After two months of leveling on alliance side, i have to say that people from both factions of the game are completely alike. There are smart ones and dumb ones, casuals, hardcores, etc. What i find more of is that the people on a smaller faction will know each other better. There are a lot less anonymity on the smaller faction, which works out in favor of those who are "good" or deemed good by other players.
What i also find is that there is a greater need for healers and tanks, but mostly healers in our realm and faction. Any alts willing to join and be my "pocket" healer is always welcome. Healbot not required. but a good sense of awareness is. and that's basically the key factor when raiding, dungeoning, and pvp. we have to be aware of our surroundings at all time, while naturally doing tip top dps. these two things arent mutually exclusive, but they are very difficult to master together.
So to my friends who read my blog and ever had this little inkling of healing, i'll coach you! i will make you master healer in no time! jk. i wont make you master healer. but i will give you as much support as you will need. but what i ask is that you empty your minds of the things you're used to. a full cup cannot be filled. that's what my teachers said when i was a kid. that is what Mo'at, the Tsahek said to Jake Sully. and i find it difficult in real life as well. and i have come to the point where i will not teach anyone who is not willing to learn. sometimes we just need to put aside our old habits (you know, the things we learn first and continue doing even though it's not efficient, effective or popular, it's brought us this far, so why not?) and learn to heal, or in fact, play the game in a different light. sometimes it's as easy as zooming out, or switching addons, or removing recount. recount is a good tool to use after a fight to analyze how well or badly someone did. but it isnt tip top priority in a fight. staying out of bad, interrupting, slowing, dispelling, countering specific mechanics, staying out of bad, etc. all of these things are way more important than dps. or hps. hps shouldnt even matter.
anyway. just my little philosophy this friday. sometimes we all have to relearn how to play. i had to when learning to play my hunter efficiently. i am still annoyed at my dps. i dont watch it during the fight since there's so many things to watch than recount, but i do look at it after a fight. i also have skada installed and they both tell me different stories. finally, i've set up a world of logs account just to upload and see how well or badly i do personally, and eventually be able to perfect my own shots and rotation.
In the near future, i am planning on posting several things. one, i will be showing my UI, or user interface. i will go down the list of the addons and tools i use in order to help me stay aware of my fights. most of these things are completely customizable and can fit into anyone else's character and playing style. Some things are strictly redundant but i need those redundancies to help me monitor how the party or raid is doing. second, i will be going down the list of some of my power auras for certain events. i am sure weak auras can do the same things. either way, i dont really want to show you an how-to, but more of a why-to, so that you can make something similar which will help you monitor your own buffs, debuffs, abilities and cooldowns. Third, i do want to show my combat logs, fights, etc. i know many fights involve a lot of movement, and a lot of timing where i cannot get the best "rotation" available. but i do want to show my own progression as a hunter. i dont think i have grasped the whole of being a hunter. as someone on the internet has said before, playing a hunter is one of the easiest things to do in wow. playing a hunter well is one of the most difficult. in all actuality, i find it very difficult to play a hunter well, especially when limitations are in place, like focus cost to set traps? or even use the trap launcher? really? that costs focus? wtf? and the whole trap launcher mechanic is super clunky at best. i wish they just made it automatic. i can launch a trap at my feet if i wanted to. seriously.
in any case, look for more hunter-related posts here! my days of playing a druid are not over, however. i've been logging on to my druids daily to make gems and transmute for gold. it's quite a feat now that their duties does not involve fighting the fight and taking it to deathwing, his kids, or ragnaros. but instead, to supply the fighters with mats so that they can eventually beat down and destroy the evil that threatens azeroth. haha. whatever. i just want more gold. anyway. see you all next time!
Showing posts with label update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label update. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Random Update (Mid-August)
Hi guys,
Sorry my last post has been so long. Many things have been going on and there's just so much to write about. Although at times, i dont feel like writing, i do want to keep my readers up to date about my wow-playing. I also want to thank those who do read this and hope that they take something away from my posts, no matter how silly some of them are.
Today i just wanted to update you about what's going on in wow for me. I started an alliance hunter a little over a month ago to level with my girlfriend. it seemed pretty boring then, as i was leveling as marksman spec (MM), and all i was doing was multi-shot and steady shot pairs. sometimes i'd actually use serpent sting and follow with a Chimera shot and Master marksman aimed shot (MMM-AI). These are the basics of my "rotation" which is not a rotation at all. Since reaching 80, i've discovered huntering to be a little more complicated, as i actually need to CC (and my Traplauncher+trap combo is almost second nature now, i can do this while running, but i can never do this while in the middle of a rotation) and control my pet more.
And lately i've figured out what i like in this game. A little bit of raiding (about two-three nights a week is perfect) with random leveling and character progression thrown in the remaining times. Oh, and also selling in the AH. if i cant sell in the AH and make some gold, half of the game is gone for me.
In any case, playing my hunter presents some challenges at 85 which i have never dealt with before. first, i have to deal with a pet. sure, they are usually able to take care of themselves, but i find that sometimes they'd die whirlwinds, fire and the like. Although they may have some survivability (less aoe damage) they still get damaged and i still have to keep an eye on them. second, they sometimes run off to attack mobs which i did not attack. this happens only after we kill one mob or a group of mobs and the pet somehow has another, unengaged mob on queue. this usually happens when i tab target and cycle through my targets. even though i did not attack the mob halfway across the map, i did cycle through him to get to my actual target, and this is what gets me labeled noob sometimes. oh well. Third, the shot rotations are different from MM to BM. as i can imagine, every hunter has a BM spec. not because they like it, but because it allows them to tame certain exotic pets. although BM may not fare as well as the other specs, and rely heavily on their pet (say, 40% of the dps comes from their pets), they still can hold their own in raids and such. but the problem for me is getting these two specs to meld together when i play. So far, only two abilities are interchangeable. one is the long CD nuke, and second, is the proc. oh and the source of focus regen is different.
Here's what i mean.
For MM's, the focus regen ability comes from Steady Shots. for BMs, it is using Cobra Shots. So that's a no-brainer replacement (/cast [spec:1] Steady Shot; Cobra Shot).
For MMs, their main nuke on cooldown is Chimera Shot. for BMs, it's Kill Command. However, the issue is this. Chimera Shot has a 10 second cooldown, 9 seconds glyphed. For Kill Command, it is 6 seconds. This often throws my rotation off as i would be spamming Chimera shot but not seeing it available for 3 extra seconds, 3 seconds in which i could have added other shots.
The last difference is the proc-based ability. kind of. Kind of because it's not really a proc. it's more of a wait for your buff to reach 5 stacks, then unload. for MM, this is MMM-AI. and for BM, this is a proc that will increase your ranged attack haste by 15%. One is a hard-hitting nuke while the other is a buff to your casting speed and global cooldown.
Whatever the case, the thing that throws me off is usally the Chimera Shot/Kill Command switch, which has different cooldowns and causes the "rhythm" of my shots to go helter-skelter.
I hit 85 on my hunter about three weeks ago and decided to join an actual raiding guild. My current guild belonged to a friend of my gf who i've met on hordeside and wanted to level on alliance side. this is great and all, and i hope my quests and leveling and stuff helped her level his guild just a little. in any case, being that there is no active recruitment and that there's really only 4 active people in the guild, one being my gf, i decided that joining an actual raiding guild would make a lot of difference in my game. And join one i did! the guild raids later at night, which is perfect for me since i get home around 7ish. they play roughly around 8pm and end around 11pm my time. perfect. and i am very glad i did find a group of raiders willing to play at that time. and i am very glad it's a very casual raiding requirement. raid attendance is required two days a week, where we raid Firelands on tuesday and wednesday, or wednesday and thursday. it varies. but all the other raids are optional, including BH, BoT, BWD and Tot4W. All of those do not have a mandatory requirement for my team at least. Also, i will be uploading parses to World of logs eventually. so watch out for that! i really dont care to share the info with others, but it is really for my own research, as somehow, i am an info junkie. I love graphs and interpreting real life events from what graphs and charts say. =D
So what i can never find in horde-side, i have found here on the alliance. Here are my guesses as to why that is the case. for one, there are a lot fewer people on the alliance side, therefore, if there are bad players, there isnt that large of a playerbase where their lack of talents can be hidden. they just stand out more and often are forced to either play well or do something else. this something else can include leveling alts, remain in 5man heroics, or just switch to another faction/server. The second point is bascially a converse of the first: with so few people there is a better chance that you will be remembered for the good that you do. people play together more. this can also be because the realm is a pvp realm, and partying together keeps the would-be gankers away. But overall, people will know each other better and know the quality of play each person can do. Now finally, i do know that there are quality players over on the horde side as well, but there is so much garbage players to sift through that it makes it really difficult to find actual good players. i am not saying everyone is bad and there's a distinct minority of players who are good, there's just a higher chance of meeting a retarded or bad player on a higher population realm/faction. this all goes along with my theory as to why medium pop servers are better than high pop servers. but that's another post altogether.
Although it does seem like i am comparing apples to oranges, i do find it particularly intriguing that i can easily find an organized raiding guild on the alliance side easily. I am also not saying that the talent hordeside is lacking, they are not. actually many of their guilds are leading the progression in our realm. but the problem still remains, with the added number of people on hordeside, there's a higher chance of finding subpar players to "fill in the ranks" of a guild. Oddly, it seems that on the alliance, most people know what they're doing. maybe it is because they are forced into it due to... nevermind. this is not a philosophical post. =P
Finally, i'd like to note that i did attain the reins of the ravenlord. My hunter's armory is at this link here.
Anyway, sorry for the delay in posting. life has been rather busy and i havent found a real reason to post lately. Maybe a brainstorm session for topics would help.
Sorry my last post has been so long. Many things have been going on and there's just so much to write about. Although at times, i dont feel like writing, i do want to keep my readers up to date about my wow-playing. I also want to thank those who do read this and hope that they take something away from my posts, no matter how silly some of them are.
Today i just wanted to update you about what's going on in wow for me. I started an alliance hunter a little over a month ago to level with my girlfriend. it seemed pretty boring then, as i was leveling as marksman spec (MM), and all i was doing was multi-shot and steady shot pairs. sometimes i'd actually use serpent sting and follow with a Chimera shot and Master marksman aimed shot (MMM-AI). These are the basics of my "rotation" which is not a rotation at all. Since reaching 80, i've discovered huntering to be a little more complicated, as i actually need to CC (and my Traplauncher+trap combo is almost second nature now, i can do this while running, but i can never do this while in the middle of a rotation) and control my pet more.
And lately i've figured out what i like in this game. A little bit of raiding (about two-three nights a week is perfect) with random leveling and character progression thrown in the remaining times. Oh, and also selling in the AH. if i cant sell in the AH and make some gold, half of the game is gone for me.
