You guys stress me to no end. no really, you do. please learn to outfit yourself with tanking gear.
Last night, me and my girlfriend ran a few level 85 dungeons to try to reach 85 by the end of the night. I am 20% away from dinging while she dinged during the dungeon.
We added a friend who jumped from her home server to play with us. She was happy to be playing with friends, at least, and we did several dungeons together. on the last dungeon we did before we went out to dinner, we got Grim Batol and got a tank from the same realm. he was 85, trying to gear up i guess, and didnt know the instance.
First off, the instances are dumb easy now. they were hard six months ago. it was fun. it was interesting. and it was frustrating all in one. it made the game good. now its almost a snorefest. and on top of that, we had drakes that killed more than half of our trash packs for us anyway. so it was triple easy even for level 84's doing level 85 dungeons. and we get this tank, from our own realm no less, with almost all dps gear and a +int cloak. at least he was spec'd blood to help with some of the mitigation.
how did he do in the instance? he did fine. he did fine only because he was being healed by my gf. she's working on her holy paladin healadining toon and was healing him non stop. but otherwise, he was horribad. granted, he did say he was new, so i ended up narrating half of the instance for him, boss fights and then some trash packs. also, i had to remind him that we needed CC in certain trash packs. he would then wait for me to give to go ahead if no cc were needed. honestly, having cc makes everything easier. i dont know why tanks like to grab entire groups and spend just as much time on all the mobs. our dps will remain relatively the same whether we down a group all at once or a couple at a time. the only real difference is, would you rather wait for the CC to land, or would you rather wait for the healer to drink after the fight? normally, waiting for the hunter to set his trap takes much less time than waiting for the healer to drink because she spent all her mana healing stupid pulls.
and so we got to the first boss where EVERYONE and their dogs knew to leave the malignant trog alone so he can be cc'd. nope. didnt happen. i tried terribly to pull him out but he stuck. so my dps was halved for the fight, but we did get through it. Second boss comes almost right after the first, with a few trash to pull. it didnt go smoothly at all. I had to tell him that the big guys are usually the decoys and the ones you need to focus on are really the small caster mobs. i then began explaining the second boss fight, throngus, or something, and he pulls right after i said something like, if he picks mace, kite. i had to yell KITE several times when he did pick his mace. fortunately, this was a normal instance, my gf is an awesome healer, and the tank was at least in the right spec. we one-shotted the boss.
from then on, CC was common unless i stated that cc wasnt necesasry. we got through the trash and then on to the dragon fight. every flame called that was placed on me was kited (just one, lol). the rest, well they all kinda blew up. the one that went to the tank blew up. it was damage, but it wasnt anything we couldnt heal through. still, bad play is bad play. amazingly, when my gf said she was out of mana, the dragon dropped the boss and fled. we cleaned him up with one more flame guy to take care of. of course, the flame guy picked the tank. we ended up beating that boss without trouble and went on to the last boss.
the last boss was fun. i put a mark on me to show everyone where the center of the storm will be. lo and behold, the tank missed it twice. the only time he was in it was when it spawned right on top of him. shadow gale sucks ass on normal, so my gf healed through it. the adds were easily killed. nothing was out of the ordinary except for shadowgale and we downed the boss with no problems. then a ring dropped. a dps ring. my dps paladin friend rolled need. she was the only dps who needed that ring. there was a rogue, but he was looking for agi, im sure. and then the tank rolled on the ring and won. now i had to yell at him. and i did. my gf added her input since she's been there and have been ninja'd by many tanks in the past for her dps upgrades. and so for a couple of minutes we tried talking this guy into giving the damn ring to the dps who actually needed it. and how it would just annoy other healers if he did use dps gear to tank. he didnt see it that way but said that an upgrade is an upgrade and then left.
well that didnt turn out too well, but maybe he did forget one thing that night. we were in the same realm. so once i got out and back into org, i did a trade announcement to "warn" others not to play with him. in my own fashion, i added his guild. Y player of X guild is a ninja, please avoid playing with him, thanks. a few replies in chat were basically affirming that X guild isnt pleasant to play with, etc.
I'd figure that will be left at that. at least a couple of people from our realm will know that Y player doesnt have great character and should be avoided. but to my surprise, i had two people whisper me, co-guildleaders, i assume. who said that this behavior will not be tolerated and that they will talk to him when he logs back on. i mentioned the person who did lose the roll was on our realm too, and they talked to her as well. overall, it was nice to know that guilds do care, at least guild leaders, do care about their own guild's reputation within the realm. through all of this, i hope that the tank will learn a few things. grim batol is easy. but heroics are a pain, especially with dps gear. ninja-ing gear that doesnt help you one bit only makes you a bad player. you might have all the skill in the world, but when rolling on clearly off-spec items make sure no one else actually really needs it.
character>gear.
skill>gear.
lots of things are > gear.
gear is just a means to an end. but it doesnt make you play better. nor does it make you a better person than the next guy. and dps gear surely doesnt help you tank. now thinking about it, one of the bosses did drop a caster cape. the tank did mention that it was better than his cape. i wonder if he secretly wanted to need on that too. who knows.
one last thing regarding the new tank. i wanted to put him on ignore to avoid playing with him again. but then i also wanted to chat with him in the future if he did change his ways. i'd rather see someone change for the better than never play with him again. maybe one day he'll be an great tank. but until then, who knows.
