Last night i took my hunter, Burlesque, to LFR with my girlfriend. We were both there as DPS and stayed for the first four bosses. Over the course of the raid, my girlfriend got one set of bracers and i got three tier pieces, one helm and two pants. I had the guys re-roll for the second pants. No, im not a greedy bastard who wanted the second pants for offspec (what offspec??) so i had no problems giving that piece to someoene else. Now if i were on my paladin, that might have been a different story. I also traded the headpiece for a chest piece since someone wanted the headpiece (probably to complete his bonus). That wasnt a problem for me because i was just happy with the 2-pc bonus, no matter what the 2 pieces are.
I did find a problem though, when i bought the pieces, i had a new problem. Peerless stats! that costs 800g in the AH. i am a leatherworker so i can cheaply make my own leg enchants, but i am sure the leg enchants would cost bundles too, upwards from 500g to 800g. Finally, there were a total of six new gem slots to fill. SIX!! where five of them were red. That's a huge amount of red gems to buy. considering, at the moment, red gems are about 300g in the AH, it doesnt make too much sense for me to buy them now. BUT to sell them!!! so i will be selling my gems again in the AH. i know that ive talked about selling gems and enchants in earlier blog posts, but here it is live and i have not ventured into the market that much. i have, however, been making about 4k gold each time i mass post some gems. it's not as high as many of the other people, but i think it's enough for me. let me try to break 500k by the end of this expansion. sounds like a good goal.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Heroic Hour of Twilight is for Gearing up from ilevel353
Last night, the last night before VP resets, i decided to finally take my warrior tank (Voltaris) out to the new 5man heroics. These new 5mans are designed for the player with minimum ilevel of 353. As luck would have it, Volt is exactly ilevel 353. So me and my girlfriend partied up and looked to the LFD tool to give us our first dungeon. Of course, since this is my first time, i was sent to End Time.
Now, I have no idea why we went to End Time since there's absolutely no reason why this instance relates to the Well of Eternity. But anyway, leave it to bliz to make awesome content while making us go in many directions as a sort of "quest". I enter and my first encounter was with a group of OK dps who liked to rush through content. aparently, they did not know how to follow the tank. We started with sylvannas and the dps tried to rush through and skip the packs. I know from experience that if you're not careful, the patrol next to sylvannas can be aggroed during the fight. so we took them out. someone pulled accidentally and we wiped from having two trash packs. in we go again and i tanked them well enough.
The sylvannas fight wasnt hard because i've done it before. my health wasnt going down much at all since most of her attacks were magic. the damage was constant and there were no spikes. the trash packs were much more difficult on my than sylvannas. in any case, im glad everyone else knew the fight and we cleared her in just one try.
The next fight was Tyrande. I was amazed at how weak the trash mobs were. it took me a second to figure out that the lights come out in predetermined spots and once i knew where to look, the whole circle became super easy to do. even the mob packs are predictable. the boss fight itself was a little tough. we died at about 1%. our hunter died about 15 seconds into the fight while the rest of us lasted until almost the end. we had a second try and i asked the folks to help interrupt stardust (i did 8 all by myself the previous fight). i also asked my girlfriend to Hero early on so we can get a good chunk of her health down before things got hairy. sure enough, we survived with me doing about 6 interrupts and the paladin doing a few. the hero helped as everyone was doing about 15k dps.
On to Murozond! We 1-shot him. love how DPS knows how to reset the encounter. I think this is one of the funner fights of the game because of the illusion that we're doing much more damage. it's an illusion because the boss itself has more health to compensate for the extra damage it takes to get him down. in that sense, we just think we're doing more damage, but the boss is dying as if it was a regular encounter. it's kinda like how a level 50 mob dies to a level 50 player the same way a level 85 mob dies to a level 85 player. down goes the dragon and i got myself a nice pair of boots!
I ran all three dungeons, each one twice, for the remainder of the night. I am mostly decked out in my old gear but i did get two drops: one, as mentioned, was the boots and the second was the shoulder pads from the Archbishop. The quest gear that dropped was a gun from killing Murozond, was a gun. Those were the only three tanking pieces i got but they're more than enough to tank these instances. There were more drops and quest rewards but those were all plate dps items. I've kept those in my bags just in case i want to try out dps for Volt.
In any case, i wrote this post to briefly show that a person in 353 gear (minimum required for Hour of Twilight dungeons) can easily tank these instances. the tank cannot chain pull as much as he likes, or ignore CC's and killing assignments. but, if done right, the whole set of instances can be completed quickly and efficiently by a tank who meets the minimum requirement. Now this is not to say you can skimp on the tanking gear. every piece of gear i had was a mix of zull gear, heroic gear and 359 justice point welfare gear. the average ilevel turned out to be 353. i still have 346 weapon and shield and i had a 333 shoulder pad before coming into that instance. however, every piece was a tanking piece. i think this is very important when going into the dungeon. i have seen way too many dps who think that they can put on half tanking gear and do well. their hope is that they have a lucky group, where a couple of great dps and a great healer can carry them. please do not do this. it puts unnecessary strain on everyone.
Thanks for reading. Tune in again next time!
Now, I have no idea why we went to End Time since there's absolutely no reason why this instance relates to the Well of Eternity. But anyway, leave it to bliz to make awesome content while making us go in many directions as a sort of "quest". I enter and my first encounter was with a group of OK dps who liked to rush through content. aparently, they did not know how to follow the tank. We started with sylvannas and the dps tried to rush through and skip the packs. I know from experience that if you're not careful, the patrol next to sylvannas can be aggroed during the fight. so we took them out. someone pulled accidentally and we wiped from having two trash packs. in we go again and i tanked them well enough.
The sylvannas fight wasnt hard because i've done it before. my health wasnt going down much at all since most of her attacks were magic. the damage was constant and there were no spikes. the trash packs were much more difficult on my than sylvannas. in any case, im glad everyone else knew the fight and we cleared her in just one try.
The next fight was Tyrande. I was amazed at how weak the trash mobs were. it took me a second to figure out that the lights come out in predetermined spots and once i knew where to look, the whole circle became super easy to do. even the mob packs are predictable. the boss fight itself was a little tough. we died at about 1%. our hunter died about 15 seconds into the fight while the rest of us lasted until almost the end. we had a second try and i asked the folks to help interrupt stardust (i did 8 all by myself the previous fight). i also asked my girlfriend to Hero early on so we can get a good chunk of her health down before things got hairy. sure enough, we survived with me doing about 6 interrupts and the paladin doing a few. the hero helped as everyone was doing about 15k dps.
On to Murozond! We 1-shot him. love how DPS knows how to reset the encounter. I think this is one of the funner fights of the game because of the illusion that we're doing much more damage. it's an illusion because the boss itself has more health to compensate for the extra damage it takes to get him down. in that sense, we just think we're doing more damage, but the boss is dying as if it was a regular encounter. it's kinda like how a level 50 mob dies to a level 50 player the same way a level 85 mob dies to a level 85 player. down goes the dragon and i got myself a nice pair of boots!
I ran all three dungeons, each one twice, for the remainder of the night. I am mostly decked out in my old gear but i did get two drops: one, as mentioned, was the boots and the second was the shoulder pads from the Archbishop. The quest gear that dropped was a gun from killing Murozond, was a gun. Those were the only three tanking pieces i got but they're more than enough to tank these instances. There were more drops and quest rewards but those were all plate dps items. I've kept those in my bags just in case i want to try out dps for Volt.
In any case, i wrote this post to briefly show that a person in 353 gear (minimum required for Hour of Twilight dungeons) can easily tank these instances. the tank cannot chain pull as much as he likes, or ignore CC's and killing assignments. but, if done right, the whole set of instances can be completed quickly and efficiently by a tank who meets the minimum requirement. Now this is not to say you can skimp on the tanking gear. every piece of gear i had was a mix of zull gear, heroic gear and 359 justice point welfare gear. the average ilevel turned out to be 353. i still have 346 weapon and shield and i had a 333 shoulder pad before coming into that instance. however, every piece was a tanking piece. i think this is very important when going into the dungeon. i have seen way too many dps who think that they can put on half tanking gear and do well. their hope is that they have a lucky group, where a couple of great dps and a great healer can carry them. please do not do this. it puts unnecessary strain on everyone.
Thanks for reading. Tune in again next time!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Epic Loot Drop
This past sunday night, i got a nice drop. Plus i was able to purchase the FL belt. i know, late in the game. but it was finally nice to have something that's hard to get (ie. shoulders). The pic itself is kinda crap with all the artifacts all over the text, but it does say, my rogue obtained the Dark Phoenix Spaulders!
Schmexy!
And this is how i look with them on:
Schmexy!
Looking for Raid; Looking to Carry
I was talking to my girlfriend last night about the changes come 4.3, primarily the gear reset, the dragon soul raid, and the new LFR system. My understanding of this is that people are encouraged to gear up using these system when they're unable to raid normally, in a guild environment, or even in a same-realm pug environment. my thoughts on the new LFR system? utter success for Blizz. utter failure for the players. here's why.
As i see it, firelands has a total of 7 bosses (yes, we're talking firelands for example). each boss gives a total of 120vp from each fireland boss (now im using 10man figures because, really, how many guilds actually care about 25man runs? anyway, the majority of the raids formed are 10mans, so 10mans will be the basis.). I will also assume that, for those who care about VP, and as an extension, capping VP weekly, they will get 6 of the 7 bosses down weekly. that's 720 VP for the week. The raid, having seven bosses and giving only 120VP per boss was designed this way to force the players to cap their VP elsewhere. I am sure there are guild-only dungeon runs for the remaining 260VP. However, i am sure there are a lot more people capping VP alone or with one other guild member using the LFD tool. Why do i see this? because i come across people in fireland gear all the time when using the LFD tool.
Imagine a couple months ago where people could only do about three or four bosses, instead of six, the valor point gained from raids is even less. imagine the other guilds who can only down shannox weekly and never quite seem to get beth or rhyo down. these guys walked away from the raid with only 120VP. just 120. that's it. Where do they go for more? Baradin Hold, of course. but after the 155vp from both occuthar and argoloth, their total VP gained is 275VP. That leaves them with 705 more VP til cap.
With this deficit until cap, players are nudged to use the LFD to get their remaining points, forcing them to play with people who might not be as good, or pays much attention to detail. i am talking about the players who constantly stand in bad stuff, doesnt know who to attack, doesnt use interrupts or dispels or the handful of tolls they're given, or does abismal dps. these guys are the guys who are usually passed up when a guild takes their 10 guys into a raid. these are also the guys who cannot seem to accomplish content when its relevant, but instead, raid older content. These are the guys with all valor point and justice point gear, having only stepped into firelands for trash runs to get the cape and belt. these are the guys who sport their kingslayer title all over the place because they got it after cata dropped and only because their raid group carried them after they died in phase 1. these are the same people who complain that their class has been nerfed "to the ground" and that's why they can do only 10k dps in all 359 gear. these people annoy the hell out of me. but i am forced to play with them when trying to cap my valor points during the week.
Let me say that i am not a hardcore player. i am a casual player and only play when i have time, namely, late nights and during the weekends. i play the AH sometimes and get a fraction of the gold i could be getting if i play the AH all day. i have at least one char of every class spread across several different realms, but playing mostly on Ravenholdt. I have some alliance characters and some horde characters. i have leveled just about every profession except for engineering. on my lazy time, i kill things to farm leather, or herb, or mine. it relaxes me and takes my mind off of my work issues. i sometime farm old dungeons for their mounts and things. if i feel adventurous and call to arms is given for tanks, i will hop on a tank and do a random "normal" heroic. not the zulls. but the other ones. but when i play, i do it well. i gauge the healer's level of competency and CC as needed, slow down as needed, and compensate for the bad DPS as needed. when i run zulls, they're done mainly on my dps toons, or on my tank with my gf healing.
i dps in zuls because i can interrupt or CC when needed, without being asked. it helps smooth out the run and i find that being a good dps makes the dungeon run smoother than having a good tank. tanks just need to hold aggro, but as i find it, a good dps makes the dungeon. if you know who to CC, who to interrupt, what spell to interrupt, who to target first, etc, it makes the dungeon run go by fast. and i often feel that i carry groups just because i did 15 interrupts to their zero interrupts, no matter what the dps meter says. often when i tank, i am glad to see the dps interrupting and using their cc's even without me asking. it's great and it makes everyone's life a lot easier.
Back to topic, the new LFR will give us a total of 500 VP a week, that's IF we complete both. we're not getting any VPs for a boss kill, we're only gett 250 VP if we kill the last boss, meaning we'll have to do both raids and kill all 8 bosses to get the 500 valor per week. That's half of our 1000 vp max. Where do you think we'll get the other 500? from the LFD tool, of course. because really, who else will use the LFR tool but the LFD users? it's made for them. What i'll see is this. my guild will run one or two raids a week. i'll get to join one of them, if im lucky, on one of my toons. the rest of my toons will be using LFR and LFD to constatly "boost" and "carry" a lot of these guys who, as mentioned above, do 10k dps in all 359s. they'll probably do 12k dps in all 378s (which is the ilevel of the new justice point items after 4.3), what this means is that the new three new 5man dungeons will be littered with people trying to cap their VPs, both the facerollers and the better players (casuals and raiders alike) who are kind of "forced" to play together. because of the cap, because of the idea that we should cap every week and also because bliz has limited VP gather towards either killing a boss in a raid or doing an LFD/LFR (yes, those are the only options), we're forced to play with others who might not share our own ideals for levels of competency.
I know that this has been a problem ever since emblems of conquest was rewarded daily in Wrath. Then it was emblems of valor, then it was emblems of triumph. these emblems encouraged the raider to farm a random dungeon at least once a day. now we can do all 7 days worth of rewards in a day. this is the LFD tool and it rewards us to carry the bads with valor points.
Now i think LFR is made completely for the baddies, as raiders who are in a guild/raid group with a set time and a set roster have people who actually want them in their raid. those who are left behind (ie. the baddies) will no longer feel left behind. and herein lies blizzard's new way for the good to carry the bad. i really dont like this system, but i see it also as a blessing, if used correctly. Sure, LFR should be called looking-for-fail, but even still, guilds can use it as a training ground for their normal raids. they can use it to train non-raiders get into raiding as well. this tool is wonderful in various ways, even if the real purpose of the LFR is for VP cappers to help the baddies. in the end, it keeps guys who complain about their "nerfed" class, doing 10k dps in 359 gear IN the game, paying their monthly subs. It keeps WoW alive a bit longer and benefits us all. because really, this game is really meant for those types of people.
As i see it, firelands has a total of 7 bosses (yes, we're talking firelands for example). each boss gives a total of 120vp from each fireland boss (now im using 10man figures because, really, how many guilds actually care about 25man runs? anyway, the majority of the raids formed are 10mans, so 10mans will be the basis.). I will also assume that, for those who care about VP, and as an extension, capping VP weekly, they will get 6 of the 7 bosses down weekly. that's 720 VP for the week. The raid, having seven bosses and giving only 120VP per boss was designed this way to force the players to cap their VP elsewhere. I am sure there are guild-only dungeon runs for the remaining 260VP. However, i am sure there are a lot more people capping VP alone or with one other guild member using the LFD tool. Why do i see this? because i come across people in fireland gear all the time when using the LFD tool.