In any case, playing my hunter presents some challenges at 85 which i have never dealt with before. first, i have to deal with a pet. sure, they are usually able to take care of themselves, but i find that sometimes they'd die whirlwinds, fire and the like. Although they may have some survivability (less aoe damage) they still get damaged and i still have to keep an eye on them. second, they sometimes run off to attack mobs which i did not attack. this happens only after we kill one mob or a group of mobs and the pet somehow has another, unengaged mob on queue. this usually happens when i tab target and cycle through my targets. even though i did not attack the mob halfway across the map, i did cycle through him to get to my actual target, and this is what gets me labeled noob sometimes. oh well. Third, the shot rotations are different from MM to BM. as i can imagine, every hunter has a BM spec. not because they like it, but because it allows them to tame certain exotic pets. although BM may not fare as well as the other specs, and rely heavily on their pet (say, 40% of the dps comes from their pets), they still can hold their own in raids and such. but the problem for me is getting these two specs to meld together when i play. So far, only two abilities are interchangeable. one is the long CD nuke, and second, is the proc. oh and the source of focus regen is different.
Here's what i mean.
For MM's, the focus regen ability comes from Steady Shots. for BMs, it is using Cobra Shots. So that's a no-brainer replacement (/cast [spec:1] Steady Shot; Cobra Shot).
For MMs, their main nuke on cooldown is Chimera Shot. for BMs, it's Kill Command. However, the issue is this. Chimera Shot has a 10 second cooldown, 9 seconds glyphed. For Kill Command, it is 6 seconds. This often throws my rotation off as i would be spamming Chimera shot but not seeing it available for 3 extra seconds, 3 seconds in which i could have added other shots.
The last difference is the proc-based ability. kind of. Kind of because it's not really a proc. it's more of a wait for your buff to reach 5 stacks, then unload. for MM, this is MMM-AI. and for BM, this is a proc that will increase your ranged attack haste by 15%. One is a hard-hitting nuke while the other is a buff to your casting speed and global cooldown.
Whatever the case, the thing that throws me off is usally the Chimera Shot/Kill Command switch, which has different cooldowns and causes the "rhythm" of my shots to go helter-skelter.
I hit 85 on my hunter about three weeks ago and decided to join an actual raiding guild. My current guild belonged to a friend of my gf who i've met on hordeside and wanted to level on alliance side. this is great and all, and i hope my quests and leveling and stuff helped her level his guild just a little. in any case, being that there is no active recruitment and that there's really only 4 active people in the guild, one being my gf, i decided that joining an actual raiding guild would make a lot of difference in my game. And join one i did! the guild raids later at night, which is perfect for me since i get home around 7ish. they play roughly around 8pm and end around 11pm my time. perfect. and i am very glad i did find a group of raiders willing to play at that time. and i am very glad it's a very casual raiding requirement. raid attendance is required two days a week, where we raid Firelands on tuesday and wednesday, or wednesday and thursday. it varies. but all the other raids are optional, including BH, BoT, BWD and Tot4W. All of those do not have a mandatory requirement for my team at least. Also, i will be uploading parses to World of logs eventually. so watch out for that! i really dont care to share the info with others, but it is really for my own research, as somehow, i am an info junkie. I love graphs and interpreting real life events from what graphs and charts say. =D
So what i can never find in horde-side, i have found here on the alliance. Here are my guesses as to why that is the case. for one, there are a lot fewer people on the alliance side, therefore, if there are bad players, there isnt that large of a playerbase where their lack of talents can be hidden. they just stand out more and often are forced to either play well or do something else. this something else can include leveling alts, remain in 5man heroics, or just switch to another faction/server. The second point is bascially a converse of the first: with so few people there is a better chance that you will be remembered for the good that you do. people play together more. this can also be because the realm is a pvp realm, and partying together keeps the would-be gankers away. But overall, people will know each other better and know the quality of play each person can do. Now finally, i do know that there are quality players over on the horde side as well, but there is so much garbage players to sift through that it makes it really difficult to find actual good players. i am not saying everyone is bad and there's a distinct minority of players who are good, there's just a higher chance of meeting a retarded or bad player on a higher population realm/faction. this all goes along with my theory as to why medium pop servers are better than high pop servers. but that's another post altogether.
Although it does seem like i am comparing apples to oranges, i do find it particularly intriguing that i can easily find an organized raiding guild on the alliance side easily. I am also not saying that the talent hordeside is lacking, they are not. actually many of their guilds are leading the progression in our realm. but the problem still remains, with the added number of people on hordeside, there's a higher chance of finding subpar players to "fill in the ranks" of a guild. Oddly, it seems that on the alliance, most people know what they're doing. maybe it is because they are forced into it due to... nevermind. this is not a philosophical post. =P
Finally, i'd like to note that i did attain the reins of the ravenlord. My hunter's armory is at this link here.
Anyway, sorry for the delay in posting. life has been rather busy and i havent found a real reason to post lately. Maybe a brainstorm session for topics would help.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
200 x 200
200. That's about how many shadowspirit diamonds i have in my inventory.
200. That's how much i can sell the cut ones for, on average. (ranging from 100g to 350g)
40,000. That's 200 x 200. Thats how much im short of my goal for Cata.
Currently, im sitting at about 160k gold with less than a week to go before the month is over. usually, i can probably get about 20k gold in a week. but not lately. it looks like things have been slowing down quite a bit. i am hoping that the weekend will bring the bored, the lonely and the less frugal out to play. being that, in the US, it's memorial day weekend, i may have a spike in sales. time to DE all the alicite pendants and jasper rings and sell the mats! Although i know 200 people will not want all my 200 shadowspirit diamonds, i do know that there will be a good number of people wanting to buy gems for their upgrades this weekend. i may have to collect my mailbag june 1st or 2nd to see the final result. hopefully, i would have met my mark of 200k gold by then. if not, there's always next week.
Besides the shadowspirit diamonds, i have quite a few dream emeralds and amberjewels in stock. i am very short on all the other gems (maybe except ocean sapphires) and it is slowly biting into my potential profit. so what's a man to do? be adventurous and herb. my druid has been flying around deepholm for heartblossoms lately, to transmute with carnellians to make inferno rubies. i'll be sending her to twilight highlands and then to hyjal in order to collect mats to make demonseyes and ember topazes. Hopefully, that will help break the 200k mark. but time is limited and the day is slow creeping upon me. it's best to hurry.
in other news: inscription is slow, leatherworking is slow, blacksmithing is slow and even farming is slow.
regarding alts: i have alliances now. they suck but are slowly leveling up. it appears there is a larger number of new players on alliance side. perhaps it is where first timers join up as. eventually, they will switch over to horde (or not) and that makes leveling hordeside a little smoother. im not saying we dont have our short bus crew too--we do! but i am saying i see less of it hordeside than alliance side.
case in point, my warrior, now mid level 30s, is in a guild of about 300 people. the mesage of the day says something similar to this: "Welcome to! Every please buy pvp gear or you wont survive in heroics!"
The exact quote must be screenshotted. I will follow up with that soon.
200. That's how much i can sell the cut ones for, on average. (ranging from 100g to 350g)
40,000. That's 200 x 200. Thats how much im short of my goal for Cata.
Currently, im sitting at about 160k gold with less than a week to go before the month is over. usually, i can probably get about 20k gold in a week. but not lately. it looks like things have been slowing down quite a bit. i am hoping that the weekend will bring the bored, the lonely and the less frugal out to play. being that, in the US, it's memorial day weekend, i may have a spike in sales. time to DE all the alicite pendants and jasper rings and sell the mats! Although i know 200 people will not want all my 200 shadowspirit diamonds, i do know that there will be a good number of people wanting to buy gems for their upgrades this weekend. i may have to collect my mailbag june 1st or 2nd to see the final result. hopefully, i would have met my mark of 200k gold by then. if not, there's always next week.
Besides the shadowspirit diamonds, i have quite a few dream emeralds and amberjewels in stock. i am very short on all the other gems (maybe except ocean sapphires) and it is slowly biting into my potential profit. so what's a man to do? be adventurous and herb. my druid has been flying around deepholm for heartblossoms lately, to transmute with carnellians to make inferno rubies. i'll be sending her to twilight highlands and then to hyjal in order to collect mats to make demonseyes and ember topazes. Hopefully, that will help break the 200k mark. but time is limited and the day is slow creeping upon me. it's best to hurry.
in other news: inscription is slow, leatherworking is slow, blacksmithing is slow and even farming is slow.
regarding alts: i have alliances now. they suck but are slowly leveling up. it appears there is a larger number of new players on alliance side. perhaps it is where first timers join up as. eventually, they will switch over to horde (or not) and that makes leveling hordeside a little smoother. im not saying we dont have our short bus crew too--we do! but i am saying i see less of it hordeside than alliance side.
case in point, my warrior, now mid level 30s, is in a guild of about 300 people. the mesage of the day says something similar to this: "Welcome to
The exact quote must be screenshotted. I will follow up with that soon.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Still Here
First I'd like to apologize for my absence. I've actually been really unmotivated to write lately. I've also been working a lot more at work than usual. And when i do have the few minutes to write, nothing comes to mind. Call it what you will, bloggers' block, dryspell, dissatisfaction with the current state of coffee (starbucks wants to buy peet's, wtfno!), the weather, high gas prices, or dysentery, i havent really had any solid thoughts that i'd like to share with anyone. heck, when i play wow i dont even think of how online social behavior shape the community's perception of harder heroics (though basically everyone think they suck, but heroics are supposed to be hard, correct?). anyway. just saying. wow bores me. im in auto mode right now. what am i doing?
1. Half-heartedly doing dailies. yes, dailies for the fourth year in a row. dailies to get some cool gear and some enchants. of course, i'll get a different enchant depending on faction. but stealing food from dwarves get boring after the 5th day. and i dont even get to eat any of it.
2. Half-heartedly doing dailies. what? yea, the cooking, fishing, jewelcrafting... even the daily transmutes and research/discoveries. i missed a few researches on my scribe last week. i missed a JC daily or two last week (and i have two JCers). i missed a few xmutes, and when i do them, i dont even visit uldum or hyjal anymore, i just do them in orgrimmar and get a random element.
3. Automatically relisting gems twice daily. Most of my gold is made from JC, or from disenchanting the JC stuff and making enchants. well my enchants arent selling so i have a bunch of unenchanted rings and neclaces sitting in the mailbox. my "green" gems are sitting in my xmute character waiting to be changed to "blue" gems and metas. im always out of red gems and have way too many green gems. i've given up selling green gems for now, as no one seem to want sensei's, vivid, etc dream emeralds anymore.
4. I'm leveling a rogue. yes, another melee dps. i do miss having the instant attacks with very little cooldowns, providing me double the dps of my rogue usually. im doing half of what most people do, until i use my cooldowns. it sucks leveling as a rogue. i mean i get to a mob, get enough combo points to cast slice and dice, then try to build more combo points and lose it because the mob just died. now im out of energy and have to start over on another, almost dead mob. after the first finisher, i could never build enough combo points to actually do anything else. i cant even get enough energy up to do a 2-point finisher. nerfed content sucks i tell you. Then the boss fight comes and i shine because that's the only time the fight last long enough (okay, not always. some fights are stupid short) for Adrenaline Rush to last its whole duration, and then, i top the meters and actually feel useful. haha. tanks dont even care that i tricks them to pull a stray mob to them, which ends up in a messy pull.