One last last thing. i also think it would be an improvement to the rolling system if we can roll for offspec gear. it does assume that people know what their offspec is, and that blizz would somehow link certain gears to offspec. although this might be reasonable, there can be other builds/specs/combinations that might be necessary for certain things. i dont know what, but there might be.
much like how i dont mind casters, say, shamans rolling on cloth gear if no one needs, i dont mind tanks rolling for offspec gear if no one needs. key words: IF NO ONE NEEDS.
So rolling priority will be like so: Main spec need > Main Spec type need > Offspec Need > Greed. where type is the type of material of the item (cloth, leather, mail, plate). of course, if the drop is a ring or a necklace or a mace, etc, the type will not come into play. and if you totally cant wear it, say a dagger and you're on a paladin, then you get the Greed option only.
or maybe that's too complicated. who knows. but i still like blizz' way now. it leaves the interaction, the decisions, and how we impact society and this mmo up to us, the players.
Showing posts with label randoms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label randoms. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Friday, July 23, 2010
Stupid LFD Tool is Stupid
First off, i like the LFD tool. its great. it lets me queue up for instances without having to worry about putting together all the parts. and when its all over, i dont have to stick around and say how good everyone was and hope i do instances with them again. i like being able to get in there, do my thing, get my dose of dps goodness for the day, and leave. im not too much of a committal type of guy to begin with. so what i do have problems with is what keeps happening to me at level... 38, or 42, or 54, 68 and now 78-79.
I cant get into the instances i really want. at 38 i was too low to get into SMGY, so im stuck doing lower instances. then i do SMGY for infinity before i can actually do the other ones. when instances in my LFD tool shows up in yellow, i assume they are doable. but instead, im sent to an easier instance. always. at 42, it was the wait for SMCath. at 54, i was soooo sick of mara and sunken temple, i was waiting for... Strath/Scholo (that NEVER came because blizz figured only level 59 and 60 folks could join those.... but they forget that those people would rather skip all the way to Ramps in outland). yes blizz. the whole LFD system is a bit off. i complained about this in a previous blog, but im going to do this again because.... it sucks THAT much.
at level 68 i'd love to join Utgarde keep. not only will i "miss" and cause "glancing" hits a lot, i'll probably get killed if i pull enough aggro. that's not cool by blizz standards i guess. but guess what blizzard? i've been doing Utgarde keep with all of my toons BEFORE the LFD tool was implemented, and they did FINE (except for my tank, which needed the cobalt gear at 70, and i was rockin). Especially the DPS, they do fine! tanks? thats a different matter. healers? it might be stressful at 68. but really, people should be able to get into utgarde keep at 68. they always have before. why cant we queue up for it now?
And now we get to the point of my post. as Devynity has been leveling up, he's been realizing something. Whether he's 76, or 78, or 79, he'll always (I mean ALWAYS) get Halls of Stone or Gundrak. Last night he was 79, queueing with his friend who's a level 80. we did a random and got Halls of Stone. my god i wanted to cry. but i didnt and sucked it up. then asked the tank if we can requeue for something specific. we ended up getting Utgarde Pinicle. Woot!! the whole trip was awesome. For crying out loud, why couldnt we have gotten a more appropriate instance the first time? instead we got lolHoS.
Thats not the end of it. We requeue'd for a random and got.... GUNDRAK. omg. two level 78, two 79 and a level 80 queing and we got gundrak? W. T. F. thanks blizz. you really know what we like. whatevs.
So we manually picked the last four instances (the level 79-80 ones) and got Oculus. no wipes until Eregos. Wiped once on Eregos and got him the second time. it was rocky, but still pretty easy. The tank and i both dinged 80 in that instance.
So why blizz, why are you doing this to us? why are you subjecting us to this type of mockery? why are we only given subpar instances to do? i was doing gundrak two weeks ago. i dont want to do it again unless you're going to give me emblems on every boss. i dont even get rep. whats wrong with you? at level 79, i only want to do Pinicle, Oculus, Halls of Lightning and Culling of Strath. thats it. i dont want to deal with the other instances because they give me crap exp now. i dont want to deal with the lower instances because im trying to gear up to "skip" to heroics when i hit 80. i dont want to do the four instances i just mentioned at 80, on normal. i want to do heroics dammit. and i want to do ToC, FoS, PoS and HoR when i hit 80. and if i went through the whole LFD and took what you gave me in the ass, instead of demanding something that's actually challenging or fun, i'd still be stuck at 80, locked out of heroics and normal ToC, FoS, PoS and HoR, and forced to do lame normal level 79 instances just to meet YOUR gear requirement for the better stuffs.
So please blizz, i know that you want to keep the easy factor there, but if you've even monitored how my performance is in-game, you'll see that i almost always top dps charts. i've been through these instances over 500 times. i've done every single role there is to do (tank, heal, ranged dps, melee dps). i dont need easymode. i find it very insulting that a bunch of decent level 79's are stuck with... Gundrak(level76). seriously.
