Artisan Elitist

Time to say goodbye.

2011-02-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

You may remember last year, during Icecrown progress, that I spent weeks and months grinding for an achievement. Specifically, I wanted the title "Payce the Exalted". While nothing so ambitious as "the Insane", it still took months of grinding, doing dailies with more factions than my daily cap allowed, doing so many random heroics for nothing but rep that it got silly, killing some 43,000 pirates in Tanaris and the Barrens, farming heroics Ramparts and Blood Furnace for weeks. As far as pixelated content on a screen goes, it was hard work. And through a series of posts, all containing the subtle updates of "(23/40 now)" or "Wooo! 30/40!" or the like. And finally, finally, I got there.

I did it. I was Payce the Exalted. I was so immensely proud. I set out to do it, and I did it.

So when patch 4.0.6 hit the US realms earlier, and reports started flowing in over Twitter, forums and other media, that "the Exalted"-achievement now required 50 reputations to get - and that those having previously gotten it would lose it. That's right - they're stripping you of a PvE title you've honestly earned through hard work. It was even blue-posted - it's gone;

"We also considered grandfathering in those who had already earned it but think that this title can be a unique testament to the continued efforts of reputation hunters and keep the same value as we introduce more reps and push the requirements up to match."

Well, thank you, Bashiok, for considering to "grandfather in" all the hard work put in by those of us who genuinely care about these achievements. I really feel special now, you know? Not to mention valued as a user of this game - "if you wanna keep what you worked hard for and already actually earned, you're gonna have to work even harder". What is even scarier is the precedent this is setting; who's to say anything if "The Seeker" suddenly requires 5,000 quests or "Salty" suddenly requires 5,000 fish... starting, of course, at 1,001 since the achievement haven't really been tracking since you got that damned 1,000th fish? Suddenly, our achievements appear more as temporary tokens of something we're probably not done with come next expansion anyway. I'm not sure if I really like this change of direction.

So tomorrow, I'm back to Twilight Vanquisher Payce. Or Starcaller Payce. Or Loremaster Payce. Or maybe just... Payce. Because it's not like the title I really wanted and gave my all for isn't going to be available to me again for some time unless I give up my life to grind rep (again). So until such a time as I actually get my title back, here's a screenshot taken earlier this evening in the remains of Zul'Gurub, wearing my complete Soulforge armour.

Goodbye, Payce the Exalted. I shall miss you dearly.

The legacy of Wrath.

2011-01-27T04:20:00.000-08:00

As we progress into the third month of Cataclysm content, having seen and done the heroic dungeons and new zones, not to mention the raids, we're seeing a new trend spread: The notion of people quitting, either from burnout or lack of interest, or simply because of the game's increased difficulty level.

I personally enjoy the new content immenesely. I do, however, more than understand the people who burn out - though the challenges are greater and the skill required is higher, it's still a grind involved. Not that World of Warcraft wasn't always a grind; whether it was badges of justice, resistance gear or gearscore don't matter. It was always a grind.

So why does this one seem so much harder?

The answer is, of course, because it is. The Wrath of The Lich King grind WAS signifigantly faster and easier at all tiers. I'm not buying into the whole "Wrath was too easy" argument, and I'm equally disinclined to jump on the "Cata is too hard" bandwagon. But there is a notable difference in here somewhere.

The problems with Wrath, in my opinion, were mainly two things. Tier release dates (and the gating that followed), and gear being able to negate mechanics. Secrets of Ulduar was released around six months after the expansion went live, widely recognized as on of the best raids of all time. When 3.2 hit and Trial of the Crusader went live, less then four months later, Ulduar-level gear would already allow you to negate mechanics in the encounters, such as healing through Burning Bile on the Northrend beasts, or tanking the Mistresses on top of Jaraxxus with little risk of tank death.

And another four months later, a fully gated Icecrown Citadel, where again, many mechanics could be outgeared on launch day (did you ever CC Deathwhisper's adds? did you ever move out of the Bonestorm itself, or did you just run from the blue shit on the floor?). And then we had a whole year of farming this hideously boring, uninventive but very pretty instance for gear - which even rose in value every other month from the Hellscream/Wrynn-buff.

The preconception of Wrath being too easy is down to these issues mainly; partly, the easy aquisition of gear, but mainly, the absolute value of gear. Proper gear would allow you to stand in the fire and live - and anyone could get proper gear. And as we see in Cataclysm - where the fire WILL kill you and the non CC'ed caster WILL drain both your healer's mana as well as your tank's cooldowns. Wrath set a dangerous precedent for what was needed, and what was "skippable", and that notion has far and wide been the main culprit behind cries of "Cata is too hard". Because Cataclysm isn't in any way too hard.

Yes, it's more time-consuming. Farming buff food and flasks alone is a chore now, the gear progress is considerably slower, and top end enchantes aren't readily available whenever you want. Yes, heroic dungeons are long and challenging. Yes, trash have huge health pools and require focus and the ability to interrupt. But unlike Wrath, most of this can be negated in even the most basic of gear - as long as you understand and adapt to the mechanics involved.

The same thing applies to raiding. Learn the mechanics, and a lot of these fights are actually quite easy. Clearing Magmaw and Omnitron mainly in blues isn't at all a big deal when you know what to do, and know the value of a good interrupt at the cost of a few hundred DPS. And of course - as long as you move out of the damn fire.

Just remember to flask and get the proper food buff. There's really no reason not to.

A shoutout to the Shifters.

2011-01-26T04:15:00.000-08:00

This week, we killed Cho'Gall, taking Paradigm Shift to an overall 10/12 bosses killed and a spot as the 7th ranked guild on our server. This might not sound overly impressive, and perhaps, given the time available so far and the progress made in this tier already, it isn't.

But when he went down, we all cheered like a world first Illidan on our Mumble.

Paradigm Shift was formed some three months ago. A server was picked almost at random, three people formed a guild, and posted ads on Tankspot and MMO-Champion that they were recruiting the right kind of people. The premise was 'quality over quantity'; an aim to be a guild for highly skilled players on a tight schedule, packing a 'hardcore' approach to raiding two nights a week. What really made the recruitment ads interesting, however, was the "About you"-section:

We expect our members to be mature, highly skilled, and above all pleasant to be around - we are spending a minimum of 8 hours a week with you, and given that most of us have to work with jerks, we don't want to game with them too. We have no patience for epeening, drama incitement or other unproductive behaviour – we’re on a limited schedule, so don’t waste our time.

This kind of ad is obviously half suicidal, especially when recruiting mainly cross-server and even cross-faction and rerollers. It is also one of the best filters to ensure that applicants fit right in (granted, of course, they get past the hour-long voicechat interview) - we'd know in advance what to expect from everyone. So when Cataclysm hit live servers, we had around eight people that were considered our raid team - not even a full 10-man group. Ten day later, Magmaw laid dead (just in time for us to claim a pre-nerf kill - his trash were still tuned for 25-man groups at this point), and we took (of all things for a progression guild) two weeks off for christmas, only occasionally popping by Baradin Hold.

Since then, we've had a total of seven guild raids, for a total of 28 hours raiding time. Due to the nature of our recruitment, we've not once had a full buff setup, and are melee-heavy like there's no tomorrow. We've laughed, we've cried, we've spent a full ten hours wiping on the Ascendant Council - that third phase is horrible with four melee - but we got them in the end. And now, standing at ten bosses killed, still badly undergeared, we're starting to unleash our full potential.

So here's a shoutout to my guild: Our GM and raid leader Janari, always calm, collected and getting shit done. Maintank and auction house wizard Xcercs, holding aggro AND paying our repairs. Laníus, whose middle name IRL is Lightwell. Haiyden, whose progress above and beyond the call of duty is nothing short of spectacular. Risp, Chumana, Lunz and Denned, making fleas attractive since day 1. Keade, your Lifegrip and Levitate antics will go down in history (is your Inner Fire on you?). Kerric, I still only see male draenei, but I'm alive to see it - that's gotta count for something, right? Xiroh, Khalicha and Dagalar - you know we still love you, thanks for keeping the bench warm for the rest of us. And Gegnar. Dearly insane Gegnar. Karrling and Namiko - you may not be raiding anymore, but life is emptier without you. Thanks for coming with.

My guild. My people. My friends. I've never enjoyed the MM part of MMO this much ever before. Here's to hardmodes.

Playing to win.

2011-01-19T04:06:00.000-08:00

I like sports. Well, some sports. I like football (proper football, mind you - not armoured rugby on a stopwatch), I enjoy the National Hockey League (go Devils!), I follow Le Tour dé France religiously every summer. And obviously, like your average glutton-for-punishment-sports-fan, I take sides. I enjoy watching "my" team win, and I get discouraged by seeing "my" team getting outplayed. It's about dignity, you know?

For me, it makes no difference whether I play my druid, my priest, or a class I've never played before, if it gets the job done. This game is first and foremost about progression and competition for me. To throw your question backwards: I do not get any pleasure from playing my main in a raid - I get pleasure from being there and killing bosses. I actually specifically enjoy the concept of transcending the traditional mindset of having a single character of a specific class and spec, although the practicalities can be annoying at times.
- Xaar,

This week, several hotfixes were applied to heroic versions of certain bosses within the current tier. Among these were a change to Nefarian's Stolen Power ability, rendering it now unable to affect certain DoTs that could be held rolling throughout the fight. Several changes were made to Atramedes as well, effectively putting an end to tanking him in the doorway (which has been something of a habit in certain circles of late).

What makes these changes interesting, is that no one have actually killed Nefarian after the hotfix. The now infamous "Many druids! Handle it!"-strategy died with the "nerf" to Rip, rendering the boss now only killable through "real" damage output - which there are still, apparently, not enough of in your average top tier guild. Likewise, while the kill has been duplicated several times by several guilds post-fix, there is little doubt that Atramedes went down "too early", progression- and gear-wise, due to the possibility of negating key elements of the encounter through a flaw in the game code.

No player or guild were banned for these kills, however - unlike the infamous Ensidia incident on normal Arthas 25, these design flaws were not considered to impact encounter difficulty to such an extent that it trivialized aspects of the overall challenge. I personally disagree with this, on the Atramedes incident specifically. Negating sound values is, to me, a far more serious offence than accidentally negating the Val'Kyr drop. Why? Because the Val'Kyr drop could already be negated by a class ability (the warlock portal), while the sound values effectively plays a part in the encounters soft enrage timer. Granted, losing all your DPS and healers certainly make an effective soft enrage timer, but this is true of any encounter - not the Val'Kyr alone.

Let's for a moment head back to the world of sports, specifically the aspects of supporters, and their opinion on how things "should be". We've all seen charicature of slightly obese men wearing slightly too tight team shirts yelling "FOUL!" at the television set. Some of us read the Twitter notes, Facebook statuses and various blogs regarding the Contador/Schleck incident last year, which effectively settled the Tour over the course of 18 small seconds. And, with my target audience in mind, a fair few of you have probably read or even participated in bashing Paragon and Method the last few weeks.

Because e-sport fans are, ladies and gentlemen, the absolute worst. What hooligans settle with breaking chairs across your back, the e-sports fan will "settle" with a flame, troll or insult, often of the most degenerate kind. The word "retard" is the new "idiot", exploits are the new fouls, and guilds are the new teams. And like every losing team's supporters, e-sport fans seems to forget that guilds - like teams - play to win.

I would never bring 11 feral druids to a raid, even if I had the chance. I wouldn't stack affliction warlocks either, nor would I get all six paladins to glyph something in particular to chainstun an add. I do, however, understand why Paragon and Stars did - they play to win. Second place is, in the world of e-sports, first loser. Paragon killed Nefarian, like they did Anub'Arak, and like Ensidia did Hodir, through using existing buffs and abilities in a creative manner. It's what separates them - the performers - from us - the supporters; the ability to not only discover, but utilize game mechanics in such a manner that they ensure a win, even if they will get changed after Blizzard understands the flaw in the initial design.

It's what separates the clever tricks from the outright cheating that's the issue here. Now that Sinestra is live, and the encounter is already being tuned a matter of days after she was first available, it's more important than ever to understand the difference between cheating, clever tricks and simple skill and perfect execution.

Most of all, though - let's hope it never becomes an issue in the first place.

Heroics are too hard.

2010-12-17T04:30:00.001-08:00

I admit it - I read internet forums. I register and process QQ and whining about the state of the game on a daily basis. I occasionally QQ and whine myself, though I like to think my own negative output is on a more constructive level than "hurp derp nerf". I'll be the first to point out that the state of retribution is shameful at the moment, I'll also be the first to admit that yes, protection paladins are a bit squishy and could use more avoidance per point of rating, and I'll be the first to agree that the recent rebalancing of holy compeltely ruined a viable and dynamic way of playing the spec. In short, I'll gladly admit that paladins overall are in a somewhat uncomfortable state at the moment.

I will, however, be the first to admit that paladins needed to be nerfed, to the ground, after ICC, and that the current rebalancing of the class is something that will even out given time. Our new mechanics are so completely fresh out of the box that we're almost at the same stage as death knights at Lich King-launch, and it took three whole patches and a complete redesign of one of the specs before they got them right. I trust paladins will get there, eventually.

This post isn't about paladins, though - it's about the current state of heroic dungeons. We are 10 days into the expansion, and for the last, 5, 6 days, there have been a steady growth of complaints, criticism and pure, whiny QQ regarding the state of the current heroics. They are, apparently, too hard. I read reports from healers that tanks are taking too much damage, I read reports from DPS complaining that they aren't doing more DPS than they did in ICC, I read reports from tanks that CC makes it impossible for them to play their rotation properly. And all I can think is, "are we playing the same game?"

Yes, the new heroics are hard. With an honorable exception of good Sir Steelbender in Blackrock Cavern, they are even deliciosly hard. Nowhere near unmanagably hard, however - in fact, some are disappointingly easy compared to the expectations of percieved hardness. I mention Steelbender mainly because he's been the only REAL cockblock I've encountered so far - his mechanics are extremely unwieldy, and takes a lot of practice and precision, and a fair bit of luck, to properly nail as a tank. But the rest?

Throne of the Tides, one of my favourite instances, is a walk in the part. The Lost City of Tol'Vir likewise. Deadmines, where reports from beta suggested wiping for hours would be "the only way" was, apart from the complete randomness of a Super Mario mini-game, no harder than Halls of Lightning back in 3.0, and I'm still half waiting for the bosses in Shadowfang Keep to become hard. The boss that has in fact given me the most trouble so far is Altairus in the Vortex Pinnacle - and that was purely due to a fairly unbalanced set of DPS that could not learn how to position themselves for the life of them (fact - they kept dying), burning out the healer's mana and my cooldowns at a steady pace. When the idea of shifting winds and moving from breath weapons got through, however, it was a oneshot.

Long story short, most of these encounters are easy. If only one of the five people in the group know what to do and take lead, it should be clean and clear all the way. CC the right mobs, open the nuke on the correct mob, interrupt casts. Don't pull aggro, don't die to shit on the floor. Wait for adds to be picked up, then nuke them, and if you still manage to get one one you... don't run AWAY from your tank. Calm it out. Focus.

I will admit I've not gotten around to do heroic Grim Batol yet. From what I hear, it's MEAN. I can safely say, however, that compared to tanking heroic Magister's Terrace, Arcatraz and Shattered Halls, so far I'm stroking kittens in this expansion. These instances are not that hard. What they are, is awesome. I'm currently decked out in blues, and it's great.

And Monday, we raid.

*giggles maniacally*

PayceUI v.4.0.1

2010-12-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

Interface update! Since Cataclysm drastically changed a lot of the core mechanics to the paladin class, I've spent some time tweaking and reforging my UI, and I think I've finally gotten a setup that I'm comfortable with. It has the appropriate amount of information, without cluttering and creating tunnelvision fields, and I'm growing very comfortable with it. I will obviously have to tweak a bit further when we go into heroic raids and such, to fit in further information blocks (atm, my BigWigs text warnings are between my grid and my action bars, and that won't work in a 25-man scenario), but overall I've found the design I want to continue using.

Without further ado;

(click to enlarge)

Combat text: I use MSBT for my scrolling combat log, simply because I feel this is the tidiest and most accurate option. Left side is incoming heals and damage, right side is outgoing, center below my feet are important notifications and center above my character are every buff, debuff, resource gain and status change on my character mid-combat. The three red "Spell is not ready yet" is a permanent feature on my UI... I simply can't seem to get rid of them.

Unit frames: For my core unit frames, I use Shadowed. Left side is me, tight side is my target, and the box above is my target's target. Shadowed also provides the buff- and debuff frames ate the top left of the target frame. For my own buffs and debuffs, I use Classtimer to keep track of everything important - they are the blue bars above my own unit frames and the target of target frame respectively. Grid centered between the Shadowed frames tracks my party status, such as mana, threat and health. I prefer this option over threatplates, as it's generally faster with my playstyle.

Actionbars: I use Bartender4, because it's simply the best. I also use ButtonFacade: Renaitre to add a more artistic look than the just the boring, regular squares. OmniCC tracks my cooldowns in a nice and handy way.

Corners: Left corner is Prat for chat. Beats Chatter hands down in every single aspect there is. Right corner is Recount for damage meters, Omen for threat, and TipTac for advanced target information on mouseover.

Not shown in the picture are Combuctor for bags and bank, and BigWigs for boss encounters. Apart from that, it's very much no addons to speak of - I like to keep my addon memory low, even if it means no sexy minimap and Blizzard's default aura- and buff trackers. I guess I'll survive.

Prep, prep, prep.

2010-12-06T04:43:00.000-08:00

- 6 salads
- 2 lasagnas
- a pound of salmon sushi
- 8 spring rolls
- two litres of fresh berry smoothies
- bottled water, Diet Red Bull and various Cokes
- some kiwifruits

- 35 attack power flasks
- 80 strenght/stamina foods
- 40 hit/stamina foods
- 100 band aids
- 40 health pots
- 40 mana pots
- gear set up and reforged for levelling, not raiding

You were saying, Illidan?

Phayce transition.

2010-11-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

After spending some time getting well settled in my new guild, we this week started some careful raiding just to get to know each other. Voice communication, movement patterns, odd habits and curious quirks - all the little things that makes for a guild to be more than just a random group of people were being mapped out. It was great fun, but alas, it also gave me some reason for concern.

The trip went to Ulduar, as a fair few member still lacked the odd achievement for their proto-drakes, and we only had a few Starcallers as well. At Algalon, however, a previously voiced concern of mine quickly came to become a major issue; the current tankadin squishiness. I've complained earlier that threat comes at the cost of survivability, and as we met a boss that still hits like a freight train with no 30% buff to hide behind, this did indeed prove to be a costly truth. Our tank-rack for the night, somewhat ironically consisting of two paladins, were simply taking too much damage, and Big Bang transitions just proved too hard on our two healers. It was time to do something, and fast; our co-ordination and tactics were perfect, random deaths to melee swing was the one thing holding us back.

So I offered to go retribution again.

Would YOU let this woman stab you?

The first thing I notice is how different retribution actually play now, since I last tried. I was prepared for the difference to be vast, but what actually met me almost blew me away. My previous argument against retribution in it's current state still stands; it IS a demanding spec to play properly now, but due to the patience and focus needed rather than the actual execution of your pre-ordained setup. This, after having testet retribution over two raid nights (plus millions and millions of damage on the dummies), is still the case.

What really bothers me, though, isn't the fact that from an ICC-habit of spamming something as fast as possible all the time, every time I now press something, I'm likely to spend the next half to one second waiting out a cooldown. The core thought of CS (Crusader Strike) - filler - CS - filler - CS - finisher (Templar's Verdict for now, though Inquisition is going to making my coming argument stand even firmer) works well in principle, but what doesn't work so well are the three RNG-factors; The Art of War, Divine Purpose, and Hand of Light.

