Classes as Professions

My rogue is a miner and a jewelcrafter, a pretty terrible jewelcrafter due to having been reactivated only recently. These are not how she gets rich. Her true profession is as a rogue. She's a maxed-out pickpocket, optimized with a spec for faster run speed (and another for even faster when stealthed), a glyph to extend the range of pickpocket, and another to making unlocking those boxes instant. If she leaves stealth, it is with a killing spree, to wipe out any group guarding the precious locked chests. Her usual farming area is Blackrock Spire, mostly in the lower part since the upper area is filled with pocketless dragons and requires unprofitable combat to get in very far. Sometimes she ventures in Blackrock Caverns or random heroics, where can find all manner of flame-scarred boxes, rare alcohols, and a few coins as well. Notice how all of this is possible only because she is a rogue. No other class can pickpocket and only at some expense can blacksmiths and engineers deal with all those locks. Thanks to Insane in the Membrane, there is a small but lucrative market for heavy junkboxes.

What other class is a profession? None to the extent of the rogue. A mage may find a bit of gold here and there for portals and maybe food. Less often a warlock may find himself lucky enough to be in a position to execute a paid summoning. Once upon a time druids could sell their services as summoners of a boss who drops a bird mount that cannot fly. No more for them.

Is there room for more classes to have profession capabilities?

In a rush? Pass on loot!

"Looting this item will bind it too you."
WASTING TIME!

You're a person on the go. You can't wait around for loot rolls. You kill the boss and drop the group. So why waste time clicking twice when you could just click once? That's right, if you hit pass, you're done! Since you dropped group the instant you hit greed, you weren't getting the loot anyway.

There is, of course, one downside. If you take the tenth of a second to hit greed before you drop group, you lose out on the 20% chance to screw someone out of a bit of gold for no actual gain to yourself. And that is definitely worth the time for someone like you.

Giving LFR Another Chance, to yet again shock me with the conduct of other players

We all know the pattern too well, something drops and anyone who can roll need does. I got into a conversation with someone in the raid about this, through whispers (which is why I am not mentioning legions of trolls). They explained that they so often see items ninjaed for vendor or self-DE that they roll need on everything they can, to use as bargaining chips. It's pretty obvious what this leads to: everyone rolls need so they have the bargaining they need to get what they actually need, along with a significant number of people who are just being exceptionally greedy.

What triggered the conversation was the person winning the roll on the rogue helm token in Dragon Soul. Then it was capped off by them again winning the dagger at the end. The dagger which would have been a significant upgrade for me, though I did at least have the pair from ZG, so I wasn't exactly destroyed by it. The helm though, I was still running with a 333 blue. They had a far better helm and far better weapon than what they won.

Pretty bad, isn't it?

If I tell you facts, but leave out other facts which would dramatically alter your perception of the situation, is that lying? I think so. But let's call it dramatic effect since I'm giving the rest now.

The other rogue opened trade and gave me the token. No bargaining, just a line about how I needed it a lot more than them. This was something they said they did, rolling need not just for bargaining, but so people who actually needed the items got an extra shot at them. I was stunned at the selflessness of it. But, it also made me a bit sad, that players have to go out of their way, inspecting others to see who truly needs, and using the mechanics of the ninjas, to accomplish this.

They also traded the dagger to me.

Sometimes, human decency and altruism can overcome the flaws of a system and the flaws of people. Sometimes people are good, even when we expect the absolute opposite.

Sapped Men Can't Say No

I can't believe this guild doesn't exist.

By my count on warcraftrealms.com, there are 92 guild names including the phrase "sapped girls" and another three of "sapped women can't say no". Just searching "sapped" yields a strangely high number of EU guilds called "sapped cows cant say moo". "Sap" results in a variety of names such as "sap girls cant say no", since apparently sapped was already taken and who wants to join someone else's rape joke guild? Ew. There are a dozen or so variants of "sap it before you tap it".