I cant get into the instances i really want. at 38 i was too low to get into SMGY, so im stuck doing lower instances. then i do SMGY for infinity before i can actually do the other ones. when instances in my LFD tool shows up in yellow, i assume they are doable. but instead, im sent to an easier instance. always. at 42, it was the wait for SMCath. at 54, i was soooo sick of mara and sunken temple, i was waiting for... Strath/Scholo (that NEVER came because blizz figured only level 59 and 60 folks could join those.... but they forget that those people would rather skip all the way to Ramps in outland). yes blizz. the whole LFD system is a bit off. i complained about this in a previous blog, but im going to do this again because.... it sucks THAT much.
at level 68 i'd love to join Utgarde keep. not only will i "miss" and cause "glancing" hits a lot, i'll probably get killed if i pull enough aggro. that's not cool by blizz standards i guess. but guess what blizzard? i've been doing Utgarde keep with all of my toons BEFORE the LFD tool was implemented, and they did FINE (except for my tank, which needed the cobalt gear at 70, and i was rockin). Especially the DPS, they do fine! tanks? thats a different matter. healers? it might be stressful at 68. but really, people should be able to get into utgarde keep at 68. they always have before. why cant we queue up for it now?
And now we get to the point of my post. as Devynity has been leveling up, he's been realizing something. Whether he's 76, or 78, or 79, he'll always (I mean ALWAYS) get Halls of Stone or Gundrak. Last night he was 79, queueing with his friend who's a level 80. we did a random and got Halls of Stone. my god i wanted to cry. but i didnt and sucked it up. then asked the tank if we can requeue for something specific. we ended up getting Utgarde Pinicle. Woot!! the whole trip was awesome. For crying out loud, why couldnt we have gotten a more appropriate instance the first time? instead we got lolHoS.
Thats not the end of it. We requeue'd for a random and got.... GUNDRAK. omg. two level 78, two 79 and a level 80 queing and we got gundrak? W. T. F. thanks blizz. you really know what we like. whatevs.
So we manually picked the last four instances (the level 79-80 ones) and got Oculus. no wipes until Eregos. Wiped once on Eregos and got him the second time. it was rocky, but still pretty easy. The tank and i both dinged 80 in that instance.
So why blizz, why are you doing this to us? why are you subjecting us to this type of mockery? why are we only given subpar instances to do? i was doing gundrak two weeks ago. i dont want to do it again unless you're going to give me emblems on every boss. i dont even get rep. whats wrong with you? at level 79, i only want to do Pinicle, Oculus, Halls of Lightning and Culling of Strath. thats it. i dont want to deal with the other instances because they give me crap exp now. i dont want to deal with the lower instances because im trying to gear up to "skip" to heroics when i hit 80. i dont want to do the four instances i just mentioned at 80, on normal. i want to do heroics dammit. and i want to do ToC, FoS, PoS and HoR when i hit 80. and if i went through the whole LFD and took what you gave me in the ass, instead of demanding something that's actually challenging or fun, i'd still be stuck at 80, locked out of heroics and normal ToC, FoS, PoS and HoR, and forced to do lame normal level 79 instances just to meet YOUR gear requirement for the better stuffs.
So please blizz, i know that you want to keep the easy factor there, but if you've even monitored how my performance is in-game, you'll see that i almost always top dps charts. i've been through these instances over 500 times. i've done every single role there is to do (tank, heal, ranged dps, melee dps). i dont need easymode. i find it very insulting that a bunch of decent level 79's are stuck with... Gundrak(level76). seriously.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
To Devynity.... and Beyond!!
This post will be about Devynity, my almost level 80 paladin.
As many of you know, he's leveling through this game as ret. from day one, he's been ret (yes, i leveled him to level 10 on the first day or so and gave his first retribution talent point) and will probably always be ret. One of the reasons he will stay ret is because i already have a paladin tank on another server. so making him a tank would mean going through the whole gear set grind. im happy with the gear i already have for Devynity, mail pants included. there is really no reason why he needs to do tank stuffs, unless he wants to get insta-queues and attempt to roll on dps plate vs. dks, paladins and warriors. but he doesnt. he wants to get priority when it comes to rolls for dps plate. he doesnt want to ask, "is it ok for me to need for offspec, please?" i mean if i even see a dk/war/paladin in the group when im taking, im going to automatically pass on the dps plate drops unless they dont "need" it. its just another concern i'll have out of the way. i dont really want to deal with it really.
The other reason why Devynity will not be going prot is because he's got no bag space left. none. nada. he's got an enchanting bad in the bank and filled bank full of frostweave bags. he's carrying around all frostweave bags and his backpack. he's got a bunch of enchanting mats that he still needs to use to skill up his enchanting (currently pretty low, in outland enchanting levels, but enough to DE nr blues but not purples). He's got inscription to about 85, but there's absolutely zero room for herbs, glyphs, parchments, inks, pigments, etc. zero room. All of his fish are sent to the alts to sell. There are a bunch of enchants he still needs to get rid of (that no one wants to buy!).
So because of the limited bagspace, the many professions he's already got to deal with and the constant annoyances of tanking heroics (see many previous posts about this), he's not tanking. ever.
Sorry Manda, i know you wanted me to tank stuff for you. i wish i could. but i wont. i love dps too much to change. i wish my gearset can be stored in a different bag. i wish i can put it in a closet instead. you know. all soulbound gear should be stored in a closet. that would rock.