Imagine a couple months ago where people could only do about three or four bosses, instead of six, the valor point gained from raids is even less. imagine the other guilds who can only down shannox weekly and never quite seem to get beth or rhyo down. these guys walked away from the raid with only 120VP. just 120. that's it. Where do they go for more? Baradin Hold, of course. but after the 155vp from both occuthar and argoloth, their total VP gained is 275VP. That leaves them with 705 more VP til cap.
With this deficit until cap, players are nudged to use the LFD to get their remaining points, forcing them to play with people who might not be as good, or pays much attention to detail. i am talking about the players who constantly stand in bad stuff, doesnt know who to attack, doesnt use interrupts or dispels or the handful of tolls they're given, or does abismal dps. these guys are the guys who are usually passed up when a guild takes their 10 guys into a raid. these are also the guys who cannot seem to accomplish content when its relevant, but instead, raid older content. These are the guys with all valor point and justice point gear, having only stepped into firelands for trash runs to get the cape and belt. these are the guys who sport their kingslayer title all over the place because they got it after cata dropped and only because their raid group carried them after they died in phase 1. these are the same people who complain that their class has been nerfed "to the ground" and that's why they can do only 10k dps in all 359 gear. these people annoy the hell out of me. but i am forced to play with them when trying to cap my valor points during the week.
Let me say that i am not a hardcore player. i am a casual player and only play when i have time, namely, late nights and during the weekends. i play the AH sometimes and get a fraction of the gold i could be getting if i play the AH all day. i have at least one char of every class spread across several different realms, but playing mostly on Ravenholdt. I have some alliance characters and some horde characters. i have leveled just about every profession except for engineering. on my lazy time, i kill things to farm leather, or herb, or mine. it relaxes me and takes my mind off of my work issues. i sometime farm old dungeons for their mounts and things. if i feel adventurous and call to arms is given for tanks, i will hop on a tank and do a random "normal" heroic. not the zulls. but the other ones. but when i play, i do it well. i gauge the healer's level of competency and CC as needed, slow down as needed, and compensate for the bad DPS as needed. when i run zulls, they're done mainly on my dps toons, or on my tank with my gf healing.
i dps in zuls because i can interrupt or CC when needed, without being asked. it helps smooth out the run and i find that being a good dps makes the dungeon run smoother than having a good tank. tanks just need to hold aggro, but as i find it, a good dps makes the dungeon. if you know who to CC, who to interrupt, what spell to interrupt, who to target first, etc, it makes the dungeon run go by fast. and i often feel that i carry groups just because i did 15 interrupts to their zero interrupts, no matter what the dps meter says. often when i tank, i am glad to see the dps interrupting and using their cc's even without me asking. it's great and it makes everyone's life a lot easier.
Back to topic, the new LFR will give us a total of 500 VP a week, that's IF we complete both. we're not getting any VPs for a boss kill, we're only gett 250 VP if we kill the last boss, meaning we'll have to do both raids and kill all 8 bosses to get the 500 valor per week. That's half of our 1000 vp max. Where do you think we'll get the other 500? from the LFD tool, of course. because really, who else will use the LFR tool but the LFD users? it's made for them. What i'll see is this. my guild will run one or two raids a week. i'll get to join one of them, if im lucky, on one of my toons. the rest of my toons will be using LFR and LFD to constatly "boost" and "carry" a lot of these guys who, as mentioned above, do 10k dps in all 359s. they'll probably do 12k dps in all 378s (which is the ilevel of the new justice point items after 4.3), what this means is that the new three new 5man dungeons will be littered with people trying to cap their VPs, both the facerollers and the better players (casuals and raiders alike) who are kind of "forced" to play together. because of the cap, because of the idea that we should cap every week and also because bliz has limited VP gather towards either killing a boss in a raid or doing an LFD/LFR (yes, those are the only options), we're forced to play with others who might not share our own ideals for levels of competency.
I know that this has been a problem ever since emblems of conquest was rewarded daily in Wrath. Then it was emblems of valor, then it was emblems of triumph. these emblems encouraged the raider to farm a random dungeon at least once a day. now we can do all 7 days worth of rewards in a day. this is the LFD tool and it rewards us to carry the bads with valor points.
Now i think LFR is made completely for the baddies, as raiders who are in a guild/raid group with a set time and a set roster have people who actually want them in their raid. those who are left behind (ie. the baddies) will no longer feel left behind. and herein lies blizzard's new way for the good to carry the bad. i really dont like this system, but i see it also as a blessing, if used correctly. Sure, LFR should be called looking-for-fail, but even still, guilds can use it as a training ground for their normal raids. they can use it to train non-raiders get into raiding as well. this tool is wonderful in various ways, even if the real purpose of the LFR is for VP cappers to help the baddies. in the end, it keeps guys who complain about their "nerfed" class, doing 10k dps in 359 gear IN the game, paying their monthly subs. It keeps WoW alive a bit longer and benefits us all. because really, this game is really meant for those types of people.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Busy Night for the Rogue
My rogue had a lucky night last night, and hoping to do more next weekend.
Since my alliance guild has moved, i've been playing my horde a little more. my guild went to do FL on saturday and sunday. Saturday we took down shannox and beth. i got no drops. my gf got no drops. but we did get a hefty chunk of exp and rep, being that it's our first times in FL on these toons, rep was fun to get. On our second night, we went and did Rhyo and Alysrazor and did a couple attemps on Baelroc (Yes, i know my spelling sucks). Rhyo dropped a cape for me and Alys dropped a dagger. it was, overall, a better-than-expected night for me. this is the case because on my ally toon, there isnt much that drops for me. i've been hoping for a ransuer of hatred for my hunter for weeks. i dont even care for the cape from Rhyo, but it somehow dropped for my rogue. either way, nice stuffs. i kinda felt like i shouldnt have rolled for the dagger (even though i was the only one that can use it, and i was also the only one that rolled on it). but i figured i might as well trade the cape with someone who needed it. actually, the cape had two other rollers for it. i rolled a 9 and i won it. really. at least it beat a 7. haha. =D
And i did occuthar for the first time on my rogue the night before. it was fun but my dps wasnt stellar at all. it actually sucked IMO.
Finally, i really really really feel bad for my gf. she's been trying to farm zanzil for his plate healy helm for about 3 months. no helm. she's also been trying to get the mail healer headpiece from some boss in the zul dungeons for the past 2 weeks. no drops. it seems that the drops she needs never drop for the character that needs it, but always drop for the characters that dont need it. well, thats RNG for you. in the firelands run, she hasnt gotten anything either. but she did get enough rep to get a better cape. next will be a belt. at least we'll get that. i cant wait to upgrade my belt. hopefully i can also get an entrail disgorger or the gatecrasher. or even that mace i cant remember the name of. anyway. gonna be running zuls for my gf's gear next week. we'll see how it goes.
Since my alliance guild has moved, i've been playing my horde a little more. my guild went to do FL on saturday and sunday. Saturday we took down shannox and beth. i got no drops. my gf got no drops. but we did get a hefty chunk of exp and rep, being that it's our first times in FL on these toons, rep was fun to get. On our second night, we went and did Rhyo and Alysrazor and did a couple attemps on Baelroc (Yes, i know my spelling sucks). Rhyo dropped a cape for me and Alys dropped a dagger. it was, overall, a better-than-expected night for me. this is the case because on my ally toon, there isnt much that drops for me. i've been hoping for a ransuer of hatred for my hunter for weeks. i dont even care for the cape from Rhyo, but it somehow dropped for my rogue. either way, nice stuffs. i kinda felt like i shouldnt have rolled for the dagger (even though i was the only one that can use it, and i was also the only one that rolled on it). but i figured i might as well trade the cape with someone who needed it. actually, the cape had two other rollers for it. i rolled a 9 and i won it. really. at least it beat a 7. haha. =D
And i did occuthar for the first time on my rogue the night before. it was fun but my dps wasnt stellar at all. it actually sucked IMO.
Finally, i really really really feel bad for my gf. she's been trying to farm zanzil for his plate healy helm for about 3 months. no helm. she's also been trying to get the mail healer headpiece from some boss in the zul dungeons for the past 2 weeks. no drops. it seems that the drops she needs never drop for the character that needs it, but always drop for the characters that dont need it. well, thats RNG for you. in the firelands run, she hasnt gotten anything either. but she did get enough rep to get a better cape. next will be a belt. at least we'll get that. i cant wait to upgrade my belt. hopefully i can also get an entrail disgorger or the gatecrasher. or even that mace i cant remember the name of. anyway. gonna be running zuls for my gf's gear next week. we'll see how it goes.
Investment Planning for Patch 4.3
Hi guys,
Just a brainstorming post today. I just want to take inventory of most of my toons and try to sell what i need to sell and pick up what i need to pick up. 4.3 is just around the corner with the end of the arena season even closer. What do i expect to see? a lot of people dumping their stocks as well. last night i saw volatiles for about 75% cheaper than normal and bought a few. i am not going to resell these come 4.3, but stock up on truegolds (via daily xmutes) to sell later. currently, my server has truegolds at around 450-500gold. buying up the stocks of pyrium bars, volatile air, water and fires will still cost about 300g per truegold, but procs are what im after. even still, 100g profit per bar, if there's no proc, is still pretty good--today. i am betting on them going up in prices for the next tier raids, since crafting professions will still use them. the only change is that chaos orbs will be going cheap in the AH since there's a lot stuck to characters who dont use all of them. plus, we'll see a lot of them out for sale since people will be running heroics more often, with three extra dungeons.
The other thing i can stockpile up for with the volatiles are the pvp gears. a lot of the hardcore pvper's already will have their HPs and JPs maxed, ready to buy their honor pieces (and convert their JPs to HPs once their HPs run out) come next season. with the HP to JP depreciation, you'll get about 2600 HPs from your stockpiled 4000 JPs. So if pvpers can get about 3 pieces the very first day, and possible 4 more by the end of the week, they'll need something to fill in the extra slots.
here's what i see them thinking. they have a total of 6600 points (4000 + 2600). what's the best way to spend that? accessories or sets? i'd personally go for the sets, but you can go for the accessories if, maybe, they already have last season's set and do not need to upgrade yet. So there will be people who prioritize the chest, pants, shoulders, gloves and helm first (or just the 2pc bonus). others will want the rings, cape, bracers, belt and neck and keep their old set bonus until they get enough points to replace two pieces at once. two pieces b/c of the bonuses, ofc. im leaving trinkets out of this. but overall, gear sales will go up. hopefully, the mats will be the same. they'll just update the recipes of the bloodthirsty items.
What i do want to get rid of are the inscription items. darkmoon cards, especially. they're not selling well and are going for a loss. each card costs me about 800g to make. while some cards are going for 1000g or more, the majority of them are going for about 500g. need to get rid of those. as well, i think i'll be mass-making glyphs this weekend just to remove my stocks of inks. they're overflowing my bank space and i'd rather make glyphs and sell those than sell the inks. i dont know, maybe because i have that ability. anyway, books of glyph mastery are going for 1k and i need to fund that! i am a completionist in that sense. funny how im JC, i only learn what i think will sell well, and slowly fill out the rest of my recipes when i have enough tokens hoarded up. i dont know any of the jewelry recipes (necklaces, rings) because i never saw a profit from selling those. at least, not a steady profit.
I'll still look for cheap elementium ores and obsidium ores (for my server, elementiums less than 60g/stack and obsidium less than 50g/stack). hoarding gems at least since they'll still sell. raiders will have to fight it out amongst themselves for their epic gems, but when it comes to rare quality gems, they'll still flock to the AH.
One of my toons has about 500 infinite dusts and such, all northrend enchanting supplies. i think the prices are pretty steep at this time and would be a good time to at least start selling them slowly. this simply means i'll be logging into another character daily to check auctions, repost, etc. the 500 dusts arent really that much, but it's still quite a bit of gold. i have various things to disenchant as well, which will all go to the AH soon since i dont think enchanting mats will retain its value. its been slowly declining over the weeks. heavenly shards, that used to be about 175g are now about 90g. maelstroms, which hovered at about 300g are now just a little over 100g. even the recipes are slowly dropping in prices. landslide was at about 2k gold, now down to 1k, which is about equal the price of mats, so you'll make more gold advertising in trade and getting tips for it than if you post it on the AH.
twinks or leveling alts are slowly dying. how? my enchant agility to weapon, crusader to weapon, even fiery or icy chill arent selling well at all. and no, i havent had the luck of getting spell power enchant at all. plus, there's no real time to farm it.
TL:DR - I am stockpiling gems of all kinds and buying elementiums and obsidiums when it's low (below 50-60g in my realm). from the prospects, i'm doing the basic shuffle (shadowspirits, more gems, daily prism making, and making jewelry to D/E.
Since the only profitable pvp gear is actually leather/mail gear, i'll be focusing on that market (as opposed to cloth and plate). with cloth and plate, i'll probably buy low and sell normal like i did this patch. for the mail pieces, i'll probably end up making the chest, pants, helm and shoulders. hordeside, i know the pvp leather sets, and alliance side, i know the pvp mail sets. will be x-faction trading some items to see how they sell also.
I am also trying to sell my stocks of old content enchanting mats. For the cata mats, i am still wondering if i should sell everything now (since prices of these things will probably drop, though i am hoping not) or hold on to it hoping that prices will normalize. part of me says sunk costs, but the other part of me says hold on! hold on! im going to lean more on sunk cost scenario and liquidate soon. enchanting isnt my major profession anyway, so selling all the mats will probably net me about 20k anyway. that's probalby what i'll make in scroll sales come 4.3. which means... better to have the 20k in liquid gold when 4.3 drops because then, i'll be able to see where the market moves and then invest and react then. liquidity is a big thing, especially when looking at credit like i do at work.
But 20k gold... this isnt a big thing to watch out for and manage. if i only get 10k back, i'll be fine. now, if i have enough stock to get a possible 100k, then i'll be more focused on this market. but for the time being, it seems my main moneymaker, three years running, is JC. i'll be expecting to increase my gold by about 100k when my gem stocks run out (calculates in brain with no proof: about 3 weeks of AH whoring will deplete my stocks).
Just a brainstorming post today. I just want to take inventory of most of my toons and try to sell what i need to sell and pick up what i need to pick up. 4.3 is just around the corner with the end of the arena season even closer. What do i expect to see? a lot of people dumping their stocks as well. last night i saw volatiles for about 75% cheaper than normal and bought a few. i am not going to resell these come 4.3, but stock up on truegolds (via daily xmutes) to sell later. currently, my server has truegolds at around 450-500gold. buying up the stocks of pyrium bars, volatile air, water and fires will still cost about 300g per truegold, but procs are what im after. even still, 100g profit per bar, if there's no proc, is still pretty good--today. i am betting on them going up in prices for the next tier raids, since crafting professions will still use them. the only change is that chaos orbs will be going cheap in the AH since there's a lot stuck to characters who dont use all of them. plus, we'll see a lot of them out for sale since people will be running heroics more often, with three extra dungeons.
