However they are purely for ironic purposes. Well, there were exceptions. I occasionally run into extremely stupid and/or stubborn people. Since internet arguments are characterized mostly by their extreme stupidity and inability to ever be resolved, I classify these arguments with stupid people in the Internet Argument IRL category.
Text is not very good for irony though. Guild chat, is text. So it's pretty clearly that guild chat is a poor place for irony except between individuals who would know each other well enough to decipher said irony.
Where was I? Oh yes. The forums are full of whining. Sometimes it is whining of such silliness that my brain hurts. Fortunately this whining tends to stay on the forums, except for during the occasional argument with my friend who has no concept of balance. How can I tell? Well he disagrees with me. What more objective measure can you possibly find? Now where did my point go?
Yes, so, forum arguments and whining, very stupid. They do not belong in guild chat. Guild chat is for socializing and advice and organizing groups. It is not for comments about Blizzard dumbing down an already easy game. It is especially not the place for saying "there dumbing down..." and failing to see the irony. I should do a word count on that: irony. Maybe I should check a dictionary as well since it's one of those words that I think we all forgot the meaning of. Eh, it's a blog, it's supposed to be fast and real and totally inaccurate; like Fox News except without a schedule.
As you probably guessed I had a terrible experience today with someone whining in guild chat. My reaction was similar to how I'd react on the forums, or IRL. Or anywhere, such as Imagination Land where I argue regularly with caricatures of people I dislike and then settle all our differences with hot cocoa and snowball fights. Unfortunately it happens in that order to we just end up sick from all the sugar and exercise and also very cold. This is why we get grumpy and argue so much.
Anyway, something about the patch download starting already, maybe that was supposed to mean that it's almost done. I didn't quite understand. By the end I said something like "for someone who complains about dumbing down, you don't make much sense." He called me a dipshit, ignored me, logged for a few minutes, and people told us to stop. I took a couple tries to suppress my need to respond and explain my position, since they were clearly lacking in the proper perspective: mine.
Sometimes I think getting gkicked might not be so bad. I mean sure I'd miss the raids, that I miss anyway. And I'd miss the groups that never form anyway because I prefer to go to LFG first and avoid complications with things like someone wanting to go, but only if someone else is going, and next thing I'm wondering if someone is offended because I didn't invite them just because they're also specced for tanking. How could I go without a certain female guildy constantly flaunting her girliness with disgustingly forced childish affection? What would I do not having a guild tag over my head, forcing me to hold my tongue when desiring to respond to idiots?
On the subject, why does Blizzard insist on blanket application of obscenity rules? Life would be much easier if I could use appropriately effective words for describing those who attempt to ruin my time in game.
I suppose there's a thrill to getting gkicked. It's a shock, like a bucket of cold water. It's not too pleasant, but as far as game experiences go, it's one of the most... oh what's the word? Real? Making-you-feel-it-y? Green text scrolls, scrolls, scrolls, and then there's that little message and then stop. Everything just goes still and you go "hm, well now what?" Being guildless can be a bit liberating, like your third "three strikes" violation: you're going away forever anyway, so you might as well make it worth it. It feels weird though running into former guildies. Then you start wondering, do they remember me, do they care, were they around when I got kicked? It's a bit like one of those friends that you somehow just drift away from without really being separated (I don't mean like someone moving away) and then you see them in a hall and wonder if you nod or wave or in any way acknowledge them as someone you know, or are they just another person to avoid running into, yet another obstacle to movement down the hall?
Hm. So yes. Don't whine about patch notes in gchat. Most of us have different professions, play different classes, we might not even be the same level or running the same content. In other words, we don't really care. I mean sure, some people care in the sense that they care about you as a guildy, but the specific issue? Half the people probably haven't seen the notes and wouldn't notice if you weren't babbling about it, which is and ironic accusation considering the wandering of this post.
Raiding Sunday through Tuesday, I'll try to be on, let's see if I get in. Why must Thaddius only drop the defense trinket in regular?
Portal and Steam
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
I meant to go to bed about two hours ago, perhaps that is the simplest way to state it.
Steam is just plain cool. I don't know why, but I like it. I'm the type that hates extra software that pretends to be convenient, but Steam seems to work.
Portal is pretty fun. I like it a lot. As you can tell by my failure to go to sleep when I intended. I tried the demo and then decided to but it. Since it was only $10 more, I bought the Orange Box, perhaps I'll comment on the other games in a few days. Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with voice files not playing which didn't happen in the demo. I think I'm being cheated out of half the game without GlaDoS telling me terrible things.
I opened up the console and it's filled with errors, particularly with failing to load .wav files. When it doubt, reinstall.
It's working just fine now. Maybe there was a problem with the pre-downloading missing a few files.