SOOOOOOO..... moving on, devynity will be doing heroics when he reachs 80. he will get to do heroics instantly, i believe, as much of his gear is now pretty decent, with almost no green gear except maybe for a trinket, but thats it. most of his gear is level 175+ so hopefully he can get into the heroic randoms quickly. also, he's specifically choosing Culling of Stratholme, Halls of Lightning, Utgarde Pinnicle and Oculus instead of using the dungeon finder tool. these four instances are more beneficial. god knows why a level 79 should be doing halls of stone or worse, gundrak, for their daily random. but i'll do them if i have to. i dont want to tho. i'd sooo rather do the other four level 80 instanes because really, those are the places where i will actually get gear that will count to getting me into random heroic runs. otherwise, im stuck at 80 doing regular HoL over and over or... buying my gear. desing flaw anyone? indeed. especially when people dont even do normal instances anymore at 80, unless its the later instances like forge of souls.
But seriously blizzard, why do you make us suffer through normal halls of lightning for the 8th time when we're already 80, have two pieces of triumph gear? only because we have a trinket that is level 135 and a cape that's level 156? we cant even queue for ToC because our gear isnt good enough yet? what is this shit? When my warlock guildie hit 80, she ended up having to go through two instances before she could actually join a heroic run. in those runs though, she did upgrade three different items. but the upgrade wasnt by a whole lot, and in the end, when we did enter normal ToC, her dps was about the same. (i get it tho, you want people who randomly q for groups to at least qualify via some gear scoring system, and so it will eliminate some of the fruststrations of pugging at 80. but still... i have 6 80s. come on now.) /rant
now back to devynity's progression. he'll continue to fish. he'll also continue to cook. what he'll stop doing is inscription altogether for the next month or two. i really just want him to get a good base of enchants and get a feel for the enchanting market on our server. also, i'd like him to continue to fish for gold and kirin tor rep. as well, he should be able to dish out some good damage in heroics. he'll be a character with just a few pieces of triumph gear, as i dont really care of he does 2k dps or 3k dps. actually, i'd like him to stay at around 2k dps (which means get all the ilevel200 gear from heroics bosses) which may mean i'll only use my triumph badges for my libram and only my libram.
why do i want my dps at 2k? because thats really all i need in heroics. sure, doing more might be stroking my epeen, but then again, anyone in iCC gear should be able to do more than 4k dps anyway. so what does that have to do with anything? do i really want to repeat Krakkenskull's and Akeelah's project on Devynity? i'll have to think about that. but i do realize that if i only do heroics for now, there's really no need to be buying better gear. those "free" drops from instance bosses are just fine. granted, i might have to run the instances many times, but im going to do that anyway. in the end, i really dont think it will matter except, unless i decide i may want to pug ICC. rep runs? sure! GKP runs?? i'll still have to amass some gold. pugs? this might be a good time to just join a pug for the hell of it. we'll see.
but that's it for my plans. thats all devynity will be doing. hopefully, if i like ret enough, my prot paladin will dual spec ret. i dont know why. i just think it will be fun. maybe. i dont know entirely where im headed with this. i just know that devynity is a blast to play, but his playstyle will get boring eventually. i dont want to go the pvp route though, since i know i have other characters im leveling up just for the sole purpose of pvp.
all in all, things are a little busy for me on RH, as im with a new guild. which gives me reason to be there. but eventually, if i dont find anyone to talk to in-guild, i might just quit the guild. i mean im there for some social interaction, but its been almost a week, and i am welcomed with silence most of the time, even when i say hello or when i ask how's everyone. i get zero response from the 15-20 people online. this does make me sad and i dont know what to tell my friend who invited me to join the guild. we'll see how that goes. but for now, and for the past two years, i havent been able to really find a home.
As many of you know, he's leveling through this game as ret. from day one, he's been ret (yes, i leveled him to level 10 on the first day or so and gave his first retribution talent point) and will probably always be ret. One of the reasons he will stay ret is because i already have a paladin tank on another server. so making him a tank would mean going through the whole gear set grind. im happy with the gear i already have for Devynity, mail pants included. there is really no reason why he needs to do tank stuffs, unless he wants to get insta-queues and attempt to roll on dps plate vs. dks, paladins and warriors. but he doesnt. he wants to get priority when it comes to rolls for dps plate. he doesnt want to ask, "is it ok for me to need for offspec, please?" i mean if i even see a dk/war/paladin in the group when im taking, im going to automatically pass on the dps plate drops unless they dont "need" it. its just another concern i'll have out of the way. i dont really want to deal with it really.
The other reason why Devynity will not be going prot is because he's got no bag space left. none. nada. he's got an enchanting bad in the bank and filled bank full of frostweave bags. he's carrying around all frostweave bags and his backpack. he's got a bunch of enchanting mats that he still needs to use to skill up his enchanting (currently pretty low, in outland enchanting levels, but enough to DE nr blues but not purples). He's got inscription to about 85, but there's absolutely zero room for herbs, glyphs, parchments, inks, pigments, etc. zero room. All of his fish are sent to the alts to sell. There are a bunch of enchants he still needs to get rid of (that no one wants to buy!).
So because of the limited bagspace, the many professions he's already got to deal with and the constant annoyances of tanking heroics (see many previous posts about this), he's not tanking. ever.
Sorry Manda, i know you wanted me to tank stuff for you. i wish i could. but i wont. i love dps too much to change. i wish my gearset can be stored in a different bag. i wish i can put it in a closet instead. you know. all soulbound gear should be stored in a closet. that would rock.