- The Art of War is a 20% chance on melee autoswings to proc for a free Exorcism doing 100% additional damage, not unlike it's ICC counterpart. The curious thing is that these Exorcisms hit harder than our finishers at the moment, and as such, have a considerably higher priority than Templar's Verdict on proc.

- Hand of Light is again a proc on autoswings, this time providing you with a free finisher at full Holy Power strenght, without actually consuming Holy Power. An absolute no-brainer, you'd think - except it still falls behind Exorcism procs on the priority queue. Which is a rather large concern, seeing how this actually is our mastery, and that our gear will be loaded with said stat a few weeks from now.

- And finally, Divine Purpose, which provides a 40% chance for all our fillers to grant an extra Holy Power. Which in theory is awesome, but in reality more often than not does nothing but add strain to you already proc-ridden priority.

There are several problems here. The first and biggest being "dry streaks" - periods between procs being so long that you have to turn to Holy Wrath and Consecration for your fillers. You'll do a perfect rotation with minimum effort, however, your overall throughput is nowhere near competitive. Why? Because you only manage one finisher per six global cooldown.

A more luxurious problem arises when everything procs at the same time. The Art of War and Hand of Light can and will proc at the single same autoswing, and if you're already at two or more Holy Power, you're suddenly clustered, making Exorcism - finisher - finisher - CS and so forth your priority. Excellent burst, no doubt, but alas, this almost inevitable causes a dry streak - especially if either ability procs for additional Holy Power, which will wither (by already being at max stock, having two attacks queued before you get to actually use your stock Holy Power) and diminish, while still counting as having procced.

As will undoubtedly be pointed out, this evens out over the course of a bossfight, and after spending some hours at the training dummy, I can indeed confirm that it does stably even out. Training dummies do not, however, take into consideration movement, Holy Power used for Word of Glory, stuns/roots/fears and other impairing effects (that will grant an extra stack of Holy Power, just to rub it in). Neither does it explain why the co-efficients are completely off the mark. The Exorcism example is just one - even glyphed, Templar's Verdict hits for less than an unglyphed Shield of the Righteous does for protection, and Seal damage remain as dominant as ever.

So I worry about the state of retribution. There have been many good sign that the spec is being taken seriously and being worked on, however, the current situation is not good. I have no belief at all that we can be competitive except for our buffs when facing off against Death Knights and fury Warriors, and that itself is a fearful prospect.

I'll hopefully get to try out a full raid on heroic Halion (10) on Thursday - this should provide me with a few more answers regarding our state in a fully raidbuffed environment.

Until then, however, it's the training dummies. I've got some procs to nail.

Last goodbyes.

2010-11-23T22:07:00.000-08:00

I don't usually do this, but this thread on the MMO-Champion forums caught my attention. Here are my own.

Top to bottom;

Payce's final ever Hakkar-kill didn't yield any Zin'Rokh - it did, however, prove that Hakkar and his trash isn't linked! During the entire fight they would come and go, occasionally lingering a bit while kneeling in front of the diety at the altar. I found it fitting that my last ever interaction with the inhabitants of the Gurubashi empire was their bowing down before the slayer of their God.

While levelling Pox's mining in the Hinterlands, the yell emote rang across the zone that someone had engaged the nightmare dragon. Rushing to Seradane, I found a hunter and his bear busy dying to Taerar's minions. As he reset, I went as far I dared onto the portal dais to secure a final memory of something that will surely be deeply missed.

And finally... the park. Hels, being my bank alt for the time being (Champion of the Naaru, Swift Zulian Tiger - some bank, huh?), took time off her busy schedule AH-mongering to spend a few minutes in a portion of Stormwind I always enjoyed, even through its apparent uselessness. The biggest romantics/nerds among us will undoubtedly recognize Linken's Sword of Mastery hanging at her hip.

It's four hours until the servers are scheduled to go live here in Europe. It is four hours until nothing will ever be the same again.

Fare thee well, dear friend.

2010-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

As the rumours turn into reports, and the reports more and more frequently agree, it's fast becoming clear that this next reset, the Shattering is very likely to take place. And with it, the world is forever and irrevocably changed. The absolutely insane amount of new content is, in all fairness, slightly overwhelming; the task alone to wrap your head around everything seems almost like a full time job when you start looking at all the new stuff we are so generously being presented.

But wait a minute. Who's that voice, silently crying at the back of my head, being relegated to but a distant memory?

It's you, isn't it, Zul'Gurub, old friend? We've been through a lot, you and I. From our first small steps where you taught me how to deal with Jeklik's Greater Heals as a relatively fresh and uninformed paladin. How we discovered together that tanking Gahz'ranka in the water is the clever way not to take a truckload of fall damage every so often. How Jin'do would yell "Grats!" from the other end of the zone if you let Mandokir ding enough for one reset. How Hakkar would never really drop me that sword. How the tiger mount dropped for my bank alt that ONE time she went there.

We go back a long way, you and I. Granted, like all relationships, we've had our quarrels - like that one time with the Soulflayers stealing my mana - but all in all, I look back at all our years together with warm affection. You and I, Zul'Gurub. We certainly had some good times.

But now you're going away forever. And in my heart, I will miss you. I will miss your beauty, your ability to entertain me for hours on end, your amazingly curious inhabitants, whose curious habits could and would amaze and annoy like little other.

Fare thee well, dear friend. Even though you're gone, your memory remains.

Places to visit.

2010-11-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of female draenei for a while, and with my previous rant about paladin threat values fresh in mind, the choice of a full percent permanent hit rating as opposed to a situational 3 expertise fast became the deciding matter. As the reputation junkie I am, human Diplomacy were an obvious pro, and with rated battlegrounds on the horizon, the extra trinket slot is definitely going to be more than just a small asset.

In comparison, the draenei heal is a HoT that over the course of 15 seconds ticks for less than non-critical Divine Light - whose casting time is approximately the same at the time for the first heal to tick from Gift. There's the obvious drawback of having to cast, of course, as opposed to applying an instant, but practically, the few chances where a Gift-heal would save your life, you're likely to have either Word of Glory or Lay on Hands available anyway. And even though I'm a jewelcrafter by trade, I never really saw the point of the racial increase to professions in the first place. I'm maxing them anyway - cheap points early in the skill-up progress is a more attractive prospect than expensive points later on.

So what to choose? I did twist my head a fair bit, I even went as far as writing up random tables and rolling dice to try and help me decide. It didn't really help.

In the end, I decided to go with draenei. Looking at the core attributes, they have a slightly higher base strength than humans, granted, at the cost of some agility, but still - for a paladin, strength is king. Furthermore, the static bonus to hit gives me one advantage over situational expertise - I can safely reforge excess hit into expertise without having to have fully balanced gearsets to compensate for varible stats following a weapon switch. And with the prospect of possibly tanking alongside another tankadin in Cataclysm, being able to change battlefield roles fast and dynamically means being able to do fast weapon/shield swaps midfight can prove an asset on certain fights, especially fights involving a strict enrage timer.

And then there's the horn. And the tail. And the fact that Vidyala over at Manaliciuous (she might not know this yet) absolutely HAVE to draw me as a draenei.

Ladies and gentlemen - meet the new and improved Payce.

I absolutely HAD to go back and whack this guy. Most people would vote the Fel Reaver as their most annoying ever ganking NPC, but this guy... oh, the trouble you've given me over the years. You scumbag. Eat fist.

Payce goes... alliance?

2010-11-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

or also known as the curious tale of WAHT IS THIS I DONT EVEN

There's been precious few updates the last few weeks, I know. Apart from a fanboi'sh ramble about how Deathwing should REALLY die, I can't remember actually saying a single constructive thing about my class for at least ten days. And with just reason (or so I like to tell myself) - my guild died. Again.

The problem was, of course, that I was an officer again, and being the lonely, last officer standing is pretty much the same as being a sniper in a bird's nest - your days are spent scouring for an out, and your rations are limited. You can't do this forever. And last Wednesday, during what was a supposed to be a Kingslayer run for the guildies that didn't already have the title, the glass toppled. The bubble burst. The dam flooded.

Three people didn't show, specifically the main tank and two healers. Another healer was online, but not really ready to raid. Our hunter suddenly found herself out of gametime. Our mage, having had surgery, was kinda excused. And our warlock, who really did want to do this last attemt at getting a few more Kingslayers, had taken the night off work to give the guild priority. As the clock ticked 19:00 game time, I had three people online. And I decided I'd had enough. I've spent thousands of gold and even real world money on the guild's logistics, and when we try to arrange an achievement run for people having expressed a wish to get these achievements, only to have to pug seven players - then you realize that not only are you out of rations, but there's actually this funky back door out of the nest as well.

So over the last week, I've scoured my own realm, countless other realms, their forums, their WoW-progress ratings, spent countless hours talking in chat across a ten-fold number of realms, reading guild websites, met what for this game must be considered an incredible amount of helpful people and positive responses. And what must be the fourteenth or fifteenth guild we'd talked to, we hit jackpot.

So over the next few days, Payce will bring a few of her mates to Vek'nilash [EU], and re-align herself with the Alliance. It's a bit of a kick in the groin to once again have Varian as my king, and I will dearly miss Sylvanas and Vol'jin. On the other hand, I've met some great new people and made some new friends. So I guess it's a fair trade-off, all in all.

Now to decide on the human v. draenei issue...

...and then Buffy stakes Edward.

2010-11-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

Warning: This blog entry may or may not cause extremely subjective interpretations of lore, game mechanics, and the (not so) sacred bond between the two. Approach with caution.

So yes. At first there was Raggy, which we needed Executus to summon for us after what in some cultures are referred to as a "severe beating". We didn't kill C'thun, he was merely hiding in Cho'Gall's stomach pouch like that snotty kangaroo kid from Winnie the Pooh. Hakkar is eternal, Kael'Thas redefined the word "setback", Maiev kills Illidan, Anweena banish Kil'Jaeden, Algalon found us funny and peculiar and let us live for that reason alone, Kel'Thuzad was nothing more than a taskmaster of the Lich King's armies but still survives not one, but TWO bar brawls up in that night club'ish lounge of his. And the Lich King. Oh, the Lich King. We both know the PWND us royally. I mean, honestly. He just let us take him down to 14% and go, "yeah, screw this, let's kill Tirion". Too bad he forgot about Terenas, huh. Had he only been clever and not demoted Falric and Marwyn to 5-man bosses, he'd at least have his back covered. But no. He had to go on that RP roll of his and thus, Tirion kills Arthas.

So yeah. Long story short... when did we actually kill someone of importance? We don't do we? The World of Warcraft heroes are really only the pawns in the major game of boss chess, we do the grunt work and then some NPC with obvious vindicative issues killsteals. In fact... if we're to be really harsh, we've only really ever KILLED - deaded, murdered, un-life'd - three major lore characters (four if you count Magtheridon, but honestly, why would we?): Vashj, obviously. Her dying in Illidan's service was a major element of the Illidan saga. And then there's Nefarian and Onyxia. Yep. Deathwing's kids. No wonder he's pissed off and burning with rage. I mean, come on. His kids.

So he's coming for us, and it's big and scary, and he sets fire to Auberdine (good riddance, by the way) by flying over it, he FLIES ACROSS THE PIER and it trashes the place. And let me tell you, having grown up in Goldshire, Auberdine is borderline metropolic. We're talking close to Brill proportions here. Huge. So obviously, Deathwing is one mean bastard. And he's angry. And on fire.

How THE HELL are we going to beat that? My belief in item level 379 only goes that far, I'll tell you. Heroic loot is nice, and that stats on certain items like this little fellow only serves to increase my belief that we'll be armed to the teeth when we face him. But seriously... he's on fire. Voluntarily. Inside an armour crafted with more fire and dwarf "volunteers". AND he's huge. And he's pissed enough that he even resurrected those blasted kids of his to undeath. And to top it all off, Tirion's in Hearthglen and Anweena's dead.

We're screwed.

Unless...

(this is where I go from rant to actual game-related content.)

What if we were to actually have an end boss of an expansion be just that hard ingame? There's no honest reason for 10 or 25 player characters to beat Deathwing on their own. No way. Nuh-uh. Not buying it. In short, we need help. Like Thrall or Alex. I don't think it'll be a big shock to anyone if Thrall turns out to be the Tirion of Cataclysm, but I'm honestly not sure if that idea rubs my belly in a comfortable and delightful way. I'd much prefer to see him in a Brann Bronzebeard-esque sort of role, related to the elemental invasion rather than the actual black flight (and besides, us horde have had to put up with that fat, ugly dwarf for two years now, let us have the key NPC this time around, hmmm?)

But what if the actual fight between Deathwing and Azeroth's Finest would be not a 10/25-man effort, but 11/26 - with Alexstrasza being the final raid member? An epic fight where Alex will have to "tank" Deathwing, requiring healing like any other tank or raid member, while the players will have to DPS down the boss while at the same time fighting massed waves of minibosses, trash gauntlets, environmental changes and of course Deathwing's own attacks against the raid? Designed and tuned correctly, it could be the most epic fight of the game thus far, yet still remaining hysterically challenging in a high end-environment. Just get Morgan Day on the case, and I predict an end boss worthy of praise even from the most anti-Blizzard Wrath Babies.

Of course it'll never happen this way. Trivializing the player role in the encounter to the level that we don't actually get even the feeling that we kill him, just that we're Alex's army - it won't go down well with the PR department. But the idea of Alex and Deathwing battling it out in the burning skies above my head while tanking 37 Cultists and their insane black flight overlord under the flaming fires of Deathwing's wounds... it's an exciting prospect.

Until then, Al'Akir looks he'll be quite high up there on my list of most memorable bosses in the game. I guess that's a start.

...Exodar doublet fellow?

2010-11-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

So we all pretty much know the Red Shirt Guy now. Some people still think insulting and slagging him is the only way to handle affairs such as these, other (most others, to be fair) simply shrug their shoulders and note that "it happened" without further ado, a fair few use the internet to hail the awesomeness of the Wildhammer Fact Checker, and how he wtf-pwn'd Blizzard.

And then there are a select 24 people, who simply go above and beyond the call of duty;

My officers and I tracked him down and sent him the invitation shortly after BlizzCon. We felt that,out of everyone in the U.S., he would get the most enjoyment being a part of the most epic battle that has ever been made in MMO's. He genuinely appreciated the meaning and lore behind Invincible, not just a "cool mount" to ride around. A lot of people have tried to make him feel bad or feel like a nerd, so we thought he should get the gear to feel totally badass.

In addition to Invincible, he also got 3 heroic tokens, 5 normal tokens, Saurfang Bracers, Gunship Cloak, and Deathwhisperer dagger. He actually performed really well! He got targeted by defile a few times and managed to get it out each time. He also was targeted by the disease twice and handled it both times. He was a full participant in all fights and executed them all perfectly.

It was great having him along. He's a really cool guy, and I'm sure he'll remember this experience for a while.

These are the words of Blacksen, guild master of progression guild Imperative, posted in a flame thread on the MMO Champion forums. And all I can say (apart from "I SOOOOOOOO WANT THAT TOO!"), is; Thank you. Things like this gives me faith back in the World of Warcraft community. Proving that even a cutting edge hcLK25-farming guild has the humility and decency to see beyond themselves and create something of value to an entire community, and one happy camper in particular.

Well done.

Paladin threat values.

2010-10-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Blizzard,

Nerf rock. Paper is OK.

Sincerely,

Scissors.

So here we are again, with the nerf bat slamming down in our collective faces. And let's be honest, it wasn't really all that surprising this time around. My Shield of the Righteous at 3 Holy Power would occasianally critically hit for 25,000 damage. My Hammer of Wrath would steadily dish out a solid 16,000 damage at the very least when critically hitting - usually more. To further add to the image of our current power level - these are numbers experienced without wings, though I'll admit that I'm using Wrathful level PvP gear for my wrist (socketed and enchanted stamina, mind you), neck and weapon (stamina gem and Blood Draining) slots, plus the 2-piece T10 retribution set bonus for 5-man instances. Overall though, these numbers are brutally high for a tanking contribution to the damage chart. The bat was already swinging, it was just a matter of time before it hit.

Let's look at the exact changes to paladins being made in the latest beta build (13221, no silly codename this time around) - I've limited my quotations to the abilities that relate to protection specifically;

Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
Hammer of Wrath base damage has been reduced by 22%. From 4890-5404 to 3814-4215.
Seal of Truth now scales from 12.85% of Attack Power and Spell Power (up from 12.5%) but now deals 15% weapon damage when stacked 5 times. Down from 16%.
Crusader Strike now deals 115% weapon damage, down from 150%.
Avenger's Shield now has a 15 sec cooldown, down from 24 sec.
Shield of the Righteous now deals 609/1828/3656 damage depending on Holy Power. (Old - Deals 20%/60%/120% of Attack Power as damage)
Shield of the Templar no longer reduces the cooldown of Avenger's Shield. Now allows your Divine Plea to generate 1/2/3 Holy Power.
Guarded by the Light now increases Word of Glory by 15/30%, down from 30/60%.
Wrath of the Lightbringer now increases the damage of Crusader Strike by 50% at Rank 1, up from 30%.

So there you have it. An across-the-board downranking of our offensive co-efficients, making just about everything that's not Consecration and Hammer of the Righteous hit less as baseline. The updated tooltip for Wrath of the Lightbringer looks bugged atm, mind you - its likely that this talent will either be single rank, or it will retain it's 2-rank status at 50/100% increase.

Technicalities aside - what will this mean for protection as a raiding spec? First of all, it means that our raid threat roof will be considerably lowered, unless the innate threat co-efficients are buffed to compensate for the loss of TPS through damage. Furthermore, I predict that pre-pull Divine Plea is going to be mandatory, as a 1HP-Shield of the Righteous, even to get up an early Holy Shield, is a waste of a GCD, threatwise. This effectively removes Divine Plea as an early combat cooldown for us, making mana efficiency paramount.

Whether or not Crusader Strike is being nerfed or stays the same or is buffed is a bit of a toss-up at the moment. The uncertainty around said talent means we're not really sure what the outcome will be, except this - we simply CAN NOT afford Crusader Strikes to miss. No holy power, no threat - and if both resources are going to be as precious to us as it currently appears, then we have no choice than to make sure we're 100% certain our Crusader Strikes hit home. And that means the hit cap. Heavier still, it means the expertise hardcap.

As of this beta build, the general consensus is that if you're not hitcapped, you reforge hit until you reach the hitcap. And when you're hitcapped, you reforge expertise until you reach the expertise hardcap. And as a tank, to reforge offensive stats, what do you sacrifice? Well, there really are only two secondary defensive stats left in the game, isn't there? Dodge and parry. That's right. As of this build, we are completely scrapping Blizzard's new lovechild mastery, our precious dodge and our dear parry for the sake of our threat. Because let's face it - without our threat, we don't need dodge and parry in the first place - our frost death knight friend, however, would kindly ask a loan of some mitigation if it's not too much bother?

I was hoping this to be a minor nuisance, and perhaps som unadjusted numbers that would be tuned later on. It is, after all, beta, and like we agreed on quite early, a nerf was obviously coming. But then, the following morning, I read this:

Holy Shield will be changed to increase block value by 10% (40% total) instead of increasing block chance by 15%. Since this will cause Mastery to become more valuable, the amount of block granted by Mastery will be reduced to 2.25% block chance per point of Mastery, down from 3%.
Paladin tanks are not intended to go cap block as fast as they can. It’s fine if you want to do that, but we don’t treat it as “the new defense cap” and we don’t balance paladins assuming they have a 100% block chance. That is something the community identified as being not only possible, but likely, and one of the reasons we changed the way block works for paladins.
Guardian of Ancient Kings -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.