5. My rogue is a skinner/leatherer. yea, typical. but that means i am running around killing countless kodos, wolves, dragonkins and yetis to actually make enough garbage items to get through to something useful. seriously, a rogue takes a ridiculous amount of time killing and skinning, even if the kill takes 1-shot. i cant "train" or aggro more than four mobs at a time unless i want to risk losing the first two mobs. i gather three or four at once, dismount, kill, loot, skin, mount, repeat. boring as hell. but hey, at least its not archeology.
6. Speaking of Archeology, gonna spend the next few mindless weeks leveling that up too.
So in conclusion, cata heroics are hard. rogue leveling is stupid. Jc makes lots of gold. and wow is pretty boring.
1. Half-heartedly doing dailies. yes, dailies for the fourth year in a row. dailies to get some cool gear and some enchants. of course, i'll get a different enchant depending on faction. but stealing food from dwarves get boring after the 5th day. and i dont even get to eat any of it.
2. Half-heartedly doing dailies. what? yea, the cooking, fishing, jewelcrafting... even the daily transmutes and research/discoveries. i missed a few researches on my scribe last week. i missed a JC daily or two last week (and i have two JCers). i missed a few xmutes, and when i do them, i dont even visit uldum or hyjal anymore, i just do them in orgrimmar and get a random element.
3. Automatically relisting gems twice daily. Most of my gold is made from JC, or from disenchanting the JC stuff and making enchants. well my enchants arent selling so i have a bunch of unenchanted rings and neclaces sitting in the mailbox. my "green" gems are sitting in my xmute character waiting to be changed to "blue" gems and metas. im always out of red gems and have way too many green gems. i've given up selling green gems for now, as no one seem to want sensei's, vivid, etc dream emeralds anymore.
4. I'm leveling a rogue. yes, another melee dps. i do miss having the instant attacks with very little cooldowns, providing me double the dps of my rogue usually. im doing half of what most people do, until i use my cooldowns. it sucks leveling as a rogue. i mean i get to a mob, get enough combo points to cast slice and dice, then try to build more combo points and lose it because the mob just died. now im out of energy and have to start over on another, almost dead mob. after the first finisher, i could never build enough combo points to actually do anything else. i cant even get enough energy up to do a 2-point finisher. nerfed content sucks i tell you. Then the boss fight comes and i shine because that's the only time the fight last long enough (okay, not always. some fights are stupid short) for Adrenaline Rush to last its whole duration, and then, i top the meters and actually feel useful. haha. tanks dont even care that i tricks them to pull a stray mob to them, which ends up in a messy pull.
5. My rogue is a skinner/leatherer. yea, typical. but that means i am running around killing countless kodos, wolves, dragonkins and yetis to actually make enough garbage items to get through to something useful. seriously, a rogue takes a ridiculous amount of time killing and skinning, even if the kill takes 1-shot. i cant "train" or aggro more than four mobs at a time unless i want to risk losing the first two mobs. i gather three or four at once, dismount, kill, loot, skin, mount, repeat. boring as hell. but hey, at least its not archeology.
6. Speaking of Archeology, gonna spend the next few mindless weeks leveling that up too.
So in conclusion, cata heroics are hard. rogue leveling is stupid. Jc makes lots of gold. and wow is pretty boring.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The Rock
Last night i was tanking a bit and found myself looking for level 70 gear to tank with, as if i didnt already have the entire cobalt tanking set already. why not have a choice? maybe i do like a few more options to itemize my stats (yea i realize that BC plate gear is itemized for the pala and warrior tank and is not that much useful for the death knight that was introduced in Wrath). things like shield block and block rating ignored, there are some nice pieces for tanking. i am especially looking for anything to compliment my cobalt set which includes a cape, rings, trinkets and a neck piece. i dont understand why DK's do not get their actual tanking runeforge until level 72. it was a bit of torture tanking Utgarde keep and Nexus between level 70 and level 71. Even with the runeforge (Stoneskin gargoyle or Nerubian Carapace) tanking wasnt fun as i would get hit for a lot of damage often.
Anyway, so i queued for various dungeons, including Shattered Halls, The Botanica, The Black Morass, The Arcatraz and Shadow Labyrinth. I think i skipped over Steamvaults because it didnt have anything exciting for me.
In ay case, of those five instances, i was given The Arcatraz. things started off pretty easy at first. I'd deathgrip the first group on the left, then the group on the right. then i took the middle group along with the mutation. Easy enough. Then we got the big mutation thing and we took care of that easily. I dont understand how previous runs resulted in wipes at this point. but in previous runs, i was not the tank, or the healer. I was merely dpsing. this was several months ago on my paladin. in any case, we cleared pretty much everything without incident until the last room, where the healer decided to go afk. then we wiped and healer left. an insignificant dps left as well. This left us with top dps shadow priest and second top dps mage. The priest decided to switch to healing so we moved on to take out the trash mobs. In the last room, there are several difficult mob encounters, but they can be pulled separately. firstly, there's two groups of two satyrs immediately inside the room, with a patrolling infernal. you can aggro the inferal without aggroing the two groups of satyrs. and that's exactly what i did. the inferno is probably the funnest fight due to it casting meteor strike. simple watch the ground around you to monitor if you're being targeted for meteor strike. if you see red fire ripples around you, move. thats it. it gets tough when tanking because i really dont know who is being targetted.
The drill is simple. tank until he casts meteor. move to position 2. he casts meteor again, move back to position 1. the problem occurs when there's four people and two of them have pets. or in our case, one mage caster with a pet. sometimes they get targetted. what we did was set the mage's pet to stand at a certain spot. if he tanks the hit, then great! if the mage gets targetted, he moves to the priest. if the priest gets targetted, he moves to the mage. if the tank gets targetted, he moves somewhere. after dying several times to this (since there are two infernals in that room) we finally downed them. having just the tank and the healer made it easy (albiet long) to complete since meteor can only hit one of two people. plus, with PWS up, we both can withstand a meteor hit. however, it will usually leave us with about 10% health so a quick heal is needed after the meteor strike. i continued to use vampiric blood whenever i can (1 minute cd) and IBF in between (really not sure if meteor strike is physical or magic damage or both).
In any case, with that fun part out of the way.... we went in and one-shot the boss. many would remember this fight as being a fight with three semi-bosses and then one boss that sometimes mind controls and will make copies of himself (twice) during the fight. each copy needs to be killed. overall, it took several minutes with one mage dpsing. but we did, in the end, kill Skyriss. simple encounter.
So no real post with content today. im just telling a story of victory over nerfed content!
Anyway, so i queued for various dungeons, including Shattered Halls, The Botanica, The Black Morass, The Arcatraz and Shadow Labyrinth. I think i skipped over Steamvaults because it didnt have anything exciting for me.
In ay case, of those five instances, i was given The Arcatraz. things started off pretty easy at first. I'd deathgrip the first group on the left, then the group on the right. then i took the middle group along with the mutation. Easy enough. Then we got the big mutation thing and we took care of that easily. I dont understand how previous runs resulted in wipes at this point. but in previous runs, i was not the tank, or the healer. I was merely dpsing. this was several months ago on my paladin. in any case, we cleared pretty much everything without incident until the last room, where the healer decided to go afk. then we wiped and healer left. an insignificant dps left as well. This left us with top dps shadow priest and second top dps mage. The priest decided to switch to healing so we moved on to take out the trash mobs. In the last room, there are several difficult mob encounters, but they can be pulled separately. firstly, there's two groups of two satyrs immediately inside the room, with a patrolling infernal. you can aggro the inferal without aggroing the two groups of satyrs. and that's exactly what i did. the inferno is probably the funnest fight due to it casting meteor strike. simple watch the ground around you to monitor if you're being targeted for meteor strike. if you see red fire ripples around you, move. thats it. it gets tough when tanking because i really dont know who is being targetted.
The drill is simple. tank until he casts meteor. move to position 2. he casts meteor again, move back to position 1. the problem occurs when there's four people and two of them have pets. or in our case, one mage caster with a pet. sometimes they get targetted. what we did was set the mage's pet to stand at a certain spot. if he tanks the hit, then great! if the mage gets targetted, he moves to the priest. if the priest gets targetted, he moves to the mage. if the tank gets targetted, he moves somewhere. after dying several times to this (since there are two infernals in that room) we finally downed them. having just the tank and the healer made it easy (albiet long) to complete since meteor can only hit one of two people. plus, with PWS up, we both can withstand a meteor hit. however, it will usually leave us with about 10% health so a quick heal is needed after the meteor strike. i continued to use vampiric blood whenever i can (1 minute cd) and IBF in between (really not sure if meteor strike is physical or magic damage or both).
In any case, with that fun part out of the way.... we went in and one-shot the boss. many would remember this fight as being a fight with three semi-bosses and then one boss that sometimes mind controls and will make copies of himself (twice) during the fight. each copy needs to be killed. overall, it took several minutes with one mage dpsing. but we did, in the end, kill Skyriss. simple encounter.
So no real post with content today. im just telling a story of victory over nerfed content!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Brd is the Word
Rockdarr, Lv. 55 Orc Shaman
Imagine that, three nights in a row and we end up doing BRD, blackrock depths each night. My shaman Rockdarr and my gf's paladin Kriss7 ended up in BRD for the 15th time this past week. Since people start brd around level 52, and move on to BRD Uppoer City!!! at level 54, we have been through this dungeon more times than we'd like. especially when no one can figure out how to really get the "random dungeon completion" for doing the upper city.
through one of my first trips to brd, after a wipe, i picked up the stoneforge key quest that got me the, well, stoneforge key. this just gave me access to the rest of the city. it wasnt all that awesome really. basically i had to kill a boss, turn in the quest, and from between this dead guy's legs, out comes a key. yep, thats how it happened. i kid you not.
but brd holds several items of interest to me. one, full clears means 1 more level (actually now, about 80% of a level). two, i get to see some super silly accidental mass pulls. three, the opportunity to see the highest dps die several times. and four, craptastic items that actually look cool, especially weapons.
but other than those things, there's really not too much i want to take from these instances. like SM or Uldaman or Sunken Temple, i wanna get out of there as soon as possible.
BRD isnt like Maraudon. Mara is split up into three sections. but each section has a different look and feel. it could have possibly been three different instances, each with a different entrance and no connection between them. Instead, we're given a massive dungeon with two different entrances and a possible item to teleport us to the beginning of the third section. kinda involved, which is good, but still. i'd rather be told i cant enter Mara-falls because i havent done Mara-ugly yet.