SOOOOOOO..... moving on, devynity will be doing heroics when he reachs 80. he will get to do heroics instantly, i believe, as much of his gear is now pretty decent, with almost no green gear except maybe for a trinket, but thats it. most of his gear is level 175+ so hopefully he can get into the heroic randoms quickly. also, he's specifically choosing Culling of Stratholme, Halls of Lightning, Utgarde Pinnicle and Oculus instead of using the dungeon finder tool. these four instances are more beneficial. god knows why a level 79 should be doing halls of stone or worse, gundrak, for their daily random. but i'll do them if i have to. i dont want to tho. i'd sooo rather do the other four level 80 instanes because really, those are the places where i will actually get gear that will count to getting me into random heroic runs. otherwise, im stuck at 80 doing regular HoL over and over or... buying my gear. desing flaw anyone? indeed. especially when people dont even do normal instances anymore at 80, unless its the later instances like forge of souls.
But seriously blizzard, why do you make us suffer through normal halls of lightning for the 8th time when we're already 80, have two pieces of triumph gear? only because we have a trinket that is level 135 and a cape that's level 156? we cant even queue for ToC because our gear isnt good enough yet? what is this shit? When my warlock guildie hit 80, she ended up having to go through two instances before she could actually join a heroic run. in those runs though, she did upgrade three different items. but the upgrade wasnt by a whole lot, and in the end, when we did enter normal ToC, her dps was about the same. (i get it tho, you want people who randomly q for groups to at least qualify via some gear scoring system, and so it will eliminate some of the fruststrations of pugging at 80. but still... i have 6 80s. come on now.) /rant
now back to devynity's progression. he'll continue to fish. he'll also continue to cook. what he'll stop doing is inscription altogether for the next month or two. i really just want him to get a good base of enchants and get a feel for the enchanting market on our server. also, i'd like him to continue to fish for gold and kirin tor rep. as well, he should be able to dish out some good damage in heroics. he'll be a character with just a few pieces of triumph gear, as i dont really care of he does 2k dps or 3k dps. actually, i'd like him to stay at around 2k dps (which means get all the ilevel200 gear from heroics bosses) which may mean i'll only use my triumph badges for my libram and only my libram.
why do i want my dps at 2k? because thats really all i need in heroics. sure, doing more might be stroking my epeen, but then again, anyone in iCC gear should be able to do more than 4k dps anyway. so what does that have to do with anything? do i really want to repeat Krakkenskull's and Akeelah's project on Devynity? i'll have to think about that. but i do realize that if i only do heroics for now, there's really no need to be buying better gear. those "free" drops from instance bosses are just fine. granted, i might have to run the instances many times, but im going to do that anyway. in the end, i really dont think it will matter except, unless i decide i may want to pug ICC. rep runs? sure! GKP runs?? i'll still have to amass some gold. pugs? this might be a good time to just join a pug for the hell of it. we'll see.
but that's it for my plans. thats all devynity will be doing. hopefully, if i like ret enough, my prot paladin will dual spec ret. i dont know why. i just think it will be fun. maybe. i dont know entirely where im headed with this. i just know that devynity is a blast to play, but his playstyle will get boring eventually. i dont want to go the pvp route though, since i know i have other characters im leveling up just for the sole purpose of pvp.
all in all, things are a little busy for me on RH, as im with a new guild. which gives me reason to be there. but eventually, if i dont find anyone to talk to in-guild, i might just quit the guild. i mean im there for some social interaction, but its been almost a week, and i am welcomed with silence most of the time, even when i say hello or when i ask how's everyone. i get zero response from the 15-20 people online. this does make me sad and i dont know what to tell my friend who invited me to join the guild. we'll see how that goes. but for now, and for the past two years, i havent been able to really find a home.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
On Dealing with Asshats
1. http://paladinwithin.blogspot.com/2010/07/behavior-in-groups-towards-tanks.html
2. http://csahf.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-not-just-tanks-that-are-idiots-it.html
I am merely going to point to the above posts as the point and response of my post today. In both blog entries, the bloggers state specifically about their annoyances with other group members who decide that their group members play the game for their own benefit. I would gather that many of these guys are kids and not adults. but I could be wrong. this topic has been addressed previously in my posts about tanking and why it has tanked for me (tanked is a term used to describe something failing, dying, or droping. tanking in WoW is a term used to describe the activity of maintaining the computer enemy's "hate" towards you. the more hate they have for you, the more they will attack you and not the healer).
As many of you know, I play all roles in this game. There are three dps (named because of what they do, namely, they produce high damage per second (dps) for the group, as opposed to the tank and healer), one healer whose job is to heal everyone. EVERYONE. and a tank, who holds the attention of the computer mobs. So in heroics, as we call it, five people enter and attempt to be victorious in their endeavors there.
The mechanics of the group fight is simple. The tank will run into a group of mobs (computer controlled, mobile objects) and does his abilities to keep the mob's attention. then the dps will start their attack and take down the mob's health until it does. the healer will heal the tank primarily, himself secondly and the dps lastly. the idea behind this set of priority is simple. if the tank dies, the mobs will wipe the group. if the healer dies, the tank will eventually die and then the mobs will wipe the group. if the dps dies, then it just takes longer to kill the mobs.