...say again? You're lessening our survivability, and practically forcing mastery down our throats to retain it - by not only making it near mandatory, but even lessening the value of it? Huh. How about that. We're already considered the "squishiest" of the four tank classes since 4.0.1 hit - we're apparently getting "roflstomped" by heroic Halion, Lich King and Lady Deathwhisper - and said "block cap" (102,4 - ((dodge+parry) + 15 (Holy Shield) + 5 (miss chance)) = "block cap") is nothing more than a natural response from the community to a change forced upon us by what was, in essence, a very strong and solid change to our gameplay mechanics in the first place.

In short, we're getting less avoidance if we wanna have threat, we're getting less threat if we wanna have mitigation, and we're getting "roflstomped" without proper avoidance and mitigation, though without any threat, someone else is quite likely to get roflstomped before us in the first place. I quite feel like I'm back to playing warrior in Naxxramas again, balancing 11 stats to make sure my gear was good enough to both stay alive AND do my job in the raid. Is that REALLY what Blizzard wants to achieve with this? I have my doubts, and will expect some changes to these numbers eventually. Until then... I guess my healers will hate me immensely.

Oh well.

Their law.

2010-10-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

So yes, Artisan Elitist's BlizzCon coverage 2010:

- Metzen making me feel older than I actually am
- some stuff about a female Illidan with a crossbow fighting the devil
- some other stuff about SC2 being boring already and needing a new map
- THE e-sports scandal of the year

Yes, you heard me. Payce blogs about PvP. No, seriously, I mean it. This post will, in fact, be centered around the theme of competitive arena. Gasp.

So the thing is, the competing finalists ComplexityRed and aAa were tied what we call "closely". We are shown a display of intense teamwork through controlled bursts, insane mana management, kiting so clever you could brush your teeth with it and extraordinary survivability. ComplexityRed, with a priest/warlock/mage-setup built for massive burst and tactical control display an amazing offensive game, while aAa are more centered about defensive safety, sustained damage over time and the occasional burst to force cooldowns. The games are intensely tight and close, and as the 20 minute mark of game four is sounded, ComplexityRed is awarded the victory, giving them an overall 3-1 series win. The crowd obviously rejoice, and a lot of the home viewers (admittedly, myself included) is happy for them. It's always fun to see an offensive, solid team playing amazingly and achieveing through their A game what is conceived as a well earned victory.

Except while they are celebrated on stage, handed their $75,000 cheque, something is amiss in the background. aAa have launched an appeal for a rematch, and the admins are investigating the matter. It appears as though the decicive death of aAa's warlock came AFTER the time limit, and that due to the time limit, their resto druid had stopped playing at the 20 minute mark. Logs show that this is in fact the case, and that at the time limit, all players are still alive - a draw. And due to Blizzard's current arena competition rules, draws are to be decided by overall damage done, where aAa does indeed beat ComplexityRed by around 10,000 damage. The tie is awarded to aAa and with the score now being 2-2, rather than 3-1, a fifth and final match is played.

Without going into too much detail: the grand final is an insane display of skill. ComplexityRed's captain Sodah plays with a skill level beyond anything I've ever seen, the adrenaline pumping and blood bruising with every global cooldown. As a spectator, this is e-sports at the abslute highest level. It's not really worth describing - take the time instead to see for yourself. After an airtight 11 minute fight, aAa draws the longest straw, and wins the tie as ComplexityRed's warlock eventually goes down to the sustained pressure on ComplexityRed's resources. The new award ceremoney displays a smug aAa receving their prize money, and a ComplexityRed-team too gutted for words accepting their second prize.

I don't want to be judgemental towards either team. I've admitted I enjoyed ComplexityRed's strategy and composition more - their offensive philosophy to the game is a pleasure to watch, and as a spectator, that is really what I'm after. While not going as far as saying they turtled, I will call countercomping on aAa. It's a legitimate strategy, and in the face of a potential $75,000 dollars, I understand all to well that countercomping is both effective and strategically smart. My gripe isn't with either team at all - they both chose their paths of action within every legal parameter there is. There were no cheating, and no bad sportsmanship at play.

My gripe is with Blizzard.

It's their game, and it's also their rules and their decicive judgement. Allowing themselves to not only announce a winner, but doing do without a full overview of the details in a game that went to the 20 minute mark, is not only sloppy, but reckless and disrespectful to those paying to watch the games, as well as the competitors themselves. Had this game been investigated further before the announcing of victors, we would have had 2-2 prior to any celebratory announcements, and an adrenaline-fuelled fifth final on equal grounds - and not one where one team had to fight back from the feeling of being literally gutted, while the other team have been given a boon of mercy with absolutely nothing to lose. I respect and understand aAa's posting a protest - it's within the rules, and it's the right, fair and honest thing to do when they'd been wronged. I only wish they weren't cheated of their victory in their first place.

Eventually, this will come back to bite Blizzard's own arse. ComlpexityRed displeyed to the entire world what they're capable of, and with a the strong backing of SK Gaming, they have every potential to fight back. The problem is that when these things happen, the credibility of the arranging party is drawn into doubt, and when said party in none other than the creator of the game itself - at their own convention, no less - I can't but wonder if Blizzard-hosted tournaments are ever going to be as good as sponsored, private leagues. More importantly, it posts doubt in the minds of the spectators, and most important of all, the performers, as to the validity of their results.

This might prove to be a big problem for Blizzard in the long run, unless a swift and decicive reworking of their competitive arena rules are being issued to ensure nothing like this happens again.

So about this tank business.

2010-10-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

So here we are, at the brink of Cataclysm, and the question I hear more often than ANY others these days, is "What will you be plaing in Cataclysm? What should I be playing in Cataclysm?""

For some, it's easy. My friend Ayms over at 4th Wall, she'll be playing her priest. Hands down, no contest. My guildmate Gegnar, a.k.a. "the Mage" - well, take a guess. Chummie the death knight with Engineering and Jewelcrating on her profession tabs decided to level an alt - she needed a miner to feed her professions.

Then there are the others. Like Mits. Last I heard, it was resto druid, but who knows? Holy paladins are dynamic, beast mastery is a viable hunter spec, after all, and ZOMG NERGASM Dark Simulacrum. It's not easy. My dear friend Rihn is torn between PvP disc, resto druid, protection warrior or one of his two level 80 warlocks. I heard this rumour that boomkin PvE is somewhat amusing as well.

And oh, how I understand their internal quarrel. Up until recently, I was debating whether or not this blog shouldn't for the resurrection have to become a warrior blog. My old alliance warrior, my heart and soul through TBC, Naxxramas, Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader, looked increasingly interesting through both beta and PTR, the abilites presented and the new talents bringing back a lot of the feel of what I so dearly loved about TBC. So I finished up my loremaster, tossed my 45 euros at Blizzard and made her a (rather lovely) Forsaken.

So the patch hit, and I started to play around, fixing my specs, getting some decent and easy-to-grab high level gear, and entering the odd heroic - only to realize that it wasn't really all that. The new abilities, by all means, they work. Spreading Rend with Thunder Claps, multistunning Charge, self-healing enough to make blood death knights weep in envy - it's all very nice and like I said, by all means - it works. Quite well, even.

It just wasn't all that fun. To clarify - it did not live up to my expectations. The odd raidboss tanked for weekly just added more weight to the problem - after playing a retribution paladin at a higher than average skill level for almost a year, it simply didn't have that dynamic feel to it. Shield Slam procs, Revenge procs, Victory Rush procs, applying four debuffs, all while establing a threat threshold - it's not hard, by all means, but it grew dreary very fast. It felt kinda like this:

So I quickly enough went back to retribution, only to find... that yes, we are still competitive, DPS-wise (I'd argue we're even better single-target DPS now, played right, due to the addition of Zealotry and Hammers during wings), and we're still bound to a fairly complex (not really) priority system that still demands attention to procs, stacking debuffs and even a good ol' Twisting-style proc bug to maximize our output. Rejoice, for we are... boring as hell, to be honest.

And the culprit is this guy: Sanctity of Battle (rank 1). Playing retribution at the moment is about one thing and one thing only - minimizing the time between you Crusader Strikes, till the point that your rotation becomes Crusader Strike - thing - Crusader Strike - thing - Crusader Strike - DINGDINGDING B000000M!!! - repeat. Essentialy, you want enough haste to get your Crusader Strike on a 3 second cooldown or else... well... there are those 0.3-0.5 seconds between the previous "thing" and next Crusader Strike going off cooldown which are generally not very entertaining. Borderline dreary, I'd go as far as saying. Waiting for Crusader Strike is boring, but inserting another ability is not only a DPS-loss, but messes up your rotation royally as well, as said ability is more than likely to be your next "thing" - as soon as you've waited out your 0.3 seconds for (say it with me) - Crusader Strike.

And they removed the magic dispel from Cleanse as well! Are no things holy anymore?

Certainly not my spec. I chose the best of two world - tank and paladin - and went protection for Cataclysm. It feels kinda like this:

I can live with that, I guess.

Random screenshot Sunday.

2010-04-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

DEFILE ON M-- wait, why can't I move?

Where itemization and retz don't agree.

2010-04-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

This week we finally managed to kill Sindragosa. After 10 or so hours of wiping, more dumbass positioning mistakes (yours truly most certainly not excluded) than I've seen since Netherspite and more than one rather unsubtle ragequit, she finally knelt down to a hilariously messy attempt which I believe our maintank still have a heart attack in progress from. We're 11/12 now - only big man left.

When it came to rolling the loot, I won a pair of new bracers, the last piece of the pre-hardmode gearpuzzle for me. As you will notice, these bracers are indeed leather - as are my belt and crafted 264-boots. My rings are agility-based, even the Ashen Verdict one, my neck is the BoE 264-piece with agility on it and my cloak is the agility-back from Lord Marrowgar. In fact, apart from my 4-piece T10, only my weapon and chest are strength-based plate items.

The sum of these parts amount to a grand total of around 5500 attack power, 49,98% melee crit chance, 33 expertise, 0,00% armor penetration, and my 3,50 speed weapon swings on 3,10 (with absolutely no buffs). I've previously ranted that ArP only affects around 35-40% of my total damage, and with that frame of mind, I'm quite pleased with my reaching 0,00% (even if replacing those 7 expertise over the cap with ArP would probably be a slight DPS-increase). My point to all this?

I'm a paladin. Paladins traditionally wear plate. But looking at the Icecrown loot tables, the strength- and plate loot is stuffed to the brim with ArP, hit and expertise. I can only think of two plate pieces in the instance that does not have either of these stats on it - the bracers from Dreamwalker, and the chestpiece I'm currently using (for the record, the cloak from Gunship and neck from BQL, while not technically plate, is strenght loot with neither of the aforementioned stats as well).

The problem, however, is not the plate having these stats in itself. The problem is that plate loot traditionally have more item points invested in stamina and armor on top of their offensive stats. Furthermore, they have only two green stats. And with itemlevels as high as we're having in ICC, that means each item will have a huge chunk of whatever stat goes on it. In short, if I were to wear plate only, I'd be overcapped to the point of ridicule on hit and expertise, I'd have enough ArP to be comparable to Death Knights, and I'd probably hover around 40% crit raid-buffed.

Instead, I use leather loot, with less stamina than agility of the base stats, and three (rather than two) green stats. The amount of the itembudget that goes into a leather DPS item is a lot more focused around your offensive capabilities than your chances of survival - a paradox, really, as plate classes traditionally survive more damage than leather and mail classes in the first place. Of course there are leather items with hit, expertise and ArP on them, I even use a fair few to balance out my stats. But with the item level budget divided the way it is, these stats are far less dominating, making balancing them a much, much more tolerable job.

The result more or less speaks for itself. 49,98% unbuffed crit is a figure you shouldn't be able to reach as retz. In places like VoA25 and either ToC instance, I regularly out-DPS other paladins of similar gearlevel if they are pure-plate, more often than not, I destroy them - even if their white damage is higher average than mine from all that ArP. I could of course be bold and attribute this to my absolute awesomeness of skill, but realistically, the difference lie in the gear, and the balance therein.

I truly hope this is something that will get fixed in Cataclysm, even if I'm not around to see it. The first few signals are good - ArP being removed as a stat, and the new Mastery concept - but I suspect there's still some way to go. Item budgets will continue to increase, and the caps will necessarily have to be of such a nature that they are possible to reach in pre-raid gear. And as soon as the caps are filled, you need to balance the rest of the stats, making the cap loot on higher end gear less valuable - and thus replaceable by more or less anything with an offensive stat, if it's even a minor DPS upgrade. Because and upgrade is, after all, always an upgrade. If Mastery is to become so imporatant that you'll prefer to go over caps for it, I fear we'll fast spiral into another Sunwell/Icecrown-esque debuff that nerfs it at certain levels of mastery, simply because that for a stat to be THAT good, it will need to be massively powerful.

I sincerely hope Blizzard has a plan for this, and that they have learned their lesson on loot from WotLK. I remain sceptical, but we shall see. Until then, I'll take my leather kinky and black, please.

Payce's UI.

2010-04-21T16:16:00.000-07:00

Not really by popular demand, but I've had a question or two about it, so here it is - my raid UI:

My unit frames are ShadowedUF and Grid, which makes up for most over my raid overview. I use a variety of grid options for information relay, such as GridMana for the mana bars on the right side. My buttons are Bartender, with a skin called ButtonFacade: Apathy. The cooldown counter you see inside the buttons are OmniCC - the SINGLE most important addon you will have for ret DPS. Above my portrait are some blue bars, these are Classtimer set up to track my procs and a few, selected buffs (you guessed it - seals and the blessings I cover).

I prefer DBM over BigWigs and other bossmods, because it's more cutomizable. Combat text is MSBT, a true bitch to set up, but definitely worth it when you finally get it right. Very neat and tidy, and perfect for tracking health, mana, incoming/outgoing damage and heals. Recount and Omen are obvious choices for me, I've tried Skada but prefer these. Apart from Combuctor for inventory, I don't really have any "hidden" addons, so that's basically it - enjoy!

Announcing my retirement.

2010-04-13T00:07:00.001-07:00

On May 25th, my game time runs out. I'm not planning to renew my subscription.

Over the years in Azeroth, I've discovered and experienced vast amounts of joy, excitement, fun and achievement, chief among them still the Magtheridon kill which got me my Champion of the Naaru-title. I've experienced disappointment, let-down, bitterness and wrongdoing, the worst among them so bad that it had me ragequit not only a raid group, not only a guild, but an entire server. I've gotten to know a fair share of jerks, idiots, hatefulness and taken more blame and abuse than I suspect even rapists do in real life. I've also gotten to know a handful of brilliant, beautiful, amazing and wonderful people that I dearly love, friendships I will treasure for years and decades to come. It's been a rollercoaster-ride, and despite the occasional nausea, it's been awesome.

But in the end, it's just a ride. And as I'm writing this, we're heading down the last steep fall before the station.

There's still a ton of things I want to do in World of Warcraft. My exalted reputations are at 24/40, I've not killed Algalon or Arthas yet, my rusted proto-drake still lacks Vezax and Yoggy, I've not finished Loremaster on any of my characters, I've never done an Undying-run in Naxxramas. But over the last six months, I've tried alting, rerolling mains, changing my server, even changing my faction. And I realize that no matter how much fun I have in Azeroth, there's a whole other world out there I want to spend more time in. So after pondering since the announcement of Cataclysm what to play, and if to play it at all, I've decided that this is it.

To everyone I played with, regardless of whether you suck, rule, fail, win, abuse, praise, hate, love, ninja or happily win that coveted something after weeks and weeks of losing out: Thank you. You've all been a part of the experience. Hope you enjoyed me as much as I enjoyed you.

Payce out, mon.

How to Sindragosa.

2010-04-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal. This fight is simple if you just focus, listen and watch your surroundings.

PHASE 1:
Tank stands in tank spot. Melee stands in melee spot. Boss stands in bitch spot. Ranged stands in ranged spot. Warlock portal for easy getty out of shitty is on ranged spot. Let's all hug and be friends on our deisgnated spot, yes yes.

When she does vacuum hoover evil, run behind line of not getting fucketh and remain unfucketh. As soon as fuckethness is over, run back to your spot. This is the spot I talked about in the previous paragraph, the ranged or melee spot.

When not running someplace, stand on your spot. Very still. Do nukez or healz or whatever it is you do from your spot. Not from next to your spot. From your spot.

Tanks have easy job, they can stay in their spot even when she does fuckethyness, for tanks have fun tricks called "cooldowns". Melee have these to, but will still get fucketh if they try something funny. So don't.

PHASE 2:
Sometimes Sindra has to pass gas and flies off. Then everyone and their dog should run to ranged spot. Even tanky tank and melee people should stand on ranged spot. Ranged spot is the place that has a warlock portal on it sometimes. And probably around 5 people standing inside a tauren as well.

When you stand here, you sometime get a skull or cross over your head. Then you run to the skull spot or the cross spot and stand really still there instead. But AH! Here comes the trick. Person with skull has to move to skull spot! And person with cross to cross spot! And not other way around! And when you stand here, you get a soda break. Win!

The rest of the people still standing on ranged spot, should around now probably start looking for spots of ritualistic ice cream on floor. Get a sodadrinking person with a skull or cross, from here on referred to as "blockpeople", between you and icecream. This is because Sindra has gas and her ice cream is pretty bad so you don't want it really, as you'll get ill and die.

It's a good idea for pro healz people to toss some hots on blockpeople just before the go from skull/cross-people to blockpeople. Not so pro healz can scratch arse instead.

Do this four times. The second time around, you should probably start autoattacking the blockpeople you're behind. Fun with wands and staves! Fourth time she tempts with icecream, blockpeople are getting fed up so make sure to kill block fast cause Sindra is going be running to blockpeople soon too, since party is there.

PHASE 3:
When bitch has done dance with blockpeople and ice cream three or so times, she gets pissy and starts doing shit on ground instead of in air. This time, she'll make blockpeople at random, so pro healz need to be fast on hot business when people gets skull.

But AHAHAHA! HAH! Tricky thing! Skull people have to change between skull spot and cross spot! Tricky piece of action! First skull-person has to run to skull spot... then SECOND skull-person need to go to cross spot! And third skull-person... to skull spot! And fourth person... to cross spot! ZOMG! ALTERNATING! And it goes on throughout the rest of the fight! ZOMGZOMG!

And you need to free blockpeople now as well too. But only at at pace that allows melee people to stand behind blockpeople and lose their stacks of nastiness that is bad for you and makes healz go "zomg noes". And there's still fuckethiness so no thinking you don't need to run. Haha! No. Run when fuckethy business looms.

TL;DR
Stand in your fucking spot. Don't die to shit. Pay attention.

(Can you tell we had a bad wipe night?)

Is it too easy?

2010-04-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

So, we're still at 10/12 in Icecrown Citadel - the last weeks we've even taken a step back, having not finished Dreamwalker a single time since we first killed Blood Council. This is mostly due to personnel - I don't think we've fielded the same ten people once, ever - but I still feel that with the new and improved 10% Hellscream buff, we should have pushed further. These fights aren't HARD when you know what to do.

And knowing what to do, is what we have strategies and tactics for. More often than not developed by cutting edge, top end guilds like Paragon, Ensidia and Mazrigos' very own The Legacy (represent). Guilds that face the boss for the first time, be it live or on the PTR, their tools for the job being combat logs and the ability to read and analyze patiently between attempts. When we zerg across Marrowgar these days, I still remember launch night - granted, he was bugged that night - when we wiped on him for a solid two hours. Resto druid went OOM, tank soaking was out of control, DPS too used to full nuke simply not being able to adapt to the idea of an aggrowipe.

