the greater assault enchant)

BUT STILL! a neat upgrade relatively cheap.

Oh, my Argent pets still haven't sold, but I made the quick money by selling 10 bars of titansteel. I still need to sell off the rest of it, because with that upcoming patch (and elimination of the 24 hour cooldown on smelting titansteel) it will likely drop a LOT in value.

Sell it for 110 each now, and then buy it later (if needed) for 25-30 gold each.

I'm going to try to post "My Guild Application" in the next few days. Then, theoretically, if I apply to any guilds, I can refer them to it, which will give them a LOT more info about who I am and how I play AND give them a blunt head's up that I blog.

I'm a Farmer in the Dal...

2010-03-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

So, you may have noticed my posts slacking off a bit in the last couple weeks. For better or worse, this follows my game play as well. And, the time I HAVE spent in game has been kind of farmish.

Take my latest Achies:

Other recent ones include getting my Cooking Hat, buying (and upgrading) a Ring of the Kirin Tor, and getting "Dinner Impossible" (preparing a Great Feast in 5 specific Battlegrounds)

I still have 2 more upgrades for the ring (another 2,000 gold) but I should be there in a couple more days. (I'm selling a couple Argent Tourney pets)

I will probably work on the Outlands Gourmet (so I can get my Chef title) and farm some more gold and buy enough pets for the Little Salt lick.

What about progression?

Well, aside from an occasional Frost run or even more rare weekly raid, I am not doing much.

And why is that?

There are a couple reasons... (and they're both a bit long)

1 - PuG frost runs stress the ever loving crap out of me.

It's a lot better if Kattastrophe comes along, but with our schedules lately, that hasn't been feasible. If I can get 2-3 other friends/guildies to come along, it becomes even less stressful, but that's even rarer (more on this in part 2).

But it's just a frost run - why so serious? I have no idea. I make the occasional mistake, but overall, I'm pretty good at what I do. Before all the players were at a 5k+ Gear Score, I was usually the top DPS. Since they HAVE been doing frost runs and I haven't, I am starting to have the lowest GS (and am now only #2 in DPS) That isn't the reason I get stressed, but it certainly isn't helping.

To be honest, my overall experience with PuGs hasn't been that bad. 90-95% of them have been a fairly polite, if silent, sprint through the heroics. One thing I *have* noticed is that the runs have been getting less & less smooth as time goes on. My guess is that more "less serious" players are now geared enough to run, and that more of the "more serious" players have already moved past the Frost runs. Fewer "good" folks, and more "average"/"casual" folks filling in.

Maybe I should "sack up" and just deal with the stress, and run PuGs full tilt again, but you know what? I want to play a game so I can enjoy it. "Learning to deal with stress" is NOT what I would call enjoyment...

2 - Playing at night with a daytime guild

While this strongly relates to point 1 in that I *MUCH* prefer running with folks I am at least slightly affiliated and/or friendly with, but, it's a big enough issue that I feel it deserves its own comment.

In general, I play from 8:00 pm server time (often later) until I call it a night. (sometimes this is 8:05 pm or sometimes 1:00am) When I get online, there are ususally 3-5 other guildies online. This includes folks playing low level alts, some new blood, and a couple established guildies on 80s. Within an hour, this has ususally petered out and maybe one or two others will be left.

The rest of the guild was already on and done by 6pm server time.

Of the players that are on, (of the ones that are on 80s) pretty much all are DPS players. No tanks or healers. (also, they usually already have their frost) This means doing a "quick" frost run is out of the question (queue times at this time of night on my server are usually 20 minutes)

At this point one might ask "well, why the fock are you still in that guild?"

A very valid question, and it's one I have been mulling over & over myself.

The answers I have for still being where I am are multifold (like the restroom papertowels)

1 - There are players I really enjoy playing with. Even if they aren't always on at the same time, we talk via facebook, or on /g late at night, and they are really neat folks. In general, I would rather "do nothing" with a group of people I like, than "accomplish a lot" with folks I don't really know or care about. (let alone dislike)

2 - I am not going to even consider /gquit without having another place to go. In fact, I would rather have a "trial" period with another guild for a few days (or even a couple weeks) than find a new guild and jump ship.

3 - If the thought of grouping up with 4 other randoms stresses me out a bit, well, you can imagine what the thought of submitting myself to entierely new guild is doing to my blood pressure.

A while back Cassandri & Lathere had a post about what a guild application should look like. 10 Tips to Successfully Apply to a Rading Guild. As I said in my comments there and in my own recent post (Just another Brick in the Wall, Eh? ) I am only willing to subject myself to a certain level of structure and/or "seriousness". Now, please understand, I will follow a RL's directions to a "T", and will gladly help a guild out via gold, mats, crafting etc. I *will* stand up for a guildie I don't really know, even as far as leaving a PUG raid to show solidarity. If I join a "team", I join the team. For me, the social aspect has a higher priority than progression. (that being said, I don't want to run with a reasonably well geared group that wipes 10 time on Marrowgar without beating him - even if they are very nice folks - I want SOME success as well)

I do believe that change is inevitable.

I have started to put out tentative feelers with folks that I see online on most evenings. Some of them are in "kinda hardcore" guilds. I don't think I would ever want to be a "full" member, but maybe something like a "pocket PUG". Someone that is around regularly, and ready/willing to run on short notice, but I don't think I could ever get into the "we raid 3 times a week at such & such a time, blah blah blah."

I just wanna have a good time with some friendly peeps.

Are there other options?

Yeah, Mass Effect 2 is sitting unopened in the living room...