The other thing i can stockpile up for with the volatiles are the pvp gears. a lot of the hardcore pvper's already will have their HPs and JPs maxed, ready to buy their honor pieces (and convert their JPs to HPs once their HPs run out) come next season. with the HP to JP depreciation, you'll get about 2600 HPs from your stockpiled 4000 JPs. So if pvpers can get about 3 pieces the very first day, and possible 4 more by the end of the week, they'll need something to fill in the extra slots.
here's what i see them thinking. they have a total of 6600 points (4000 + 2600). what's the best way to spend that? accessories or sets? i'd personally go for the sets, but you can go for the accessories if, maybe, they already have last season's set and do not need to upgrade yet. So there will be people who prioritize the chest, pants, shoulders, gloves and helm first (or just the 2pc bonus). others will want the rings, cape, bracers, belt and neck and keep their old set bonus until they get enough points to replace two pieces at once. two pieces b/c of the bonuses, ofc. im leaving trinkets out of this. but overall, gear sales will go up. hopefully, the mats will be the same. they'll just update the recipes of the bloodthirsty items.
What i do want to get rid of are the inscription items. darkmoon cards, especially. they're not selling well and are going for a loss. each card costs me about 800g to make. while some cards are going for 1000g or more, the majority of them are going for about 500g. need to get rid of those. as well, i think i'll be mass-making glyphs this weekend just to remove my stocks of inks. they're overflowing my bank space and i'd rather make glyphs and sell those than sell the inks. i dont know, maybe because i have that ability. anyway, books of glyph mastery are going for 1k and i need to fund that! i am a completionist in that sense. funny how im JC, i only learn what i think will sell well, and slowly fill out the rest of my recipes when i have enough tokens hoarded up. i dont know any of the jewelry recipes (necklaces, rings) because i never saw a profit from selling those. at least, not a steady profit.
I'll still look for cheap elementium ores and obsidium ores (for my server, elementiums less than 60g/stack and obsidium less than 50g/stack). hoarding gems at least since they'll still sell. raiders will have to fight it out amongst themselves for their epic gems, but when it comes to rare quality gems, they'll still flock to the AH.
One of my toons has about 500 infinite dusts and such, all northrend enchanting supplies. i think the prices are pretty steep at this time and would be a good time to at least start selling them slowly. this simply means i'll be logging into another character daily to check auctions, repost, etc. the 500 dusts arent really that much, but it's still quite a bit of gold. i have various things to disenchant as well, which will all go to the AH soon since i dont think enchanting mats will retain its value. its been slowly declining over the weeks. heavenly shards, that used to be about 175g are now about 90g. maelstroms, which hovered at about 300g are now just a little over 100g. even the recipes are slowly dropping in prices. landslide was at about 2k gold, now down to 1k, which is about equal the price of mats, so you'll make more gold advertising in trade and getting tips for it than if you post it on the AH.
twinks or leveling alts are slowly dying. how? my enchant agility to weapon, crusader to weapon, even fiery or icy chill arent selling well at all. and no, i havent had the luck of getting spell power enchant at all. plus, there's no real time to farm it.
TL:DR - I am stockpiling gems of all kinds and buying elementiums and obsidiums when it's low (below 50-60g in my realm). from the prospects, i'm doing the basic shuffle (shadowspirits, more gems, daily prism making, and making jewelry to D/E.
Since the only profitable pvp gear is actually leather/mail gear, i'll be focusing on that market (as opposed to cloth and plate). with cloth and plate, i'll probably buy low and sell normal like i did this patch. for the mail pieces, i'll probably end up making the chest, pants, helm and shoulders. hordeside, i know the pvp leather sets, and alliance side, i know the pvp mail sets. will be x-faction trading some items to see how they sell also.
I am also trying to sell my stocks of old content enchanting mats. For the cata mats, i am still wondering if i should sell everything now (since prices of these things will probably drop, though i am hoping not) or hold on to it hoping that prices will normalize. part of me says sunk costs, but the other part of me says hold on! hold on! im going to lean more on sunk cost scenario and liquidate soon. enchanting isnt my major profession anyway, so selling all the mats will probably net me about 20k anyway. that's probalby what i'll make in scroll sales come 4.3. which means... better to have the 20k in liquid gold when 4.3 drops because then, i'll be able to see where the market moves and then invest and react then. liquidity is a big thing, especially when looking at credit like i do at work.
But 20k gold... this isnt a big thing to watch out for and manage. if i only get 10k back, i'll be fine. now, if i have enough stock to get a possible 100k, then i'll be more focused on this market. but for the time being, it seems my main moneymaker, three years running, is JC. i'll be expecting to increase my gold by about 100k when my gem stocks run out (calculates in brain with no proof: about 3 weeks of AH whoring will deplete my stocks).
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Mohawks Rock
This is what i see when i visit the WoW page.
Somehow i really like Mr. T's Night Elf Mohawk look.
Or maybe it's just the shoulderpads. who knows.
Somehow i really like Mr. T's Night Elf Mohawk look.
Or maybe it's just the shoulderpads. who knows.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Time Flies
I received my achievement for gaining exalted rep with my alliance guild the other night. Sadly, i had to guild quit shortly after because they leaders/officers had a dispute and decided to take the guild to another realm. Good luck to them.
Before i left, i picked up a lion mount and a dark phoenix mount. also grabbed the minipet too. finally, i took a few screen shots which i'll post soon.
So, if you're in the US Ravenholdt server, and would like two farily awesome dps in your alliance raids (weekends for now), me and my gf are now homeless. You can check my armory to the left. My raiding toon is named Burlésque. my gf's char is similarly geared and somehow does more damage than me. go figure. arcane mages, really. anyway.
On the hordeside of things, my guild, Riskbreakers, is doing well. we recently received an influx of members from some dying guild and are now doing well. we were also dying several months back before we merged with another, also dying, guild. well, thankfully, things worked out and i am hoping to see more weekend raids scheduled to cater to everyone. hopefully i get to raid on my horde toons too. i'd love to either rogue it up or dk it up. but we'll see what happens.
so this is just a quick update. hope you all have a wonderful day.
Before i left, i picked up a lion mount and a dark phoenix mount. also grabbed the minipet too. finally, i took a few screen shots which i'll post soon.
So, if you're in the US Ravenholdt server, and would like two farily awesome dps in your alliance raids (weekends for now), me and my gf are now homeless. You can check my armory to the left. My raiding toon is named Burlésque. my gf's char is similarly geared and somehow does more damage than me. go figure. arcane mages, really. anyway.
On the hordeside of things, my guild, Riskbreakers, is doing well. we recently received an influx of members from some dying guild and are now doing well. we were also dying several months back before we merged with another, also dying, guild. well, thankfully, things worked out and i am hoping to see more weekend raids scheduled to cater to everyone. hopefully i get to raid on my horde toons too. i'd love to either rogue it up or dk it up. but we'll see what happens.
so this is just a quick update. hope you all have a wonderful day.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Bad DPS
Bad dps is the reason why i dont like to tank using the LFD tool. dsp queue times can be a lot shorter if more tanks wanted to be tanks. but those who actually do want to be tanks often have to deal with bad groups as well as angry mobs. now the angry mobs are one thing, that's what i signed up for. but the bad dps? well i do go into random dungeons with both eyes opened, knowing that i will get these silly low dps, stands-in-bads and do not know how to cc or interrupt kinda guys. there's so many of them and i often as myself if it's really worth the hassle to even do any of these dungeon runs.
Now the problem with bad dps is that it can be masked easily. have 1 bad dps? sure. the other two can cover him. if there's 2, then maybe there's a third, stellar dps who's able to help the tank and healer cc, interrupt, or even *gasp* dps. yes a dps who dps's!! nice.
But the other day, zoning into a dungeon where two shamans, apparently a couple, did not know how to dps well (heroic sfk, 6k dps) nor did they even try to interrupt after i've stated many times to use wind shear (me and my gf were doing 100% of the interrupts). what made it worse was the third dps also couldnt figure out directions. he was a mage who didnt know how to counterspell or spell steal. i doubt if he was even able to sheep anything. all i saw was sub par damage. every once in a while their dps went to 8k, but overall, it was abysmal for heroics anything. gear isnt going to help their bad numbers.
in any case, i want to make this post short. so here it goes. bad dps (not low dps, but bad dps) are the primary causes for long queue times. they discourage tanks to join the lfd queue, even with the satchel of exotic mysterious pleasures, it's not a great incentive to even want to go through with these bad dps folks. the shamans left after a couple of wipes on springvale, in which i've mentioned time and time again to interrupt the adds. people seem to all like to stand in bad, etc. me and my girlfriend, after 3 bosses, were still 100% interrupters.
anyway. here's to hoping for better groups.
Now the problem with bad dps is that it can be masked easily. have 1 bad dps? sure. the other two can cover him. if there's 2, then maybe there's a third, stellar dps who's able to help the tank and healer cc, interrupt, or even *gasp* dps. yes a dps who dps's!! nice.
But the other day, zoning into a dungeon where two shamans, apparently a couple, did not know how to dps well (heroic sfk, 6k dps) nor did they even try to interrupt after i've stated many times to use wind shear (me and my gf were doing 100% of the interrupts). what made it worse was the third dps also couldnt figure out directions. he was a mage who didnt know how to counterspell or spell steal. i doubt if he was even able to sheep anything. all i saw was sub par damage. every once in a while their dps went to 8k, but overall, it was abysmal for heroics anything. gear isnt going to help their bad numbers.
in any case, i want to make this post short. so here it goes. bad dps (not low dps, but bad dps) are the primary causes for long queue times. they discourage tanks to join the lfd queue, even with the satchel of exotic mysterious pleasures, it's not a great incentive to even want to go through with these bad dps folks. the shamans left after a couple of wipes on springvale, in which i've mentioned time and time again to interrupt the adds. people seem to all like to stand in bad, etc. me and my girlfriend, after 3 bosses, were still 100% interrupters.
anyway. here's to hoping for better groups.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Night Elf Druids (lv.11-19)
So far our druid leveling escapades have led us to darkshore, where we learned that Auberdine was destroyed. We're here to help mend the lands, once again. but this time, not from some taint or corruption, but from invaders. Firstly, we went to rescue the wounded and fend off some elementals. Then the story took a turn and we're now facing troll menace from the north. So stuck between a rock and a hard place, we ended up beating the horde and killing the leaders there. then we returned to mending the land and fighting off the twilight's hammer. it was a kind of back and forth sorth of thing that got a little confusing. but oh well. it will lead us to the invasion further in ashenvale. but not yet! we're just about to start the quests in southern darkshore. we're both 19, but that's leveling ready for ashenvale, not southern darkshore. oh well. blizz made leveling super fast that we outlevel content even if we decide not to. im tempted to not rest at the inn.
In any case, Demarionn is now 19 and can take hits a little better. Charlize is also 19 and is doing just fine. I think we'll skip Deadmines and wailing caverns. but starting level 30, we're looking to do dungeons once only. meaning rfk once, sm:library once, etc. once to do the quests given, and that's it. if things for us do not drop. so be it. we dont really need them anyway.
Here's updated screen shots from the armory since i know blog readers like pictures... and not words. for some reason.
I say... awesome low level set. i like the black top and the black staff. it reminds me somewhat of a pool cue stick. as for me, im usually in my cat form so no big deal as to what i look like.
In any case, Demarionn is now 19 and can take hits a little better. Charlize is also 19 and is doing just fine. I think we'll skip Deadmines and wailing caverns. but starting level 30, we're looking to do dungeons once only. meaning rfk once, sm:library once, etc. once to do the quests given, and that's it. if things for us do not drop. so be it. we dont really need them anyway.
Here's updated screen shots from the armory since i know blog readers like pictures... and not words. for some reason.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
I Cried
Guildie i've never seen before gets the polearm i've been wanting for the past four months.
/cry
Monday, October 31, 2011
Special Characters
Blizz has made the announcment that, upon the launch of 4.3, they will no longer allow special characters in names. there has been some complaints, but most are in favor of this change, per reaction in the forums, of course. but i can understand why. there are people who use this feature to find a name that is already taken, not for the purpose of scamming, but simply because they want that name themselves. the current system in wow does not allow multiples of the same names in the same server. perhaps a surname would solve this issue.
but people would change one or two characters in their names to be special characters. i understand the use of this completely. my hunter, Burlésque, and my rogue, Brunö have these special characters because someone already took the original names. anyone with a pulse will ignore the accents and pronouce my character's names without the accents. those who argue about accents are just grasping at straws. what i dont understand, and do not condone, are those who use special characters over and over again. it's not that special and gets quite annoying, really. one example i have for you is shown below. i was looking for my warrior's armory (on Ysondre) and found abuse.
This is why special characters will no longer be allowed:
checking further, this is a level 25 alliance guild with 980 members. nine. hundred. eighty.
Now, i understand if maybe they used all those characters to denote that even the name of the guild is "chaotic" but i doubt that. even then, it is an eyesore and a total abuse of a system. take advantage of the "unenforced" naming policy long enough and we'll slowly get repercussions.
Again, i have no issues with people changing one letter in their name because the original name is taken. blizz has made a concession for that and knows that there might be some abuse. however, with the above name, that abuse gets way out of control. Now looking at the members of the guild, i see very few with special characters. even the guild leader's name doesnt have special characters. but as a whole, the guild bugs me very slightly. very slightly enough to forget this post next week. but for those on Perenolde, and for those who might be in the Cyclone battlegroup, there may be a lot of /sigh when a member of the above guild is spotted.
but people would change one or two characters in their names to be special characters. i understand the use of this completely. my hunter, Burlésque, and my rogue, Brunö have these special characters because someone already took the original names. anyone with a pulse will ignore the accents and pronouce my character's names without the accents. those who argue about accents are just grasping at straws. what i dont understand, and do not condone, are those who use special characters over and over again. it's not that special and gets quite annoying, really. one example i have for you is shown below. i was looking for my warrior's armory (on Ysondre) and found abuse.
This is why special characters will no longer be allowed:
Now, i understand if maybe they used all those characters to denote that even the name of the guild is "chaotic" but i doubt that. even then, it is an eyesore and a total abuse of a system. take advantage of the "unenforced" naming policy long enough and we'll slowly get repercussions.
Again, i have no issues with people changing one letter in their name because the original name is taken. blizz has made a concession for that and knows that there might be some abuse. however, with the above name, that abuse gets way out of control. Now looking at the members of the guild, i see very few with special characters. even the guild leader's name doesnt have special characters. but as a whole, the guild bugs me very slightly. very slightly enough to forget this post next week. but for those on Perenolde, and for those who might be in the Cyclone battlegroup, there may be a lot of /sigh when a member of the above guild is spotted.
Night Elf Druids (Lv 1-10)
Every now and again i will be blogging about my new adventures with my girlfriend. Expect updates on a weekly or biweekly basis, if we continue playing.
Me and my girlfriend started playing new alts just this past weekend. We made two nightelf druids and began questing in Teldrasil. Going through the quests a second time for me are a lot more fun than before. firstly, i have a partner to party with. but secondly, there's things added to the game that makes questing more immersed and streamlined than before.