Was Marrowgar too hard that night? Hardly. Granted, he was bugged. But a fair few guilds got him by adapting and creating the now commonplace strategies of either standing hugged inside his hitbox, or divided to manipulate Bone Storm movement. Those tactics were fast spreading, more guilds and groups got him down, he was labelled "too easy". These days, PuGs are killing Arthas and certain hardmodes, and thus, they are labelled "too easy". In fact, the common thesis among the average World of Warcraft gamer is that the game overall is "too easy", regardless of what they themselves have killed or not.

After Paragon's world first hard mode Arthas, their composition caused a lot of uproar. People felt insulted, almost cheated, that their class was left out. I got a mage community toting my left ear full, and my right ear is almost deaf already from the shaman community (ironically, the two definitive "flavour of the month"-classes from Tier 9, by the way). They all agree that since Paragon didn't use their class for the kill, they need to be buffed. Paragon's response to this?

It's the hardest fight, ever. In the history of the game. A 13 minute encounter where a single error from one out of 25 players WILL cause you to wipe and go again. It took them 170 attempts to get it right. Imagine, if you will, spending half of those attempts learning the mechanics of the fight, trying and failing to learn positioning and timing, understanding to a pin exactly how, what and when. That still leaves 85 attempts - the other half - to get it right. In the history of this game, I can't think of a single boss encounter I've even done 85 times, let alone wiped on. Mimiron, perhaps? But even him, probably not more than 70-75 times overall. But on a fight that hard, you don't leave a single thing to chance. If warlocks do 50 better DPS, you bring warlocks. Because over 13 minutes, 50 DPS still adds up to 39,000 damage. There is no luck or extra push when you're operating on a level that hard. Only perfection.

Oh, by the way, did I bring up Mimiron earlier? I did, didn't I? Fascinatingly, Muqq from Ensidia rates Mimiron v1.0 hardmode as harder than heroic Arthas. Apparently, Mimiron back then, in the gear they had, before the nerfs, was less RNG and more pure skill. Now, I've not done heroic Arthas, so I can't comment on that. But I've done heroic Mimiron, post-nerf in gear level a full tier and a half above his intended level, and it was HARD. Back when hardmode Anub fell in Tier 9, it was widely considered the hardest challenge due to the insane DPS required, at the right place, at the right time. The frost patch restriction, the need to AoE-stun the adds to even keep your offtank alive - it was HARD. And Yogg-saron without watcher aid? Stood for four months, Paragon then claiming he was the hardest boss ever.

So the end boss for the last three tiers have been, for all intents and purposes, "the hardest boss ever". They even had a random guildkiller thrown into the fold, for good measure. In TBC, when people called for the hardest boss ever, they did not say "Vashj" or "Kael" or even "Illidan". They said "C'thun" all the way up to M'uru. And even then, most people rated C'thun as harder than Kil'jaeden. So TBC spawned one "hardest boss ever". Wrath of the Lich King spawned four - one of which is so hard that the ONLY guild ever to have killed him at the moment, finds it difficult to imagine him ever get topped in terms of perfection in challenge and difficulty.

For all intents and purposed, the game is not too easy. The question is rather where your ambitions lie - and what you expect from the game. Because if you're reading this, I'm 99,7% certain - heroics Arthas is too difficult for you.

---

It was announced today that Eyonix has left Blizzard. An anonymous internet voice said in regard to this, that "There are people who shape, create, influence and develop. Apple would be the same without Steve Jobs, or Microsoft without Bill Gates".

I have no further to add to that. Take care, Eyo. And shame on you for leaving us alone with GC.

Random achievement screenshots.

2010-03-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Icecrown progress is still at 10/12, reputations at 22/40, Algalon's still not dead and we still lack Vezax and Yoggy hardmodes. So what's been going on lately? Not much, to be honest. Been tweaking my gear a bit, doing random achievements, and little else. Some random screenshots, though, of some of the more joyful moments:

The value of content.

2010-03-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was sitting in my dear friend Gegnar's room with my other dear friend, Grim. Geg was wiping on 25 man Lich King, we were watching. In between tries, we talked about World of Warcraft, more specifically how much gold we aim to have when Cataclysm go live, and how we're making it.

My schtick is TBC enchanting materials. It's not a huge market, but I'm not a huge goblin either. I'll never have the insane amounts of gold other people have, and I'm fine with it.

Both Geg and Grim, however, are in the epic gem business. Specifially, doing heroics for badges then trading them in for gem, as well as transmuting. It's a common market these days - not even in the glory days of jewelcrafting could you earn the amounts of hard cash a transmutation master can do these days. Cardinal Rubies proccing for 5? You've just earned 1000 gold in one minutes work. Jewelcrafters have it good, though - their may have to actually work their profession, but who else have a daily quest netting you 100 gold for killing a few mobs just outside Dalaran?

What strikes me though, is how heroic instances have been reduced to farm spots for gold. Skipping as many bosses as possible for frost badges on multiple characters is the trend, instances lasting more than the 15 minutes you're on "cooldown" are considered a failure (unless, of course, it's Stratholme - in which case the tank will leave anyway). Geg pointed this out as well - he had been accused of being a whiner for suggesting skipping Krystallus and Maiden in Halls of Stone. While such accusations are out of line, his argument for suggesting it was that he just wanted his frost badges. A fair point, but it raises the question of what the value of content is.

Let's consider for a moment Ghostcrawler's words of wisdom:

In BC I spent a lot of time finishing up all of those Shadowmoon quests with blue rewards so that I could handle Karazhan. In Lich King many of us were in Naxx before we saw some of the heroic dungeons. By the time we got back to those dungeons, we totally overgeared them.

It may just be me, but does this seem... I don't know, like a bit of a waste to you? Wrath of the Lich King shipped with four raids: Naxxramas, which was undertuned and killed CC forever; Vault of Archavon, possibly the single biggest mistake Blizzard ever did with this game; Eye of Eternity, the worst boss design ever; and the Obsidian Sanctum, the easiest boss which at it's intended tier had one of the absolutely best hardmodes Blizzard ever designed. So of the four raids you had to work in, one was amazing on hardmode. The other had flaws. As content, their value was the loot - which in any case would outgear the quest rewards and loot from dungeons and heroic instances.

My question is, what IS the value of content? Gegnar suggested heroics are measured in frost badges and epic gems from triumph badges. Ghostcrawler suggests skipping straight from dinging 80 to raids is acceptable. Grim, whose 13 heroics in a row on five separate level 80 characters culminated in a 1-boss Old Kingdom-run, insists he still find them interesting, yet don't mind skipping all but the end boss. We all agreed that the current system of "mandatory" frost badges means heroics is little more than a necessity to get better our intended target - raiding.

I realize this inevitably happens with gear, and with gear values having spiralled out of control in this expansion, the insane overgearing we're currently experiencing is hard to stop. It gives me fears for Cataclysm, though - I sincerely hope we're not moving further into a system where the value of content is measured in badges, gold and gear, but the challenge involved. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

But didn't we sign up for this game because it looked FUN?

Gearscore is carescore part 2.

2010-03-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

Or: It came from the PuG, part... 143? Something? Anyway.

Today, we had the best luck. We entered Utgarde Pinnacle for our random daily heroic, and immediately realized that we'd been blessed with a tank that wanted to do a "fast run". This would probably have been OK if he'd bothered to ask, but alas, he chose the approach of trying to dodge every pack imaginable, not talking in chat except for the words "fast" and "run", and more to the point, not really tanking anything. This person held less aggro than an 83 year old woman holds water after a night of gin drinks with little umbrellas in them. So how to deal with this?

We pull Judgement lookalike armor out of the bags, is what we do.

Marco, the gentle soul he is, stops doing anything except wanding. If he wants his fast run when we want our badges, he should probably ask a little more polite. But he does not, and when Ymiron dies, he is actually insulted when we're not thanking him for leading us through the fast run. Seeing a DPS in TBC blues clearly is not a good hint. Vengeful? Bitter? Vindicative? You decide.

As we relog alts to finish round 2, I stay on Payce to try out something interesting. How much DPS can I actually pull wearing this armour? My trinkets, rings, weapon and libram are all ilvl245+ (with the exception of my ilvl226 trash mob libram). The rest are ilvl112-115. I'm 1,44% below hit cap and cruising a solid 5 expertise. We queue... and we enter Forge of Souls. Just for fun, I ask the random what my gearscore is. He replies, 3399. Good to know.

Instead of trying to say anything, here's a screenshot. There's some Recount in it. Enjoy.

Kraulin' all over you.

2010-03-15T04:29:00.000-07:00

I know I promised a recollection of the Razorfen Kraul incident a couple fo days ago. Due to certain unforseen events, such as progress raiding (Blood Queen? what a gyp.) and a compulsive need to toy around with my holy priest, I've kinda forgotten to blog. Never fear, though - it's story time again.

After a successful run through the most dreary instance ever - I'm looking at you, Stormwind, City of Men - I got sent into a Razorfen Kraul-group with a feral cat ("am I tanking? xD"), a rogue in caster heirlooms (I can only assume XP > stats), an elemental shaman and an arms warrior. Our merry band starts clearing, and I don't need a single mana break until the first intersection. The feral cat in bear form has surprisingly good control and overview, we pull hard and fast, and when I ask for my MB after next pull, I get it hands down. Continuing trough the instance, we keep a good trend going, until we stand face to face with The Bat Room.

Three things I already knew (and painfully so from playing an elemental shaman through Northwatch Hold), but The Bat Room painfully reminded me of:

- school lockouts are a bitch.
- six second silences are a bastard.
- tanks not knowing these things pull hard.

The bear runs in, grabs a good and solid 12 bats, taking a massive amount of hits to his back, and I have to resort to Holy Light spam to keep him going. Until I get aggro from one, and all my abilites suddenly are on a 5 second cooldown. Ouch. Bear is good and clever and taunts batty back, allowing me a quick bandaging him, but alas, stupid pala needs to go into melee range to do this. And these guys have a nasty, AoE-silencing screech, not really unlike my own belfy one. Six more seconds without healing? You got it.

The bear naturally dies. The arms warrior and elemental shaman share the now scattered mobs fair and brotherly between then. Warrior choose to die, shaman does the clever move and runs for it. My silence ends just about now, and I do the one thing I can think of to survive this situation; Righteous Fury, Consecration, and healing myself hard. Half a second later, all of the warrior's bats, I'm counting five, surround me, still playing lockout and silence now and again, but I keep standing there, burning my pots and stunning, basically everything I CAN that isn't a spell or on lockout.

It is then I notice. The rogue in the dress has picked up on what I'm doing. The rogue in the dress is clever. The rogue in the dress is targeting one and one bat, bursting them down as best he can, playing along to my waiting game. As my interface tells me the shaman is dead down the hall, we have 4 more bats incoming, but only 2 left here, and I'm for once unsilenced, unstunned and unlocked. I torrent up, judge a bat and grit my teeth.

Around two minutes later, I exit combat with 1% mana and 3% health. The rogue is at around 5%, but we're alive. After a quick drink, I resurrect the warrior and feral, who, from their reactions in chat, have clearly never seen anything like this ever before. The rogue and I high-five. We go on to kill big nasty pig boss and ugly piggy crone boss, before we happily go our separate ways. I remain kerfuffled, though - this is the kind of last stand-affair you dream of. The kind that just don't happen in endgame content, and very rarely even in low level content. Being a part of it made me feel really good about myself, and I'm not even ashamed to say it.

Playing to learn is always more gratifying when you realize that you just learned something. Split second decisions involving parts of your toolbox that aren't really in your main arsenal, but still remain in your mental gameframe, are (alongside the knowledge of when to take risks and not) what separates a good player from an average one. Today, I felt like a good player.

And it felt good.

Giving big sister a go.

2010-03-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

I had a really cool story about Razorfen Kraul planned for today. Certain strange matters postponed that story, though - time instead to give big sister Payce some holy lovin'. I promise I'll tell the other story tomorrow. Anywho.

With the recent success of baby-Phayce in the lower dungeons, and the accidental drop of some haste-heavy elemental shaman gear that accidentally fell to me in Wednesday's Icecrown raid, I realized today that I now actually had a full healing set. Granted, the cloak has the word "Furious" in it, the sword may or may not contain some hit rating, and there might even be an ilvl200 item or two. But who cares, when I'm packing bodyparts?

The first (and certainly most painful) part of getting the healing kit in order, I realize, involves 2000 gold pieces, the auction house and the jewelcrafting "create all"-button. With the blacksmith sockets, I find myself in the happy position of having 10 yellow, 3 red and 1 blue (for the meta, you know) sockets to fill, plus various enchants of a more or less expensive nature (curse you tailors and your spellthread monopoly!), short of a full healing set. Pondering for a bit if it's worth it, I decide to jump into "fuck it"-mode and just sort it, for better or worse.

20 or so minutes later, with quick pitstops at the Wyrmrest Temple and in Dun Niffelem, I'm all set, and decide (after some internal debate, I'll have you know) to try my luck. Rather than signing up for a random, I decide Violet Hold is a safe and controlled place to practice, get the ropes into my fingers and generally grab a feel for what it's like.

As the loadscreen comes up and I hear my pulse accelerating, I notice that the tank has 50,000 hit point prior to Kings, and carries loot from actual raids, not just heroics. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I focus, toss up a beacon and a Sacred Shield, and off we go. Over the course of the instance, I'm never below 80% mana, no on is below 50% health (except for the hunter once, but hey - male belfs, ninjapull much?) and the only time I use any cooldowns is when I misclick them. I feel almost cheated, this was supposed to be hard and challenging and most of all, scary.

Or maybe I'm just really pro. So in what I in hindsight may refer to as a surge of overconfidence, I sign up for my daily random, and within half a minute, Utgarde Pinnacle pops up. Gripped suddenly by Gauntlet Fever, whose symptoms are a rapid pulse, heated forehead and repeated muttering of jibberish (sounding suspectingly like "it's not Halls of Reflection, it's not Halls of Reflections"), I buff up and we begin our journey. Again, I'm blessed with a solid tank, making my job easier, but alas, I'm also joined by a warlock, whose affectionate relationship with his Life Tap-button not only accounts for almost 80% of the healing done to the beaconed tank, but even manages to get him killed during a mispull. Of course, in the highly unlikely situation where you're at 70% mana and 30% health, the has just tank pulled one pat too many, and you're offtarget around the corner, the sensible thing to do is to Life Tap. And not just a little. Tap dat lyfe hard!

So yeah, he died. The rest of us, we prevailed fairly well. The gauntlet, apart from how none of the DPS seemed to know how the harpoons worked, went seamless (he'd learned, only lifetapped outside of ice on ground for the entire encounter!), and at the end, I've still not dipped below 80% mana. Scary, definitely, but challenging? Less so. Weird, however - definitely. Even with active judging, the total lack of hitting things is just... astonoshing. Moreso than on baby sister, since hitting things hard is more or less the only thing I'm used to on big, bad Payce.

It was definitely a worthwhile experience, though - now, maybe I should finally start doing some work on that long neglected priest of mine...

Backfire in your Phayce.

2010-03-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

It is time again for stories from the random dungeon at intended level, it would appear. This time, we've come around to Blackfathom Deeps - an instance I've never actually done before at it's inteneded level. Who knows how it would work out when stuff is actually able to kill you, don't die in one blow and the loot is potentially awesome?

But first things first - how we get there. I sign in, no new mail, so I queue up and figure I'll check my bank, fill up on water and other such tasks of a somewhat mundane nature while I wait. Alas, no such luck - the invite box pops up before I can even mount, and the unfamiliar loadscreen suggests I'm headed somewhere naga'y. Cool, I think, time to learn the ropes in an instance I actually DON'T know inside out. Again, I'm greeted by the sight of no-one, with added free XP. Somewhat wiser since the Wailing Caverns-incident, I start running and happily recieve the chatbox welcome of "when you're gonna leave, please say" - oh, boy.

Catching up with the group at Lady Saveress, we quickly fall into place, and move on the clear the instance without any trouble or drama at all - when the tank accidentally pulls during a mana break, he even apologizes. Properly. Unexpectedly. Not "soz", but a full and proper "oops, my bad, sorry guys". I was amazed. Better still, I came away from it with a new set of trousers and a belt. Spellpower, HHOOOO!

Back in Silvermoon, I queue again, empty out my bags, tradeskill a bit, just killing time. And after around 10 mintues of waiting around, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't just a tad bit slow? So I scrollover the LFG-icon, and find something fascinating;

Like Nexus-Prince Shaffar will undoubtedly tell me time and time again in around 40 levels, what is this? The tank is there, the healer is there, we're actually lacking DPS. And suddenly, a theory dawns upon me - interrupted, though, by the sudden arrival of the invite box. Where half the DPS promptly goes on to decline, and I'm put back at the head of the queue. My clever theory re-emerges, and I realize that I signed up as healer exclusively. Not healer/DPS, nonono, nor healer/tank. I signed up as healer for fast queues, is what I did. And when I scrollover the little icon again, I'm greeted by a sight I never, ever, saw coming.

12 minutes. 12 solid minutes. For DPS. Serisously, where's all the DPS? Did they - hang on - did they really - no, seriously? - did they all queue as tank or healer to get fast queues?

Eventually, I return to BFD for a second run, everything up to and including Gelihast is smooth and fast, before the tank (having just won a rather awesome pair of mail gloves) up and fucks off outta there. Heirloom-Heavy Warrior With Aggro-Issues must have smelled the logical next step a mile away, as did we all, and as such, he kinda fucked off outta there as well. Fear not, however - feralcat in greens and whites is here, alongside super-Phayce and awesome-shaman of elementaly goodness! How can we fail?

After ten minutes of waiting for DPS-replacements, we realize we can't. Albeit somewhat slower, we're clearing hard and smooth onwards to Lord Kelris, where we're joined by a mage and Heirloom-Heavy Warrior With Aggro-Issues volume 2. Five minutes later I'm back in Silvermoon, another two levels gained and back to the trainer.

Still, I remain somewhat amazed. 12 minutes for DPS, and 10 minutes for DPS replacements. Is it just slightly possibly that we've painted ourselves into a corner here with our cunning use of smarts? I'm not sure, I may of course have had a massive patch of weird luck. But it's still quite an interesting thought.

It. Is. Done.

2010-03-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

16 times. Sixteen. But no more. Never again shall I hear the (quite ridiculous) taunt of "Achor-she-ki! Feast my pet!" or the rather annoying (and for a couple of weeks, all too true) statement that "It is... not over."

Because it is.

8/8. Suck it, Omor.

Blood elves are sickos.

2010-03-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

OK, I'll admit it. I cheated. Not only did I wait for level 20 before I started using the dungeon tool, I even used a Recruit-A-Friend trial account to have my very own XP-troll make those levels go smooth and seamless, and even more important, fast. My main reasoning for waiting for level 20 was very simple; getting Flash of Light, and getting a decent major glyph. And so, as I load up on water and make sure I'm fully repaired, I queue for my first random.

Enter Wailing Caverns. First thing I notice is that I'm all alone and that I'm getting free XP. OK. Not the worst thing that could happen, admittedly, but still. I'm doing this to learn healing, not to get just another alt to 80. So I started running, and after five or so minutes, I caught up with the group. Which had absolutely no clue how this instance worked, or in general, how instances work. The hunter pulled one pack, the tank charges another, the priest healed himself and, well, when the three of them finished dying, I holytanked the lot while the rogue picked them off me one by one. The group kinda fell apart after this, but no worries - my 15 minutes were up. Back in the queue.

This time, I'm sent to Shadowfang Keep, and the first words in party chat (beating "hi" by about a second and a half) is "let's make this a quick run kk" from the hunter. Fair enough, the tank has a few heirlooms and seem competent - admittedly, his having 200 less hit points than myself slightly worries me, but let's see how it goes.