BRD changed that. They added the requirement of a key and still do! Not only that, they drop us into BRD thinking we'll do the upper city. but we're sent to the beginning of the map and no one really knows we're in the dungeon group for "upper city" until after we kill the prison boss. everyone stands there confused and wonders where their ballsack of goodstuffs is. but its not there. we dont get the message that we're done. so we move on forward and try to kill as many bosses as possible. i have the key, so i open the locks and we go through every single boss we can kill. NONE gives us the acheivement for finishing the upper city portion of BRD. none. /sad
Am i complaining? sort of. i dont mind the large dungeon. with a good group, thats a lot of experience. i went from level 52-55 over the weekend. it was easy. i did get a few groups that stopped after a few bosses. there's really no incentive to stay after the prison boss. but others stayed, and thats how i got my key. i find that the level 55's would rather finish the whole instance than requeue because its basically the final push to get to outland. everyone's sick and tired of dungeons. everyone's sick and tired of trying to deal with groups and fail tanks (i dont know why, but they all seem to be druids).
Queue times have increased. from 10 minutes to 20-30 minutes. why? because no one wants to run the dungeon any more. i mean at level 55, there's just a few more levels til we hit the next continent. some are already out there trying to kill things. others are better off questing or finishing off some chain quest they've been meaning to do. others dont mind a little bit of pvp. but really, before i hit outlands, i'd like to complete blackrock spire (another stupidly long dungeon, and doesnt look like a spire at all), scholomance and stratholme. when people hit 55, they're able to make themselves a deathknight. but there's so many people i see playing on alts that this reason is a bit pushing it. so... why the queue times have gone up i have no idea. these are only my guesses.
in any case, i think the last azeroth dungeon we'll be doing in LFD will be blackrock spire and scholo. on my other alts, i've never been in a group for stratholme. scholo, yes. UBRS yes. upper black rock spire. ubrs.
most scholomance groups make it all the way to the end. most ubrs groups usually die out since no one knows where the hell to go for anything. we dont even know how to capture the worg for the pet.
In any case, i've seen BRD more times than i really care to see. although i am a healer and i look mostly at healthbars the whole time. i still find it very dull to see the same content over and over and over. i dont mind having choices, but make them well-defined. the way brd is laid out, no one really knows where to go. if we're doing upper city, drop us off in upper city. if we're doing prison, make sure everyone knows we're doing prison. tell us who we have to kill to finish the dungeon. i think we've killed every boss in brd without getting the upper city acheivement (although i got the acheivement for completing all of BRD. what??)
Xylie, Lv. 36 Belf Priest
My priest is named after two things. One of my friends on wow is named something similar. Xylie is also named after one of my daughter's mermaids. actually from the movie A Mermaid's tale. tail, tale. get it? old pun. i know.
I got into a random the other day. Yes i know, randoms are so much easier to do than questing. why? because i get to learn healing. as very many people know, leveling as a healer sucks. the old way of doing it was to level as dps then switch to healing/tanking at level 60, or 70, or now, 80. but those days are gone thanks to LFD. it has made finding groups, and leveling as holy, restoration, disc, "heals" much much easier. sure, people can get sick of dungeons. but that's the nature of anything you do over and over and over again (besides sleep, ofc). In any case, leveling as a healer is much eaiser (minus the stupid tanks and stupid dps out there) now.
Stupid tanks still exist, especially those who insist on pulling large quantities of mobs while the healer is drinking. also for the druid who insists on pulling more and more mobs, especially when the healer jumped into the dungeon mid-fight, fuck you. learn to respect that others zone into dungeons and most often, expect a minute to ready themselves. the grim guzzler isnt exactly the best place to chain pull anyway, especially with knockdowns and curses up the wazooo.
Speaking of curses. i landed in a RFK group the other day and was healing the tank pretty effortlessly. its funny that the tank mentioned that i was pretty good at healing. not only that, that i was spot on with my decursing and dispelling. why isnt that what healers do anyway? but he's mentioned that his whole day was littered with horrible healers. i gave myself an immaginary pat on the back. but decursing is as easy as a mousewheel scroll up/down (i made it that way). mouseover macros are awesome. remind me to add that function to Rend on my warrior. that would be a nice addition in between thunderclaps. thats all tanks do anyway. run in, thunderclap, revenge, rend, thunderclap. thats really all i need to do to hold aggro. but that's an aside and i should really talk about healing. lol
in any case, at level 36, my healing consists of Power Word: Shield, which is a stupid name for "Shield". or "Bubble". but i think of Divine Aegis as the "bubble" and PWS ans the "shield". so lets leave it at that. i've yet to get divine aegis anyway. what im really looking for is mana returns on used shields. meaning, whenever one of my shields gets used up completely, i get some mana back. this will be awesome although i really dont need mana regen right about now. i put a shield up on a tank, stand there for 30 seconds, then run to the next group, reshield. i might toss a heal. and that's about it. things get hairy when i get tanks that insist on tanking several groups at once. although it is a little more fun that way, my mana drops like a rock.
Here are my priorities when healing.
People Priority:
Me. Tank. Good DPS. lowest dps last.
Spell Priority:
Shield. Flash Heal. Greater Heal. Prayer of Healing. Renew.
Renew is last? yes. its an aweful spell for disc. it has its uses. like if i shielded someone, and let renew do the ticking. that would usually be used on a dps and not the tank. coming from a druid healer, who has HoTs of every flavor, you'd expect renew to be up at the top of my priorities. i would too! and that's what i used to do when playing my priest. but after a long time playing disc, i have switched over to a more direct heal and mitigation approach to healing. it just takes a little getting used to. but after seeing how lackluster renew is for a disc priest firsthand, it wasnt hard to shed the habit of blacketing HoTs.
tanks get more direct heals if i can help it. its mainly because the tank's health is going down faster than the rest, and a renew wont fill up a health bar. however, it will help to keep him from dying should i get a nasty chain pulling tank. i usually keep flash heal very handy, which is why my next talent points would be to lower the cost of my flash heal. lately though, my flash heal only heals for about 15% of the tank's health. hopefully, my spells will catch up. i do like to see about a 25% gain on each heal, much like how most other "flash" heal type spells work. oh well. it will improve in time.
Imagine that, three nights in a row and we end up doing BRD, blackrock depths each night. My shaman Rockdarr and my gf's paladin Kriss7 ended up in BRD for the 15th time this past week. Since people start brd around level 52, and move on to BRD Uppoer City!!! at level 54, we have been through this dungeon more times than we'd like. especially when no one can figure out how to really get the "random dungeon completion" for doing the upper city.
through one of my first trips to brd, after a wipe, i picked up the stoneforge key quest that got me the, well, stoneforge key. this just gave me access to the rest of the city. it wasnt all that awesome really. basically i had to kill a boss, turn in the quest, and from between this dead guy's legs, out comes a key. yep, thats how it happened. i kid you not.
but brd holds several items of interest to me. one, full clears means 1 more level (actually now, about 80% of a level). two, i get to see some super silly accidental mass pulls. three, the opportunity to see the highest dps die several times. and four, craptastic items that actually look cool, especially weapons.
but other than those things, there's really not too much i want to take from these instances. like SM or Uldaman or Sunken Temple, i wanna get out of there as soon as possible.
BRD isnt like Maraudon. Mara is split up into three sections. but each section has a different look and feel. it could have possibly been three different instances, each with a different entrance and no connection between them. Instead, we're given a massive dungeon with two different entrances and a possible item to teleport us to the beginning of the third section. kinda involved, which is good, but still. i'd rather be told i cant enter Mara-falls because i havent done Mara-ugly yet.
BRD changed that. They added the requirement of a key and still do! Not only that, they drop us into BRD thinking we'll do the upper city. but we're sent to the beginning of the map and no one really knows we're in the dungeon group for "upper city" until after we kill the prison boss. everyone stands there confused and wonders where their ballsack of goodstuffs is. but its not there. we dont get the message that we're done. so we move on forward and try to kill as many bosses as possible. i have the key, so i open the locks and we go through every single boss we can kill. NONE gives us the acheivement for finishing the upper city portion of BRD. none. /sad
Am i complaining? sort of. i dont mind the large dungeon. with a good group, thats a lot of experience. i went from level 52-55 over the weekend. it was easy. i did get a few groups that stopped after a few bosses. there's really no incentive to stay after the prison boss. but others stayed, and thats how i got my key. i find that the level 55's would rather finish the whole instance than requeue because its basically the final push to get to outland. everyone's sick and tired of dungeons. everyone's sick and tired of trying to deal with groups and fail tanks (i dont know why, but they all seem to be druids).
Queue times have increased. from 10 minutes to 20-30 minutes. why? because no one wants to run the dungeon any more. i mean at level 55, there's just a few more levels til we hit the next continent. some are already out there trying to kill things. others are better off questing or finishing off some chain quest they've been meaning to do. others dont mind a little bit of pvp. but really, before i hit outlands, i'd like to complete blackrock spire (another stupidly long dungeon, and doesnt look like a spire at all), scholomance and stratholme. when people hit 55, they're able to make themselves a deathknight. but there's so many people i see playing on alts that this reason is a bit pushing it. so... why the queue times have gone up i have no idea. these are only my guesses.
in any case, i think the last azeroth dungeon we'll be doing in LFD will be blackrock spire and scholo. on my other alts, i've never been in a group for stratholme. scholo, yes. UBRS yes. upper black rock spire. ubrs.
most scholomance groups make it all the way to the end. most ubrs groups usually die out since no one knows where the hell to go for anything. we dont even know how to capture the worg for the pet.
In any case, i've seen BRD more times than i really care to see. although i am a healer and i look mostly at healthbars the whole time. i still find it very dull to see the same content over and over and over. i dont mind having choices, but make them well-defined. the way brd is laid out, no one really knows where to go. if we're doing upper city, drop us off in upper city. if we're doing prison, make sure everyone knows we're doing prison. tell us who we have to kill to finish the dungeon. i think we've killed every boss in brd without getting the upper city acheivement (although i got the acheivement for completing all of BRD. what??)
Xylie, Lv. 36 Belf Priest
My priest is named after two things. One of my friends on wow is named something similar. Xylie is also named after one of my daughter's mermaids. actually from the movie A Mermaid's tale. tail, tale. get it? old pun. i know.
I got into a random the other day. Yes i know, randoms are so much easier to do than questing. why? because i get to learn healing. as very many people know, leveling as a healer sucks. the old way of doing it was to level as dps then switch to healing/tanking at level 60, or 70, or now, 80. but those days are gone thanks to LFD. it has made finding groups, and leveling as holy, restoration, disc, "heals" much much easier. sure, people can get sick of dungeons. but that's the nature of anything you do over and over and over again (besides sleep, ofc). In any case, leveling as a healer is much eaiser (minus the stupid tanks and stupid dps out there) now.