Steam is just plain cool. I don't know why, but I like it. I'm the type that hates extra software that pretends to be convenient, but Steam seems to work.
Portal is pretty fun. I like it a lot. As you can tell by my failure to go to sleep when I intended. I tried the demo and then decided to but it. Since it was only $10 more, I bought the Orange Box, perhaps I'll comment on the other games in a few days. Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with voice files not playing which didn't happen in the demo. I think I'm being cheated out of half the game without GlaDoS telling me terrible things.
I opened up the console and it's filled with errors, particularly with failing to load .wav files. When it doubt, reinstall.
It's working just fine now. Maybe there was a problem with the pre-downloading missing a few files.
Legendary scaling
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
This came from a forum thread.
While scaling legendaries would work to my advantage, I think it would be counter-productive.
I personally saw that people were burnt out on MC. I had a hard time getting fun runs and ultimately learned to solo the bosses (though both bindings dropped while I was in groups). If MC became a requirement, even just in the sense of being an alternate progression path, I can see a lot of people feeling forced into it. While I think MC is still fun, most people seem to disagree and I think it would be terrible to 'force' people into it again.
Scaling would tend to dilute the legendary-ness of legendaries. They would become far more common and would be little more than another piece of gear to collect. As they are now they are rare and for the most part, useless except for appearances. As strange as it sounds, uselessness is one of the most special things in this game where people are so quick to jump on the easiest, best gear as soon as they can.
Forcing people into old content and turning legendaries into another piece of gear to farm would be terrible. It is unfortunate that people rarely do the old raids, but it's difficult to add incentives for old raids without create a sense of them being mandatory.
I wrote the previous part of this a couple hours ago. Since then I've warmed a bit to the idea. However the balance issues remain. If it scaled like an heirloom item then it would be outdated anyway, since heirloom items are slightly worse than equivalent blues. The scaling could be bumped up, but then it's starting to give gear rewards just for leveling up while the heirloom items are intended to make leveling easier rather than make leveling a replacement for instances and quests in terms of gear acquisition.
I thought of other scaling methods. One was to make them 10-15 ilevels behind the current BiS. However this means that they would get stronger just because a new raid came out and that makes no sense. They could scale with anticipated BiS for the expansion and then be further behind, but this would mean making them exceptionally powerful early on, and then Blizzard would be forced into a set gear range or else the weapon would end up either too powerful or too weak compared to the original intent.
Finally I settled on scaling with a current chosen weapon. This would use an idea I've seen floating around the forums: stat copying. Take a current weapon and map its stats onto the legendary, replacing current stats with the exception of any strange abilities such as the TF proc, Sulfuras proc, Atiesh on-use (and group buff), or the set bonus on warglaives (though they're not really legendary). This would allow players to use pre-existingg legendaries without gimping stats without giving the perception that legendaries are a requirement. The legendary itself would be effectively an aesthetic item rather than another stat carrot to chase.
Unfortunately that idea would probably be very hard to implement. While I'd love to see it, in the grand scheme of things its probably not worth the effort to implement.
My goal is to find a middle ground. I would like to see legendaries still used. However I don't want to see people forced into doing MC again. By stats I think legendaries should not be special, it should be by the way they are acquired (damn you, warglaives), appearance, and the special effects on them which cannot be found elsewhere. Perhaps the biggest split I have with people is that they think that legendary means eternally best in slight while I think they should be eternally cool and perhaps useful, but not at the expense of new gear.
I suppose I should apologize for the many posts about legendary stuff recently. I probably sound like I'm bragging. I assure you, only two of the posts are for bragging purposes (okay fine, that's still two too many). The rest are just ideas that came up because I was playing with my TF and thought of them. Or this one which was inspired by the forums as sometimes happens.
[edit: added sometime later, I don't know what time this site uses]
My latest thought would be to imitate gemming. Add a weapon socket to legendaries which would fit anything of that weapon size or below: so a 2h can fit anything, a 1h can only fit other 1h weapons; so no putting a betrayer of humanity in TF. Rather than complex stat copying, just let me stick my Red Sword of Courage into my Thunderfury and gain the stats, with the exception of weapon DPS which it would disable and replace. This would cause the socketed legendary to have slightly higher stats than the socket weapon (ooh, watch out of my extra agility and resistances!), but I think that is almost insignificant.
While scaling legendaries would work to my advantage, I think it would be counter-productive.
I personally saw that people were burnt out on MC. I had a hard time getting fun runs and ultimately learned to solo the bosses (though both bindings dropped while I was in groups). If MC became a requirement, even just in the sense of being an alternate progression path, I can see a lot of people feeling forced into it. While I think MC is still fun, most people seem to disagree and I think it would be terrible to 'force' people into it again.