It goes very well. 20 minutes or so later, Arugal falls to the ground, and the nice tank has not only aced the instance, but even been kind enough to share the relevant quests. But as we kill Arugal and his random shadowy endboss attack takes out the hunter, it dawns on me that cheating is bad. Cheating is very, very bad.

Because he dies. And I haven't done my paladin quests, so I can't resurrect him.

*deskface*

This is why we don't run off to the Barrens with sexy, sleak troll temptresses, children. This is why we level our paladins at intended progression through the dreary Ghostlands, with the endless running between troll camps and undead hordes of God-knows-what-they're-actually-up-to. So I head home to Silvermoon, talk to the paladin man and start running around like a little girl. Ten minutes or so of running around turn into the climax of the quest chain, where you resurrect the guy you killed eight or so minutes ago. And as I do this, it dawns upon me that every paladin that ever did this quest, killed and resurrected this very same guy. Again and again. Hundreds of times, every day.

Blood elves, I tell you, are sick, sick bastards. And that guy is long overdue for a raise. Baby Phayce, on the other hand, comfortably hit level 22, and eagerly awaits her next journey. I dream of the Deadmines.

'twasn't me, I swear...

2010-03-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

Having finished Thrallmar (21/40) with a fair few runs of heroic Ramps and Furnace (still only 7/8 on my Judgement lookalike - Omor, will you ever drop the shoulders?), I've started work on Keepers of Time. Farming mostly Old Durnholde (BM is a fair bit faster, but Durnholde pays a fair bit better), I had to (of course) take old Don Carlos' challenge and steal his hat. I had, however, still set my instances to heroic, and wouldn't you know? I suddenly had not only Don Carlos' hat, but Don Carlos' Famous hat. It is quite awesome, and I've started wearing it to heroics.

Turning in the quest, however, I remembered one of the reasons I play this game. As I rode through Tanaris to the gallows stand, I noticed a patch of blood, gore and rusted weaponry. Between the wastewalker camps, the (for a desert) quite colourful fauna, mountain ranges and troll ruins, a single patch of fresh combat lied waiting for me, with a thousand stories to tell - and only a dead skull for a mouth. Over two years, at least a dozen characters levelled through the zone and heaven knows how many random visits to Tanaris - and I still manage to find something new.

Vengeance on my hands, 'twasn't me, I swear...

This discovery, however, also made me think. Apart from the two weekly raids and the daily/weekly frost badges (sigh), World of Warcraft is more and more turning into a single-player game for me. Running Trial of the Crusader? No, not if I don't have to. Naxxramas or Sartharion? I'd rather avoid it, unless we're doing achievements. Random dungeons or battlegrounds? Dear Lord, please don't make me do more than I absolutely have to. There's so much hate, blaming and unreasonable demand being placed on everyone from the safe anonymity of anyone - "you only have the Revered Ashen Verdict ring? you fail nub". And it is in this context that I start to realize that the game designers and myself aren't playing the same game anymore.

Recently, Kalgan posted in a blue that he thought Ulduar was overtuned. Eyonix stated, when asked if the "everyone should be able see content"-thesis kinda backfired when people suddenly skipped three whole tiers and went straight into Icecrown Citadel, that "yes, we're fine with that, however, we do have many improvements planned for how we approach many aspects of raiding in Cataclysm".

I know I'm jumping to conclusions here, but bear with me. To me, Ulduar was quite possibly THE greatest instance in the history of the game. I know I have a lot of pro, top end and hardcore raiders with me when I say this, which again suggests that of people playing the game, both casually and progression-oriented, Ulduar was something that combined brilliant game design, exceptional challenges and enjoyable content for everyone alike. Ulduar had not two bosses that were alike, whereas Icecrown Citadel is more or less built around the same general design (more on this later). Ulduar had an end boss that any decent player with a decent guild could defeat in Yogg-Saron; it also had a version of that same boss that stood for four months for the truly hardcore in Yogg-Saron without watcher aid. On top of this, it had Algalon the Observer for the dedicated progression guilds. It even had a normalmode "guildkiller" in Mimiron. It had epic trash - not too much, not too hard, but hard enough that when overgearing, you still remember and consider how it's done - and do it that way.

And now, if I read the game designers right, they're kinda killing Ulduar. Just like Naxx40 is something people now just speak of in distant whispers, I fear for Ulduar. Everyday, I do a random heroic with some recently dinged level 80, decked out in tier 9, with either a Quel'delar variant or a weapon from one of the Icecrown five-man dungeons. All of which - naturally - outgears Ulduar equipment by a considerable amount. Most of them wear their "the Patient" title proudly, yet a few still sports "of the Nightfall" - which a quick check reveals that they got post-3.3 anyway. And once a week, they head into a PuG for Icecrown Citadel, aiming for 4/12, since any progress onwards requires not only bringing a full raid of randoms through Frogger 2.0, but also possibly wiping on a boss (or heaven forbid, the trash - I've seen enough careless tanks pull both of the Val'kyr at the same time). Blizzard have effectively managed to compress Wrath of the Lich King into three zones - Icecrown, Wintergrasp and Dalaran - that you never have to leave anymore. And of all zones they could have chosen, they ended up with the most boring options.

Let's have a quick look at how Icecrown Citadel is actually designed. Think of a boss, any boss, and check the list for either of the following: Cleaves that must be soaked, add phases, moving from stuff on the floor, the "pop cooldown X at ability Y"-factor and tank switch at X stacks of the debuff. All quite normal elements for the weathered raider, but in Icecrown, it more and more appear as these few elements are not only part of certain encounters, but the basic formula every encounter is based upon. I can't think of a single boss in Icecrown (sans the Gunship Battle, but is that even a boss - REALLY?) that does not have at least two of these elements, more often than not, three or four. Even Professor Putricide, oft hailed as one of the best designed encounter of the instance, has four of these elements as core mechanics of the fight. The most interesting bosses of the instance by far are Blood Princes and Dreamwalker, simply because they diverge just slightly from the formula. But are they really exciting bosses? From a melee perspective; nah, it's pretty much just running between adds and dodging shit on the floor here, too.

Then you think back to Mimiron, who you'd tank solo. No forced tankswap here, no need - he was hard anyway. Or Yogg-Saron - the interesting way of letting adds be the core mechanic of an encounter. Or Algalon, where cleave was a thing of the past - what if, instead, you have the whole raid soak his damage, to make the fight interesting on the healers? Or Hodir, bringing new life to the whole "don't stand in the fire"-thesis by making whether or not to be in or out of the fire a key to success. Or simply Freya. Wonderful, amazing Freya.

Ulduar was one of the best things you ever did, Blizzard. The only encounter, both raidwise and dungeonwise, that comes close of the entire expansion, are the Val'kyr twins - had this fight had a decent tuning (more damage from balls, higher or even separate health pools, shorter time between special abilities), they could have been a third classic twins encounter. Now, they're just free loot. But hey, they're better loot than Ulduar. So why bother going Ulduar at all, right?

Wrong. At least in my book. When I read "we do have many improvements planned for how we approach many aspects of raiding in Cataclysm", I pray that this means for multiple tiers of Ulduars. I pray this means old content will still be relevant, accessible and in some cases even necessary (not unlike how like having The Sun Eater in Sunwell Plateau was a must). I do't really think it will. But I hope.

Because let's face it - single-player World of Warcraft is only really interesting for just that long. And not a minute longer.

---

When we're on the topic of Ulduar; we've gone and downed Lootmobile+4. Took around five tries, and the killing attempt was quite a mess, but he's down. Only Vezax and Yogg left for our drakes now!

Cult party!

2010-02-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Five Shadow Labyrinth runs, almost 700 gold, 20/40 (Lower City) on my reputations and 4/8 on my purple Judgement Armor. More interesting, almost 300 Marks of Sargeras and 17 Fel Armaments gave my Aldor reputation an unexpected, yet solid boost. Even more interesting - last nights mule disenchanting spree converted to roughly 750 gold when I logged on this morning.

Tomorrow, I take on Thrallmar - both reputation and Judgement pieces to pick up, and the gold should be even better on heroic mode. And I now fully expect another 750 gold when I log on.

Naga party.

2010-02-22T16:01:00.000-08:00

Eight straight Steamvault runs tonight bagged me Cenarion Expedition exalted for 19/40, roughly 500 gold and enough greens to keep my disenchanting mule busy for 20 solid minutes sorting it all out. More importantly, I'm now 3/8 on the purple Judgement Armor replica set.

Who said absolutely pointless evening activities couldn't be fun?

Achievement tick Sunday.

2010-02-22T02:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I obtained my Veridian Netherdrake after taking my Exalted-tally to 18/40. As I gleefully collected no less than eight eggs on the last day, I beat my own estimate with roughly two resets, something I'm quite happy about. The observant reader will note that I've gone from 16/40 to 18/40 without any updates on the matter - Thunder Bluff just... happened... during the Lunar Festival. 75 reputation with all horde cities per coin and a considerable amount of coins proved sufficient to became an Ambassador of the Horde.

As for Ulduar, we couldn't really wait and went back in again. After a nailbiting 2% left on head, 0% left on body and bottom wipe, we quickly realized this group would get Mimiron. So a few ridiculous phase 1 wipes later, we decide to just change the tactics to "do what you did the first try, stay calm and just win". Which we promptly went on to do. A phase 4 even more nailbiting than the first attempt as, with most ranged dead, I found myself on head duty everytime Exorcism, Judgement and Hammer came off cooldown - even if my "proper" assignment was in fact body. My dearly beloved GM cried, wept and whimpered like a little girl for most of the last 30 seconds or so, until it actually dawned on him that the box popping up on his - and everyone elses - screen said "FIREFIGHTER" in large letters.

After this, we all went on to cry, weep and whimper like little girls. Like happy little girls on christmas, getting their first Barbie.

Deciding that Yogg will pretty much be around next week as well, we kinda skipped straight to Algalon. Getting a solid 10+ attempts on him, we still need to knock into everyone's brains how the Big Bang- and Black Hole-mechanics work. I daresay of the ten raiders on the night, around seven now know the fight. We're giving it a few more weeks, but overall, he seems doable.

And then, we call to the stars.

Waiting for tactics.

2010-02-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

Another venture into Ulduar last night, Hodir, Thorim and Freya went straight down. Had a fair few goes on Mimiron as well, nerfed or not, that fight is still as intense as anything. But we're one kill away from Algalon now, four off rusted proto-drakes, and we're all pretty hyped. In the meantime, here's media for you!

(if video fail, YouTube-link is here)

Evil older siblings.

2010-02-18T01:09:00.001-08:00

Of late, there have been two trends in the WoW blogosphere and raiding community that have, for some reason, become largely popular (one almost to the point of necessity). One is the ever-increasing number of players levelling exclusively through the dungeon system, never really leaving their home capital city before they do a swift jump to Dalaran. The other is the levelling of identical alts of the same class and spec as your mains, to beat the Icecrown Citadel attempts restriction.

As you may know, I'm terrible with alts. I'm a rock solid supporter of the strong, defined Main Character with Impressive Title and Difficult Achievements. I could always alt - dear heavens, there are certainly options for both gearing, levelling, grinding and farming - but I could solo Zul'Gurub-trash for rep on my main as well.

However, grinding reputations day in, day out can take it's toll on the sanity. Especially if you see the goblins as a cheap way of not only getting an additional four on your counter, but also as a way of catching up with a few TV series on the offscreen. With recruitment and progress taking a healthy portion of my main time as well, some time off guild politics duty is sometimes dearly needed.

So I found an idea - how about I merge the two trends into one? I've already stated that I would make a terrible, terrible healer, and I stand by that. But I want to progress. I want to LEARN. And what better way of learning than starting at the bottom and just work your way up to the end? As long as my dearly beloved Main Character actually have an offspec... it's a shame to waste it. So what I've found, is that I'll level another paladin, from the bottom, as holy. And true to form... my two paladins are of course identical twins.

Meet little sister. She's decked out in spellpower mail heirlooms, haven't touched a twohander since she discovered the mace trainer in Thunder Bluff before she ever killed or even aggroed a single mob, and likes long cool walks on the breezeful streets of Silvermoon (long, in this instance, referring to the distance between the bank, enchanting trainer, tailoring trainer, via the paladin trainer and back to the bank again). She's level 8, eagerly anticipating the arrival of level 15 and the LFG tool becoming available. Until then, she's plying her trade hitting stuff over the head with a big, glowing hammer and generally just cruising it in Eversong Woods. Eventually, there might just be a tale or two concerning baby sister in this blog.

---

Ulduar hardmodes last week went very well. I know I promised media, and several bosses and attempts were duly frapsed. Nothing will be released yet, though - we've decided to hold back on the Ulduar movies until we've actually finished the instance.

Yes, this does involve killing the last boss. No, the last boss isn't Yogg-Saron.

Stay tuned.

Progress update pt. deux: Icecrown.

2010-02-12T00:32:00.000-08:00

I recently promised I'd get back to you with a progress report on how we're doing in Icecrown Citadel, and well... here we are. The raw facts to begin with:

◌ we're only doing 10-man content thus far.
◌ we're 7/12 overall on progress.
◌ we've not yet entered the Crimson Halls.
◌ we're up to five different tanks total so far.
◌ we're incredibly sick of mail drops.

Overall, we're a bit behind the "bleeding edge" of the "internet elite" on progress. We did, however, not actually start the instance before the Plaguewerks opened due to the holidays and recruitment issues - overall, we've had four resets plus the current one in the instance, so we're quite pleased with our overall progress. And this week, we hoped to see some fruits of our labour.

From the moment we started invites, we realized this was going to be one of those raids. We had a tank stuck on the bus home from work, several DPS not showing, no one bringing enough fish feasts (even when we have a guild bank full), people showing with only one flask, people announcing they had to leave early for extra shifts at work. Our eight o'clock raid finally kicked off some trash at quarter to nine, certain DPS (*cough*) died on the first pull, then we had som disconnects on the second pull... it was pretty much as it sounds.

Around nine we stood staring at Lord Marrowgar, having just sent our elemental shaman to Orgrimmar to fix his boot enchant (which I'll get back to in a bit). As we kicked off Marrowgar, people soon fell into character, and a few odd deaths (*cough*) later, he goes down as he's supposed to. Next up is Lady Gaga, and we realize we're lucky enough to get the weekly quest inside the instance on this encounter. Great! Free badges!

...how do we do this exactly?

A quick search later reveals that the NPC in question will spawn with the waves, have a rather unimpressive health pool, and needs to be controlled as he for some reason believe he's the warrior in the Faction Champions encounter. Huge, mad props to one of our TWO boomkins on the night, Marana, who did a spot-on job keeping him rooted, and our DPS crew, downing Gaga herself in less than no time. From here, we went on to oneshot the Gunship battle, Saurfang and Festergut, before we stand in front of Rotface once again.

Rotface has been giving us quite some headaches over the last few weeks. Having cycled through healers and tanks like Sarah Jessica Parker does shoes, we've never really nailed the cleanse timing, kiting route or run-to-spot properly. Wiping ten times on this boss has not been uncommon to us, and we desperately wanted to change our luck a bit. I'm pleased to say we did - one wipe at a few hundred thousand hit points, mainly due to mess from people dying with adds spawned, we nail him with no deaths on the second attempt. Feeling good, we move on to Dreamwalker, which goes down in two tries. So far, we've established our grasp on seven bosses and grabbed some 20 frost badges in less than three hours - not that bad for a raid that initally smelled of damnation and fail.

Alas, late raid start means that we're out of time and have to call it. I still feel fairly good about the raid - some fancy new loots for me, solid progress for the guild and a few amazing performances (Marana, Lococo and Duvesa, I'm looking at you) - it turned out good in the end. As for the boot enchant incident, we had a few tries on Sindragosa last reset, and finally decided to remove common sense from the equation and just plain out make Tuskar's Vitality mandatory. With promises of lootbans and replacements, we enforced this hard on the night. Fun fact: the player in question still dies from the strangest things (that can usually be moved out of).

Tonight, we're doing Ulduar hardmodes. Overgeared like a baseballer on steroids and hyped like a child on christmans, I can't wait. Screenshots, gleeful posts and maybe even fraps should appear sometime soon.

Filler post for the fans!

2010-02-09T19:37:00.001-08:00

It's been quiet here lately. Mostly due to IRL activities, but also due to little of interest happening in the game at the moment. Apart from the Ensidia incident (you fucked that one up big time, Blizz, but it's last week's news now). The guild is currently on a spree of gearing up a myriad of alts, which means we're mostly raiding the same instances every day, over and over. Since I absolutely, positively cannot begin to even consider gearing up an alt at the moment (not that I'm short of options on the matter - my warrior, priest and death knight are all begging for T9-attention), I've started spending my ingame time succumbing to my vanities. Which means mounts, reputations and tabards.

At the moment, I'm 16/40 on the "Exalted"-title, with countless hours looming on the horizon if I am to finish it. I'm taking the time to farm the little Ravasaur tooth every day as well - it's a nice mount, and the amount of thorium that incidentially drop by my bags as I ride between flight paths and quest mobs are good gold. Oh, and I got my 2-piece T10-bonus today - it is absolutely awesome.

Not much more to say, really - I'll get back with a larger post on Icecrown progress over the next reset, which should hopefully be both optimistic and joyful. Here are a few screenies I've taken over the last couple of days that make me happy in terms of pure "enjoying the game"-factor.

Tanaris: Isn't he just adorable?

Nagrand: Found some dudes to hang out with!

Shadowmoon Valley: Look mom, no legs!

Class, race and lore - an eternal struggle.

2010-01-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm an avid reader of Warcraft lore. Not necessarily the novels and comics and such - they are rarely very well written - but rather the canonical history of a world I partake in on a daily basis. To me, running up to Thrall is facing the world's greatest shaman, whose mastery of the elements is beyond any mortal - not just the generic orc leader of the faction I happened to join. To me, seeing Jaina with a yellow and not red name over her head signifies more than just the fact that I can't attack her. To me, Saurfaung's mere presence sends shivers down my back - before I remember he's on my side, and feel a great surge of pride and invincibility.

How any player lets lore affect their experience, is obviously individual. I very decidedly do not RP in World of Warcraft, but I'll more than gladly admit to "bonding" with certain NPCs. When walking next to Tirion in his disguise, complete with the Ashbringer in hand (real incognito there, Higlord), down the aisles of the Lich King's personal sanctum, I feel like I'm actively part-taking in Warcraft lore. That history, as future patches will implement, is being written and I'm taking part of it.

Then I return to Dalaran, and stare into the back of some undead Death Knight called "Arthazz" or the like. And I realize that this actually annoys me. Don't get me wrong - I strongly support and agree with the idea that everyone should be able and allowed to play the game their way, regardless of lore, opinion and preference. You can choose to ignore him, as much as he can choose to ignore you.

Nevertheless, the idea of a Forsaken Death Knight is, in my honest and humble opinion, backwards beyond recognition. I'll admit to having more than once voiced the idea that only the "Lordaerites" - humans, dwarves and high (blood) elves - should be allowed the Death Knight class. This is of course supported by pure, linear lore, however, Blizzard did a fine job of recreating the origin of the Death Knight through the Scarlet Enclave and the Drakuru-chains. In light of their making Arthas' focus more based on his champions, not his vast armies, and supporting it with three rock-solid and very well designed quest chains, Blizzard made the notion that any race in Azeroth is indeed a viable Death Knight.

But then Apothecary Putress looks down upon me and says "Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven?", and I realize that no matter how much his is a faction within the Forsaken themselves, the support he has (through both the Hand of Vengenace, but also Lady Windrunner's ability to let his operations in Northrend go unnoticed - we all know she's not that stupid) is massive. The Forsaken truly do hate the Scourge, and with just cause. Being reduced to an eternity of rotting limbs and bad dental hygiene, not to mention a faction leader with the most teethgrindingly annoying emotes in the game, could make any lesser man bitter. Even if the option is King Wrynn and Goldshire.