Now this is how groups should work, with everyone doing their job to get to the bosses and complete the instance. the problem occurs when people, behind the veil of anonymity and the safety of their own home, decides to be jerks in the game and demand people to play the game their way. and with the invention of the random dungeon finder, this has gotten to the point where people sometimes forget that they are playing with four other human beings, especially when the human beings are from different servers.
The dungeon finder is a great invention, actually. it was made to put groups together automatically, so that the tank can just queue up as a tank, or the dps can queue up as dps, be automatically put into a group, and when the group has all the elements of being a group (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps), they get sent to a random dungeon. Now this process works within I set of realms, meaning the person I could be grouped with could be from a different realm than me. more often than not, this is the case. and because this is the case, there's almost no incentive for anyone who felt that they were being treated disrespectfully to hunt down the perpetrators. Instead, they just need to get over it, move on, vent, and add the idiot to the ignore list.
I know I've put several people on ignore before. they are not worth the hassle to party with again. they're usually from different servers, of course, as being on the same server would be too close for comfort and they would shut up. they're usually the people who can perform well, as in, be in great gear and produce high dps, or they have the more "important" role. my contention with this is that everyone has an important role. some people might think being the tank or the healer is more important than being a dps, but I find that each role has the same level of importance and each deserving the same levels of respect. what I don’t like are the tanks who think they are god's gift, or the healer who has to mention about how great their healing is (shamans usually =P) or the dps who does twice as much damage as everyone else. sometimes it's necessary to remind jerks that they are simply not that important. the above links show just how easy it is to really ignore the jerks, let him be the spoild child behind the computer and move on.
- bad tank? boot and get a new one. refuse to heal and have a dps switch specs/gear and tank instead.
- bad dps? boot. let him die a few times, then boot. or let him spice up the chat box before he leaves. let him pull with no healing or tank taunting. no one needs his pompous ass anyway.
- bad healer? boot. or get a new one. ignore his requests to gogogogogo. instead, take your time. it is, after all, to his best interest that the tank doesn’t die and at least one dps is alive to finish killing the mobs. otherwise, it would just take longer.
- run with friends. the "kick" feature is more highly used when playing with friends, especially with Immortelle. She's pretty kick-happy. She'll check your gear score and say to everyone, a 5k gear score mage should not be doing 4k dps. but then again, Immy does 6k dps just goofing off. as of writing, she and her guild is one boss away from "Light of the Dawn".
As mentioned above, there is a "kick" feature in instances where you can actually kick a player from the group. I say, use it! usually its saved up for when the group cant stand the idiot anymore. but sometimes I find that we tolerate them too much, which only encourages them to be even bigger jerks in their next instance. this is sort of a way to condoning their behavior. our apathy leads to their brazeness. sounds logical. because it is a game, many of us behind the computer screen will tolerate some asshattery here and there for the sake of time, or to save the trouble of finding a replacement. sometimes the boot needs to hit the butt quicker, and that asshat needs to be sent out of the dungeon. maybe if enough people deal with it this way, we will have less idiots demanding the group to play their way, or according to their standards.
I could mention stories of the many times I've come across asses in the game, but its really useless internet garbage no one really cares to read. you have enough examples from the above links. sometimes I dealt with it, other times I didn’t care much. many times, when I do decide to kick someone, its after I've had enough of their idiocy. there have been many times where I, when tanking, had to tell the dps or the healer if they didn’t like the speed of my pulls, they can pull and tank it themselves. that usually shuts them up. or they leave.
So with all that said, i think everyone will come across these idiots in time and when they do, they will know the possible ways to deal with the situation. when playing in a game where you're randomly added to a group there is bound to be differences, preferences and expectations. everyone plays this game differently, after all. you can group them into several different categories, but remeber that this is only the nature of the beast. people will need to realize that they arent playing with their guildies, or their friends. Rather, they are playing with strangers who may have different motives and goals than they do. it is up to us all to use the tools given to us in-game to deal with the people who we find unsavory, or jerks.
2. http://csahf.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-not-just-tanks-that-are-idiots-it.html
I am merely going to point to the above posts as the point and response of my post today. In both blog entries, the bloggers state specifically about their annoyances with other group members who decide that their group members play the game for their own benefit. I would gather that many of these guys are kids and not adults. but I could be wrong. this topic has been addressed previously in my posts about tanking and why it has tanked for me (tanked is a term used to describe something failing, dying, or droping. tanking in WoW is a term used to describe the activity of maintaining the computer enemy's "hate" towards you. the more hate they have for you, the more they will attack you and not the healer).
As many of you know, I play all roles in this game. There are three dps (named because of what they do, namely, they produce high damage per second (dps) for the group, as opposed to the tank and healer), one healer whose job is to heal everyone. EVERYONE. and a tank, who holds the attention of the computer mobs. So in heroics, as we call it, five people enter and attempt to be victorious in their endeavors there.
The mechanics of the group fight is simple. The tank will run into a group of mobs (computer controlled, mobile objects) and does his abilities to keep the mob's attention. then the dps will start their attack and take down the mob's health until it does. the healer will heal the tank primarily, himself secondly and the dps lastly. the idea behind this set of priority is simple. if the tank dies, the mobs will wipe the group. if the healer dies, the tank will eventually die and then the mobs will wipe the group. if the dps dies, then it just takes longer to kill the mobs.