Scaling would tend to dilute the legendary-ness of legendaries. They would become far more common and would be little more than another piece of gear to collect. As they are now they are rare and for the most part, useless except for appearances. As strange as it sounds, uselessness is one of the most special things in this game where people are so quick to jump on the easiest, best gear as soon as they can.
Forcing people into old content and turning legendaries into another piece of gear to farm would be terrible. It is unfortunate that people rarely do the old raids, but it's difficult to add incentives for old raids without create a sense of them being mandatory.
I wrote the previous part of this a couple hours ago. Since then I've warmed a bit to the idea. However the balance issues remain. If it scaled like an heirloom item then it would be outdated anyway, since heirloom items are slightly worse than equivalent blues. The scaling could be bumped up, but then it's starting to give gear rewards just for leveling up while the heirloom items are intended to make leveling easier rather than make leveling a replacement for instances and quests in terms of gear acquisition.
I thought of other scaling methods. One was to make them 10-15 ilevels behind the current BiS. However this means that they would get stronger just because a new raid came out and that makes no sense. They could scale with anticipated BiS for the expansion and then be further behind, but this would mean making them exceptionally powerful early on, and then Blizzard would be forced into a set gear range or else the weapon would end up either too powerful or too weak compared to the original intent.
Finally I settled on scaling with a current chosen weapon. This would use an idea I've seen floating around the forums: stat copying. Take a current weapon and map its stats onto the legendary, replacing current stats with the exception of any strange abilities such as the TF proc, Sulfuras proc, Atiesh on-use (and group buff), or the set bonus on warglaives (though they're not really legendary). This would allow players to use pre-existingg legendaries without gimping stats without giving the perception that legendaries are a requirement. The legendary itself would be effectively an aesthetic item rather than another stat carrot to chase.
Unfortunately that idea would probably be very hard to implement. While I'd love to see it, in the grand scheme of things its probably not worth the effort to implement.
My goal is to find a middle ground. I would like to see legendaries still used. However I don't want to see people forced into doing MC again. By stats I think legendaries should not be special, it should be by the way they are acquired (damn you, warglaives), appearance, and the special effects on them which cannot be found elsewhere. Perhaps the biggest split I have with people is that they think that legendary means eternally best in slight while I think they should be eternally cool and perhaps useful, but not at the expense of new gear.
I suppose I should apologize for the many posts about legendary stuff recently. I probably sound like I'm bragging. I assure you, only two of the posts are for bragging purposes (okay fine, that's still two too many). The rest are just ideas that came up because I was playing with my TF and thought of them. Or this one which was inspired by the forums as sometimes happens.
[edit: added sometime later, I don't know what time this site uses]
My latest thought would be to imitate gemming. Add a weapon socket to legendaries which would fit anything of that weapon size or below: so a 2h can fit anything, a 1h can only fit other 1h weapons; so no putting a betrayer of humanity in TF. Rather than complex stat copying, just let me stick my Red Sword of Courage into my Thunderfury and gain the stats, with the exception of weapon DPS which it would disable and replace. This would cause the socketed legendary to have slightly higher stats than the socket weapon (ooh, watch out of my extra agility and resistances!), but I think that is almost insignificant.
Dual specs and loot
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Monday, March 9, 2009
I'm going to work off the assumption that "mainspec before offspec" will remain. The thing to change is how we define main and off.
This may vary with the server or individual, so please keep in mind that this is just my own experience. However for purposes of being better than everyone else, I will assume that my experience is the right one and everyone else is doing it wrong.
What is a main spec?
In a PUG, it is the spec you came as, with the exception of respeccing specifically for the run.
In an organized group, either with a guild or friends, it is your most common spec. It may be a spec that defines your character.
What is an off spec?
Anything other than the main spec.
I propose that a new spec type will come to exist: secondary spec.
Main spec will remain the most common spec, a sort of RP-based identity, what you are most comfortable playing or that your guild expects you to play.
The secondary spec will be the alternate spec. You'll play it and you can become it in five seconds, but it's not your main. It will be a middle ground between the current main and off; closer to main, but not quite.
Offspec will be the third (or fourth, fifth, sixth... hybrids need decimal specs). It is not something that you can easily switch to, having the cost you see now when respeccing, but it will be more unusual than it is now since 5 second and free will be the new standard for role-switching.
Secondary specs may eliminate the current exception on mainspec before offspec: respeccing for the group. Now people are unlikely to fully respec and so it's hard to really say to outsiders what is main. I think PUG loot is going to start going by current spec without "I respecced for you, let me roll like my main spec."
In guilds, main specs will go first, then secondary, then offspec. If I am prot/holy and you're prot/ret, I win on holy gear, you win on ret, we are equal on prot.
This may vary with the server or individual, so please keep in mind that this is just my own experience. However for purposes of being better than everyone else, I will assume that my experience is the right one and everyone else is doing it wrong.
What is a main spec?