So what would prompt any Forsaken to take the mantle of Arthas' champion? The Forsaken pride is stronger than Arthas' lure of power, immortality is pretty much dealt with already and even the Argent Crusade are willing to let your racial "handicap" pass as long as you just stay loyal to your queen. The Scarlet Enclave event explains why Forsaken Death Knights exists past redemption - but is it really plausible that any Forsaken would put him/herself in a position to experience such redemption in the first place?

I would much rather see Forsaken Paladins. The existence of Priests in their ranks suggest that they still retain the ability to channel the light, and all Forsaken were once human. There is no reason and logic behind how the pre-plague Paladins now have to revert to just being a warrior. When at the same time the tauren Paladin is announced, it puzzles me. Tauren, a nomadic and tribal hunter/gatherer and warrior people, living in earthen community is to me, one of the strongest racial designs Blizzard has come up with. Their class selection is extremely limited, but the classes they do have, fits the image of the earthborne extremely well. How the sudden channeling the light (through Priests and Paladins) is going to fit in with this scheme, I do not know. Hopefully, Blizzard will have a viable lore adjustment. But I'm still afraid it means breaking down one of the strongest racials lore-designs they have.

Give me troll druids any day, though. I've already purchased the heirlooms and can't wait. Anyone for a quick Zul'Aman?

Progress update.

2010-01-17T07:33:00.000-08:00

As you may remember, just before christmas I decided to reroll horde, start from scratch and get Shadowmourne after my old alliance guild slowly imploded on itself. After having reached level 80 on my new retribution paladin on December 18th (a month ago tomorrow), I completed a full Call of the Crusade (25 player) on December 25th, and achieved the Twilight Zone on the 4th of January. My item level average is currently 241, I'll be grabbing my first piece of tier 10-gear next reset, and I'm only four achievements off my red Glory of the Hero-drake. On the matter of Shadowmourne, I've still only stocked up two primordial saronites, but having not yet set foot in 25-man Icecrown Citadel, I'm not panicking over this.

In short, I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be at, for the time being. Of course there are things that still bug me - I'm still using Mirror of Truth (having lost out on Death's Choice no less then THREE times), an agility-necklace and boots from heroic Trial of the Champion. I'm overcapped on hit and slighty under the expertise-cap. These things do worry me, but I know they'll sort themselves out eventually. I've been lucky with drops (DBB on my first ever raid), unlucky with drops (still not even SEEN a Battered Hilt outside of AH, and said trinket), but RNG is always and will always be RNG. I don't particularily mind it (except, of course, when I nerdrage on raid night).

To finish off, I yesterday aquired the much coveted plate DPS belt from 25-man ToC. It's a beautiful item, a direct upgrade from my Belt of the Titans, allowing me to finally replace my Seal of Corruption-glyph with the Exorcism-glyph for a bumper DPS upgrade four times per minute. What bugs me, however, is how it looks. At first, I just thought Payce looked pregnant. Then I remembered the days of being a kid and watching WWF wrestling, and it dawned on me...

..."Dear Lord."

---

FUN WITH ALTS pt. 2:

A very dear friend of mine just levelled up a brand new druid alt. On his first ever run of the new and "improved" Oculus, he got the mount from his satchel. His main dons the title the Insane. I rest my case.

Huge grats are in order tho!

Catering to the douchebags.

2010-01-15T00:56:00.000-08:00

Since last I wrote, two of the major changes (among the several) that have been blueposted and implemented by Blizzard, have struck my attention in a negative manner. Both are the result of what is described as "observation of the community", or as you would elsewise call it, complaining on forums and ingame from douchebags.

The way I see it, the term "douchebag" with regard to World of Warcraft applies to two people: The ones who know they are better than everyone else and act accordingly like they own the game (the "Testaburgers"), and the ones who (by whatever mental machination fuelling their ego) THINK they are better than they actually are, and act as though they are as good as they themselves belives (the "Cartmans").

I don't think the Cartmans and Testaburgers are a majority in World of Warcraft, but they are certainly well represented. What puts them above your average Joe, is their ability to make themselves heard, their knowledge of channels to use and how to make sure they are coming across. Which brings us back to my original, Cartman-powered topic: the two recent changes to the game who, in my opinion, is nothing but catering to the douchebags.

- The nerfed heroics.

We've all been there. The tank who refuses to do Eck, or the healer who lies down in the middle of Halls of Stone unless you skip Maiden and Krystallus, anyone sighing at making the extra trip down to fungus corner in Old Kingdom. The people leaving after a wipe, the blamers yelling at you if you ever were to make a mistake in any way. In short: the douchebags who care exclusively about the instance being as fast as humanly possible, preferrably faster, and who WILL tell you off if you're anywhere near making a mistake that could potentially slow a run down for as much as fourteen seconds.

We all saw it coming with Oculus and Ionar, but this week it still materialized: several of the "old" heroics are being nerfed. Boss abilities are being reduced, trash is being repositioned or removed, time-consuming events like Jadoga's ascension and Anomalus' disperse are being all but neutralized. All to speed up heroics, so that they take as little time as possible.

I realize that a large part of the PvE community as this point outgear these instances and only run them out of novelty or the "forced" notion that you absolutely need Frost badges. I also realize that very, very few players ding in purples and that running these in blues are suddenly a valid reason among a rapidly growing number of players to kick players (seeing how their sub-par 1500 DPS will slow down the group). A year ago, we used to do these instances in blues. It was still fast, it was more fun, and it was even for a moment there slightly challenging. We've zerged Loken for a while now, Mage-Lord Urom became largely zergable in the (first) Oculus nerf, and we already zerg the Devourer of Souls since any healer of decent gear and experience outheals it like nothing. How is this even remotely fun?

The next time you complain about a player slowing down your group speed from hyperpower to just decent, average fast, remember that Blizz is listening. Keep it up, in the future we may actually stop even playing the game to recieve badges and rewards. No matter how many times you've ran any heroic in the past is irrelevant. Some people still enjoy them. Being a douchebag about speed isn't helping anyone enjoy anything.

- Prot warrior nerf.

Yep, it happened. The arena-PvP douchebags got their way and got an arena PvP-spec that was too hard to handle unless you were actually skilled nerfed. And not just any build - we're talking WARRIOR TANKS. Specifically, warrior tanks are apparently so ridiculously hard on mages these days, that they even make RMP-compositions somewhat challenging. Poor mages. Couldn't stand being challenged again after all those years of free kills, could you?

I agree that Warbringer breaking roots and snares is a valid, PvP-oriented nerf. It won't affect warrior PvE tanking in any notable manner, and as such, I can agree with it being a solution to the "evil rawrior on the loose"-complaints. The main PvE use of Warbringer is fast and reliable movement, not CC-reduction. I expect similar nerfs to druid forms any day now.

The change to Shield Slam, however, it beyond ridiculous. Let me get this straight - because warriors have too many stuns and interrupts, you're nerfing their already average (at best) damage output. I'll leave the block dimisihing returns changes in peace (as we all know block is terminally ill with Cataclysmitis), but the whole concept of upping the internal threat value to compensate for lowering the damage output is a straight out PvE threat nerf. This is a result of a very small group of PvP douchebags (who are, fact, the absolute worst douchebags) facing a threat that can't be dealt with in any conventional tradition and thus, must be nerfed. While I agree that arena should be balanced (WoW PvP is already a big enough joke as it is), I am nothing but angered and extremely disappointed that Blizzard went ahead and implemented a PvP-based nerf that will affect PvE in a greater way than PvP.

But douchebags will be douchebags. Be aware of their power, your class could be next.

Fun with alts.

2010-01-12T12:48:00.001-08:00

You know that one drop you've always wanted? That fickle mount, that elusive tabard, that extremely rare spawn you so want to tame? They always find your alts. Seriously. It's not even funny, is it?

This is Donna. Her guild rank is "Useless DK alt".

How to lose friends and alienate players.

2010-01-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

I remember back in 3.1, when Ulduar PuGs took flight in a serisous manner. No one had ever bothered checking up extremely hard on those Sartharion or Naxxramas PuGs, you came in and did your stuff, it was usually just good. But back before ToC5 would load out everyone with their first taste of the truly "welfare" epics, people were still kitted out in 213 gear for the 219 content of Ulduar (10). And more and more often people would ask you to link your achievement "Epic" in addiotion to the relevant achievements for the instance in question, to ensure that you truly were kitted out for the task ahead.

(which really was something of an L2P issue - everyone and their dog knew that before Mjolnir, for most melee classes and builds, Darkmoon Card: Greatness and Mirror of Truth were the best in slot combination - both being ilvl200)

Then 3.2 arrived and everyone with the patience to save up 2 Triumph badges every day, and consistently run VoA, would soon get their hands on more or less full 232 armour, with Edge of Ruin, Marrowstrike or Aledar's Battlestar on top. Suddenly the "Epic" achievement wasn't really worth that much anymore - anyone with the will, patience and pure masochism required to go through heroic ToC5 every single day until they got what they needed, now had the hardest part of "Epic" covered. And a new kid started getting known around town - his name was GearScore.

To this day, I don't know how to calculate my GearScore. I know that when I check the regular websites who "audit" your gear, the average raider lie somewhere between 2600 and 3000, depending on hardcoreness. What I like about this "auditing" service, is that the commonly accepted best in slot gems and enchants count as the max score, with options and downgrades often listed as available, but with a lower score. It's not a flawless system, but it'll tell you if a player has put his Nightmare Tear in the best possible socket, and if he's using a +85 Attack Power instead of Berserking, or if his chest has +8 or +10 stats. It's a fast way to check if the player in question has average or above understanding of gear setup.

GearScores, however, tend to be somewhere between 5000 and 6000. I have no idea how they come up with this number - is it the sum of all your item levels? Or is it the more traditional audit concept with all values doubled to look very large and impressive? I honestly haven't got a clue. Maybe there's a site calculating it from your armory. Maybe there's an addon you use that tells you. I don't know, and to be truthful, I really don't care.

Because the last time I joined a PuG asking for GearScore, I talked my way around it (you'd be surprised how many times just linking DBB + 25 man "Salt & Pepper" is enough to let you in on just about anything). Said PuG had a Death Knight tank boasting a GearScore of over 6000, so I thought, this should be safe and fast. Until I stood there inside the instance, seeing the words "the Patient" over his head and him dualwielding that 1.70 tanking sword from Pit of Saron (a.k.a. the new Peacekeeper's Blade if you will). You don't even want to know what runes he'd engraved them with, but rest assured that his absolutely groundbreaking tanking build was a solid 0/71/0.

We wiped twice before RL left. I may or may not have joined him.

So what's the lesson here? That GearScore in no way can tell you if a player knows his class, the instance he's entering or even how to gear properly. Frost badges have been around for long enough that everyone making daily heroic and weekly raid a high priority, now can have 2-3 items of ilvl264. Add to it the available items of 245-level, and the Conquest T9-sets and IC5-weapons are soon the things holding your GearScore back. How can such a random number even be remotely close to an indication of a player's skill?

I still don't know how to calculate my GearScore. For all I know, it has a smart enchant- and gemming system that in a very clever manner calculates a precise and analytic number based on socket bonus utilization, programmed formulas indicating when a socket is worth it and when it's not for the talent tree the character's specced into. Maybe it even rates talent builds based on your gear setup? "No Resilience and still two points in Divine Purpose? Naughty naughty, that's ten negative points for you Sir!" But I kinda doubt it. 0/71/0, you know. And guess what?

He had +8 stats on his (crafted BoE ilvl245) chestpiece, too.

Regarding tanks and healers in PuGs.

2010-01-09T00:36:00.000-08:00

Gordon from We Fly Spitfires recently posted a blog regarding his view on tanks and healers on World of Matticus, in terms of who should get what rewards, and why. Apparently, tank and healers always deserve more because, well, they're tanks and healers. The article caused quite some controversy, and I don't blame them - I usually read Gordon with some interest, he's a likeable guy and is usually worth my time. This time, however, I disagree strongly with his view, and as such, I'd like to take the time to promote why I think rewards should be equal, no matter what.

First off, his argument is demand and responsibility. As DPS, I strongly disagree with the demand aspect - tanks and healers rarely see a full minute of queue. Me, as DPS, have never farmed so much in my life, as I patiently sit through my quarter of an hour queue, soaring around Wintergrasp with my Find Minerals toggled. I don't mind this - while there's a lot of crying about DPS queue time all over certain forums, in my opinion DPS is definitely the ones who should wait the longest. I do not acknowledge that DPS is "a dime a dozen" as Gordon suggests, but we're definitely well represented and should wait accordingly. I don't have a problem with this - I chose to spec ret. I knew what was coming.

The matter of responsibility, however, I feel inclined to somewhat support. Not because it relates to tanks and healers in paricular, but because the success of a good, clean run relates to the player taking charge, no matter his role. I posted a recollection earlier concerning an experience in the Violet Hold, which should illustrate the point. I've single-handedly carried groups with blue-geared tanks and healers through some of the (arguably) harder heroics - the tank who'd never done the Utgarde Pinnacle or Halls of Lightning gauntlets before, the healer that desperately tried to dispel Eck's icky snot at the expense of healing. Do I say they are bad players? No, simply inexperienced. But as a player who've tanked every heroic in the game a hundred times and DPS'ed them almost as often, I'm in a position to guide them through it and actually try to learn them tips and tricks making life easier on them - instead of just inspecting the tank and press leave group.

So where's my reward? Since Gordon states in black and white that we "simply don’t deserve the equality of rewards", I guess I shouldn't have one. But the tank that learned the instance from my tips and hints, all the while being carried by my 5k Seal of Command letting the group progress at a reasonable pace - he should get a bonus for having the most resposibility? Sorry, but I don't agree to this. Finally, the argument that the tank dies not because the healer failed, but because DPS failed to burn down the mob fast enough - that's a fiery brand if I ever saw one.

First of all, DPS is relative to the tanks ability. I know my Omen, I have unit frames allowing me to quickly switch to the tank's main target, and I usually use these tools very rigorously. At my gear level though, my DPS is limited by the group's threat roof, unless I want to offtank. If the healer can't manage to keep up the tank because DPS is too slow, then I somewhat doubt that healer's ability and gear level to be playing this content, and I really doubt that the tank is both defence capped, hit capped or in any way very well equipped. I could be wrong - if all DPS were like me and watch their threat to maximize burn capacity, it wouldn't be an issue. But even at 700 DPS, most things in heroics die fast enough for any defence capped tank to handle it. You may have to eat and drink between pulls - too bad. I've been doing that for years. On my tank.

Long story short - the article Gordon presents is black and white, and extremely one-sided. If it'd been posted on the MMO-Champion forums, there would have been four pages of "QQ more" and "obvious troll is obvious", and while I don't really agree to this form of reaction, I can see where they're coming from. I'll be the first to applaud a good player in a group - whether it's a good tank or a healer pulling off some mean feat, or a DPS sustaining a 5k battle of Recount with me even with a sub-par threat roof - I'll say well done, good job, in party chat. If I cause a wipe (it's happened once or twice - the odd fear, or just too much Red Bull), I always take time to trade the tank and healer 15g for repairs. I know I'm a massive minority in doing this, but I do appreciate the job my tank and healer does for me.

I expect the same level of appreciation for the job I do. DPS at my level isn't a dime a dozen, I'm sorry. It's not about rubbing my own ego or anything, it's about knowing my worth and skill. And I happily bring it to any group that wants me, because honestly? Last time I two-manned Halls of Lightning, it took two frigging hours. Fun that once, if you catch my point.

Rewards should be equal, because role is never a direct parallel to skill. Enough DPS choose to queue as their offspecs to drop the fifteen minutes, and more often than not, it shows. I know I'd be a terrible, terrible healer! If anything, give optional rewards to successful groups. Cleared the instance in less than 15 minutes? Have a badge! No group deaths? Have another! Cleared all the trash in the instance? Satchel of spoils. If we were to have additional rewards (which I in no way endorse), they should be based on group performance, not individual roles. A group is never better than it's weakest link, no matter who that link is.

Retardins and ArP.

2010-01-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

The other night, I was hosting a PuG to Ulduar - Razorscale was the weekly raid boss and I wanted my emblems. Clearing through 10-man lootmobile and Razor at a speed that granted everyone not already having it the achievements for full nuke and no repairs, we arrived at loot and Razorscale drops his melee DPS ring.

Since I hit 80, I've had little to no luck in the department of decent rings. Still sporting a blue ilvl200-ring from heroic Nexus, I naturally rolled. Agility and ArP on it, OK, but the total attack power, crit and haste on it makes it a decent upgrade nonetheless. I roll 42, the rogue in the group rolls 30, I award it to myself. And then it comes: "arp for paladins? friggin moron", before he promptly leave the raid group, not even waiting for a mage portal before HS'ing out.

Normally, I wouldn't particularily mind this, especially not from a guildless rogue in last season's PvP gear. But then I see this flowchart posted on a blog I much enjoy, and while I appreciate the humour involved, I kinda felt it sting that extra bit. I'm now officially a knob. Especially since I'm already wielding the DBB, crafted myself the ilvl245-bracers the other week and just got the Frost badge-cloak. Silly me, I even use the paladin tier 9 chestpiece. All of these items with ArP on them. Am I a knob, or what?

And don't even get me started on that whole Shadowmourne-debate again. Yes, it has ArP. Yes it'll still be best in slot for paladins. Deal with it.

Luckily, I had the Recount numbers from doing The Twilight Zone this Monday. We couldn't get a kiter, so just had to zerg it, effectively making it even more of a DPS race than the kiting tactic. And looking at my Recount, I realize that of my damaging abilities, white melee, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm are all in my top 4. I wonder if that ArP had any effect on those number at all? Surely not? Everyone knows that paladins using ArP are knobs and friggin morons. Right?

I know my class. I know my abilities. I know that over the course of a full raid, ArP will affect roughly 35-40% of my overall damage done. I'll be the first to agree that ArP as of today, is my least desired DPS stat (unless you count spellpower, which we do not, except from Fish Feasts). If it was my choice, I'd much prefer haste. However, tier 9 and 10 itemization ultimately define ArP as a stat to count, simply because you can't avoid it. ArP is everywhere. On your expertise cloak, on your two-handed weapons, on your rings and necklaces. In fact, apart from the ever-present hit rating, ArP is probably the single most common melee DPS stat out there today, trumping even crit rating. And still you want us to pass on items with ArP.

Let's make a deal, then. I'll pass on everything with ArP, you pass on everything with haste. Oh, but haste is still good for you? Well, yeah, ArP is still good for me. It's just not that massive. Haste is. So pass me that Battered Hilt, yes? Quel'delar is poorly itemized for you anyway, clearly a ret weapon. You all realize how silly this is, don't you?

So let's just end the debate right here. I'll roll on ArP if it's an upgrade. That does not make me a knob or moron. If you think otherwise, you probably think I should bubble out of shit when my wings are up as well. And to that, I have but a single answer:

l2paladin

That'll be all.

Mandatory Oculus rant.

2010-01-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to call scrubs and QQ very often. I acknowledge that people playing this game do so for different reasons, whether it's PvP, exploration, alts, level 1 AH-trickery or endgame content. People have their own challenges, depending on the game they expect from their monthly fee.

A direct result of this diversity is, of course, skill and dedication. And when a player crosses the border between "his" game, and another aspect of the game, it often goes wrong. Some people don't appreciate the skill required to make this transition, and yet they go on and expect it to come along nicely as long as, well, someone else knows how to do it. The carrying of lesser players is more and more becoming the main reason people are yelling "scrub, scrub".