The quests are a little more streamline--the quest givers are closer together and the objectives arent so far apart. when doing the filling the moonwell quests, i noticed a little bit of story being told by the apparitions that appear at each moonwell. this is quite a nice touch and gets people into the whole story of how teldrasil was made. inside the druid's den, we had sentinels join us, leading the way around the big place. one quest seems to be missing down there, but because there's just so many furbolgs down there and the den is almost like a maze, its a great idea that the quest was gone. but a sentinel sidekick that shows us the way to go? omg awesome!
The second thing i really liked about leveling a druid again is the change to wrath spam. no longer do i have to deal with it for 20 levels. actually, what i did previously was, if i can recall correctly, starfire, moonfire, wrathspam!! if they were tough, and most mobs back in the days were, i'd hit bearform when they reach melee and end the fight as a bear. it was pretty easy, but long. now it's just easy, but if you're not careful with add control, a couple of adds and you can go down quick. My girlfriend found that out the hard way with the harpies in teldrasil. pulling one to us would have been a better option than to root it where it was, aggroing another 3 in the process. well, lesson learned. So getting cat form at level 8 really helped to show what druids are all about. we start off with wrath spams and moonfires, which is from the balance tree. then we get rejuvenation and nourish, quite awesome healing spells already at level 8-ish. finally, we get cat form with several new attacks. we get two levels to play before deciding on whether or not to go balance or feral. restoration may be an option to level, even when playing solo, but who wants to willingly submit themselves to torture?
Now i know why i like my rogue so much. we're all ninjas! cats are ninjas too! i really did like playing as a cat druid and never really connected it to my rogue, or other melee classes until now. so with that said, i know i will be leveling as feral. being feral also gives me a better stealth than the balance druid who just needs to go into catform and stealth in order to bypass some mobs. but even still, the M.O., or modus operandi, for me and my girlfriend will be, especially if we dont have to kill x number of peons before we kill a named boss, will me to sneak past EVERYTHING, and kill the boss. sneak out, turn in quest, level!
Now we're level 10 and just about to leave the starting zone. hopefully we'll get acquainted with darnassus again figure out the map in no time. this time, we'll be able to chill with the worgens as well. hopefully they dont bite or else i'll have to go catform on them. but i hear they're a serious bunch and quite industrious in their old homeland. after that, im really keen on helping my fellow nightelves out in darkshore and ashenvale. hopefully, we can knock back the horde offensive there.
as far as leveling goes, i really do want to keep things as close to night elf centric as possible. i really want to level through the night elf story only (since i know leveling speed is a joke) to get the most out of the story. If anyone knows the best path to take, please let me know. i know for sure that darkshore and ashenvale will probably be our next zones. but after that, i am not sure. possibly stonetalon mtns and feralas? i dont want to go help any gnomes or dwarves or humans, not unless i have to. i dont hate them or anything, and there's nothing wrong with helping them, as they are alliance. but im more into helping the nightelf race solve their own problems first. thanks!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Enough With the Panda Hate.
Tanking is Fun
Today's post is in response, actually not a response, but on the same topic, as gavlon's post found here and the grumpy's post found here.
gavlon states two very important things. One, tanking sucks. and two, to fix this, make all tanking like blood Dk tanking. Grumpy talks about how tanking in raids vs dungeons is like night and day. i agree with grumpy on his opinion. i disagree with gavlon.
Now here's my little input on tanking, why i like/dislike it, and what i could do to make it more fun. Actually, if you read the comments from gavl's post, everyone is pretty spot on in their assessment of tanking in Wow. it's something not many people would want to do, especially for Pug groups (which is why i keep asking my gf to see if anyone in our guild wants to join us). Read the comments. they're very true of why wait times are so long for the dps and tanks are so hard to come by, in random pugs.
Let me explain why my gf is asking my guild if anyone wants to join in our run. We're level 82 and 84, or about there but are on two different realms. i blame the character limits for this. since i am only able to have 10 characters on one realm, making a new character to level with her requires that i make a new character on a new realm and level through instances. you can see just how boring that can be, going through the same dungeons over and over again until, thankfully, we outlevel them, only to be greeted with 20 more runs of another dungeon. So after maybe 82 levels if this, you can see why i soooo would rather party with people i know instead of a bunch of puggers who sometimes decides to act up or try to run the show (and why is it always a mage???).
My gf is lucky. she has a bf tank who knows all the dungeons, pretty much inside and out, knows who to CC, who does the worst damage, how pulls should be coordinated, etc. i know all this because i've tanked all of these instances many times before. going into gnomeregan, blackrock depths and blackrock spire i get comments like, "thank god, someone who knows where to go!" my gf knows she's lucky and she makes me skewered eels for my hunter to show her appreciation. ^_^
Now on to the bad. I dont like tanking. i dont like tanking because i have to be responsible. i have to know the fights, kill order, cc order, react to environmental changes, bad dps, etc. i dont suffer from bad healing becuase, well, i have a pocket healer that does an awesome job. but i really dont want to take on, what seems almost like a job, to play a game where the point of the game is to relax, or at least problem-solve to get my mind off of the real life issues such as work. In-game, i dont want to be responsible for hearding cattle. it feels almost like that sometimes, even if it's just one dps who runs around and acts a fool, it's still a pain to deal with. i play this game to have fun, not to baby sit. This is the main issue of tanking and many tanks have gone to great lengths to simply tank for their guildies, thereby bypassing a lot of the stupid that goes on in random pugs. What is it about LFD that makes it soooo bad? it's because no one has any accountability that they can cause some amount of grief to their teammates and get away with it. i am not saying it doesnt happen before LFD, but LFD made pugs a ceaspool of stupid, rude and arrogant idiots that i hope never to have in my guild, no matter how leet their dps may be.
The good thing about tanking is that, when i do get a good group (and lately i have), things go smoothly and i only have to deal with the in-game mechanics. sometimes i get the occassional lazy dps who doesnt know how to target my own target, or the drone-like dps who doesnt see that they're breaking CC left and right. but those are okay to deal with (i sometimes let the aggro king tank the mob). what i've developed is somewhat of a limit as to my responsibilities. i am not responsible for a mob if it get's pulled off of me deliberately. and not targeting my own target is deliberate. being too lazy to check the unit frames to see who i am tanking is deliberately being lazy. so i let them tank it and not think too much about it. if others decide to pull for me, i can simply let them tank it. and everyone goes at my pace. sounds about right. even the gogogogo baddies get ignored. if they're doing low dps, i dont care.
this attitude works out just fine in the end since most groups consist of at least one guy carrying everyone, especially when all of the dungeons are nerfed to death and people are buffed to kingdom come. i was in violet hold, level 75 instance when i noticed this. pretty much everyone except for rogues were doing 3k dps. 1k on bosses, but settling on 2-3k dps for most of the pulls. now to put all of this into perspective, the dps requirement to do Naxx when Naxx was current content as 1.6k dps. that's the low end and doing 2.0k dps was considered good. Ulduar saw it jump to 3k while ICC saw the minimum (not what people were doing, but the minimum to even be considered) was about 5k dps. in one expansion, the dps requirement went from 1.6k to 5k. that's ridiculous. overinflation i tell you.
we were all doing awesome damage and so it covers for the fact that maybe there's one or two baddies in the group. it's fine. even in vortex pinnicle, black rock caverns and throne of the tides, things went smoothly. it seemed that the boss' health has been dropped to about half of what it was when cata came out. im sad at this. also, many of the abilities arent as bad (except for Commander Ulthok's Dark Fissure, boy does that hurt) so level through them is cake, especially for a tank that knows the pulls. Now, Ulthok did kill me twice with dark fissure, only because there's also a slowing effect somewhere and i ended up not able to run out of it fast enough. he dropped a nice cape for me when he finally did die. overall, tanking has dumbed down a little due to the easy mechanics of the fights now. this doesnt change the fact that i may get some terrible players, or mages who try to lead the group, but at least there is some concession for tanks when they do pug.
Tangent: i dont feel bad about needing on dps gear anymore, but i do watch to see if the dps actually needs it or not. i just do if it has mastery, since mastery is great. it's a universal stat, and if an item has it with crit or haste or expt, i simply reforge the crit/haste/exp to parry. mastery smooths out damage taken, so i'll keep that, thank you very much. so if no one needs it, i'll need it for tanking. this is one thing that i really like about mastery is that it's a universal stat. although some classes might not categorize it as high priority, it has uses for EVERY class in the game. before, i was limited to dodge/parry gear. now i have an option to add mastery gear too.
Besides the random "good" people and the toned-down version of each isntance, problem solving in-game makes tanking fun. what i mean by this is that each dungeon group is varied. although the mobs stay the same, the types of people, the class compositions, and the style of pulling all change and i must adapt accordingly. it is not the same as the Diablo-esque feel where each time you step into the 1st floor of a dungeon, the maze gets reset and the layout changes to make it feel like you're in a new dungeon. it's more of the way i want to pull, where i want to move the mobs, who i want to CC and who does the CC and for how long. each mob has their own unique ability where i may be able to dispel, or a hope that mage who tried to lead knows how to spell steal. or hoping the group just doesnt try to aoe down two mobs. yes, i've seen many mages and warlocks use their blizzard or rain of fire... on two mobs.
The best, and pretty much most important thing that makes tanking fun are the tanking abilities. I have all tanking classes and the most fun tanking class i've ever played is the warrior class. Dks are fun too, so are druidsd and paladins. but high above those three is the warrior. The reason? Charge/intercept/intervene and shockwave/thunderclap. Now the first one is charge, and i will include intercept and intervene in the smae category. it's my charge. i rush in and do damage. mob's somewhere else? charge! healer getting chewed on? charge! mobility is key when tanking, because if im charged (no pun) with keeping people alive, one of the best abilities to have is a gap-closer that will allow me to tank stray mobs somewhere. i found this very useful and very rewarding. what paladins have is a shield that silences to bring mobs to them and dk's have deathgrip, which has a long cooldown. the only other class with this are druid bears who have a charge. however, since i charge to start a fight, my charge cooldown really sucks when, in the beginning of a pull, the objective is to round up all the mobs into one convenient pack. not having an extra charge reders the druid almost unless when rounding up mobs when initiating a pull.
The other ability is shockwave and to a lesser extent, thunderclap. the two things these abilities have in common are it's abiltiy to do some Aoe effect beyond cleave. now cleave is great, as is blood strike, hammer of the righteous and swipe. but only the warrior have something that he constantly uses to basically "stomp" the ground and remind the mobs just how awesome he is. shockwave is a great ability because it stuns the targets, giving everyone time to catch up, pick the right target, and top everyone off. this ability is wonderful because it also acts as one of my interrupts. no other class really has these two abilities although there is similar. dk's have blood boil, but it doesnt have the same "umph" to it, nor does it apply a debuff. paladins have it in the form of hammer of the righteous, but even that doesnt have any "umph" to it, nor does it apply a debuff. also maybe avenger's shield, but it's strange to use it in melee, even if it works. druids, well, nada. i sometimes wish druid bears can get an ability like the rogue's killing spree, where they basically randomly bite several random mobs in front of them for five seconds, but i guess we'll have to stick with the swipe and glyphed maul.
To recap, i really do find tanking fun, especially if it's a warrior tank. i think that, based on the link above, tanks are few because they're boring, have responsibility, requires thinking, and arent engaging as dps or healing. but... with a warrior tank, i find that the tools i have to use make up for some of the negatives. now if i were a bear or a paladin tank, i wouldnt be as enthused. but each tanking class has their own strengths and weaknesses, and offer a lot of utility in different ways. even if, in the end, it equates to the same thing (different spells, same effect). i find warrior tanking to be a lot more fun, simply because of the abilities that i have with a warrior tank. perhaps it's just "flavor" but perhaps it is more than that. as a tank who has played all the tanking classes, i have a different comparison than those who replied with tanks vs. dps vs. healing. instead, i see it as warrior vs. druid vs. paladin vs. dk, and i can see what makes tanking fun based on the various types of tanks available, and hopefully this reason will be a reason that outweighs all the little negatives out there to keep people tanking longer, even in pugs.
gavlon states two very important things. One, tanking sucks. and two, to fix this, make all tanking like blood Dk tanking. Grumpy talks about how tanking in raids vs dungeons is like night and day. i agree with grumpy on his opinion. i disagree with gavlon.
Now here's my little input on tanking, why i like/dislike it, and what i could do to make it more fun. Actually, if you read the comments from gavl's post, everyone is pretty spot on in their assessment of tanking in Wow. it's something not many people would want to do, especially for Pug groups (which is why i keep asking my gf to see if anyone in our guild wants to join us). Read the comments. they're very true of why wait times are so long for the dps and tanks are so hard to come by, in random pugs.
Let me explain why my gf is asking my guild if anyone wants to join in our run. We're level 82 and 84, or about there but are on two different realms. i blame the character limits for this. since i am only able to have 10 characters on one realm, making a new character to level with her requires that i make a new character on a new realm and level through instances. you can see just how boring that can be, going through the same dungeons over and over again until, thankfully, we outlevel them, only to be greeted with 20 more runs of another dungeon. So after maybe 82 levels if this, you can see why i soooo would rather party with people i know instead of a bunch of puggers who sometimes decides to act up or try to run the show (and why is it always a mage???).
My gf is lucky. she has a bf tank who knows all the dungeons, pretty much inside and out, knows who to CC, who does the worst damage, how pulls should be coordinated, etc. i know all this because i've tanked all of these instances many times before. going into gnomeregan, blackrock depths and blackrock spire i get comments like, "thank god, someone who knows where to go!" my gf knows she's lucky and she makes me skewered eels for my hunter to show her appreciation. ^_^
Now on to the bad. I dont like tanking. i dont like tanking because i have to be responsible. i have to know the fights, kill order, cc order, react to environmental changes, bad dps, etc. i dont suffer from bad healing becuase, well, i have a pocket healer that does an awesome job. but i really dont want to take on, what seems almost like a job, to play a game where the point of the game is to relax, or at least problem-solve to get my mind off of the real life issues such as work. In-game, i dont want to be responsible for hearding cattle. it feels almost like that sometimes, even if it's just one dps who runs around and acts a fool, it's still a pain to deal with. i play this game to have fun, not to baby sit. This is the main issue of tanking and many tanks have gone to great lengths to simply tank for their guildies, thereby bypassing a lot of the stupid that goes on in random pugs. What is it about LFD that makes it soooo bad? it's because no one has any accountability that they can cause some amount of grief to their teammates and get away with it. i am not saying it doesnt happen before LFD, but LFD made pugs a ceaspool of stupid, rude and arrogant idiots that i hope never to have in my guild, no matter how leet their dps may be.