Now this is how groups should work, with everyone doing their job to get to the bosses and complete the instance. the problem occurs when people, behind the veil of anonymity and the safety of their own home, decides to be jerks in the game and demand people to play the game their way. and with the invention of the random dungeon finder, this has gotten to the point where people sometimes forget that they are playing with four other human beings, especially when the human beings are from different servers.
The dungeon finder is a great invention, actually. it was made to put groups together automatically, so that the tank can just queue up as a tank, or the dps can queue up as dps, be automatically put into a group, and when the group has all the elements of being a group (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps), they get sent to a random dungeon. Now this process works within I set of realms, meaning the person I could be grouped with could be from a different realm than me. more often than not, this is the case. and because this is the case, there's almost no incentive for anyone who felt that they were being treated disrespectfully to hunt down the perpetrators. Instead, they just need to get over it, move on, vent, and add the idiot to the ignore list.
I know I've put several people on ignore before. they are not worth the hassle to party with again. they're usually from different servers, of course, as being on the same server would be too close for comfort and they would shut up. they're usually the people who can perform well, as in, be in great gear and produce high dps, or they have the more "important" role. my contention with this is that everyone has an important role. some people might think being the tank or the healer is more important than being a dps, but I find that each role has the same level of importance and each deserving the same levels of respect. what I don’t like are the tanks who think they are god's gift, or the healer who has to mention about how great their healing is (shamans usually =P) or the dps who does twice as much damage as everyone else. sometimes it's necessary to remind jerks that they are simply not that important. the above links show just how easy it is to really ignore the jerks, let him be the spoild child behind the computer and move on.
- bad tank? boot and get a new one. refuse to heal and have a dps switch specs/gear and tank instead.
- bad dps? boot. let him die a few times, then boot. or let him spice up the chat box before he leaves. let him pull with no healing or tank taunting. no one needs his pompous ass anyway.
- bad healer? boot. or get a new one. ignore his requests to gogogogogo. instead, take your time. it is, after all, to his best interest that the tank doesn’t die and at least one dps is alive to finish killing the mobs. otherwise, it would just take longer.
- run with friends. the "kick" feature is more highly used when playing with friends, especially with Immortelle. She's pretty kick-happy. She'll check your gear score and say to everyone, a 5k gear score mage should not be doing 4k dps. but then again, Immy does 6k dps just goofing off. as of writing, she and her guild is one boss away from "Light of the Dawn".
As mentioned above, there is a "kick" feature in instances where you can actually kick a player from the group. I say, use it! usually its saved up for when the group cant stand the idiot anymore. but sometimes I find that we tolerate them too much, which only encourages them to be even bigger jerks in their next instance. this is sort of a way to condoning their behavior. our apathy leads to their brazeness. sounds logical. because it is a game, many of us behind the computer screen will tolerate some asshattery here and there for the sake of time, or to save the trouble of finding a replacement. sometimes the boot needs to hit the butt quicker, and that asshat needs to be sent out of the dungeon. maybe if enough people deal with it this way, we will have less idiots demanding the group to play their way, or according to their standards.
I could mention stories of the many times I've come across asses in the game, but its really useless internet garbage no one really cares to read. you have enough examples from the above links. sometimes I dealt with it, other times I didn’t care much. many times, when I do decide to kick someone, its after I've had enough of their idiocy. there have been many times where I, when tanking, had to tell the dps or the healer if they didn’t like the speed of my pulls, they can pull and tank it themselves. that usually shuts them up. or they leave.
So with all that said, i think everyone will come across these idiots in time and when they do, they will know the possible ways to deal with the situation. when playing in a game where you're randomly added to a group there is bound to be differences, preferences and expectations. everyone plays this game differently, after all. you can group them into several different categories, but remeber that this is only the nature of the beast. people will need to realize that they arent playing with their guildies, or their friends. Rather, they are playing with strangers who may have different motives and goals than they do. it is up to us all to use the tools given to us in-game to deal with the people who we find unsavory, or jerks.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Remember last weekend?
Remember last weekend where I decided to level a paladin and got him to level 20 by the end of the weekend? well this weekend I started off at level 26 and ended up level 34. its not the 20 levels from last week, but it is still a significant change. howso? at the start of the weekend I was pretty happy doing 60 dps. now im trying to hit 150 each time through SM:GY. Scarlet Monastery: Grave Yard. Graveyard is probably the shortest of the four SM instances and also the lowest leveled. Not only is it the lowest level instance, it's probably the only instance at level 30. when I started the weekend, I was doing RFK and Gnomers, but at 30, its only SM:GY. only.
sure, I can q for another instance manually, althought the choices are pretty limited (I cant even choose SFK to complete a quest that's green to me), but at level 30-32 I was doing all graveyard runs. and when my group wanted to re-q, we got graveyard again. how random is that when there's only one instance that LFD will pick? Gnomers/stocks/rfk is green? so what, send me there I don’t care. they should really do at least one lockout if we've done maybe the same instance like 3 times in a row. then remove the lockout once we've done a new one. that would work. programming that in would not be so hard would it? how many times do I have to deal with listening to the torturer yelling "Naughty Secrets"? I don’t want to. but sadly, I think im not given much options in the future. next group of instances: Library and… that’s it.
next after that: RFDowns, SM:Armory.
next after that: Uldamon, SM: Cath, Zul Farak
next after that: Maraudon, Sunken Temple
next after that: Scholomance, Stratholme, BRD, BRS: upper and lower.