Stupid tanks still exist, especially those who insist on pulling large quantities of mobs while the healer is drinking. also for the druid who insists on pulling more and more mobs, especially when the healer jumped into the dungeon mid-fight, fuck you. learn to respect that others zone into dungeons and most often, expect a minute to ready themselves. the grim guzzler isnt exactly the best place to chain pull anyway, especially with knockdowns and curses up the wazooo.
Speaking of curses. i landed in a RFK group the other day and was healing the tank pretty effortlessly. its funny that the tank mentioned that i was pretty good at healing. not only that, that i was spot on with my decursing and dispelling. why isnt that what healers do anyway? but he's mentioned that his whole day was littered with horrible healers. i gave myself an immaginary pat on the back. but decursing is as easy as a mousewheel scroll up/down (i made it that way). mouseover macros are awesome. remind me to add that function to Rend on my warrior. that would be a nice addition in between thunderclaps. thats all tanks do anyway. run in, thunderclap, revenge, rend, thunderclap. thats really all i need to do to hold aggro. but that's an aside and i should really talk about healing. lol
in any case, at level 36, my healing consists of Power Word: Shield, which is a stupid name for "Shield". or "Bubble". but i think of Divine Aegis as the "bubble" and PWS ans the "shield". so lets leave it at that. i've yet to get divine aegis anyway. what im really looking for is mana returns on used shields. meaning, whenever one of my shields gets used up completely, i get some mana back. this will be awesome although i really dont need mana regen right about now. i put a shield up on a tank, stand there for 30 seconds, then run to the next group, reshield. i might toss a heal. and that's about it. things get hairy when i get tanks that insist on tanking several groups at once. although it is a little more fun that way, my mana drops like a rock.
Here are my priorities when healing.
People Priority:
Me. Tank. Good DPS. lowest dps last.
Spell Priority:
Shield. Flash Heal. Greater Heal. Prayer of Healing. Renew.
Renew is last? yes. its an aweful spell for disc. it has its uses. like if i shielded someone, and let renew do the ticking. that would usually be used on a dps and not the tank. coming from a druid healer, who has HoTs of every flavor, you'd expect renew to be up at the top of my priorities. i would too! and that's what i used to do when playing my priest. but after a long time playing disc, i have switched over to a more direct heal and mitigation approach to healing. it just takes a little getting used to. but after seeing how lackluster renew is for a disc priest firsthand, it wasnt hard to shed the habit of blacketing HoTs.
tanks get more direct heals if i can help it. its mainly because the tank's health is going down faster than the rest, and a renew wont fill up a health bar. however, it will help to keep him from dying should i get a nasty chain pulling tank. i usually keep flash heal very handy, which is why my next talent points would be to lower the cost of my flash heal. lately though, my flash heal only heals for about 15% of the tank's health. hopefully, my spells will catch up. i do like to see about a 25% gain on each heal, much like how most other "flash" heal type spells work. oh well. it will improve in time.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Updates Updates Updates Aug 23
General Updates
I have been spending more time on Ysondre than I have been in Ravenholdt because I have been leveling my shaman and priest with my girlfriend as of late. This is not to say I have abandoned my old realm. Ravenholdt is the perfect sized realm, "medium" population with a horde imbalance of about 3 to 1, that means 75% of the population is horde. What this does mean is that world pvp is not too lively, as you'll find some horde outnumbering alliance. but it also means that when alliance do find the time to harass a town, they will do it in force, 10 deep, with air support. and usually in Thrallmar (of course, the lower level town). It does have a pretty mature market, with gem cutters with all cuts, glyph makers with 20 of each glyph at all times and a wide array of crafting mats, not to mention the entertainment to be had in trade chat.
In Ysondre the life is a little different. There is much less going on in the AH, so mats are limited, especially mats to level professions. people can easly control a market for a limited amount of time, buy up all the mithril and relist it for more (but always having to watch out for small time undercutters). bags are limited as well, as are item enchants and enhancements. bags are limited by the low amount of netherweave due to the low amount of people leveling through outland. and those are the highest in-demand bags. special enchants are hard to get as the supply is lacking. however, common enchants are lowly priced since there's a lot of supply and little demand. things are quite skewed in ysondre. so if you're looking to make some gold and don’t mind "farming" please go there and mine and herb. seriously. sungrass should not be selling for 40g a stack. sungrass??
one thing I've noticed is that people do not know the value of some items. I die a little inside when I see cut golden draenite. why? because the cut versions are trash, used only to skill up points and tossed while the uncut variety are used for tailoring. yes, tailoring. at 10-20g a pop. why? because tailors need four of them to make their silly slow flying carpet. not only are you tapping into a market with little or no supply (check the AH for fel iron ore or adamantite ore or even the gem in question, and you will see almost nothing, or something that's omg overpriced), you're about to provide the tailor (who's second profession is probably enchanting, and NOT jewelcrafting or mining) with something he is not able to produce on his own… ever.
In any case, the difference in both servers cannot really be seen in the beginning levels, as leveling through the world can be a dry and lonely experience. you will not find a lot of people questing to learn about the lore. heck, do people even read the quests anymore? or do they just pick it up and look on their map for the dots to tell them where to go? im guilty of doing that but it is because I've already done those quests several times and do not need to be reminded of the story. If cata is going to change the entire face of azeroth, I'd love to quest again through to level 85, just to see the lower level's updated story, from all angles (and that means, yes, I might have to roll a troll…. or a gnome now). but yea, my point was that you will not see too many people leveling these days simply because there's the dungeon finder. it makes leveling emmensly, immensely, whatevers, easy. well not that easy. you still have to do "OK" and this teaches people how to perform in groups at an earlier level, and more often. one complaint I had previously was that people do not know how to perform in groups because they simply never did it due to it being "too hard" to find groups. well now you can easily do it. and do it often! so with repetition comes competence. or at least I hope so. no longer will a fresh level 80 walk into an instance for the first time because turning in quests was much easier to do. no longer will we have to learn two different "games" when we play this game. one at level 1, and the other at level 80. although both are available starting at level 13-ish.
On Leveling
What I noticed differently about this game is that I have been doing instances to level up way more than I do questing. a couple of years back, I would be questing most of the time, trying to get my player to a higher level. I did find that while questing, I was able to learn the little details of my class, but it wasn’t until I started playing with other people in instances that I really started to understand how my class played in comparison with others and how it can benefit others. When playing solo, I learned my spells well and well enough to use the different spells in different situations in groups. What I find lately is that everyone who parties with me knows quite a bit about playing in groups, especially post level 25. but, they do not use all of their tools to their advantage. somehow, leveling through instances requires knowledge of only several abilities. It’s a great way of learning to play in groups, but I find that it doesn’t help people actually learn everything they need to know about their class.
One Trick Ponies
What I see the most? People are not utilizing all of their skills, but only resorting to AoE style of play. Because many tanks can simply group a bunch of mobs together, the dps usually busts out with their AoE type spells (blizzard, volley, rain of fire, etc) and try to burn down all the mobs at once. this makes it easy, actaully. although healing through it might not be as before (I'll explain that in a bit), things seem to work and we move on to the next batch to start the process all over again.
What happens when people use their AoE all the time?
1. no one gets cc'ed. no one gets "crowd controlled". no one is dazed, sheeped or forced to repent.
2. no one interrupts. casters, with 3 second casts usually, do not get interrupted. shield slam? no. hammer of justice? no. wind shear? no. kick? no. silence? no. counterspell? no. of course not. all of these spells are learned in raids or in arenas, of course, at level 80.
3. no emergency spells. what is this? a near wipe! oh lets just wipe. actually there are many emergency spells that every class has that will help to live longer, and possibly to avoid a wipe. im talking interrupts and cc's, but also those damage mitigation spells every class should have by now. divine protection, last stand, shield wall, fears, frost nova, and so forth. what usually happens is that the hunter or warlock's pet takes over tanking and no one really has to blow any of their cooldown spells. one other thing is that mobs hit for less damage comparatively, so some healers will find it a lot easier to heal four people (each with one mob on them) than healing a tank with four mobs on himself. sometimes I even prefer to heal four "tanks" than just one. tis weird.
4. no synergizing. This means no one is really talking about ways to improve their dps with other members. should warlocks toss curse of the elements? which totems are best with this group composition? why are you giving me "dampen magic????" stop overriding my blessings! etc.
there might be more, but this is all I really wanted to talk about. all of this should be learned during our play time leveling, if not through discovery, than its through being told by someone in the group (sometimes without an explanation). but being told by someone in the group is often a matter of chance, so we leave it up to chance to learn how to best use our abilities? sigh. but whether or not we know how to really "play" our character, or why our character is doing crap damage vs everyone else, what matters most is that we learn how to work as a team. the above four points kinda illustrate how, as a member of a team, we can help each other out.
The Resto Shaman
I've been leveling up a shaman recently with my girlfriend's paladin. he's been quite a blast to play actually. What I've learned from having only one heal for 20 levels, and now having a second heal, that healing with a shaman is indeed, boring. but thank god we're not just limited to healing. no really, there are several instant attacks that you must utilize as a shaman. must. even at the cost of mana. because you helping to kill things faster makes instances faster, even if you have to sit and drink a little. here's my little bit of insight I want to share for those in levels 20-30.
1. include the fire totem. magma totem over searing totem. blast it on cooldown.
2. save frost shock for runners. if they don’t run, earthshock to reduce their attack speed (but if you have a warrior/druid doing demo shout, this becomes unnecessary).
3. target any caster and windshear their spells. less damage taken means less you have to heal. windshear is on a short cooldown so you can do it multiple times a fight.
4. always keep water shield up. they are your mana resource. glyphed water shield rocks too.
5. at level 30, always recall your totems. this saves you some mana.
After level 20, you can easily contribute to the speed of many dungeons by adding a ltitle burst dps when needed. just remember to watch your mana usage and hold off at certain times. especially when the tank is taking heavy damage (but those are often the best times to dps. oh so juicy). but I always have to remember I signed up to heal and so I should heal first and foremost.
The GF's Ret Paladin
My girlfriend has been trying to level up her paladin for over a week and has gotten her to her mid 30s today. Not much to say except that she usually top damage meters. Is that great or what? well she tops dps. im sure she gets it from me. but I think what makes her dps high is that I mention several things about her fighting. always judge on cooldown, and always use seal of command. so she's rocking through the instances with very little problems and doing pretty good damage.
Now that her paladin is about the same level as her warlock, we'll be leveling together. all four characters. her lock and pala with my priest and shaman. I guess I'll have to check out the different combinations (theres just two, but hey, trying to see how they fit together) to see which one works best to boost our dps and healing. you know, that synergy thing.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Guild Update (RH)
I just wanted to tell you about the awesome times i've had with my guild in ravenholdt.
I have done zero raids with them. although they have raids weekly, and oftentimes, 3 raids going on at various times of the week, i still am not able to get into a ICC10 with them at all. this is mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Although i do not know what's going on in raid scheduling in the future, i do see that there's plenty of activities going on (and planned). Lets hope i can make it to one of these events.