The good thing about tanking is that, when i do get a good group (and lately i have), things go smoothly and i only have to deal with the in-game mechanics. sometimes i get the occassional lazy dps who doesnt know how to target my own target, or the drone-like dps who doesnt see that they're breaking CC left and right. but those are okay to deal with (i sometimes let the aggro king tank the mob). what i've developed is somewhat of a limit as to my responsibilities. i am not responsible for a mob if it get's pulled off of me deliberately. and not targeting my own target is deliberate. being too lazy to check the unit frames to see who i am tanking is deliberately being lazy. so i let them tank it and not think too much about it. if others decide to pull for me, i can simply let them tank it. and everyone goes at my pace. sounds about right. even the gogogogo baddies get ignored. if they're doing low dps, i dont care.
this attitude works out just fine in the end since most groups consist of at least one guy carrying everyone, especially when all of the dungeons are nerfed to death and people are buffed to kingdom come. i was in violet hold, level 75 instance when i noticed this. pretty much everyone except for rogues were doing 3k dps. 1k on bosses, but settling on 2-3k dps for most of the pulls. now to put all of this into perspective, the dps requirement to do Naxx when Naxx was current content as 1.6k dps. that's the low end and doing 2.0k dps was considered good. Ulduar saw it jump to 3k while ICC saw the minimum (not what people were doing, but the minimum to even be considered) was about 5k dps. in one expansion, the dps requirement went from 1.6k to 5k. that's ridiculous. overinflation i tell you.
we were all doing awesome damage and so it covers for the fact that maybe there's one or two baddies in the group. it's fine. even in vortex pinnicle, black rock caverns and throne of the tides, things went smoothly. it seemed that the boss' health has been dropped to about half of what it was when cata came out. im sad at this. also, many of the abilities arent as bad (except for Commander Ulthok's Dark Fissure, boy does that hurt) so level through them is cake, especially for a tank that knows the pulls. Now, Ulthok did kill me twice with dark fissure, only because there's also a slowing effect somewhere and i ended up not able to run out of it fast enough. he dropped a nice cape for me when he finally did die. overall, tanking has dumbed down a little due to the easy mechanics of the fights now. this doesnt change the fact that i may get some terrible players, or mages who try to lead the group, but at least there is some concession for tanks when they do pug.
Tangent: i dont feel bad about needing on dps gear anymore, but i do watch to see if the dps actually needs it or not. i just do if it has mastery, since mastery is great. it's a universal stat, and if an item has it with crit or haste or expt, i simply reforge the crit/haste/exp to parry. mastery smooths out damage taken, so i'll keep that, thank you very much. so if no one needs it, i'll need it for tanking. this is one thing that i really like about mastery is that it's a universal stat. although some classes might not categorize it as high priority, it has uses for EVERY class in the game. before, i was limited to dodge/parry gear. now i have an option to add mastery gear too.
Besides the random "good" people and the toned-down version of each isntance, problem solving in-game makes tanking fun. what i mean by this is that each dungeon group is varied. although the mobs stay the same, the types of people, the class compositions, and the style of pulling all change and i must adapt accordingly. it is not the same as the Diablo-esque feel where each time you step into the 1st floor of a dungeon, the maze gets reset and the layout changes to make it feel like you're in a new dungeon. it's more of the way i want to pull, where i want to move the mobs, who i want to CC and who does the CC and for how long. each mob has their own unique ability where i may be able to dispel, or a hope that mage who tried to lead knows how to spell steal. or hoping the group just doesnt try to aoe down two mobs. yes, i've seen many mages and warlocks use their blizzard or rain of fire... on two mobs.
The best, and pretty much most important thing that makes tanking fun are the tanking abilities. I have all tanking classes and the most fun tanking class i've ever played is the warrior class. Dks are fun too, so are druidsd and paladins. but high above those three is the warrior. The reason? Charge/intercept/intervene and shockwave/thunderclap. Now the first one is charge, and i will include intercept and intervene in the smae category. it's my charge. i rush in and do damage. mob's somewhere else? charge! healer getting chewed on? charge! mobility is key when tanking, because if im charged (no pun) with keeping people alive, one of the best abilities to have is a gap-closer that will allow me to tank stray mobs somewhere. i found this very useful and very rewarding. what paladins have is a shield that silences to bring mobs to them and dk's have deathgrip, which has a long cooldown. the only other class with this are druid bears who have a charge. however, since i charge to start a fight, my charge cooldown really sucks when, in the beginning of a pull, the objective is to round up all the mobs into one convenient pack. not having an extra charge reders the druid almost unless when rounding up mobs when initiating a pull.
The other ability is shockwave and to a lesser extent, thunderclap. the two things these abilities have in common are it's abiltiy to do some Aoe effect beyond cleave. now cleave is great, as is blood strike, hammer of the righteous and swipe. but only the warrior have something that he constantly uses to basically "stomp" the ground and remind the mobs just how awesome he is. shockwave is a great ability because it stuns the targets, giving everyone time to catch up, pick the right target, and top everyone off. this ability is wonderful because it also acts as one of my interrupts. no other class really has these two abilities although there is similar. dk's have blood boil, but it doesnt have the same "umph" to it, nor does it apply a debuff. paladins have it in the form of hammer of the righteous, but even that doesnt have any "umph" to it, nor does it apply a debuff. also maybe avenger's shield, but it's strange to use it in melee, even if it works. druids, well, nada. i sometimes wish druid bears can get an ability like the rogue's killing spree, where they basically randomly bite several random mobs in front of them for five seconds, but i guess we'll have to stick with the swipe and glyphed maul.
To recap, i really do find tanking fun, especially if it's a warrior tank. i think that, based on the link above, tanks are few because they're boring, have responsibility, requires thinking, and arent engaging as dps or healing. but... with a warrior tank, i find that the tools i have to use make up for some of the negatives. now if i were a bear or a paladin tank, i wouldnt be as enthused. but each tanking class has their own strengths and weaknesses, and offer a lot of utility in different ways. even if, in the end, it equates to the same thing (different spells, same effect). i find warrior tanking to be a lot more fun, simply because of the abilities that i have with a warrior tank. perhaps it's just "flavor" but perhaps it is more than that. as a tank who has played all the tanking classes, i have a different comparison than those who replied with tanks vs. dps vs. healing. instead, i see it as warrior vs. druid vs. paladin vs. dk, and i can see what makes tanking fun based on the various types of tanks available, and hopefully this reason will be a reason that outweighs all the little negatives out there to keep people tanking longer, even in pugs.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Allods and How I Understand WoW's New Talent System
I spent some time playing Allods Online the other night. "some time" includes the opening quest chain that takes you from your beginning zone to your real beginning zone. they actually make it a little exciting (as opposed to wow's opening, where things seem a little static). The static leveling zone can be found at around level 3, after the intro. Obviously, it appears the intro zone cannot be revisited, so take a look around and breathe in the atmosphere, or whatevers.
Anyway, i downloaded a bunch of free to play games recently so that it will give my daughter of four years something to do on the computer. now i have to problems with letting her play eden eternal or dragon nest, although dragon nest may be a little too advanced for her age, and adding allods online may be a good addition. We started by picking races. She wanted to play a girl toon so we went through several races and classes. But she ultimately chose the faeries or elves of the game. she made it very clear that she wanted the Psionicist faerie. I named it for her but she chose the features (purple hair, etc). Now we go on and went through the entire opening chain quest until we finally hit the official starting zone. it appears to me that the starting chain quests are instanced and we do them solo. the beginning zone we end up in will have interaction with others.
Now here's what i found out about my elven psionocist. She floats. She uses a dagger. she also mind controls. she is hard to kill, even as melee. the intro sequence helped players understand the basic concepts of the game, how to heal, how to assign talents (the act of assigning talents itself, not where one should put talents), how to equip new gear and how to loot, etc. But my first roadblock is this. When i hit level 2 or 3, i got an option to assign my talent points to some stats. now first, i've never played a psionocist before, so having a big window with 20 different stats where i can place talent points (stat points, in this case) to any stat i want is daunting. i was figuratively lost (no, not literally lost. i was sitting in my chair at home. so no, not literally lost at all - more on the misuse of "literally" in another post). Without having played a psionocist before, and having never played this game before, i figured i had to have some background knowledge before i can actually assign a talent point. because people who use mind tricks to win battles probably use magic, i thought maybe add to intelect. but then, i thought, why the hell do i have a dagger? and a wand!??!?!!!.
Welcome to noobsville. Now for those who do not remember, when you first started WoW, it was the exact same thing. No one told me where to assign my talent points (although it wasnt stat points, since the stats are from gear, and some stats increase naturally), i just did it without really knowing or understanding. I did not read many blogs or guides on the internet. My first character was a mage--a frost mage at that. I decided that i needed to give him faster frost bolts and that was it. talent points werent stat points. and that was a great change from some of the other games i was playing. but even with talents points in wow, i can see how people can get confused and not understand them. back when i had 61 talent points to spend, and no talent tree lockout, i had a difficult time figuring out where to put what. granted, my mage only got to level 40, but even there, i was able to assign 31 points already, somewhere in various trees. No one told me that i should focus on one tree first, then move to the next. no one told me that i should focus on certain talents if i was going to quest instead of dungeon. no one told me that i shouldnt worry about this or that, and focus on that or the other. i had to learn this stuff on my own. but i did understand one thing. i knew that my intellect increased every time i leveled. so that was an important stat.
but here, in allods, i felt the exact same way i did when i first started wow. i looked at the stat allocation table and said, forget this. so now i am reading a bit about the psionocist on the internet and understand it a little more. i'll be better prepared to make my character better than i would have yesterday.
When blizz announced that they are going to revamp the entire talent tree system, i believe i understand why. They're not catering to those who have played for years. or those who have switched from other MMOs and understand the talent and stat allocation game. no, they're targeting those who do not care to understand that game. they're catering to those who enjoy killing monsters and complete quests. they dont want to have to stop players from playing because, instead of blowing things up with magic, they're now forced to decide whether they should be a mage with faster fireball casts, or harder hitting pyroblasts. or something. Blizz seem to be saying, we dont want players to focus on little things like cast speed, crit chance, etc. we just want them to go out the and cast the damn spells instead! play the game!
With that in mind, i can see how they want to take a lot of the theory-craft out of warcraft. the talents will come every 15 levels. 15 levels is way more than enough time for someone to get used to a spec/class combination and decide what they value more. let's look at a the hunter's 1st talent choices.
1. Frozen Arrows - Auto Shots decrease mob's movement by 30% for 10 secs.
2. Arcane Arrows - Your auto shots has a 50% chance to restore 5 focus each.
3. Poison-Tipped Arrows - Auto shots causes stacking poisons on your target.
Now all three talents affect one thing: your shots. They effect it in several ways. But the idea here is to kill your mob or opponent before it/he kills you. with frozen arrows, you're given more time to shoot at something before they gnaw at your face. means that, although the fight may just be as long as before, the mobs will not be at your face as quickly or as often, decrease bandage/eating time, increasing leveling speed, though indirectly, and adding more possible gameplay mechanics to your level 15 hunter.
With Arcane arrows. you will end up with more chances to fire off more shots, since you're eventually going to regain enough focus to add an extra special shot. Mobs will still get to you as fast as they would at level 14, but you may have an additional shot, therefore increasing the damage dealt.
With poison tipped arrows, it is essentially like arcane arrows in that it adds extra damage, but the extra damage comes not from a spell we chose when we gained enough focus, but from poison that stacks. for longer fights, both arcane arrows and poison tipped arrows will seem to be a better choice than frozen arrows. some will say frozen arrows is simply for pvp. but i can see how it is also a good talent to take when leveling.
Also understand that hunters usually have pets (or tanks) to tank their mobs for them. if this is the case, frozen arrow might not be needed at all. overall, the idea is this, Blizzard doesnt want you to have to decide whether a talent is good or bad for what you do. they want you to evaluate your play style and decide for yourself which talent is better -- for you. would you prefer to get an extra shot in every 10 seconds? well arcane arrow is for you. would you rather have extra damage instead? then poison tipped arrows works. are you a hunter who likes to run and shoot at the same time, grab five mobs, freeze trap it then multi shot them down because you like how they all die in the same area so it will make skinning them a lot easier with your pet only there as added bonus dps? well frozen arrows will help you do that better!
With the future talent choices, i see it more as playstyle tweakers instead of the talent points we see today. when standing there looking at the extra talent points to use, it can be a little difficult to know exactly what will benefit the class the most. however, blizz new take on talents will definitely remove all such thinking and simply let the player play the game. because, after all, we have many, many little games inside this big game we're trying to play. having complicated talent trees just slow everyone down. who needs that, right?
in all honesty, i do like the current talent point system we have now, minus one feature. you have to use 31 talents in one tree in order to move to a new tree. i remember then days of leveling a paladin and thought going into the first 15 or so points in the ret tree helped tremendously. since low level dungeons weren't that big of a challenge, and anyone with a pulse, and mail gear can tank in those days, adding talents to the ret tree was my best course of action. really, it was only because i was trying to get to one talent, Seal of Command, that made the trek down the ret tree even necessary.
but there it was, a ret paladin tank. but i knew that in dungeons like scarlet monastery, there was really no issues tanking in ret so long as i pulled intelligently (there wasnt even a difference between dps and tanking gear then). for those who are confused, seal of command allowed my seal to hit two other mobs. and since the flavor of the year was aoe tanking, this seal helped a lot when it comes to holding threat on mobs. before this, there was nothing. heck, i dont even think hammer of the righteous was even available before level 60. so besides consecration, this was our only aoe option. now i knew that as soon as i hit seal of command, every other talent point will be going into the protection tree. and when i reach level 60 and am able to get hammer of the righteous, i would then respec into it, in order to have a proper tanking build at level 60ish. this is where having a tanking spec actually mattered. then, i can slowly spec into seal of command again. this required one respec, plenty of planning, and lots of knowledge of how my class, as well as how dungeons work.
So i see a compromise in the works. Bliz will automagically upgrade our stats, that's how it worked before, that's how it will work now. All abilities and/or spells that we had to pick as we filled out our respective talent trees will be added automagically. there will be no more thought to this. also, abilities that we have to go to the trainers to learn will be added automagically as well. i can also assume that this will mean we will learn both our current pve and pvp abilities, since we're not given a choice in picking. so how exactly will that combat rogue sitting next to be be a completely different combat rogue than me? i am a little unsure now.
I do like having a choice. but i also do like having consequences when i pick one ability over another. i do like to be challenged and to think. what i see as the future, as far as talent trees are concerned, is that there really isnt much consequence to picking one of the three, for any situation. it is merely a playstyle preference, and picking one talent over another only goes to improve your own playstyle. on one hand, bliz is really helping those who like to play a certain way from being told they're doing it wrong. however, it is at the cost of dumbing down this game so much that even i wonder if i am playing an MMO Action game as opposed to an MMO-RPG game. Not that i dont like action games. i just have better options when it comes to action games with an rpg element and mmo element.
Anyway, i downloaded a bunch of free to play games recently so that it will give my daughter of four years something to do on the computer. now i have to problems with letting her play eden eternal or dragon nest, although dragon nest may be a little too advanced for her age, and adding allods online may be a good addition. We started by picking races. She wanted to play a girl toon so we went through several races and classes. But she ultimately chose the faeries or elves of the game. she made it very clear that she wanted the Psionicist faerie. I named it for her but she chose the features (purple hair, etc). Now we go on and went through the entire opening chain quest until we finally hit the official starting zone. it appears to me that the starting chain quests are instanced and we do them solo. the beginning zone we end up in will have interaction with others.