Who knows, maybe most of these players are just that, scrubs. Maybe they don't want a challenge, maybe they're afraid of the possibility that they meet more people like themselves. Maybe they even think they're really good, but never get "the right" group for whatever reason their mental acrobatics may conjure up. And as such, when the Oculus loadscreen pops up, they prepare to jump ship and take their 15 minute quarantine, and leave the rest of us waiting for a new [insert role], who'll most often jump straight back out as well.

Post-3.3 and the absolutely insane nerf to the whole instance, 15 minutes is approximately the time it takes to clear the Oculus provided that A) all of the group has at least one piece tier 9, B) all of the group's melee have a weapon from ToC5 heroic or higher, and C) you're not actively chasing a void achievement. It's what Stratholme would have been without all the elements of RP slowing it down. It's 6 Triumph badges for 15-20 minutes of work. I use the term loosely, but compared to zergfests such as, say, Utgarde Keep, Gundrak or said Stratholme, it requires you to, for just a slight moment there, read, think and adapt. Do this, and Oculus is the fastest six badges in the game.

But still, people fear the Oculus. I should know - I truly do hate the vehicle mechanics in WotLK myself, and shy away from them as much as possible. You won't ever see me in Isle of Conquest or the Eye of Eternity unless I absolutely positively HAVE to (five Frost badges and some gold springs to mind), I don't joust except those pesky times where I need to beat a valiant to champion some city or other. When I rolled my character, I pressed "Paladin". Not horse, nor dragon, nor huge lumbering tank.

But I never leave the Oculus. It's fast badges if the group sticks, and to be honest, it may be utterly lame and stupid, but it's really rather easy. The packs of small drakes at the beginning, sure they're a bitch to tank, but decent DPS twoshot them without taking much damage. The caster packs? They weren't that much of an issue when they were one more with added hit points, now, they're a bordeline joke. Mage-lord Urom has taken Loken's mantle as king of the "Death by Overgearing"-tactics and doing Eregos with any combination of drakes now is just down to reading the tooltips, and more or less spam them on cooldown (amber timestop being the notable exception).

Yet there are these "scrubs" (again, I use the term loosely) who wipe, get lost, pull 7 drakes above Cloudstrider and die, then call out for heals or asking to be ressed, before heading onto MMO-Champion's forums to post their incredible recollections about how dreadful the "Occulus" is (without actually realizing what an Occulus really is), calling out for NERF, NERF or they threaten to - gasp - leave the instance the moment loadscreen clears. And honest as they are, they more often than not hold true to their threats, bless their souls. While I'll agree to it being the lamest, most uninspired instance so far in this expansion (ToC5 not trailing far behind, mind you), it's also the fastest badges. Personally, I usually just eat some pride, play a bit of drake, and get it over with. Other people not choosing this path are of course free to do so, you're not affecting me much apart from making me wait those few minutes more to get going. I mean, in all seriousness, is the Oculus really THAT bad?

Apparently so. Good job, guys. No really. Nice one.

A reality check on PuGs.

2009-12-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot said about the new LFG-tool. Hardcores not agreeing with Triumph badges being that easy, the eternal debate concerning mainspec/offspec/need-or-greed-orbs/bads/carrying, praise for inventiveness, DPS complaining about long queues. Since my paladin turned 80 a week or so ago, I've more or less lived in the LFG-tool, enjoying the company of many a random. And overall, I must say, I'm rather pleased with the outcome. Blizzard definitely nailed the system, it's close to flawless and spot on. And the player base, much have been said about casuals, bads and tagalongs lately, so I decided to share two stories.

1. The Violet Hold.
As we enter, I get a good feeling. No reason, really, just one of those "this'll be smooth"-thoughts you sometimes get. Granted, the tank haven't got a single item over ilvl200, but that used to be enough back in 3.0 when I was tanking here myself. Hell, I did it in Kara gear, no reason to give him any stick. Besides, the healer looks good.

First pull, I realize he's apparently not hotkeyed charge, takes 5 or so seconds per pull to Thunder Clap, don't pick up adds and have a massive 700 tps on main target. So I lean back and let autoattack and Seal of Command do the job, still picking up aggro if I nuke offtarget, but hey, I get to press Sacred Shield, fun! The fact that I get to experience mobs in here I didn't even know existed (there's a third wave of belf mage hunters if a portal stays open too long) adds to the experience, and non-elite as they are, I start playing around with my stuns and CC, killing and kiting as I see fit before I go back to autoattack main target. Poor tank, he really was working his arse off, he just worked really inefficient.

At the end of the run, I account for 50,4% of the group's total damage, more than two thirds of this autoattack and Seal of Command. Mage in Naxxramas-gear pulled a solid 800 DPS in frost spec, shadowpriest managed 1700, but Mind Sear appear to be his number one damaging ability, and we did get a fair few AoE packs. If I ever felt like carrying a group, it was these guys. But the healer was decent, he kept his cool and watched over my little adventures with a steady hand. As with regard to labelling, the tank may have been casual, the two DPS were definitely bads. Do I care? Not one bit. I got my badges, a shard, didn't die and it took perhaps ten minutes longer than it does with my guild. In fact, it took along the lines of what it took at launch, with regards to time spent. A bad PuG experience? Yes, but in reality, it wasn't really that horrible.

2. Glory of the Hero.
Last night, my guild decided to try and chase down some achievements for our red Proto-drakes. Mage, retridin, protadin and feral is a fairly decent setup, so we decided to make it interesting; let's use the random tool, see what we get, and ask the healer if he's OK with trying this and that (we'll pay for your wipes). To the healer community on battlegroup Reckoning [EU] - you guys rock. The holy priest who safed us through Watch Him Die as the most natural thing in the world, the disc priest who joyfully thanked us for making Oculus interesting again by going for a Void and Make It Count, not to mention the resto shaman who joined us for Zombiefest and kept us safe and sound when we realized we'd make the timed run if we pulled the rest of the alley and zerged our way to the top. And most of all, the priest who sat through an eight minute Gal'darah-kill, waiting for the mage to get impaled. You - and all of you that I've not mentioned - were brilliant. Your patience with four friends hellbent on achievements deserve a huge thanks, we couldn't have done it without you.

In short, my view on the LFG-tool is that it's the best thing Blizzard has done since... well, since I started playing, actually - for the MULTIPLAYER aspect of the game. Sure, I've met the tank who refuse to do more than two bosses in Halls of Stone, he's only after the two Frost badges anyway. Sure, I've lost stuff to ninjas. Sure, I've wiped from stupid, bad and inexperienced play. But I don't care. Today, I carried a casual tank through an instance, earning him the badges he need without giving him grief. I'm quite convinced he gets enough of that already - not getting it from a well-geared raider could, for all I know, make him feel better about himself. And when you meet the people that just wanna join you and have fun, you usually end up having fun.

And to me, that's worth all those bads and ninjas that apparently ruins it for all. I'll let you know when I find them.

The Blame Game.

2009-12-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

I would assume that by now, everyone and their dog have encountered the Hall of Reflections "LoS strategy". It's a cheap and cheesy, yet highly effective way of neutralizing the challenge that is Falric and Marwyn's trash waves. Having until recently only done it as a warrior tank, I can safely say it feels like THAT pull in MgT again. It's hard work, it requires all my toolbox, perfectly executed, to the point of carpal tunnel. It's honestly quite fun, in theory.

With my warrior now retired to bank duty in Thunder Bluff and my rerolled retardin taking the reign as main, however, it occured while gearing up to me that "perfectly executed" isn't always everyone's agenda. Personally, I'm overjoyed at the opportunity to use my Repentance, my Holy Wrath and Turn Evil. Honestly, how awesome isn't it to CC not one, but TWO mobs while keeping the others stunned at will, all while you top the DPS chart and cleanse whatever that pesky Mercenary comes up with?

Except suddenly someone dies. And then The Blame Game begins. The warlock spitting out "fuking ebay tank", the tank telling the healer "why didnt u shackl", the healer yelling "use ur coldowns or i oom". Spelling is intentional and authentic, by the way (in case you were wondering). Since somewhere around September 2008, wiping in heroic 5-man instances seem to be close to a bannable offence on EU servers. Most players are prepared to zerg through content, and a lot of said players are just as prepared to get carried most of the way. And when you wipe - when the group doesn't have that one monster healer or absolutely massive tank - and you have to work your way around the instance, instead of zerging it, you realize you're not happy with this development. And still you expect gear, rewards and more importantly - you expect RAID SPOTS?

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the occasional zerg. Having Angrybear pull half the hallway up to Bjarngrim in Halls of Lightning and nuking the boss with Seal of Command is amazing fun. Doing 11 minute Utgarde Keep runs is equally enjoyable. I even had a pleasant Oculus experience resulting in a Void achievement the other night. Zerging can be fun, if it's done by the right people.

This is the genius of Halls of Reflection. It isn't hard, by all means. It just requires you to think. To know your toolbox. Whether you LoS it, Hallway it or Altar it, it doesn't matter. It's all about using your tools wisely, at the right time, saving the hard hitters for the opportune moment - in short, it's all about being patient and clever. Warriors, spell reflect the mage and disarm the hunter. Paladins, see above regarding CC tools. Hunters, you can kite Thrym to the Argent Tournament, why not use that skill on the footman? Rogues, stunlock your undead counterpart and TotT it like mad while you burst it down. Death Knights, stand on top of your tank and grip-strangulate the priest mob. It's really not that hard if you just put your mind to it.

Besides, you'll soon enough get to zerg whatever good ol' LK throws at you while trying to get out in time anyway.

Out with the old...

2009-12-01T02:01:00.000-08:00

...and in with the new. My letter of resignation have reached my alliance officers, and my human warrior suddenly grew a huge mohawk and a pair of tusks. Meet this month's Covergirl:

The stuff of Legends.

2009-11-30T08:49:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I sat down and had a major brainstorming session. The part-time job that is leading a guild was wearing down my interest in the game, and I desperately needed to ignite a spark to continue to even have an interest in logging on. And I want that spark. I don't want to sound like an addict, but I WANT to play World of Warcraft for a while still. It's a game I enjoy more than other games, and as long as I want to play a game, I want to play the one I enjoy the most. Re-discovering the thrill of the game is, to me, essential.

So there I was, sitting in my cosy chair looking for a spark. And the voice in my head said to me, "Why not have a look at that new legendary?", and so I did. And the more I read, the more I realized that this weapon is entirely possible to get with dedication, hard work and focus. It's, unlike the twin glaives of I-Saw-Not, a gamebreaking and beautiful weapon that can be obtained by anyone willing to go through the labour required. Of course, killing Arthas on 25-man difficulty won't be done by any PuG, you'll have to seek compromises, alliances and fellow grinders at almost every corner. But that still means it's in our own hands. It's just harder and more involved. Unlike Val'Anyr back in Ulduar, this quest will take time, feverish and slaving dedication, and not just some random drops, kill a boss and get a mace. The operative word when grinding Val'Anyr was always "random", not "kill a boss".

With Shadowmourne, that's changed. You need to kill a boss, six bosses, even. Plus the random number of bosses needed for all the Saronite (which hopefully will be available for Frost emblems as well, though at what price, we still do not know). Plus the 1060 (+) mobs for the Souls and Shards. You need to raid Icecrown Citadel, both 10- and 25-man versions, for God knows how many resets. What you don't need, is to silently cry inside everytime you kill a boss and the thing you need DON'T drop. Full Ulduar clear and no fragments? Tough luck. Shadowmourne will, in comparison, be an absolute nightmare of a grind, but it will be predicatable and controllable. In short, it will be a perfect design for an amazing item.

Which leads us back to my chair, and my thinking. And the voice in my head says to me, "Why not give it a shot?", and I can't see any reason not to. It'll require new friends, new allies, not to mention a new realm and even a new faction. It will even require to say goodbye to the guild I've been with since I first purchased the roster for it two years ago, a roster which at least 7-8 of the original signers are still part of. But time has come to move on and start anew, and as of that day in my chair, I left alliance behind and started a new life as horde, spending my days preparing for the coveted patch 3.3 going live. I found the challenge. I found the spark.

Shadowmourne will be mine.

To bench, or not to bench.

2009-11-21T03:42:00.001-08:00

Icecrown Citadel is coming, and as Raid Officer of my guild, it's time again to assemble my roster and build the best raid group I can to clear new content. The new encounters looks more and more likely to demand more of the players than Trial Of The Crusader did, both skillwise and gearwise, and gathering a rock solid force to provide the highest possible amount of raid buffs will more than likely be a far bigger necessity than it already is in tier 9 normal modes.

But that's not for another 2-3, maybe even 4, weeks. Which gives us almost a month to hone our skills, perfect our gear sets and even farm those coveted offspec items that can make or break an encounter - who needs two tanks on Mimiron anyway? And that's when the following hits me, from one of my best healers, both gearwise and skillwise:

"I don't really need any more loot from there, I think I'll take a break until 3.3 goes live."

A few days later, the best geared rogue in our raid group says just about the same. And today, our main tank joins the club. For a guild dedicated to 10-man content, that's 30% of our core taking time off from further progress, effectively killing any hardmode attempts or achievement runs - we'll be busy gearing up their replacements now instead.

There's two things that strike me as peculiar about this behaviour. First of all, you KNOW there will have to be someone replacing you - are you really interested in a new person stepping up to grab all that tanking plate that would elsewise be sharded for the guild bank? You might just find yourself in a position where someone else has equal or even better gear than you, depending on drops. Secondly, why would you EVER jeopardize your postion like this? Leaving a progress group since you're out of loot to grab means less shards to pay for your future enchants, less progress since we're not having the gear to back it up with, more time spent wiping unnecessary to learn new players new encounters - the long and short of it is that it will inevitably hamper your guild. Are you prepared to make that sacrifice for a few weeks off ToC?

Benching a solid player is hard. Benching a solid player who's been with you for years is even harder. But benching a replacement who've shown the skill and dedication to bleed for the position the moment it became available is even harder. Both our tank and main DPS on hiatus have had their replacements make sacrifices and progress above and beyond the call of duty. So when 3.3 goes live, I will have to choose. It's not an easy choice, and honestly, not a choice I really want to make. But there can only be so many players in a raid. And more importantly, loyalty and sacrifice should matter.

The question is how to weigh it. Does turning you back on progress deserve any repercussions, or even punishment, even if you're the best geared man for the job? Or should this behaviour be made example of - "the three of you are strong enough to carry the alt run now, and that will be your job" or even "you'll have to sit this raid out"? It's not an easy choice, because it won't affect only the position in question, or even the raid group - it will put a precedent for future situations of similar nature. One thing is taking a break for exams or IRL situations that require you to sit out a few raids - I'd happily as a duck give you a raid break for that.

It's a whole other can of worms the moment the raid break is because you're bored of the current content and can't be bothered to progress. And it makes running the guild an even bigger job than it already is.

Icecrown impressions, part 2.

2009-11-13T01:14:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, I took a look into the crystal ball and made a couple of predictions regarding Icecrown Citadel. The green dragon encounter certainly shamed my predictions concerning nature resistant gear, and Sindragosa definitely showed us who the Sapphiron of the instance will be. At the time of writing, only two boss encounters remain untested; the Blood Princes (which are slated for testing tonight), and Arthas himself. In short, we're starting to know the instance very well already. Let's have a look at the first few.

Lord Marrowgar: With his amazing new model in place, this encounter certainly LOOKS the part of imposing first boss. He nails people to the ground with icy spikes that must be killed, shoots icy bolts that crawl really slow along the floor, cleaves the tank in a pretty limited radius and does the mother of all whirlwinds (30 frikking seconds!). The fight looks like it'll spend a week or so in the wipe phase, before it ends up like the new lootmobile.

Short version: Hodir pretending to be Patchwerk.

Lady Deathwhisper: Now we're talking. The fact alone that this is a fight where shackling stuff is not only viable, but pretty much necessary makes it interesting - the fact that there's mind controlling, massive raid damage, frostbolts, crowdcontrolling both adds AND raid members over the course of two phases makes it even better. This may well be the PuG killer of the instance.

Short version: Gothik and Moroes' badass mom.

Gunship Battle: Initially, I had huge fears over this encounter. And while, somewhat relieved, I've found there won't be any horses or dragons (though there are cannons) near the encounter, I remain unconvinced. This battle reeks of "Pirates of the Caribbean", and not in a good way. Jump-packing back and forth between ships, gathering and nuking adds, do as much damage to the opposing faction's leader as possible - it seems a bit bland, and honestly, pointless. After doing Lady Deathwhisper, this fight looks a letdown. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Short version: PvE Wintergrasp with Saurfang.

Deathbringer Saurfang: Back up on the Citadel ledge, we're faced with junior, who decided to reroll Death Knight. And unlike most DK rerollers, he looks to have bothered reading up on the class and theorycrafting a bit, cause the damage he's capable of is pretty trememdous. He's got adds with abilities, stacking buffs and debuffs, Cleave (duh) and the standard "pop tank cooldowns NAO"-Frenzy. The fight looks more like something to be decided by brute force than massive tactics though - tank the boss, tank the adds, burn it all down before it destroys you.

Short version: One of the four Horsemen rerolling Death Knight.

Overall, the first "wing" of the instance looks challenging, by all means, but only one of the bosses strikes me as truly interesting. Check back soon for a review of what's to come - I'm saving the next few parts for when Blood Prince testing is done and Professor Putricide (Morgan Day!) is tested in a less buggy environment.

Learning by doing.

2009-10-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

"Hello, Vanilla. Back again, huh?"
- Bill Hicks.

One of the things I hate about trying to get a PuG as a tank, is the question "What's your unbuffed HP?" - a question that's almost replaces "link achi plx" for stuff like VoA and Ony. what's my unbuffed HP... I can think of a million answers. "Right now? In threat gear? Effective health gear? Am I maintanking or offtanking? Adds or boss, AoE or single target? Does he hit like a wet noodle or the trans-Siberian express on acid?" And so on. And so forth.

I remember roughly a year and a half ago something called Sunwell Radiance. It was a spectacular thing, watching Blizzard create a single spell that made tanks completely de-rail their itemization targets created and built over the course of an entire expansion, re-defining tanking in it's entirety. It enforced a tanking challenge on a whole new basis than anything you'd learned over the course of the raid progress up to and including Black Temple. Widely criticized as a cop-out by Blizzard to fix bad itemization, it also recieved some praise for being an innovative way of both sorting the problem as well as upping the overall challenge of the raid. And if nothing else, at least this would learn Blizzard how to itemize tanking equipment, or so we all thought.

Then, a few days ago, a discussion concerning Blizzard's treatment of the healing classes emerged. Ghostcrawler was naturally fast on-scene with large bravado, stating (in short) "use your fucking toolbox." To which I agree, if there's one thing I've learned from tanking as a warrior, it's that having a 28-button actionbar is amazing fun when you fully master it. However. Last night, the following emergered, and we we right back in Sunwell again. Except this time it's not a question of mobs hitting you more often. Oh no. This time, they're fucking you. This time, they're fucking you hard and intense with a jackhammer.

Let's look at how losing 20% of my avoidance will affect my Warrior tank:

"Great, unlimited rage. Good thing I have two major and two minor cooldowns! BLOCK THAT!"

Let's look at how losing 20% of my avoidance will affect my Death Knight tank:

"...where did all my Rune Strikes go?"

To me, this signals two things: First, that I was right all along and implementing three versions of the same tier was a ridiculous and unbalanced idea. Gearwise, they nailed it with Ulduar: separate tiers for separate difficulties and off-set hardmode loot in separate ilvl-brackets between the two. Second, didn't they just tell healers to use their toolbox? Haven't Ghostcrawler spent this whole expansion saying "don't chooses tanks because of their class, all tanks should be equal"? And yet, what they implement is the Return Of The Warrior Main Tank, complete with The Healadin Of Holy Light. Is that really how we want things to be? I know a few resto shamans who're not particularily happy about this.