But c'mon, guys, rape is hilarious! Why isn't there a gay guild called "sapped men cant say no"? or a straight guild that recognizes that this would be funny, right? I mean, a woman can join a guild about female rape, why don't men join one about male rape?

It's almost as if men don't like the idea of men getting raped and neither do women.

[edit] Today my warrior got an invite from Sapped Gurls Cant Say No

BBB's Writing Challenge

He gone and posted a challenge: http://thebigbearbutt.com/2012/03/16/i-throwdown-a-writing-challenge/
And then reminded us about the challenge: http://thebigbearbutt.com/2012/03/20/writing-challenge-goes-live-tomorrow/

So here's the deal: This post is a dummy post just so I can make the link. Nothing in here until tomorrow! In fact, this post just might vanish. POof! oOf. Just like that. So let's see here what Blogger makes for my link.

Now ma'am, I didn't mean no innuendo by that. I merely was suggesting that the thin packaged meat product was full of water and oil, pleasing to the palette. It had nothing to do with the brightness of this burning pitch on a stick that I was carrying. I can assure you I meant nothing when I suggested when your eyes were like interstellar plasma, except in their tendency to blind me with their radiance.

I... I suppose I should not disguise it any longer. I would be struggling to no avail if I tried to pretend that as we decend down this deep hole that I was not thinking some thoughts. I keep twisting my words all around to try to not say what I been trying to not say.

Aw shucks.

Juicy Slender Vain Shaft Torch Star Hidden and there I said 'em all now, flat out just like that, are you happy?

Clinging to outdated, out-of-context tradition

I have two taunts on fairly short cooldowns. I can throw a shield that generates enough aggro that whatever is not attacking me, will. I have an AoE with a pretty decent range. Add to that my usual attacks of crusader strike/hammer of the righteous and judgement, and aggro should not be an issue, regardless of who pulls. At level 70, very few enemies hit hard enough that someone will die from pulling.

In terms of safely clearing an instance, it doesn't matter much who pulls.

So why do I care?

I could twist together all manner of arguments for why people shouldn't pull if they aren't the tank (or acting at the request of the tank).

Is it a bad habit? Maybe. But if we're learning our habits from level 70 random heroics, we're already in trouble. "It's a bad habit" is a form of the classic slippery slope argument, that once someone does something, it is permanent.

Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable when others pull because they are going faster or going when a CD is down. Is this enough reason? Maybe, maybe not. Is my slow pulling making them uncomfortable? Do they have a buff wearing off? Maybe they're in a rush and I'm ruining their run.

I've always been 'right', not because my instance running was at the ideal speed or because there was some divine mandate that made a tank-led pull always inherently better than any other. But I've always had something on my side, a mystical force which made my opinions worth more than others, regardless of their actual merit. I've been a tank and as long as tanks have been in short supply, I've magically been correct. Supply and demand said that my opinions and feelings were more important than those of other players.

The only ethos of "Might Makes Right" has been replaced with "Market Makes Right", in which certain people who by luck are in greater demand relative to supply have become something more than mere humans, something more than individuals offering individual opinions for individual regard.

In the process, the particular whims of these sorts of people have been carried on and enshrined in the collective concept of good behavior, regardless of the actual merit of the behavior, regardless of whether "good behavior" is actually helpful or whether "bad behavior" is actually harmful.

In the past I've espoused a "let them die" strategy. Do two wrongs make a right? If someone has aggro, I get it back. I'm a tank. That's my job. Why should I suddenly break this rule just because someone broke a rule that doesn't matter anyway? I've said that a tank should pull because the tank knows his (or her) limits. Why not give the same trust to a DPS and if they want a mob, they can have it? It's not "let them die", but "let them live", tank as I would and heal as you would and let's get back to the serious matter of killing actual enemies.

"Their actions make me slightly uncomfortable" is not a good justification to go stage a mini-strike and jeopardize the shared goals of the group.