So honestly, I don’t think I'll even get to do all of the last tier instances before I hop over to outland. those instances are much better planned, better laid out, gives better loot and gives better exp. all better unless I really want to get some kinda acheivement. or that rare enchanting recipe from that rare spawn in brd. I don’t even know what formula it is, I just know its there. So with the list above, I'd say my best chance to actually enjoy random instances is with Ulda/Cath/ZF, or… Scholo/Strath/BRD/BRS. In the early 50's, I'll be stuck with Mara and Sunken Temple. and right now, I will be stuck with Library. just library. until I hit one more level and then I can do RFD. Razerfen downs. So I guess it's not soooo bad. but still.
anyway, so at level 33, I think I was able to get into random SM:Lib. Scarlet Monastery Library. 34, maybe RFD with some SM:Lib still. and then hopefully at 34 or 35 I can start doing Armory. it doesn’t help when most of the gear that drops from armory can only be equipped at 35-38. so for most of my time there, I will probably come across Herod's axe like 10 times, and each time I will roll need on it because I will claim I do not have it. and each time I will save it so I can take a screen shot of how ridiculous Armory is… in terms of drops. its all mail and an axe. so warriors, paladins, hunters and enhancement shamans, this instance is for you, even if you cant use the drop for four levels. hopefully I can run this place long enough to come across all the pieces to the chain set of the scarlet crusade and then the tabard, shield, and a shoulderpiece from herod. I think I'll be all set for two levels. that’s when plate gear kicks in and I'll be switching to that. although I've done this grind before and I really don’t transition out of mail completely until well into my mid 40s or even late 40s. there is no real hurry anyway, as my dps is rockin and my survival isnt so bad when questing "yellow" or "orange" mobs. now have me fight off two orange mobs and I might run low on health. but that’s about it. 3 orange mobs and im basically dead if I don’t BOP and run.
This weekend, I also tried to level my cooking and fishing. fishing was pretty easy actually. I remember the days where I tried to fish at a certain spot and would not be able to because my fishing skill was too low. now I can fish anywhere, but what I catch can either be junk, or a sickly fish. either way, it still increases my fishing skill. and that's really all I am after. really. I can now fish in hillsbrad and catch decent fish without a lure. I still get the occassional junk, but I get more fish than not. also, I try to seek out the pools, which will get me more "good" fish and some junkboxes. those trunks do have nice goodies. I did get a book that taught me how to spot fish pools on my minimap. it hasn’t really helped since im still stuck on "sense undead" haha. but I cant say for sure if its actually helpful. I mean I run along the riverbank and yea, there's a pool. did I need a minimap finder for that? nope. I also discovered there are fish that only live in fresh water, and others that only live in salt water. interesting. I stopped using lures now, but I know I can probably fish better with it. I need to keep it in mind.
cooking isnt so bad either. I started off making the simple sweet bread, then herb baked eggs. this was done last week. I spend about an hour running through the zoram strand the other day for crawler meat, then went and killed the naga for clams. then, I went to hillsbrad and killed the naga there for higher level clams. the naga in hillsbrad drop the zesty clams. then I went and hit 175 and learned to make soothing turtle bisque. so cooking will be easy for now. I do remember the last few items to cook in azeroth were fished, so that might be a problem. but I did read somewhere that cooking was made easier so I don’t have to really deal with having to buy lobsters at 295 in order to reach 300 cooking skill.
So far, everything's stuck at 200-225. I learned to make mageweave bandages, my fishing is almost 200, and my cooking is at 190ish. my enchanting is stuck at 235 and my second profession should be coming right along… soon. yea, soon. I am still tossing up two options. one is inscription, and the other is blacksmithing. I'll ponder more about this later.
One last thing im discovering, if there's a shaman with a mana spring totem, he's usually overriding my blessing of wisdom. which causes smartbuff to go bonkers. I really like smartbuff, but I am having some problems tweaking it, specially with all the other buffs out there and everyone asking for something else. blessing of wisdom and mana stream doesn’t stack. so I just put on kings.
I also joined a guild this past weekend. we're called Durotan's Children. or was it Children of Durotan? something like that. it’s a social/leveling guild. there's some nice people, with lots of "gratz" going on. I really don’t like congratulating people of small acheivements. if its hitting 30, or 60, or 80, then sure. if its for buying an epic flyer then sure. if its for downing some difficult raid boss then sure. if its for getting journeyman mining, then no. no no no. that’s not an acheivement. that's something you would do anyway. but other than that rant, theres a lottery! I don’t know what else is in store for me, but hopefully the guild leader remains in the guild, doesn’t get caught up with real life (or give leadership to appropriate person to lead in their absence), and doesn’t do stupid things. well stupid can be subjective. but anyway, I am hoping for something fun. maybe a bunch of people to level with. I see a lot of people who are level 20, 30, 40, and so on. My DK is still in my other guild with my friend, but she's barely on and almost no one is on in the other guild. so I figured I might as well try a "social leveling" guild for now.
so that’s pretty much what went down this past weekend. hopefully I can post a bit about some of the small details of ret leveling and spec soon. its quite interesting how the same class can level differently based on spec. and how talent choices can matter depending on levels, style of play and just plain ol' preference. of course, pally leveling has changed drastically since a few years back (all for the better, ofc).
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