This is, of course, very black and white. Guilds will continue to use the healers they have, and tanks will continue to stack stamina to the point where it's close to ridiculous ("+8 dodge socket bonus? NOT WORTH IT!"). However, Blizzard clearly haven't done their homework on how to itemize tier loot, and this is again, just a cop-out to save their instance. And while I agree that a raid that looks this promising by all means should be saved - I want my challenge - I sincerely wonder what went through their minds when they made three out of five Death Knight tier 9 pieces have dodge/parry, one have dodge/hit and the last parry/hit. Where's the expertise? And more importantly, DIDN'T YOU LEARN ALREADY how these leves of avoidance impact the game?

I understand why Blizzard are giving us "Icewell Raciance", I sincerely do. I'm just hopelessly disappointed it came to this.

Icecrown impressions.

2009-10-26T01:23:00.000-07:00

This post has been in the making for some time now. Ever since the discovery of nature resistance gear a few weeks back, the revelation of tier 10 set-bonuses and the PTR-testing of the first few bosses, we've had a potential insight into a lot of what the instance layout and mechanics could turn out to be.

First of all, nature resistance, which has been revealed to most likely be linked with the Rotface encounter. I'm still not entirely convinced this is the whole truth behind this, though - we know there will be a green dragon encounter in the later instance, which is still untested. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be this instance's Sapphiron, though hopefully harder. Another option is hardmodes - double the oozes, double the damage, double the fun? The actual requirement of resistance gear to be able to even compete in a hardmode setting would be an interesting turn from Blizzard, and it would no doubt justify the potentially ridiculous* crafting costs of the items.

*This, of course, relies solely on the availability of Primordial Saronite. If it's another Crusader Orb, there will be a lot of tears in Azeroth.

Moving onto set-bonuses, we've seen a few that are so powerful it's borderline ridiculous. Take, for instance, the Rogue 2-piece: "Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy."Allowing even greater burst, not to mention building a higher raid threat roof, on what is already the most consistent top DPS class? Let's move onto 4-piece Warrior tanks: "Your Bloodrage ability no longer costs health to use, and now causes you to absorb damage equal to 20% of your maximum health." Granted, it's no Shield Wall, but they certainly make sure Bloodrage is converted from a helpful pulling mechanic to being close to a 4th cooldown. A lifesaver when you know that Holy Light will land in just a second. And of course Death Knight 4-piece, "Whenever all your runes are on cooldown, you gain 3% increased damage done with weapons, spells, and abilities for the next 15 second." Now, I'm very excited about this, and how specifically it'll work. Will it, at the end of the duration, reset and start again next time you're out of runes? Will it have a constant uptime? Internal cooldown? In any of the above cases, this is an amazing DPS bonus.

What I read from these and other set bonuses, which by far overwhelms a lot of what we've seen in T8 and T9, is that we're in for a demanding ride. A few of these effects will trivialize even certain Ulduar hardmodes (Hodir, Thorim, XT, maybe even Vezax), Sarth3D-zergs will be a (slightly more) common PuG on most servers, Loken will be down before the second Nova. Upping the powerlevel on players this way (especially if Blizzard stays true to their pattern of allowing the 2-piece bonus to be available for emblems) either means they want exactly that to happen - lower tier hardmodes becoming more easily available - or, hopefully, that Icecrown Citadel will require these levels of DPS and tank control.

One final point before I conclude: the blue posts on crowd control suggest a nail in the coffin to the zerg mentality from Naxx and heroics. I really, truly hope this is the case. Hard bosses, tactical trash and encounters requiring both thought, skill and insane gear - this could hopefully be another Black Temple. The leaked graphics preview suggest nothing less.

Unless, of course, there is jousting, in which case it will be the worst instance in the history of the game. On general principle.

---

In other news, I've currently taken up the mantle of protection Warrior again, as my guild were having both tank and sunder trouble. I'll still be an angry Death Knight, though, only not as much. Expect posts on warriors to pop up there and again though - it's pretty much inevitable ;)

Remember, remember, the 12th of November.

2009-10-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly copy-pasted from the battle.net Terms of Agreement, which you will have the agree to if you wanna keep playing World of Warcraft in a few weeks time:

"Our representatives may monitor and/or record your communications (including without limitation chat text) when you are using the Service or playing a Game, and you hereby provide your irrevocable consent to such monitoring and recording. You acknowledge and agree that you have no expectation of privacy concerning the transmission of any User Content, including without limitation chat text or voice communications.

WE ALSO RESERVE THE RIGHT, AT ALL TIMES AND IN OUR SOLE DISCRETION, TO DISCLOSE ANY USER CONTENT AND OTHER INFORMATION (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION CHAT TEXT, VOICE COMMUNICATIONS, IP ADDRESSES, AND YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION) FOR ANY REASON."

Just sayin'.

The Unholy equation.

2009-10-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

"The goal is for it to beat out two Blood Strikes or Obliterate."
- Ghostcrawler

Over the past few days, the issue of Scourge Strike's shadow versus physical proportion have been heavily debated - and tested by the less crying, more trying kind - with results (and arguments) ranging from the somewhat intelligent, to the point of stupitity. We are still, however, "wildly off" according to good ol' GC - and that means that either the formula is either still not decrypted, or simply not working.

The current situation of Scourge Strike live is simple - it's kinda good, but not really. The current cookie-cutter build of 16/0/55 sarifices both Epidemic and Reaping, effectively removing both rune management and manipulation as well as conventional disease tracking. And especially the latter is something Ghostcrawler is perhaps overlooking in his evauation - at the moment, even glyphed Icy Touch + Plague Strike beats additional Scourge Strikes.

Yes, that's right. Reapplying diseases for each rotation currenty beats prolonging them for additional Scourge Strikes. The current rotation (IT - PS - SS - BS - BS - dump - HoW) is fine, by all means - had you specced into Reaping and Epidemic (as is clearly Blizzard's intention for these talents, especially considering how the two other trees work), it would have been the cookie-cutter cycle 1, before SS - SS - SS - dump as cycle 2 before resetting the rotation would complete it. This is how the unholy core mechanic should look.

Alas, it isn't. And though there clearly is a problem with Scourge Strike, I'm curious if the design staff is looking at all at the state of Death Coil. Alongside hasted white- and shadow damage from white strikes, Death Coil is this build's main source of damage output. Which brings us back to the Icy Touch reapplication issue - the added DPS of additional runic power beats a tier nine talented attack. The change to the Icy Touch glyph will hopefully adress this matter to a certain extent, but fact still remains that Death Coil and white attack damage will beat Scourge Strike over any longer fight. High movement fights like, well, all of the current T9, serves to underline the value of Death Coil, similar to a shadowpriest's Death word in Ulduar. It's simply that good.

But do we need to nerf Death Coil? Absolutely not. The current Death Coil is perfect. The problem is a talent tree where the intended core mechanics simply needs a massive reconstruction. Scourge Strike needs better balancing, diseases need to be made more valuable than just getting Ebon Plaguebringer for the raid (the nerf in 3.3 on T9 4-piece bonus, while probably necessary, certainly isn't helping either), and I've intentionally not even stepped anywhere near the ghoul. Back in 3.0, unholy was interesting. Overpowered to say the least, but the mechanics made it distinctly stand out. In 3.2, unholy is simply viable, because nerfing what made it interesting in the first place was done through redesign rather than rebalancing. I'm unsure whether or not this was Blizzard's intention with unholy builds, but the Scourge Strike situation certainly undermines the presence of a problem in the talent tree.

In the meantime, we're stuck with a boring, buttonspamming one-trick pony with a pet. Is that really what we want to be?

The Culling of (my) Time.

2009-10-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm an officer in my guild. We are a small guild, dedicated to 10-man content, not because we want to, but because our server is something of a hell-hole. Recruitment is practically impossible - there are half a million guilds out there, two thirds of which are approximately our size and strive to achieve approximately the same thing. There are, of course, alliances and communities (not unlike the days of "LF39M Mölten Cöre"), but these have a tendency to A) fall apart, B) branch out, or C) outgrow themselves and suddenly become a guild - which again leave the small guilds stripped of their most prized assets (not unusually a tank, 20k combined DPS and three healers).

So in what position does that put me? First of all, it makes recruitment a pure, living nightmare. Our guild have a website with a proper URL, no WoWstead-nonsense, we've been raiding with the same core since TBC and we've achieved enough (Champion of the Naaru, Undying, a various amount of speedkills) to raise us up from the "average" branch. But we're still drowning in a sea of similar-sized guilds that can, and will, spam your post you to death every time you advertise your recruitment status in chat, on the official forums or wherever. It's a hard life, and it's not uncommon to have your polite, precise and informative advert drowned by "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD ARE RECRUITING! NEED ANYTHING FOR RAIDS!". It kind of draws more attention than "We're looking for a moonkin and an MM hunter, but need most classes." Then again, that IS what we get for playing on a server at the bottom of the ladder. We ARE aware of this.

What is worse, is when bigger guilds "tap up" smaller ones for quality - by actively placing alts in lesser guilds to investigate who's good enough, or by simply going through the friend channels and "poach" players they need. As Larísa points out today, there is a certain etiquette involved in changing your guild. Your guild has geared you up, learned you the encounters and let you train over and over at things YOU get, but those around you struggle with. It's maybe not something you think about all that often, but the reason you're the player you are, are as much yourself as those around you. No one soloes Ulduar. When you change your guild, you are not only leaving behind a void in a roster, you're taking with you someone elses investment in you, be it time, gold, consumables, gems or enchanting materials. On the other hand, when your guild do not progress at the rate you want and wish, it can be both tempting, rewarding or even right to move - as long as you're honest about it. Sometimes it's even necessary, for whatever reason.

Which brings us back to the role of the officer, and my time. Filling the void is a job I have to do, not only for myself, but for the entire guild. At the end of TBC, we lost a resto druid and a tank in less than a week. We were left by almost a month without raiding, simply because no one would bother gearing up an alt ("it's 3.0 soon anyway"), and no one bothered much about going back to ZA every so often ("it's 3.0 soon anyway"). For this month, however, myself and three others worked tirelessly for several hours every day, talking to guildless players in PuGs, checking the official forums, advertising the official forums, surveilling chat channels for hours to end. We spent a lot of time looking for people, finding the wrong people, and arranging raids that ended at the summoning stone when we still hadn't an offtank 45 minutes past raid start. Which is exactly where a few weeks ago as well. And then, something interesting happened.

I was talking to an applicant, whose armory and application were something we'd accept pretty much on the spot - a player that would easily join our roster from day one. From I received the application till I talked to the player, I invested a good 30 minutes in him, checking his armory, taking notes of things to ask him, looking up his be.imba-score, checking achievement dates and so forth. It's what I expect of myself as an officer. What I don't expect, however, is the following answer when interviewing the applicant:

[Barricade] After talking to you, I'm happy to offer you a trial with us.
[Applicant] Thanks, but I'm gonna wait it out a bit.

....OK?

[Applicant] I've applied to like eight guilds, and you guys aren't my number one choice.

I'm not sure what went through my head at that moment. Apart from a massively hurt pride, a strong feeling of deception and a grieveous annoyance at having wasted time on this kind of player. It made all those hours back in 2.4.3 feel worth it - at least I was idling in officer chat back then. Just to rub it in, an applicant that we'd decided to turn down after the same amount of work in advance, had already joined another guild as we seemed "too advanced" for him. Which is fair, but why apply in the first place? Our goals are very clearly stated on our website, aren't they?

Long story short: filling a roster these days is hard work, especially on a mediocre server. If it wasn't for Pete, Liz, Anna, Rachel, Kjersti, Dave, Luke, Jim and all the others, I would probably have left. But as you can see from the selection of characters I've namedropped: It's worth the struggle. The crew oneshotting Anub'arak without a single death the first time we were ever at him were were 40% the same as our first Malchezaar kill. And that thought alone makes all those wasted hours working to keep this train rolling more than worth it.

Death Knights are people too.

2009-10-05T04:20:00.000-07:00

Of course we are. Why wouldn't we be? I would safely bet that at least a full percent of the Death Knights out there are honest, hard-working raiders who run out of the fire and don't die to Void Zones, knowing their optimal rotation and executing it on a regular basis. Hell, I bet most of them even have a 98+% uptime on diseases even on high-movement fights.

So what is it about those 99 other percent playing the class that is giving us decent, upstanding, plague-spreading, bloodboiling gentlewomen (apparently there are male Death Knights too, but they are rather rare, I've found) such a bad name? Sign up for Vault of Archavon (because we all know VoA is srs bznz) and your chances of getting in are slim to none - they already have one Death Knight. God forbid carrying TWO players through Koralon, much worse having TWO melee DPS ignoring the Emalon add getting high on Winterfall Firewater. No, get a survival Hunter instead. Those, at least, you can trust these days. Those and the affliction Warlocks.

Yes, that's right. I said it. Compared to Death Knights, Hunters and Warlocks are held in high regard. As is just right and proper, in my personal opinion - I'm fully with Blizzard on the "Bring the player not the class" page (except on Mimiron phase 4, of course) - but still. Back in TBC, a Hunter trying to get a PuG spot would be more frowned upon than a protection Warrior in less than Sunwell gear offering to tank MgT heroic. And if you WERE a Hunter back then, being survival probably meant a full set of Merciless Gladiator's whatsitcalled gemmed for crit and resilience. Not to mention the cries of "huntard lewt" everytime you rolled on as much as a piece of cloth. To quote the famous Dorothy Gale, "Thassarian, we're not in TBC anymore."

Then again. There are those incidents that make even me go "God damned fucking scrub DK piece of shit wasting my time." Where the "DK" part is a fundamental part of the elsewise rather unoriginal string of character traits. I've more and more started to understand the hatred those 99% playing the class are giving the rest of us, and it's truthfully hurting my soul, both as a hard-working Deatk Knight reroller, but also as a player. Because quite honestly, these people are plain out stupid, they are lazy, they expect to be zerged through content and then get loot. When they die because they don't move from the fire, they blame the healers. When they pull an extra pack of mobs and get pummeled down, the tank can't hold aggro. You know the players I talk about, they're on your server, idling in Dalaran right this instant, signing up for any LFG request for raid DPS they can grab hold of, with their unenchanted Tier 9 from VoA and their Epic achievement carrying them through content.

Over the last week, I've actively been on the lookout for episodes ingame that explain to me why people shun Death Knights so much. I know the general jist of it (see paragraph previous), but what EXACTLY is it that these people do so horribly wrong? Let's take a look.

Example 1: Trade chat.
[Person A] LF1M MgT hc Hawkstrider reserved
[Person B] wtf is mgt, you mean dtk
/who Person B
[Person B] - 80 Human Death Knight, Dalaran
[Person C] There was wow before LK you know
[Person D] dk scrub

Example 2: Whispers in a daily heroic PuG.
[Failknight] how you do 3k dps
[Barricade] Proper rotation and gear setup.
[Failknight] can you tell me
[Barricade] After the instance, I'm kinda busy DPSing.

Wait for it... wait for it...

[Failknight] tell me how to do 3k dps plz
[Barricade] I said after the instance. Focus.
[Failknight] is my spec ok
[Barricade] Let me guess, your alt is a level 56 hunter.
[Failknight] i have 55 hunter in tbc

Example 3: Onyxia's Lair.
[RL] DK tank, you're on the adds by the entrance in phase 2.
[RL] Angrybear is MT

Skip to pull, and...

Angrybear is hit by tail swipe from Onyxia. Casters 1 through 6 are killed by flame breath from Onyxia.

[DK tank] LOLOLOLOL
[DK tank] WIPE LOL

(yeah, he pretty much Death Gripped to show RL he was a better option for MT, while standing behind her in the caster group)

Example 4: Teaching guildies.
[Guildie] Why don't I get to come Ulduar.
[Barricade] Because you're hated with Sons Of Hodir and have 3 expertise
[Guildie] Takes too long, I dont got time for Hodir
[Barricade] That's no excuse not to gem and gear properly.
[Guildie] And besides, I saw that DK* who did 9.8k DPS only had 20 expertise

*He's referring to Paragon's unholy DK with Death & Decay glyph from Anub world first, FYI.

[Barricade] So you're comparing yourself to a world class player with an AoE spec on an AoE fight.
[Guildie] yh xD

As you can see. There is a reason we have such a bad name. There simply are more morons playing Death Knight these days. For every male human retridin with Dragonball Z-hair and Edge of Ruin (do an AV, make a quick count, you'll end up somewhere around 12), there are double that amount moron Death Knights. And for that amount again, there is about a fourth of a decent Death Knight. There really is a reason we're getting left out of PuGs, isn't it?

---

Slightly related but most of all braggy endnote: managed 6,3k DPS on ten man XT last night, as 3/53/15 "enhancement" frost. Rather pleased with myself. Also, after all these months of losing to druids and rogues, I have T8 four-piece in place. IT. IS. AWESOME.

You again?

2009-10-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

With the release of patch 3.3.0 to PTR servers, three different recipes for what appear to be the same crafted item has been datamined; more specifically, a set of ilvl 251 plate legguards with armour, stamina, nature resistance, no sockets and no green stats. My first and most obvious thought was "not this again" (hello Ahn'Qiraj, hello early Sapphiron attempts). Then I notice that leatherworking and tailoring have no similar recipes (at least thus far), which leads me to speculate:

1) Placeholder. Fairly obvious thought. The fact that there are three different recipes of the same item which, at the time of posting have "Icecrown Thing of Crafting Things [PH]" as a reagent, makes me suspect that these legs will have green stats (and possibly sockets) to support both plate melee, plate tanking and plate casting options in the final version. Which still does not explain why there are no leather/mail melee/caster and cloth versions of the same items (apart from not being found yet, obviously).

2) Encounters with massive nature damage on the horizon. Which is an interesting detour off of Frost Resistance Avenue, but remains somewhat ridiculous when you have to gear up an entire raid for it. Personally, I won't have an issue with getting my legs, tossing on an armour kit, gem it for max DPS, and just keep in my bags. It'll annoy me, it'll most likely look fiendishly ugly (anyone remember the plate frost resist boots?), but more to the point, it'll destroy any raid who do not have 10/25 people dish out what appears to be the considerable amount of gold needed to prepare yourself. And trust me, these raids WILL appear. Demanding you to "link achi plz". In the trade channel. On patch day.

(Which is a good thing really, because hopefully this means that we have valid reason to bench the players we've always suspected of not caring too much about the state of their gear. Let's just prey it's an early boss, so it will actually be a proving point to have this equipment.)

3) And finally. Time to blow up the auction house again. Be a clever gamer and stock up both on cheap Titansteel from the AH, as well as using your cooldown daily. If every half-decent guild in the world are crafting these for all their paladins, death knights, warriors and death knight alts, this easily amount to 100+ Titansteel bars. Per guild. This is going to be an earner of proportions for the first few days after release.

As I was saying. Interesting times ahead, indeed.

Take three.

2009-09-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

After three years, three servers and three mains in Azeroth, time has come to give blogging a third attempt as well. Being the online loudmouth that I am, some would say it's just inevitable, a matter of time-issue. Then again, formulating my, shall we say, "passionate" outbursts in raid or guild chat into somewhat coherent blog entries post-aggressively have never been my strong side. This time around, however, I feel confident that it'll be more than just an interesting experiment. If not, I could always reroll on a new server next year and try again.

In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on the life of a Death Knight reroller in a casual raiding guild on a PvE server. I could lie and pretend life was more glorious (hardcore guild, PvP server and all that), but as long as I know that I maintain the skill to jump ship and join a top guild any time I potentially wanted, I'll be happy. It's as much about who you play with as how you play, and I love my guys too much.

I hope you'll enjoy reading this blog. Be seeing you!