I still think tanks are the natural leaders of the groups, but maybe that doesn't mean they have to be so damn self-important.

All Good Tanks are Cheaters and Should Be Banned

I bet you don't even realize you're cheating anymore. Maybe you don't do it because you've geared out of the need for it. But I bet you've done it before. You probably had someone explain it to you, this little trick of many tanks.

It's a pretty common one. I'm sure everyone has done it. It's not as if it is complex, just a simple little exploit of the pathing and casting AI. Messing with the two, using the simple interaction of the two mechanics to avoid damage and manipulate pulls.

Obviously I'm referring to the use of Line of Sight breaks to draw casters and ranged enemies closer. It's not a 'tactic' or 'creative use of game mechanics'; it's an exploit and it's about time Blizzard cracked down on it.

Don't believe me? Think about a similar situation. If you're flying and you aggro a mob, what happens when you fly away? It resets. It recognizes that you are no longer a possible target and resets. It doesn't run around madly trying to get range that it cannot, running headfirst into your waiting allies. Can you imagine the speed of the ban if someone flew around to aggro a zone, without getting hit, and then led the whole pack into a few frost mages? And yet, that's more or less what you do with every LoS pull.

Ever seen a mob "evade"? It sometimes happens when you pull and then go to somewhere they cannot hit you, such as a higher or lower level with no paths. Just like an LoS pull.

I don't think a blanket ban of all players who have engaged in this behavior is the solution. Certainly a few should be made an example of, but much of the fault lies with Blizzard for allowing this AI bug to remain unfixed for so long. It's high time they acknowledged the problem and dealt with it.

A Series of [Potentially] Fortunate Events

If you follow me on Twitter (or watch my mini-post feed on the right of the page) you might have seen me go on a small screenshot flurry. I started digging through some more, initially planning to delete some of the thousands (and those are just that folder, I have another one from vanilla). And then I saw a few of friends and guild members, a few of us sitting outside Mechanar (yes, there are outsides to instances) and screenshots of guild first kills. Hell of a nostalgia high.

On a whim I stuck one of the friend's names into the armory. Lo, the strange, misspelled name, a little bit higher level, of the same race and class and server. And with activity within the last few days. Still playing! I hopped over to that server to send a letter saying hello.

Then I saw someone looking to buy heavy junkboxes for the Insane. I was broke on that server due to my paladin looting everyone during the server transfer, and I had some slight thought of staying there for a little bit, so I asked about the boxes. 20g each sounded pretty good, so I hopped on my rogue and headed to LBRS, my old sneaking ground. My guilded rogue. Woah. My rogue was in a guild. The same guild I'd abandoned, leaving behind friends, for reasons I cannot quit remember, but having something to do with other friends moving for reasons I cannot remember. I hadn't been kicked, even after well over a year inactive, from my time out of WoW plus whenever I'd switched. How strange.

I said hello. People who I remembered remembered me. The guild was active, with new people, and raids. 10-mans, but raids! I could give real raiding a try. Alas, no 85s on the server. But my rogue is fun and she's 80. By the time I write this, within a day, I am 82. That could put me at 85 and with a small pile of justice points within a week. Putting my various professions to use, along with more pickpocketing, could give me the gold to buy some more gear. Those BoE valor point items would be nice. In a couple weeks I could be ready to be marginally useful in raids.

I could play, with friends, and not those useless real-life friends who play like noobs (no offense to my few real life friends who aren't noobs). WoW friends! With friends again, it could actually be worth playing. It's a much different experience to log on and not be so damn alone. I could kidnap my priest friend for Molten Core and everyone else for everything else. The world is a whole lot bigger when it has people in it.

Maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, but maybe I should, so as to avoid Self-Fulfilling Nihilism.

Now if only rogues could tank so my queues weren't so long... (No, Syl, I'm not making a Rift tank rogue)