Now here's what i found out about my elven psionocist. She floats. She uses a dagger. she also mind controls. she is hard to kill, even as melee. the intro sequence helped players understand the basic concepts of the game, how to heal, how to assign talents (the act of assigning talents itself, not where one should put talents), how to equip new gear and how to loot, etc. But my first roadblock is this. When i hit level 2 or 3, i got an option to assign my talent points to some stats. now first, i've never played a psionocist before, so having a big window with 20 different stats where i can place talent points (stat points, in this case) to any stat i want is daunting. i was figuratively lost (no, not literally lost. i was sitting in my chair at home. so no, not literally lost at all - more on the misuse of "literally" in another post). Without having played a psionocist before, and having never played this game before, i figured i had to have some background knowledge before i can actually assign a talent point. because people who use mind tricks to win battles probably use magic, i thought maybe add to intelect. but then, i thought, why the hell do i have a dagger? and a wand!??!?!!!.
Welcome to noobsville. Now for those who do not remember, when you first started WoW, it was the exact same thing. No one told me where to assign my talent points (although it wasnt stat points, since the stats are from gear, and some stats increase naturally), i just did it without really knowing or understanding. I did not read many blogs or guides on the internet. My first character was a mage--a frost mage at that. I decided that i needed to give him faster frost bolts and that was it. talent points werent stat points. and that was a great change from some of the other games i was playing. but even with talents points in wow, i can see how people can get confused and not understand them. back when i had 61 talent points to spend, and no talent tree lockout, i had a difficult time figuring out where to put what. granted, my mage only got to level 40, but even there, i was able to assign 31 points already, somewhere in various trees. No one told me that i should focus on one tree first, then move to the next. no one told me that i should focus on certain talents if i was going to quest instead of dungeon. no one told me that i shouldnt worry about this or that, and focus on that or the other. i had to learn this stuff on my own. but i did understand one thing. i knew that my intellect increased every time i leveled. so that was an important stat.
but here, in allods, i felt the exact same way i did when i first started wow. i looked at the stat allocation table and said, forget this. so now i am reading a bit about the psionocist on the internet and understand it a little more. i'll be better prepared to make my character better than i would have yesterday.
When blizz announced that they are going to revamp the entire talent tree system, i believe i understand why. They're not catering to those who have played for years. or those who have switched from other MMOs and understand the talent and stat allocation game. no, they're targeting those who do not care to understand that game. they're catering to those who enjoy killing monsters and complete quests. they dont want to have to stop players from playing because, instead of blowing things up with magic, they're now forced to decide whether they should be a mage with faster fireball casts, or harder hitting pyroblasts. or something. Blizz seem to be saying, we dont want players to focus on little things like cast speed, crit chance, etc. we just want them to go out the and cast the damn spells instead! play the game!
With that in mind, i can see how they want to take a lot of the theory-craft out of warcraft. the talents will come every 15 levels. 15 levels is way more than enough time for someone to get used to a spec/class combination and decide what they value more. let's look at a the hunter's 1st talent choices.
1. Frozen Arrows - Auto Shots decrease mob's movement by 30% for 10 secs.
2. Arcane Arrows - Your auto shots has a 50% chance to restore 5 focus each.
3. Poison-Tipped Arrows - Auto shots causes stacking poisons on your target.
Now all three talents affect one thing: your shots. They effect it in several ways. But the idea here is to kill your mob or opponent before it/he kills you. with frozen arrows, you're given more time to shoot at something before they gnaw at your face. means that, although the fight may just be as long as before, the mobs will not be at your face as quickly or as often, decrease bandage/eating time, increasing leveling speed, though indirectly, and adding more possible gameplay mechanics to your level 15 hunter.
With Arcane arrows. you will end up with more chances to fire off more shots, since you're eventually going to regain enough focus to add an extra special shot. Mobs will still get to you as fast as they would at level 14, but you may have an additional shot, therefore increasing the damage dealt.
With poison tipped arrows, it is essentially like arcane arrows in that it adds extra damage, but the extra damage comes not from a spell we chose when we gained enough focus, but from poison that stacks. for longer fights, both arcane arrows and poison tipped arrows will seem to be a better choice than frozen arrows. some will say frozen arrows is simply for pvp. but i can see how it is also a good talent to take when leveling.
Also understand that hunters usually have pets (or tanks) to tank their mobs for them. if this is the case, frozen arrow might not be needed at all. overall, the idea is this, Blizzard doesnt want you to have to decide whether a talent is good or bad for what you do. they want you to evaluate your play style and decide for yourself which talent is better -- for you. would you prefer to get an extra shot in every 10 seconds? well arcane arrow is for you. would you rather have extra damage instead? then poison tipped arrows works. are you a hunter who likes to run and shoot at the same time, grab five mobs, freeze trap it then multi shot them down because you like how they all die in the same area so it will make skinning them a lot easier with your pet only there as added bonus dps? well frozen arrows will help you do that better!
With the future talent choices, i see it more as playstyle tweakers instead of the talent points we see today. when standing there looking at the extra talent points to use, it can be a little difficult to know exactly what will benefit the class the most. however, blizz new take on talents will definitely remove all such thinking and simply let the player play the game. because, after all, we have many, many little games inside this big game we're trying to play. having complicated talent trees just slow everyone down. who needs that, right?
in all honesty, i do like the current talent point system we have now, minus one feature. you have to use 31 talents in one tree in order to move to a new tree. i remember then days of leveling a paladin and thought going into the first 15 or so points in the ret tree helped tremendously. since low level dungeons weren't that big of a challenge, and anyone with a pulse, and mail gear can tank in those days, adding talents to the ret tree was my best course of action. really, it was only because i was trying to get to one talent, Seal of Command, that made the trek down the ret tree even necessary.
but there it was, a ret paladin tank. but i knew that in dungeons like scarlet monastery, there was really no issues tanking in ret so long as i pulled intelligently (there wasnt even a difference between dps and tanking gear then). for those who are confused, seal of command allowed my seal to hit two other mobs. and since the flavor of the year was aoe tanking, this seal helped a lot when it comes to holding threat on mobs. before this, there was nothing. heck, i dont even think hammer of the righteous was even available before level 60. so besides consecration, this was our only aoe option. now i knew that as soon as i hit seal of command, every other talent point will be going into the protection tree. and when i reach level 60 and am able to get hammer of the righteous, i would then respec into it, in order to have a proper tanking build at level 60ish. this is where having a tanking spec actually mattered. then, i can slowly spec into seal of command again. this required one respec, plenty of planning, and lots of knowledge of how my class, as well as how dungeons work.
So i see a compromise in the works. Bliz will automagically upgrade our stats, that's how it worked before, that's how it will work now. All abilities and/or spells that we had to pick as we filled out our respective talent trees will be added automagically. there will be no more thought to this. also, abilities that we have to go to the trainers to learn will be added automagically as well. i can also assume that this will mean we will learn both our current pve and pvp abilities, since we're not given a choice in picking. so how exactly will that combat rogue sitting next to be be a completely different combat rogue than me? i am a little unsure now.
I do like having a choice. but i also do like having consequences when i pick one ability over another. i do like to be challenged and to think. what i see as the future, as far as talent trees are concerned, is that there really isnt much consequence to picking one of the three, for any situation. it is merely a playstyle preference, and picking one talent over another only goes to improve your own playstyle. on one hand, bliz is really helping those who like to play a certain way from being told they're doing it wrong. however, it is at the cost of dumbing down this game so much that even i wonder if i am playing an MMO Action game as opposed to an MMO-RPG game. Not that i dont like action games. i just have better options when it comes to action games with an rpg element and mmo element.
Friday, October 21, 2011
In Before the Announcements
So before Blizz decides to mention what the next expansion is going to be about, i want to get my guess in.
1. The infinite dragonflight and Nozdormu.
2. Panderen Monks (no, not Panda-like people, but actual humans-like nation in some continent on the other side of Azeroth called Pandera).
Since we'll finally get to meet Azhara in the upcoming dungeons, although only for a short time, we do see how she can be a target for the new expansion. However, i think we'll have to deal with Nozdormu first. His dragonflight has been with us for the past three expansions, making us fight in different times just to keep the timelines in-tact. i think this is a more involved story if we end up fighting their corrupted form, the infinite dragonflight. i am sure Noz may try to no more damage in the timelines and we're supposed to correct them before, finally, meeting Noz's dark form.
The panderens, they're monks, they love rice wine, they are kung fu masters. i doubt this will be the next expansion but a lot of people seem to think it is.
1. The infinite dragonflight and Nozdormu.
2. Panderen Monks (no, not Panda-like people, but actual humans-like nation in some continent on the other side of Azeroth called Pandera).
Since we'll finally get to meet Azhara in the upcoming dungeons, although only for a short time, we do see how she can be a target for the new expansion. However, i think we'll have to deal with Nozdormu first. His dragonflight has been with us for the past three expansions, making us fight in different times just to keep the timelines in-tact. i think this is a more involved story if we end up fighting their corrupted form, the infinite dragonflight. i am sure Noz may try to no more damage in the timelines and we're supposed to correct them before, finally, meeting Noz's dark form.
The panderens, they're monks, they love rice wine, they are kung fu masters. i doubt this will be the next expansion but a lot of people seem to think it is.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Alt Leveling Project
Hi folks. I just wanted to say that since my wow time has been quite limited lately, and will be so for the next five months, me and my gf have decided to level alts. they will be nelf druids. we'll be a druid duo running around doing quests. what's mostly beneficial to this arrangement is that we can practically be the trinity of groupings with just two players. I think i'll play feral tank and combat while she heals and moonfires things. i think this will be a great way to pass the time when it's late at night and there's really nothing left to do besides level an alt or do a random dungeon. and we've had quite a bit of random dungeons lately.
So, since i am out of room in Ravenholdt, we'll make the characters on Wyrmrest Accord. Now the thing about WA is that it's a pacific time server, perfect for us, i guess. and also, it is a "normal" server where world pvp is voluntary. this will appease the gf a little. however, i dont have any qualms about being ganked, or ganking others. in any case, it will still be an RP server so there's plenty of dressing up, talking in a certain, more dignified language, and more slow walking to be had! like we RP at all. but if the time comes where we can, we'll be able to!
Since we will be alliance, and questing is quite a "new" exprience for the both of us, it will seem like a totally brand new game. in order to keep this feeling as much as possible, there are some things i'd like to keep as a rule.
So, since i am out of room in Ravenholdt, we'll make the characters on Wyrmrest Accord. Now the thing about WA is that it's a pacific time server, perfect for us, i guess. and also, it is a "normal" server where world pvp is voluntary. this will appease the gf a little. however, i dont have any qualms about being ganked, or ganking others. in any case, it will still be an RP server so there's plenty of dressing up, talking in a certain, more dignified language, and more slow walking to be had! like we RP at all. but if the time comes where we can, we'll be able to!
Since we will be alliance, and questing is quite a "new" exprience for the both of us, it will seem like a totally brand new game. in order to keep this feeling as much as possible, there are some things i'd like to keep as a rule.
- We can only quest to level. No grinding mobs for experience either. we kill what we need to kill for the quest or to get to the quest objectives. gathering professions are out of the question since we do gain experience from them. we can always power level professions come 85 anyway.
- No random dungeon finder thingey. ever. well we can use the finder to look for a specific dungeon group if the dungeon is appropriate for our level and also only if we have quests that requires us to enter these dungeons. they've streamlined the dungeon quests for dungeons up to level 60, so you can get all the quests inside the dungeon. we'll have to figure out the best way to deal with this when we get there. but i hope to only do the dungeons once ever and continue on with questing from then.
- No Heirlooms. HAHAHA forgetaboutit!! really, none of that for-handicapped people stuffs allowed. we're leveling on greens and maybe blues. no overpowered gear for the push-here-dummy crowd. really though, i think the extra 30% (chest shoulder helm cape) is a bit too much. that, and the gear is usually 2x better than whatever else we can get at our level, having heirlooms is just overkill for leveling. we're experienced players anyway.
- No leveling guild. Nope. We will not join any guild that has fasttrack. actually, we'll probably just end up making our own guild there and calling it Brazen. Or maybe call it Accordians, get it? *ahem*server name* Doing this will ensure that we get almost zero bonus experience. we might end up with the rested experience thing, but that's all we'll take.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The loss of Audacity
Today's post is in response to a thread actively going on since friday. You can read the thread here. Beware, it's past 25 pages as of today (it's only been three days!).
Here is the gist of what happened, based on what i've read and what i surmised as the truth.
Audacity is a guild on the Ravenholdt server, hordeside. they're a fairly good raiding guild that has cleared normal content in approximately a month. They were in direct competition with another guild on that server who used to get server firsts since Wrath called Shadows and Dust (now i love the name of this guild because it reminds us that we're not special snowflakes but just shadows and dust... taken from the Gladiator movie by Ridley Scott, but that's besides the point). The core of the audacity raiding group took a break several months back to play League of Legends and basically neglected the guild. The guild leader promoted a great deal of people to Officer status and did not log back on the guild leader toon. I do not know if he logged on alts just to level and chat and things, but he did not log on to the toon with the guild leader tag for over a month. This allowed one of the officers to petition the GMs to make him the new guild leader. after a successful guild leader switch, the new GL kicked everyone out of the guild, except maybe his alt or his friend. then took as much gold, mats, gear, etc as they possibly can from the guild bank. the guild bank looks like it had about 170K in gold. The guild now sits as a stagnant level 25 guild with no activity.
Now a bunch of the guildies who were kicked approached the ousted guild leader (possibly on an alt, or playing with them on another game, LofL, or by whatever means) to question why they were kicked out of the guild. former guild leader logs back on to see that the guild has been taken from him and plundered. then he made a thread about it on the wow forums, as linked above.
Now i know how a guild can suffer from not having an active raiding group. Mine was just the same for a while, but had solid members playing and contributing nonetheless. even still, there wasnt that much activity and zero progression as a guild. even as a non-raiding member of the guild, i had a sense of belonging even if i did not participate in a guild first kill, or something similar. i wanted to see my guild progress and be proud i was part of something that actually had success. when my guild stopped raiding for a while, i felt no real desire to even log in or even felt good about my guild. now, they're pushing to kill rags and hopefully enter into heroic version soon. it leaves a good feeling.
The responses in the forums were basically split between two different opinions, while most ignore (or maybe accepted) the wrongdoing of the usurper. One side believed that it was the responsibility of the GL to log on and actively lead the guild, otherwise, lose the guild to its members. It is, after all, a group identity. the guild was built by its people and that its leaders are there to constantly lead the people of the guild. the guild leader deserved to have his mantle stripped from him (no matter what happened after that). The other side believed that the guild should not have to suffer such a "coup" or takeover like this and demanded Blizzard make some kind of restitution. Hiatuses should be allowed and GLs should not be penalized for taking long times away, lest thieves break in and steal their stuffs, leaving the guild in a much worse state than before.