I have done several heroics and some alt runs on various 60-ish characters with some of them. they are a fun bunch. i am hoping to do more heroics with some guild pugs (oxymoron, i know) and hopefully do some lower level instances with the levelers. Chantie, im talking about you and your hubby.
Although i do want to do more guild things, i find there's very little incentive for me to log in and do anything. My first half hour upon logging into my character is spent with me wondering if anyone is willing to do anything. i do ask in guild if anyone wants to do anything, but seeing that most of the members are in ICC, my responses will be small anyway. sometimes i do get a reply and the time i have there becomes a little more meaningful.
So after a while of that, i felt i should just log on to my leveling toon and stay there to level. its paired up with my girlfriend's toon anyway. so we're leveling up together, on a different server, and that's our project. i am really liking it so far. well besides having to make several low level alts that has had it with level 1-20 zones, its been really fun just running around watching my gf learn the mechanics of the game and of her various characters. i find its a bit more fun here, at least for now, until my guild actually has use for me.
I have done zero raids with them. although they have raids weekly, and oftentimes, 3 raids going on at various times of the week, i still am not able to get into a ICC10 with them at all. this is mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Although i do not know what's going on in raid scheduling in the future, i do see that there's plenty of activities going on (and planned). Lets hope i can make it to one of these events.
I have done several heroics and some alt runs on various 60-ish characters with some of them. they are a fun bunch. i am hoping to do more heroics with some guild pugs (oxymoron, i know) and hopefully do some lower level instances with the levelers. Chantie, im talking about you and your hubby.
Although i do want to do more guild things, i find there's very little incentive for me to log in and do anything. My first half hour upon logging into my character is spent with me wondering if anyone is willing to do anything. i do ask in guild if anyone wants to do anything, but seeing that most of the members are in ICC, my responses will be small anyway. sometimes i do get a reply and the time i have there becomes a little more meaningful.
So after a while of that, i felt i should just log on to my leveling toon and stay there to level. its paired up with my girlfriend's toon anyway. so we're leveling up together, on a different server, and that's our project. i am really liking it so far. well besides having to make several low level alts that has had it with level 1-20 zones, its been really fun just running around watching my gf learn the mechanics of the game and of her various characters. i find its a bit more fun here, at least for now, until my guild actually has use for me.
Monday, July 19, 2010
New Guild on Ravenholdt (RH)
I just wanted to mention to my readers that i have found a guild to join on Ravenholdt US. The people seem really cool and i would love to join them in their adventures.
I plan to have four of my 80 characters in the guild. So far, i've logged on to two and have gotten invites. I've actually been a bit lazy to get on my other two toons to get them invited. i'll do that when i actually need to log on to them!
So far in the guild:
Devyn, my dps/tank DK, who leveled through wrath as a tank, in tanking spec only. no dps. the dps sucked, but i lived through everything while leveling. instance-wise, i did struggle a bit in the beginning (running utgarde keep, nexus, anh kahet and azjol nerub were hellishly annoying) but gotten a whole lot better in terms of gear when i hit level 75ish. so tanking violet hold and drak tharon keep were pretty easy. once i reached 80, i began tanking (and, unfortunately, went through the whole beginner tanking experience like i did with utgarde keep, again. this time in heroics) normal level 80 instances and then heroics. got my def to 535 (actually it was 525, with a sigil that gave me 11 def whenever i used icy touch to make it 535. this works out as i usually use icy touch in the beginning of the fights anyway). Then i switched over to DPS and LOVE LOVE LOVE it even more. I went frost dps with the two weaons, one on each hand, and a total makeover of all my gear. gearing was easy, but queueing up for instances as a dps sucked. in any case, i have pretty good emblem gear and should be able to do decently in ICC10 if ever asked to join.
(this got me annoyed this past saturday as the guild was asking for people from their saturday run, and i said i could go while on Devyn, but never received any kind of invite. instead, i saw maybe six people in ICC, with the rest of the people pugged. maybe they missed my comment. i should have repeated my statement. oh well. there's always next week i guess. as the new person in the guild, i would expect to be ignored? probably. there's probably better people in /trade they can pug with anyway. Instead, i hopped on Diinky and had a great time running one of our brand new dinged 80 warlocks through a few instances. she had a blast, at least i hoped she did.)
Diinky, my pve/pvp resto drood, joined as well. as you can see from the above statement! she's pretty decently geared. not too great, but still enough to push out about 2,400 per rejuv tick. i havent done much pvp on her lately, as i find it pretty mundane (maybe i should try arenas!) and instead, rush off to doing randoms and trying to help one of my friends get her tanking gear, and whoever else who needs a healer. i dont know anywhere else to get better gear tho. maybe i can get the 4pc t9. i currently have 2pc t8 and 2pc t9. that combo seems pretty good to me. but the ability for my rejuv ticks to crit might be more of a raid healing kinda thing. i do like extra swiftmend and extra nourish. at least, that's what matters more for me in heroics anyway. hopefully i can get some gear out of running more heroics, and maybe grab a frost emblem piece somewhere. i love playing this character despite the boredom because i do enjoy the occassional "awesome heals!" or "epic heals man" and the like. =P
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To be in the guild eventually (if things go well, ofc):
Brooke, my prot paladin. She leveled through outland and northrend as prot and has gotten quite good at tanking. when she first hit 80, she went to do heroics immediately. got a bunch of compliments about how the dps (ToC was out, but i think ICC was just about to launch) could not pull aggro off of me, ever. i had 23k hp then, gemmed with avoidance (no, im not a stam stacker and hate healing those stam stackers). had some basic weapons from lv.80 instances and a titansteel shield wall. i then bought my first two emblem of triumph pieces and got a bit more comfortable tanking at around 30k hp. i now have a bit more hp, but still, trying NOT to priortize HP over Def/expertise/agi. i'll blog about those stats vs stam one day. maybe i can get some feedback from healers on what they prefer healing, or just go on plusheal.com since i know my readers are not healers. ahem! but anyway, moving on.
Akeelah, my affl lock. Happily spamming Seed of Corruption in every instance. loving the AoE dps and the high numbers. and getting decent numbers on bosses. knows to stack some dots and 2 shadowbolts before using Haunt, using Curse of elements much more than Curse of Agony, and lifetapping like crazy since i dont have dark pact, nor will really need it due to health returns from Haunt and healers' heals. sorry for the rambling. im hungry. its lunch time. my apologies.
I may have mentioned this before, but may have not, is that i want to gear Akeelah up in Heroic gear only. This means that I will not buy emblem gear. I will only use the drops that come from heroic instances and the other normal, but difficult, instances like ToC, Forge, Pit and Halls. I may end up being able to do some heroic TOC, forge, pit and halls. but that's later on. i do know that Halls is SRSBZNS. so i'll dps that when i do get decent gear. but it does seem like everyone needs to be way beyond "heroic' geared for that one. there's just craziness involved in those fights and if people can CC property, use the right auras/totems and dps the right people down first, the fight will be a whole lot easier. /end halls of reflection tangent. so as much as possible, i will have ilevel200 gear, and some that are, i think 219 and 223. or something like that. emblems of triumph will be unused until later on i guess. when i need to if i ever become a regular raid dps. but as far as i can see, i dont think i'll be playing ranged dps in raids.
So in the end, i'd like to see how well akeelah's gear can outperform other dps with better gear. i purposely limit her gear so that i can prove, mainly to myself, and maybe to others, that gearscore isnt what makes your dps rise (although its just partial) but that your own skill and practice will help you find your best dps. once you get into that "high dps" zone, you'll never want to leave it. but it takes some work to get there. i do know there are certain limitations to every class and some classes will naturally (all things being equal) outperform others. bliz lied when they say all classes are withing 5% of each other. that is their goal, but certainly not our reality.
This is my pre-lunch update. off to lunch. and hopefully be back to essplane my plans for devynity on Ysondre. that's about it for now! laters!
I plan to have four of my 80 characters in the guild. So far, i've logged on to two and have gotten invites. I've actually been a bit lazy to get on my other two toons to get them invited. i'll do that when i actually need to log on to them!
So far in the guild:
Devyn, my dps/tank DK, who leveled through wrath as a tank, in tanking spec only. no dps. the dps sucked, but i lived through everything while leveling. instance-wise, i did struggle a bit in the beginning (running utgarde keep, nexus, anh kahet and azjol nerub were hellishly annoying) but gotten a whole lot better in terms of gear when i hit level 75ish. so tanking violet hold and drak tharon keep were pretty easy. once i reached 80, i began tanking (and, unfortunately, went through the whole beginner tanking experience like i did with utgarde keep, again. this time in heroics) normal level 80 instances and then heroics. got my def to 535 (actually it was 525, with a sigil that gave me 11 def whenever i used icy touch to make it 535. this works out as i usually use icy touch in the beginning of the fights anyway). Then i switched over to DPS and LOVE LOVE LOVE it even more. I went frost dps with the two weaons, one on each hand, and a total makeover of all my gear. gearing was easy, but queueing up for instances as a dps sucked. in any case, i have pretty good emblem gear and should be able to do decently in ICC10 if ever asked to join.
(this got me annoyed this past saturday as the guild was asking for people from their saturday run, and i said i could go while on Devyn, but never received any kind of invite. instead, i saw maybe six people in ICC, with the rest of the people pugged. maybe they missed my comment. i should have repeated my statement. oh well. there's always next week i guess. as the new person in the guild, i would expect to be ignored? probably. there's probably better people in /trade they can pug with anyway. Instead, i hopped on Diinky and had a great time running one of our brand new dinged 80 warlocks through a few instances. she had a blast, at least i hoped she did.)
Diinky, my pve/pvp resto drood, joined as well. as you can see from the above statement! she's pretty decently geared. not too great, but still enough to push out about 2,400 per rejuv tick. i havent done much pvp on her lately, as i find it pretty mundane (maybe i should try arenas!) and instead, rush off to doing randoms and trying to help one of my friends get her tanking gear, and whoever else who needs a healer. i dont know anywhere else to get better gear tho. maybe i can get the 4pc t9. i currently have 2pc t8 and 2pc t9. that combo seems pretty good to me. but the ability for my rejuv ticks to crit might be more of a raid healing kinda thing. i do like extra swiftmend and extra nourish. at least, that's what matters more for me in heroics anyway. hopefully i can get some gear out of running more heroics, and maybe grab a frost emblem piece somewhere. i love playing this character despite the boredom because i do enjoy the occassional "awesome heals!" or "epic heals man" and the like. =P
space
space
To be in the guild eventually (if things go well, ofc):
Brooke, my prot paladin. She leveled through outland and northrend as prot and has gotten quite good at tanking. when she first hit 80, she went to do heroics immediately. got a bunch of compliments about how the dps (ToC was out, but i think ICC was just about to launch) could not pull aggro off of me, ever. i had 23k hp then, gemmed with avoidance (no, im not a stam stacker and hate healing those stam stackers). had some basic weapons from lv.80 instances and a titansteel shield wall. i then bought my first two emblem of triumph pieces and got a bit more comfortable tanking at around 30k hp. i now have a bit more hp, but still, trying NOT to priortize HP over Def/expertise/agi. i'll blog about those stats vs stam one day. maybe i can get some feedback from healers on what they prefer healing, or just go on plusheal.com since i know my readers are not healers. ahem! but anyway, moving on.