I find clearly that playing a game like WoW is oftentimes involes taking on responsibility many do not want simply because many believe that this should just be a game. However, it is a hobby for some (like other socially involved hobbies in real life, there comes a set of responsibilities attached and requires constant involvement, ie. reading club, bowling league). Should one leader step down or stop being as active, another one should take their place. Since wow is a hobby of sorts, guild leadership often carries a heavy weight of responsibility that often negates the fun out of the game. However, the responsibility or the act of doing the responsible tasks may, in and of itself, be just as fun for the guild leader. Let the leaders lead and the followers follow. And many derive fun from just killing things, or players. And let those be the Raiders, or the PvPers, or the Members. Of course, there are officers and whatnot, but lets keep things really simple for now. The system works to a certain point. Leaders find it fun to lead while followers find it fun to follow, and play the game at the same time. Both consider this a game, however the leaders may find this game more of a hobby than the followers.
Skip to the problem at hand, i find that the guild leader had not done everything he could have to prevent a takeover of his guild. that is a fact. i feel that the guild leader did a good job with the guild did well for the guild to notify his members that the "core raiders" will take a break and move on to do various things for a while. this could have involved playing with alts, playing a new game, seeing the sunshine for once, etc. but his intention was to keep his members, those who are not part of the core, interested in playing and staying in the guild until December when the next patch hits. They had every opportunity to leave the guild and find a home elsewhere should they disagree with the path the guild is taking. However, the members stuck around while the core just chilled somewhere, having some online presence but not really moving in any progressive direction.
I feel there is nothing bad about the blizzard policy of replacing an inactive guild leader. Whether or not guild leaders around the world knows about this rule is not the point. When taking on responsibility to see the enjoyment of a group of people a guild leader decided they want to lead, that guild leader should understand all that goes into being a leader, including all of the rules blizzard has for replacing an inactive guild leader. They have a responsibility to their guildies to do so. So in the case linked above, blizzard has done nothing wrong. they simply followed procedure. whether it was known to others or whether it was for the benefit of "bad" people is irrelevant at this point. the rules were followed. that part is pretty clear.
However, i do not condone the actions of those who tried to take over leadership. what they did was unacceptible, despicable, cruel and disgusting. They basically stole from the guild. Although they themselves have stated that they took back what they believed they contributed from the bank, this seems very suspicious because not all the moneys can be accounted for. Not only that, they took what others have also contributed, the others who were ousted/kicked, and called it their own because they somehow contributed to killing a mob that dropped a BoE. They're basically saying they're owed the gold because they contributed some, but let them take other people's share too, because, well, they got kicked lol. somthing like that. let's not sugar coat what they did. it was stealing, showing that their responsibility was only to themselves.
As unfortunate as this situation is, it shows just how people with no responsibility to the community can do when given nearly absolute power. the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that with great power comes great responsiblity are key when analysing this incident. here we see the evil that men can do to each other for the sake of gold and in-game materials. in real life, we see a lot of this happening for tangible items like money, someone else's boyfriend, or status. but in a game, even for something as small as in-game currency, we also see people stooping to such lows in order to get what they want. And then they try to justify their actions. i am not buying that. claiming that the guild leader left is one thing, but then taking over the guild, kicking EVERYONE, then taking all the gold and items, claiming that your'e just taking back what you guys contributed, is totally different.
For the guild that died and the people that made up its members, i hope everyone finds a new home. the loss of the guild is not just in gold or mats, but bank tabs, perks, acheivements, etc. all these things can be replaced with further hard work. sure, it's not the original guild, with the original acheivements, experiences, victories, hardships, etc. but at least you can start anew and rebuild, this time with a better understanding of the dangers involed in being part of this game and its community. i am pretty sure it wont be the same. it really will not be. it's much like going back to an ex that has cheated on you, it just will never be the same as it was. good luck.
Resolution thread here.
Here is the gist of what happened, based on what i've read and what i surmised as the truth.
Audacity is a guild on the Ravenholdt server, hordeside. they're a fairly good raiding guild that has cleared normal content in approximately a month. They were in direct competition with another guild on that server who used to get server firsts since Wrath called Shadows and Dust (now i love the name of this guild because it reminds us that we're not special snowflakes but just shadows and dust... taken from the Gladiator movie by Ridley Scott, but that's besides the point). The core of the audacity raiding group took a break several months back to play League of Legends and basically neglected the guild. The guild leader promoted a great deal of people to Officer status and did not log back on the guild leader toon. I do not know if he logged on alts just to level and chat and things, but he did not log on to the toon with the guild leader tag for over a month. This allowed one of the officers to petition the GMs to make him the new guild leader. after a successful guild leader switch, the new GL kicked everyone out of the guild, except maybe his alt or his friend. then took as much gold, mats, gear, etc as they possibly can from the guild bank. the guild bank looks like it had about 170K in gold. The guild now sits as a stagnant level 25 guild with no activity.
Now a bunch of the guildies who were kicked approached the ousted guild leader (possibly on an alt, or playing with them on another game, LofL, or by whatever means) to question why they were kicked out of the guild. former guild leader logs back on to see that the guild has been taken from him and plundered. then he made a thread about it on the wow forums, as linked above.
Now i know how a guild can suffer from not having an active raiding group. Mine was just the same for a while, but had solid members playing and contributing nonetheless. even still, there wasnt that much activity and zero progression as a guild. even as a non-raiding member of the guild, i had a sense of belonging even if i did not participate in a guild first kill, or something similar. i wanted to see my guild progress and be proud i was part of something that actually had success. when my guild stopped raiding for a while, i felt no real desire to even log in or even felt good about my guild. now, they're pushing to kill rags and hopefully enter into heroic version soon. it leaves a good feeling.
The responses in the forums were basically split between two different opinions, while most ignore (or maybe accepted) the wrongdoing of the usurper. One side believed that it was the responsibility of the GL to log on and actively lead the guild, otherwise, lose the guild to its members. It is, after all, a group identity. the guild was built by its people and that its leaders are there to constantly lead the people of the guild. the guild leader deserved to have his mantle stripped from him (no matter what happened after that). The other side believed that the guild should not have to suffer such a "coup" or takeover like this and demanded Blizzard make some kind of restitution. Hiatuses should be allowed and GLs should not be penalized for taking long times away, lest thieves break in and steal their stuffs, leaving the guild in a much worse state than before.
I find clearly that playing a game like WoW is oftentimes involes taking on responsibility many do not want simply because many believe that this should just be a game. However, it is a hobby for some (like other socially involved hobbies in real life, there comes a set of responsibilities attached and requires constant involvement, ie. reading club, bowling league). Should one leader step down or stop being as active, another one should take their place. Since wow is a hobby of sorts, guild leadership often carries a heavy weight of responsibility that often negates the fun out of the game. However, the responsibility or the act of doing the responsible tasks may, in and of itself, be just as fun for the guild leader. Let the leaders lead and the followers follow. And many derive fun from just killing things, or players. And let those be the Raiders, or the PvPers, or the Members. Of course, there are officers and whatnot, but lets keep things really simple for now. The system works to a certain point. Leaders find it fun to lead while followers find it fun to follow, and play the game at the same time. Both consider this a game, however the leaders may find this game more of a hobby than the followers.
Skip to the problem at hand, i find that the guild leader had not done everything he could have to prevent a takeover of his guild. that is a fact. i feel that the guild leader did a good job with the guild did well for the guild to notify his members that the "core raiders" will take a break and move on to do various things for a while. this could have involved playing with alts, playing a new game, seeing the sunshine for once, etc. but his intention was to keep his members, those who are not part of the core, interested in playing and staying in the guild until December when the next patch hits. They had every opportunity to leave the guild and find a home elsewhere should they disagree with the path the guild is taking. However, the members stuck around while the core just chilled somewhere, having some online presence but not really moving in any progressive direction.
I feel there is nothing bad about the blizzard policy of replacing an inactive guild leader. Whether or not guild leaders around the world knows about this rule is not the point. When taking on responsibility to see the enjoyment of a group of people a guild leader decided they want to lead, that guild leader should understand all that goes into being a leader, including all of the rules blizzard has for replacing an inactive guild leader. They have a responsibility to their guildies to do so. So in the case linked above, blizzard has done nothing wrong. they simply followed procedure. whether it was known to others or whether it was for the benefit of "bad" people is irrelevant at this point. the rules were followed. that part is pretty clear.
However, i do not condone the actions of those who tried to take over leadership. what they did was unacceptible, despicable, cruel and disgusting. They basically stole from the guild. Although they themselves have stated that they took back what they believed they contributed from the bank, this seems very suspicious because not all the moneys can be accounted for. Not only that, they took what others have also contributed, the others who were ousted/kicked, and called it their own because they somehow contributed to killing a mob that dropped a BoE. They're basically saying they're owed the gold because they contributed some, but let them take other people's share too, because, well, they got kicked lol. somthing like that. let's not sugar coat what they did. it was stealing, showing that their responsibility was only to themselves.
As unfortunate as this situation is, it shows just how people with no responsibility to the community can do when given nearly absolute power. the phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that with great power comes great responsiblity are key when analysing this incident. here we see the evil that men can do to each other for the sake of gold and in-game materials. in real life, we see a lot of this happening for tangible items like money, someone else's boyfriend, or status. but in a game, even for something as small as in-game currency, we also see people stooping to such lows in order to get what they want. And then they try to justify their actions. i am not buying that. claiming that the guild leader left is one thing, but then taking over the guild, kicking EVERYONE, then taking all the gold and items, claiming that your'e just taking back what you guys contributed, is totally different.
For the guild that died and the people that made up its members, i hope everyone finds a new home. the loss of the guild is not just in gold or mats, but bank tabs, perks, acheivements, etc. all these things can be replaced with further hard work. sure, it's not the original guild, with the original acheivements, experiences, victories, hardships, etc. but at least you can start anew and rebuild, this time with a better understanding of the dangers involed in being part of this game and its community. i am pretty sure it wont be the same. it really will not be. it's much like going back to an ex that has cheated on you, it just will never be the same as it was. good luck.
Resolution thread here.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Raidfinder is For the Masses
I was thinking a little today about what i want to do with my free time for the next several months. I know i've mentioned that i want to start two characters within the next few weeks because my girlfriend is going back to school, but now plans got a little delayed. Program doesnt start until the end of November, so i have at least another month to drill out some raids with her. yay! but i still think about the future of wow and about the time where i will be leaving this game. One thing i find very useful is playing my xbox when i do get the chance. it brings me a little bit of playing "perspective" from other genres and gives wow a little more life... being that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" or "how can i miss you if you dont go away?" kinda thing.
So when i do play other games, i find that i always end up going back to wow due to two reasons. First, there's always progression on my characters. Second, due to this progression, the game is never finished. Contrast this to many of the other games i've played, i played it to the point of the last battle even, and then quit before i reach the end. it's never the end that really forces me to continue playing. it is always the journey. and even in wow, level 85 begins a grand new journey that is drastically different from the previous. from 1 to 85, you're chasing after that experience bar, equiping gear that's appropriate for your level and class. but at 85, there's no more experience, only gearing. and some of that gear comes from reputation "experience" or dungeon "experience" (ie. grinding a dungeon for the 10th time for that one last piece of gear) and, finally, currency "experience" where the currency is used to purchase better buffs, potions, upgrades or gear. in the case of wow, it's gear. upgrading my gun with a scope? no, im replacing it with a boss drop! see the difference? not much of a difference at all now is there?
In any case, i am reading up on the 4.3 patch notes today and come across a wide variety of buffs. Holy priests may be playable again. beasts and survival hunters are getting a small buff to, hopefully, bring them out from the dps pitts and make them "ok" again. nothing useful for paladins. etc.
what i do find most appealing is the raid finder tool. now i dont care to nitpick at any of the minor details just yet (you know, with the whole world is ending if they dont change this or that before they impliment it... chances are, they will change little things here or there to make it whole. also that whole winged guardian minipet OMG end of the world crap just needs to DIAF). anyway, raidfinder. it will be the ultimate weapon of the casuals to do casual things. all the raiders are complaining and thinking, wtf, it wont work, raids are a complicated logistical mess, is it not? but hey, if you dont think it's optimal for you, then dont use it. and who is to say bliz wont design it so that it WILL work with 25 random folks? somehow us players think it needs to pass the [insert your name here] Seal of Approval before it can be implimented into a game, a game that isnt even ours. we only pay to play it. but really, bliz has already thought about most of our concerns when this feature does hit. lower ilevel drop, limited rolls on gear, will not lock you out of the real thing, mechanics will not be as unforgiving as a real raid, etc. heck, if they had this for WotLK i would have used it to kill arthas. hell yea i would. break up all the wings into different instances also. yes. do that. i'd love to raid like that. anyway.
So this new raidfinder thing sounds great. more stuff to do for those who are done with the heroic dungeons, have all the vp gear they need, and are ready to do something more, but cannot commit to a guild to raid on a weekly basis. it's also more stuff to do for those who already have one or two raiding mains and would love to get more of their characters progressed to the point where they can "adequately" stand in for a missing raid member, if needed, without having to run zulroics 40 times in order to do so.
My horde guild is odd. no they're not odd. it's just that when i am on, half the people are already in a raid. that leaves me with nothing to do really. i ask around sometimes to group with the "leftovers" for a zulroic, or to add to someoen's BH run. that's about it. i've only been able to raid with this guild twice ever. and this is only when the moon and stars and planets and all the asteroids allign. it was on a weekend. it was on a day they needed an extra player and i had the opportunity to play for 3 hours. it's difficult to even get to that stage because any extra player would have been filled up fast. but i think those days, i beat someone out on replying. =P anyway. this gives me and maybe a couple of random stragglers who are online while the main raid is going on to actually get into another raid and kill a few bosses. gear would be better than what we have but will not be as great as the ones in the normal raid. fair enough. i like that.
My alliance guild is also odd. there's two main differences. one, there's a lot less people, but of those people, everyone has different alts that arent really considered "alts". they're really co-mains. this guild raids often, and most would take their alts to various raids throughout the week. this not only gears up their alts, but makes their alts just as geared as their mains. having two solid mains give them the flexibility to raid several times a week with different compositions, keeping relatively the same core members. i am not part of that core group since i only raid with them once a week. for a guild like this, the raidfinder tool really isnt a desirable option for them, unless it becomes an alternative to gearing alts through firelands (t11) to get t12 ready. i think this will be what they'll use it for.
So for both types of guilds, and i know there are more types of guilds out there, but at least for the guilds that i am in, random dungeon finder will be beneficial to both groups in two similar but different ways. Horde guild will have a bunch of mains playing to gear up because it is an alternative to the three new heroics (and they're not part of the raiding core) and alliance guild will use it to better gear up their alts to be raid-ready for their "alt" t12 deathwing raid 2, or raid 3, or however high it goes.
For the strictly socials, or non "hardcore" players who dont raid, this is an awesome addition. for the raiding hardcore who have many co-mains, this is also an awesome addition. For those who have one main and raid exclusively with that main, pushing server firsts and all that, well those people will probably have as much use for it as grinding earthen ring rep. or something similarly useless. for those who like rep grinds and daily quests, this feature might not be for them. the vast amount of options at the end game is why wow is so popular still and shows its dedication to cater to a wide array of players. having a raid finder might not be useful for everyone, but for a lot of people, it's a great feature i am definitely looking forward to using.