Akeelah, my affl lock. Happily spamming Seed of Corruption in every instance. loving the AoE dps and the high numbers. and getting decent numbers on bosses. knows to stack some dots and 2 shadowbolts before using Haunt, using Curse of elements much more than Curse of Agony, and lifetapping like crazy since i dont have dark pact, nor will really need it due to health returns from Haunt and healers' heals. sorry for the rambling. im hungry. its lunch time. my apologies.
I may have mentioned this before, but may have not, is that i want to gear Akeelah up in Heroic gear only. This means that I will not buy emblem gear. I will only use the drops that come from heroic instances and the other normal, but difficult, instances like ToC, Forge, Pit and Halls. I may end up being able to do some heroic TOC, forge, pit and halls. but that's later on. i do know that Halls is SRSBZNS. so i'll dps that when i do get decent gear. but it does seem like everyone needs to be way beyond "heroic' geared for that one. there's just craziness involved in those fights and if people can CC property, use the right auras/totems and dps the right people down first, the fight will be a whole lot easier. /end halls of reflection tangent. so as much as possible, i will have ilevel200 gear, and some that are, i think 219 and 223. or something like that. emblems of triumph will be unused until later on i guess. when i need to if i ever become a regular raid dps. but as far as i can see, i dont think i'll be playing ranged dps in raids.
So in the end, i'd like to see how well akeelah's gear can outperform other dps with better gear. i purposely limit her gear so that i can prove, mainly to myself, and maybe to others, that gearscore isnt what makes your dps rise (although its just partial) but that your own skill and practice will help you find your best dps. once you get into that "high dps" zone, you'll never want to leave it. but it takes some work to get there. i do know there are certain limitations to every class and some classes will naturally (all things being equal) outperform others. bliz lied when they say all classes are withing 5% of each other. that is their goal, but certainly not our reality.
This is my pre-lunch update. off to lunch. and hopefully be back to essplane my plans for devynity on Ysondre. that's about it for now! laters!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday is always hump day
This past week or two has seen several major events. One, the longest day of the year; two, the second longest day of the year... twice; three, my friends wedding in which i was the best man; four, the onset of summer break for all the college students in my area, which drastically reduced traffic during the morning commute; rekindling relationship with my girlfriend; and on and on and on. i hope i punctuated that list correctly. i didnt really have to use semi-colons like that since highschool.
In any event, the end of june means the end of another quarter. and in my case, it requires me to tie up loose ends and call customers to make payments so that the quarter-end financials for the company can look good for the investors. i can understand why. these investors are the reason why this company is here. because i am an employee, i get stock options and stuff, which makes me an investor as well. not really as much as others, but i do have a good chunk of value in the stocks of my company. anyway, all this was to say that work as been busy and i had very little time to update anything. although i do read a lot. there isnt much time to actually reply to anything on other people's blogs. sorry kurn (not even sure you have me on your radar!).
i find myself wanting to blog about real life stuff or at least my real life reaction to things wow-related lately. its kinda nice to add real life into my posts. maybe it just means i have more to talk about than just wow. but it could mean i am doing less and less wow as time goes on. and i think that's just the thing. i am on less. i only play after work before my girlfriend return home from school. when she does come home, the rest of the night belongs to her. some nights tho, she does want to be left alone and tell me to go fishing. which i do. and so i do understand she needs a break from me every once in a blue moon. So because i only get the time between 7:30 and 9:30 to play, i will try to get into a random run or two and do one or two dailies. no more fishing. maybe some jc dialies again. i do not want to do too many things, however. it is because i really do not have to ability (or desire) to sit there for hours anymore.
when i log on, my friends are either doing ICC or RS, or they've been on for hours and are burnt out with randoms or whatever else and so i end up not doing anything with them. it kinda sucks but i understand. i mean they're not just sitting around all day waiting for me to log on so they can do whatever i want them to do. no its not that. so dont feel bad. i understand everyone has their own schedule and we're all here trying to have a good time. so have a good time and try your hardest to like this game. its a game. just relax and unwind. that's what im trying to do with this game. it's not really working. but i think i have plans.
my plans:
1. transfer Aquilla (my pvp-only priest in pve gear) to Ysondre. level her from 72 to 80 through AV and other battlegrounds. and also through instances as she really cant level just in AV. there is really no upgrades in gear until 78 if that is the case. she has a billion tokens for honor, purchased from stonekeeper shards, so she will probably be able to buy about three nice pieces of pvp gear when she does hit 80. i say no upgrades til 78 because there is the crafted pvp gear. boy, expensive. but she's an herber. and last i remember 10 sungrasses were going for 20g. yes... 20GOLD. hello herbalism!!
2. work the AH. that's it. after Devynity hit 80 he'll have the opportunity to work on his glyphs. His encahnting is going well. and to round everything out, i think Aquilla will add herbalism and alchemy to the mix. this, along with Krakken's JC will give me quite a large array of items to sell. although its not like making 20 netherweave bags and selling them for quick gold, it will still be fun to see how i can make some gold with the characters that i have... on a dead server.
3. play with my baby more.
4. "play" with my gf more when she gets home. quite possibly find a cutesy game to play. probably.
In any event, the end of june means the end of another quarter. and in my case, it requires me to tie up loose ends and call customers to make payments so that the quarter-end financials for the company can look good for the investors. i can understand why. these investors are the reason why this company is here. because i am an employee, i get stock options and stuff, which makes me an investor as well. not really as much as others, but i do have a good chunk of value in the stocks of my company. anyway, all this was to say that work as been busy and i had very little time to update anything. although i do read a lot. there isnt much time to actually reply to anything on other people's blogs. sorry kurn (not even sure you have me on your radar!).
i find myself wanting to blog about real life stuff or at least my real life reaction to things wow-related lately. its kinda nice to add real life into my posts. maybe it just means i have more to talk about than just wow. but it could mean i am doing less and less wow as time goes on. and i think that's just the thing. i am on less. i only play after work before my girlfriend return home from school. when she does come home, the rest of the night belongs to her. some nights tho, she does want to be left alone and tell me to go fishing. which i do. and so i do understand she needs a break from me every once in a blue moon. So because i only get the time between 7:30 and 9:30 to play, i will try to get into a random run or two and do one or two dailies. no more fishing. maybe some jc dialies again. i do not want to do too many things, however. it is because i really do not have to ability (or desire) to sit there for hours anymore.
when i log on, my friends are either doing ICC or RS, or they've been on for hours and are burnt out with randoms or whatever else and so i end up not doing anything with them. it kinda sucks but i understand. i mean they're not just sitting around all day waiting for me to log on so they can do whatever i want them to do. no its not that. so dont feel bad. i understand everyone has their own schedule and we're all here trying to have a good time. so have a good time and try your hardest to like this game. its a game. just relax and unwind. that's what im trying to do with this game. it's not really working. but i think i have plans.
my plans:
1. transfer Aquilla (my pvp-only priest in pve gear) to Ysondre. level her from 72 to 80 through AV and other battlegrounds. and also through instances as she really cant level just in AV. there is really no upgrades in gear until 78 if that is the case. she has a billion tokens for honor, purchased from stonekeeper shards, so she will probably be able to buy about three nice pieces of pvp gear when she does hit 80. i say no upgrades til 78 because there is the crafted pvp gear. boy, expensive. but she's an herber. and last i remember 10 sungrasses were going for 20g. yes... 20GOLD. hello herbalism!!
2. work the AH. that's it. after Devynity hit 80 he'll have the opportunity to work on his glyphs. His encahnting is going well. and to round everything out, i think Aquilla will add herbalism and alchemy to the mix. this, along with Krakken's JC will give me quite a large array of items to sell. although its not like making 20 netherweave bags and selling them for quick gold, it will still be fun to see how i can make some gold with the characters that i have... on a dead server.
3. play with my baby more.
4. "play" with my gf more when she gets home. quite possibly find a cutesy game to play. probably.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday Report
Ah... the Monday "TPS" reports! it is that time of the week again where i have to update a few things and make sure all of my customers are paying, or at least, have a reason to not pay on time. Now this often interferes with what i really want to do, which was to recap the weekend (which i briefly did in the previous post) and reflect on a few points of discoveries for this week. I think that having some form of contemplation is good, even if its very little or if it results in absolutely nothing.
DPS is leveling out. I remember pretty well the few days of blogging about 200 dps and i do remember my first venture into RFC, where my dps was a whopping 17. 17 dps. that was crazy cool since everyone else was doing 8 dps. But it slowly got better. in fact, it kept jumping every few levels. but now it seemed to have leveled out as i find myself sitting at 1k-1.3k dps since 66. I remember 66 vaguely because this is when i got my awesome hammer from the hydra boss inside underbog. i added some STR gems to it and it made a gigantic jump in dps, so much more than the hellreaver. also with the gloves, chest and boots having a bunch of slots, i gemmed them with bold bloodstones and perfect bold bloodstones. those are cheap and are way more than i really need at my level. so since then, my dps hasnt really changed much. i did have a lot of fun with holy wrath on demons and dead/undead things as well as timing my divine storm and consecration right. all those add to the awesome aoe dps. there are many times where i did pull aggro but it wasnt too hard to finish off the mob before it killed me. i did venture into UK once and got my ass handed to me for pulling aggro, so my hypothesis was correct. i can "safely" pull trash mobs from the tank in outland, but not in northrend. although this had led to a bunch of butthurt tanks who, instead of try to be better TPS, decide to hold a pity party at our expense and either afk out or leave. TPS is threat per second. come on guys, im hitting the same mob you're hitting and im pulling them off of you. maybe you should learn to tank?
So my analysis is this. DPS stops at around 1k around level 66 and stays that way until 73, when most people get their gear "up to par" with the dungeons up north. this gear i speak of has stats that go well with the new system of play, or new stat priority, or new damage formulas Wrath brought on in patch 3.0. Once we are able to do Violet hold and Drak Theron Keep, we should have gear to decently outdo 1k dps. Please note this is also my theory. It is by no means what happens normally, as there are many classes and many ways to buff your dps. i mean give a warlock seed of corruption and there you have it, 4k dps at level 75. but this analysis is based on my own ret paladin with his own playstyle. also, i speak of overall dps, and not just single target dps since most of what matters in instances is the AoE dps anyway. When raiding happens, i guess we'll have to fine tune things. but for now, no boss is really on some kinda "enrage" timer where we can wipe if we take too long. so the limiting factor is really, or should ideally be, the healer's mana.