So when i do play other games, i find that i always end up going back to wow due to two reasons. First, there's always progression on my characters. Second, due to this progression, the game is never finished. Contrast this to many of the other games i've played, i played it to the point of the last battle even, and then quit before i reach the end. it's never the end that really forces me to continue playing. it is always the journey. and even in wow, level 85 begins a grand new journey that is drastically different from the previous. from 1 to 85, you're chasing after that experience bar, equiping gear that's appropriate for your level and class. but at 85, there's no more experience, only gearing. and some of that gear comes from reputation "experience" or dungeon "experience" (ie. grinding a dungeon for the 10th time for that one last piece of gear) and, finally, currency "experience" where the currency is used to purchase better buffs, potions, upgrades or gear. in the case of wow, it's gear. upgrading my gun with a scope? no, im replacing it with a boss drop! see the difference? not much of a difference at all now is there?
In any case, i am reading up on the 4.3 patch notes today and come across a wide variety of buffs. Holy priests may be playable again. beasts and survival hunters are getting a small buff to, hopefully, bring them out from the dps pitts and make them "ok" again. nothing useful for paladins. etc.
what i do find most appealing is the raid finder tool. now i dont care to nitpick at any of the minor details just yet (you know, with the whole world is ending if they dont change this or that before they impliment it... chances are, they will change little things here or there to make it whole. also that whole winged guardian minipet OMG end of the world crap just needs to DIAF). anyway, raidfinder. it will be the ultimate weapon of the casuals to do casual things. all the raiders are complaining and thinking, wtf, it wont work, raids are a complicated logistical mess, is it not? but hey, if you dont think it's optimal for you, then dont use it. and who is to say bliz wont design it so that it WILL work with 25 random folks? somehow us players think it needs to pass the [insert your name here] Seal of Approval before it can be implimented into a game, a game that isnt even ours. we only pay to play it. but really, bliz has already thought about most of our concerns when this feature does hit. lower ilevel drop, limited rolls on gear, will not lock you out of the real thing, mechanics will not be as unforgiving as a real raid, etc. heck, if they had this for WotLK i would have used it to kill arthas. hell yea i would. break up all the wings into different instances also. yes. do that. i'd love to raid like that. anyway.
So this new raidfinder thing sounds great. more stuff to do for those who are done with the heroic dungeons, have all the vp gear they need, and are ready to do something more, but cannot commit to a guild to raid on a weekly basis. it's also more stuff to do for those who already have one or two raiding mains and would love to get more of their characters progressed to the point where they can "adequately" stand in for a missing raid member, if needed, without having to run zulroics 40 times in order to do so.
My horde guild is odd. no they're not odd. it's just that when i am on, half the people are already in a raid. that leaves me with nothing to do really. i ask around sometimes to group with the "leftovers" for a zulroic, or to add to someoen's BH run. that's about it. i've only been able to raid with this guild twice ever. and this is only when the moon and stars and planets and all the asteroids allign. it was on a weekend. it was on a day they needed an extra player and i had the opportunity to play for 3 hours. it's difficult to even get to that stage because any extra player would have been filled up fast. but i think those days, i beat someone out on replying. =P anyway. this gives me and maybe a couple of random stragglers who are online while the main raid is going on to actually get into another raid and kill a few bosses. gear would be better than what we have but will not be as great as the ones in the normal raid. fair enough. i like that.
My alliance guild is also odd. there's two main differences. one, there's a lot less people, but of those people, everyone has different alts that arent really considered "alts". they're really co-mains. this guild raids often, and most would take their alts to various raids throughout the week. this not only gears up their alts, but makes their alts just as geared as their mains. having two solid mains give them the flexibility to raid several times a week with different compositions, keeping relatively the same core members. i am not part of that core group since i only raid with them once a week. for a guild like this, the raidfinder tool really isnt a desirable option for them, unless it becomes an alternative to gearing alts through firelands (t11) to get t12 ready. i think this will be what they'll use it for.
So for both types of guilds, and i know there are more types of guilds out there, but at least for the guilds that i am in, random dungeon finder will be beneficial to both groups in two similar but different ways. Horde guild will have a bunch of mains playing to gear up because it is an alternative to the three new heroics (and they're not part of the raiding core) and alliance guild will use it to better gear up their alts to be raid-ready for their "alt" t12 deathwing raid 2, or raid 3, or however high it goes.
For the strictly socials, or non "hardcore" players who dont raid, this is an awesome addition. for the raiding hardcore who have many co-mains, this is also an awesome addition. For those who have one main and raid exclusively with that main, pushing server firsts and all that, well those people will probably have as much use for it as grinding earthen ring rep. or something similarly useless. for those who like rep grinds and daily quests, this feature might not be for them. the vast amount of options at the end game is why wow is so popular still and shows its dedication to cater to a wide array of players. having a raid finder might not be useful for everyone, but for a lot of people, it's a great feature i am definitely looking forward to using.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tedium, ad infinitum
Today we celebrate points reset day, where we can gain a measly 980 more points this week from the randomizer and/or raids. I've been thinking lately just how long it takes to actually buy a piece of gear, if played diligently. Let's do some napkin math and see where it leads us.
Chest and pants both costs 2200 vp. Gloves costs 1650 vp. Bracers, Rings and Necklace cost 1250 vp. Relic slot is 700 vp. Most classes can only use one of the rings while some may use a suboptimal second ring and reforge the useless stat and require two.
The result is 2(2200)+1650+3(1250)+700 = 10,500. This is for most classes.
With 980 vp/week, if i cap each week, it will take me 10,500/980 = 11 weeks to get all the gear i need to max out this tier, without raiding.
My hunter is my only raiding character and has had to buy practically every piece of gear from the list, barring the 700 required for the ranged slot, as no gun/bow/xbow is available. However, i do have the lavabolt, so that's not a problem. the other item that she doesnt need are the bracers. shaving 1250vp off. The reason for this is because the BoE bracers that drop from firelands is actually better, and so i coughed up about 7k gold for it and bought it. Both items saved me a total of 1950vp. so to max out my character since i have no luck with drops, i will need 10500-1950 = 8,550vp (9 weeks) to max out my character. honestly, i've only gotten the headpiece from shannox and a bow. that's it. still hoping for the ranseur of hatred. after 10 weeks still hoping. Now this is great and all, 9 weeks of continuously getting capped and i've come a long way. but i still do not have everything. i had to take a break for the last two weeks and only did a random here or there. i am still hoping to get the gloves this week and i should be done with the valor point grind.
Now 9 weeks or a little over two months of playing and you're awarded with very piece of valor gear. that sounds absolutely great, but there is always a downside to this. people have real life obligations and cannot raid all of the time. and even when we raid, there is no guarantee that we'll actually see these points or a conparable drop. my groups have been plagued with RNG and poor... whatevers. i dont know. random messups here and there causing us to play longer and longer, then ending the night with just shannox down and maybe rhyolith. beth kills us at 10% after the 5th try and we call it a night. so much for gearing. how do you gear when you dont kill bosses?
I know, im one of the few minorities who still cant get Beth down even though nerfs has hit two weeks ago. thanks for the cheering up. i needed that. in other news, and back on track, my army of alts require much work.
For every person who has a main and maybe an alt, there's another person with 10 alts sitting around. Gearing these alts are a pain but gear them we shall. for my dk i am about halfway to getting the next and almost final upgrade. also, my rogue and paladin only has one vp item. the rest are jp items and some from opening the molton front. Although all these items are easily gotten, what seems to be a problem has always been gearing my five-ish alts sufficiently throughout the expansion. Remember that formula above where it's calculated that it takes over 10 weeks to get all the vp items? let's not go into how a zul-roic can turn out and how not finishing it will result in nothing. nada. useless JPs but no VPs. yep. those have happend and 40 minutes of wait plus 80 minites of hurting in a dungeon ends up with ZERO VPs. thanks blizz. you are the roxxors. I can split up 490 of the points and get 7 from normal heroics and do 4 zulroics. even then, these are heroics which i've done countless times already. compound that with having already done these dungeons in normal mode too and you can see just how crazy it all gets.
in any case, what i am trying to get at is this. while i know that gearing up a toon requires a lot of work, and sometimes i am just happy with gearing them up just enough to do OK damage in a zulroic setting, i do find the whole process tedious to the point of NOT playing my character after i've acheived a certain threshold. Once i have received my last piece of vp gear for my dk, i will probably never touch her until next patch because blizz has caused me to put all my efforts into her and i have nothing left for rep grinds, mount grinds, or even pet grinds. yes, pets. i dont have all of them but i do have a lot. =P
With the length of the grind i have to set my own standards and limits when acheiving something. And it is not for lack of time that i do this. i have a solid 3 hours a night and a little more on the weekends to do all of this stuff, but it has gotten to the point where the 40th zulroic is just... enough. Dont belive me? here...
As you can see, Sethekk halls and MGT did not drop their mounts for me. but also, a total of 33 successful Zulroic runs. there have been many unsuccessful ones as well.
And this is just one my DK.
None of my characters have even started to do the daily quests for the molton front. None. Zero. I've opened up the vendor in the very beginning and that's it. There's really no way i can gear up my toons, do dailies AND try to raid and make my gameplay meaningful. meaningful being the ability to gear up well. but people have done this and are doing this right now, and they pvp!! but for me, i dont consider myself the normal player. but i still am one of the customers who try to play this game. it's the basic develop-the-character kinda game. and i have... five. and more on the way. i'll have to one day decide who to focus on but for the time being, the only fun characters have been my dps characters.
Overall, i just think the gearing process is too long, especially for a game where most of us have alts. and i wouldnt post this at all even, except for the fact that 4.2 raid content has been nerfed so that we can quickly gear up for the next patch, which is in the PTRs right now. this means i have about 2 months before all my hard work becomes obsolete and i'll have to start over again. maybe if i stick to one character, things will be fine. but the fact is there is no one out there with just one character. we're all playing this fantasy game trying to experience the game from different points of views, some more obvious than others. but this grind is really causing me some issues. do i really need 17 zul amans and 16 zul gurubs to finish gearing? really? add my hunter, rogue, paladin and maybe another toon and now we have a problem.
in conclusion, the whole moral of this? i dont know. i just know the grind is long so come 4.3, these next three dungeons better be awesomer than the ICC 5mans they came up with a couple years ago. those sets of dungeons were awesome and kept me playing another 5 months.
Chest and pants both costs 2200 vp. Gloves costs 1650 vp. Bracers, Rings and Necklace cost 1250 vp. Relic slot is 700 vp. Most classes can only use one of the rings while some may use a suboptimal second ring and reforge the useless stat and require two.
The result is 2(2200)+1650+3(1250)+700 = 10,500. This is for most classes.
With 980 vp/week, if i cap each week, it will take me 10,500/980 = 11 weeks to get all the gear i need to max out this tier, without raiding.
My hunter is my only raiding character and has had to buy practically every piece of gear from the list, barring the 700 required for the ranged slot, as no gun/bow/xbow is available. However, i do have the lavabolt, so that's not a problem. the other item that she doesnt need are the bracers. shaving 1250vp off. The reason for this is because the BoE bracers that drop from firelands is actually better, and so i coughed up about 7k gold for it and bought it. Both items saved me a total of 1950vp. so to max out my character since i have no luck with drops, i will need 10500-1950 = 8,550vp (9 weeks) to max out my character. honestly, i've only gotten the headpiece from shannox and a bow. that's it. still hoping for the ranseur of hatred. after 10 weeks still hoping. Now this is great and all, 9 weeks of continuously getting capped and i've come a long way. but i still do not have everything. i had to take a break for the last two weeks and only did a random here or there. i am still hoping to get the gloves this week and i should be done with the valor point grind.
Now 9 weeks or a little over two months of playing and you're awarded with very piece of valor gear. that sounds absolutely great, but there is always a downside to this. people have real life obligations and cannot raid all of the time. and even when we raid, there is no guarantee that we'll actually see these points or a conparable drop. my groups have been plagued with RNG and poor... whatevers. i dont know. random messups here and there causing us to play longer and longer, then ending the night with just shannox down and maybe rhyolith. beth kills us at 10% after the 5th try and we call it a night. so much for gearing. how do you gear when you dont kill bosses?
I know, im one of the few minorities who still cant get Beth down even though nerfs has hit two weeks ago. thanks for the cheering up. i needed that. in other news, and back on track, my army of alts require much work.
For every person who has a main and maybe an alt, there's another person with 10 alts sitting around. Gearing these alts are a pain but gear them we shall. for my dk i am about halfway to getting the next and almost final upgrade. also, my rogue and paladin only has one vp item. the rest are jp items and some from opening the molton front. Although all these items are easily gotten, what seems to be a problem has always been gearing my five-ish alts sufficiently throughout the expansion. Remember that formula above where it's calculated that it takes over 10 weeks to get all the vp items? let's not go into how a zul-roic can turn out and how not finishing it will result in nothing. nada. useless JPs but no VPs. yep. those have happend and 40 minutes of wait plus 80 minites of hurting in a dungeon ends up with ZERO VPs. thanks blizz. you are the roxxors. I can split up 490 of the points and get 7 from normal heroics and do 4 zulroics. even then, these are heroics which i've done countless times already. compound that with having already done these dungeons in normal mode too and you can see just how crazy it all gets.
in any case, what i am trying to get at is this. while i know that gearing up a toon requires a lot of work, and sometimes i am just happy with gearing them up just enough to do OK damage in a zulroic setting, i do find the whole process tedious to the point of NOT playing my character after i've acheived a certain threshold. Once i have received my last piece of vp gear for my dk, i will probably never touch her until next patch because blizz has caused me to put all my efforts into her and i have nothing left for rep grinds, mount grinds, or even pet grinds. yes, pets. i dont have all of them but i do have a lot. =P
With the length of the grind i have to set my own standards and limits when acheiving something. And it is not for lack of time that i do this. i have a solid 3 hours a night and a little more on the weekends to do all of this stuff, but it has gotten to the point where the 40th zulroic is just... enough. Dont belive me? here...
And this is just one my DK.
None of my characters have even started to do the daily quests for the molton front. None. Zero. I've opened up the vendor in the very beginning and that's it. There's really no way i can gear up my toons, do dailies AND try to raid and make my gameplay meaningful. meaningful being the ability to gear up well. but people have done this and are doing this right now, and they pvp!! but for me, i dont consider myself the normal player. but i still am one of the customers who try to play this game. it's the basic develop-the-character kinda game. and i have... five. and more on the way. i'll have to one day decide who to focus on but for the time being, the only fun characters have been my dps characters.
Overall, i just think the gearing process is too long, especially for a game where most of us have alts. and i wouldnt post this at all even, except for the fact that 4.2 raid content has been nerfed so that we can quickly gear up for the next patch, which is in the PTRs right now. this means i have about 2 months before all my hard work becomes obsolete and i'll have to start over again. maybe if i stick to one character, things will be fine. but the fact is there is no one out there with just one character. we're all playing this fantasy game trying to experience the game from different points of views, some more obvious than others. but this grind is really causing me some issues. do i really need 17 zul amans and 16 zul gurubs to finish gearing? really? add my hunter, rogue, paladin and maybe another toon and now we have a problem.
in conclusion, the whole moral of this? i dont know. i just know the grind is long so come 4.3, these next three dungeons better be awesomer than the ICC 5mans they came up with a couple years ago. those sets of dungeons were awesome and kept me playing another 5 months.
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