So going back to the topic, i feel that this stagnation in dps can be a good and bad thing. one, it can help me focus on fine tuning my play without really worrying too much about dps. in UK, i was top dps at 1k dps overall, but had a 500dps on prince keliseth, mainly due to running back and forth killing the frost tombs, and getting frost tombed three times with the first time not being freed until i yelled "HELP". I figured i'd be a little higher than that. we'll see how things pan out tho. but keliseth really drops my dps more than anything in utgarde keep. but fine-tune i will do.
i do notice some abilities that i will never use and one is repentance. oh why dont they just give me that ability at 80 instead of sacred shield? i'd sooooo love a trade. i'd run and SS myself all day if i could. it would make things a lot more interesting than a silly CC that i'll never use (not just because everyone is AoE crazy, but also because, well, there is no real spot for me to use it besides MGT. really, i've only used repentance at magisters terrace. and the tank didnt even notice. nope. he went and pulled a second group and left the CC'ed mob standing, only to get out of it and blast a hole in me. thanks stupid tank. oh and at the five super friends right before Keal, i asked which mob should i CC, but by the time i finished asking the question, the tank already charged in. needless to say, no one survived. no one knew how to fight that fight. everyone thought the naga chick was tank and spank. but there's gotta be a reason why all five of them are standing there right? i mean its pretty close to a perfect group and killing the healers first would have been nice. i mean stupid tank should at least ask about the fight. anyway, that group dropped and i was stuck trying to figure out how people can be so bad when it comes to thinking. i mean yes, tank and spank requires little thinking, but when it comes to fighting groups or bosses where there's more thought involved, people seem to get anneurisms and die, and politely drop group asap so we dont have to waste a /kick.
OK these reflections are turning out to be rantfests. but maybe that's what they're supposed to be. i havent had a deep thought in the past several posts. its been very... dull to just hear me mention stupidity. and it angers me tho, to see this kind of dumbness and see people, instead of wanting to figure out what happened and fixing it, to just dropping group and thinking that the current wipe was due to just "bad luck" or " bad group composition" or because the tank just sucked. sure. it could be one of those things, or all of those things. but how will you overcome these things if you're just gonna drop group each time a wall pops up. these instances are supposed to be hard. they're supposed to be challenging. they're supposed to involve a kind of synergy in a group where everyone works together to try to accomplish something a single character would be unable to do. instead, i feel that the mentality is one where people want to progress through. and progressing means they level up. no, it does not mean beating a boss. it does not mean learning your CC's or utility spells. it doesnt even mean decursing. i was cursed several times throughout many runs before and i wasnt dispelled until i actually had to ask for it in party. what? seriously. isnt 200 mana for a dispell worth it to the group?
anyway, my point is this: Progression means to level up and not to accomplish a goal.
This really shouldnt be the way to play. otherwise, any monkey can play this game and progress. i wanted to down the bosses and get the achev for accomplishing the instance. sure i can leave, level up to 72 and do the instance again. but why do that? i can do it perfectly fine at 70. i dont see why we cant all make the corpse run, talk about the wipe, and then kick the boss' butt. no, im stuck with people thinking its not worth the effort because leveling was so easy in comparison (then why did you q for a friggin instance then?!!!??!?!????). why deal with this "harder" bs when the easy stuff will lead to the same thing... and that's to gain experience points? why deal with having to move out of the fire? why deal with lowering my already low dps so i can CC someone? because it keeps everyone alive dumbass. it allows us to move on to the next group of mobs or bosses. this is not always an aoe fest where the tank grabs everything and we all hope the healer can heal through all of that while we dps everything down. maybe part of the game is to play using all of our tricks. maybe that makes the game actually fun??? If you dont want to deal with it, dont queue up for dungeons. if you want easy, go do a quest and leave the instance queues for those who actually want to do this. /facedesk
But alas, through 70 levels we were forcefed one way of playing, the easy way of playing. so why not take the easy way when it comes to leveling? finish off your quest while waiting for another instance queue. and hope that you dont get the same hard instance, or that if you do get the same hard instance, mechanarlol, that there will be a great healer, or great tank, or a great dps that will carry everyone through so you dont have to learn anything yourself, so you stay unchallenged, so you can continue pressing your usual three buttons.
So ok, since i have ADD and cant hold a constant thought for a paragraph, im going to just post this rant and call it a week. Have a great one everyone. i hope to type about happy things later on.
DPS is leveling out. I remember pretty well the few days of blogging about 200 dps and i do remember my first venture into RFC, where my dps was a whopping 17. 17 dps. that was crazy cool since everyone else was doing 8 dps. But it slowly got better. in fact, it kept jumping every few levels. but now it seemed to have leveled out as i find myself sitting at 1k-1.3k dps since 66. I remember 66 vaguely because this is when i got my awesome hammer from the hydra boss inside underbog. i added some STR gems to it and it made a gigantic jump in dps, so much more than the hellreaver. also with the gloves, chest and boots having a bunch of slots, i gemmed them with bold bloodstones and perfect bold bloodstones. those are cheap and are way more than i really need at my level. so since then, my dps hasnt really changed much. i did have a lot of fun with holy wrath on demons and dead/undead things as well as timing my divine storm and consecration right. all those add to the awesome aoe dps. there are many times where i did pull aggro but it wasnt too hard to finish off the mob before it killed me. i did venture into UK once and got my ass handed to me for pulling aggro, so my hypothesis was correct. i can "safely" pull trash mobs from the tank in outland, but not in northrend. although this had led to a bunch of butthurt tanks who, instead of try to be better TPS, decide to hold a pity party at our expense and either afk out or leave. TPS is threat per second. come on guys, im hitting the same mob you're hitting and im pulling them off of you. maybe you should learn to tank?
So my analysis is this. DPS stops at around 1k around level 66 and stays that way until 73, when most people get their gear "up to par" with the dungeons up north. this gear i speak of has stats that go well with the new system of play, or new stat priority, or new damage formulas Wrath brought on in patch 3.0. Once we are able to do Violet hold and Drak Theron Keep, we should have gear to decently outdo 1k dps. Please note this is also my theory. It is by no means what happens normally, as there are many classes and many ways to buff your dps. i mean give a warlock seed of corruption and there you have it, 4k dps at level 75. but this analysis is based on my own ret paladin with his own playstyle. also, i speak of overall dps, and not just single target dps since most of what matters in instances is the AoE dps anyway. When raiding happens, i guess we'll have to fine tune things. but for now, no boss is really on some kinda "enrage" timer where we can wipe if we take too long. so the limiting factor is really, or should ideally be, the healer's mana.
So going back to the topic, i feel that this stagnation in dps can be a good and bad thing. one, it can help me focus on fine tuning my play without really worrying too much about dps. in UK, i was top dps at 1k dps overall, but had a 500dps on prince keliseth, mainly due to running back and forth killing the frost tombs, and getting frost tombed three times with the first time not being freed until i yelled "HELP". I figured i'd be a little higher than that. we'll see how things pan out tho. but keliseth really drops my dps more than anything in utgarde keep. but fine-tune i will do.
i do notice some abilities that i will never use and one is repentance. oh why dont they just give me that ability at 80 instead of sacred shield? i'd sooooo love a trade. i'd run and SS myself all day if i could. it would make things a lot more interesting than a silly CC that i'll never use (not just because everyone is AoE crazy, but also because, well, there is no real spot for me to use it besides MGT. really, i've only used repentance at magisters terrace. and the tank didnt even notice. nope. he went and pulled a second group and left the CC'ed mob standing, only to get out of it and blast a hole in me. thanks stupid tank. oh and at the five super friends right before Keal, i asked which mob should i CC, but by the time i finished asking the question, the tank already charged in. needless to say, no one survived. no one knew how to fight that fight. everyone thought the naga chick was tank and spank. but there's gotta be a reason why all five of them are standing there right? i mean its pretty close to a perfect group and killing the healers first would have been nice. i mean stupid tank should at least ask about the fight. anyway, that group dropped and i was stuck trying to figure out how people can be so bad when it comes to thinking. i mean yes, tank and spank requires little thinking, but when it comes to fighting groups or bosses where there's more thought involved, people seem to get anneurisms and die, and politely drop group asap so we dont have to waste a /kick.
OK these reflections are turning out to be rantfests. but maybe that's what they're supposed to be. i havent had a deep thought in the past several posts. its been very... dull to just hear me mention stupidity. and it angers me tho, to see this kind of dumbness and see people, instead of wanting to figure out what happened and fixing it, to just dropping group and thinking that the current wipe was due to just "bad luck" or " bad group composition" or because the tank just sucked. sure. it could be one of those things, or all of those things. but how will you overcome these things if you're just gonna drop group each time a wall pops up. these instances are supposed to be hard. they're supposed to be challenging. they're supposed to involve a kind of synergy in a group where everyone works together to try to accomplish something a single character would be unable to do. instead, i feel that the mentality is one where people want to progress through. and progressing means they level up. no, it does not mean beating a boss. it does not mean learning your CC's or utility spells. it doesnt even mean decursing. i was cursed several times throughout many runs before and i wasnt dispelled until i actually had to ask for it in party. what? seriously. isnt 200 mana for a dispell worth it to the group?
anyway, my point is this: Progression means to level up and not to accomplish a goal.
This really shouldnt be the way to play. otherwise, any monkey can play this game and progress. i wanted to down the bosses and get the achev for accomplishing the instance. sure i can leave, level up to 72 and do the instance again. but why do that? i can do it perfectly fine at 70. i dont see why we cant all make the corpse run, talk about the wipe, and then kick the boss' butt. no, im stuck with people thinking its not worth the effort because leveling was so easy in comparison (then why did you q for a friggin instance then?!!!??!?!????). why deal with this "harder" bs when the easy stuff will lead to the same thing... and that's to gain experience points? why deal with having to move out of the fire? why deal with lowering my already low dps so i can CC someone? because it keeps everyone alive dumbass. it allows us to move on to the next group of mobs or bosses. this is not always an aoe fest where the tank grabs everything and we all hope the healer can heal through all of that while we dps everything down. maybe part of the game is to play using all of our tricks. maybe that makes the game actually fun??? If you dont want to deal with it, dont queue up for dungeons. if you want easy, go do a quest and leave the instance queues for those who actually want to do this. /facedesk
But alas, through 70 levels we were forcefed one way of playing, the easy way of playing. so why not take the easy way when it comes to leveling? finish off your quest while waiting for another instance queue. and hope that you dont get the same hard instance, or that if you do get the same hard instance, mechanarlol, that there will be a great healer, or great tank, or a great dps that will carry everyone through so you dont have to learn anything yourself, so you stay unchallenged, so you can continue pressing your usual three buttons.
So ok, since i have ADD and cant hold a constant thought for a paragraph, im going to just post this rant and call it a week. Have a great one everyone. i hope to type about happy things later on.
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