In a PUG, it is the spec you came as, with the exception of respeccing specifically for the run.
In an organized group, either with a guild or friends, it is your most common spec. It may be a spec that defines your character.
What is an off spec?
Anything other than the main spec.
I propose that a new spec type will come to exist: secondary spec.
Main spec will remain the most common spec, a sort of RP-based identity, what you are most comfortable playing or that your guild expects you to play.
The secondary spec will be the alternate spec. You'll play it and you can become it in five seconds, but it's not your main. It will be a middle ground between the current main and off; closer to main, but not quite.
Offspec will be the third (or fourth, fifth, sixth... hybrids need decimal specs). It is not something that you can easily switch to, having the cost you see now when respeccing, but it will be more unusual than it is now since 5 second and free will be the new standard for role-switching.
Secondary specs may eliminate the current exception on mainspec before offspec: respeccing for the group. Now people are unlikely to fully respec and so it's hard to really say to outsiders what is main. I think PUG loot is going to start going by current spec without "I respecced for you, let me roll like my main spec."
In guilds, main specs will go first, then secondary, then offspec. If I am prot/holy and you're prot/ret, I win on holy gear, you win on ret, we are equal on prot.
New BG: CoT: BRM
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Friday, March 6, 2009
Acronym land!
New battleground: Caverns of Time: Blackrock Mountain.
For those of you who weren't around for vanilla WoW or were on a PvE server and might not have noticed: Blackrock Mountain was a natural PvP area. Until the release of Ahn'Qiraj, there were only two 40-man raids: Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. Both were reached through Blackrock Mountain. There was also a level 55+ instance which people ran frequently to get FR gear for those raids: Blackrock Depths. Finally there was Blackrock Spire, which was effectively two instance: Upper and Lower, both 58-60. The general idea is that two raids and three of 6 or so end-game instances were all in once place.
The result is that everything from 5 mans heading to BRD, 10 mans for LBRS, 15s for UBRS, or even 40s for the raids, are all going through a single area. Even better, they were effectively channeled to a single spot within the mountain, a rock that connects to a chain: up is BWL and BRS, down is BRD and MC. It was not unusual to see constant fighting, ranging from 8 people to 80. Or more.
Like I said, natural PvP. I don't think Blizzard tried to do this. It was too perfect to be intentional.
Bring it back, in a battleground. The idea is originally by Iapetes, but he was talking to me and I'm the person with rose-colored glasses, so I stole it.
The general idea is that each side starts at a doorway and then rushes for the raids. Then they try to capture them as you would a tower in EotS. The new part is that capturing a raid and holding it for a certain amount of time gives stat boosts, reflecting the increased gear. However it can't just be a zerg to the best spots. If you only have low gear, you will take longer to capture an instance. The idea is that initial fights would be over BRD, but the loser might jump to LBRS/UBRS and try to get a leg up. After that it's a huge fight over MC. Again, the loser can retaliate because even after getting MC, the winner will still need UBRS and, should they happen to lose BRD, they will more easily lose MC. The idea is to mimic the old progression and to also add some complex strategy.
Oh yea, and don't forget the risks of dueling on a narrow chain down to BRD and MC. If you're brave, try the lava. Priests, welcome to the glory days of mind control.
You can get any raid or instance at any time, but there are buffs to speed it up.
BRD speeds up MC caps.
BRS speeds up BWL caps.
All of them give gear which will give its own small increase to capping speed but is most useful for the fighting. The higher the instance, the faster the gear comes in the order of BRD < BRS < MC < BWL.
Just as holding an area speeds up caps, not holding it speeds up losses (duh) but also slows the gear gain from the higher area. So don't think you're going to grab BWL and MC and live it easy, not having BRD and BRS will prove to be your undoing.
If this is too complex, just run around killing people, it's what most people do in the other BGs anyway.
New battleground: Caverns of Time: Blackrock Mountain.
For those of you who weren't around for vanilla WoW or were on a PvE server and might not have noticed: Blackrock Mountain was a natural PvP area. Until the release of Ahn'Qiraj, there were only two 40-man raids: Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. Both were reached through Blackrock Mountain. There was also a level 55+ instance which people ran frequently to get FR gear for those raids: Blackrock Depths. Finally there was Blackrock Spire, which was effectively two instance: Upper and Lower, both 58-60. The general idea is that two raids and three of 6 or so end-game instances were all in once place.
The result is that everything from 5 mans heading to BRD, 10 mans for LBRS, 15s for UBRS, or even 40s for the raids, are all going through a single area. Even better, they were effectively channeled to a single spot within the mountain, a rock that connects to a chain: up is BWL and BRS, down is BRD and MC. It was not unusual to see constant fighting, ranging from 8 people to 80. Or more.
Like I said, natural PvP. I don't think Blizzard tried to do this. It was too perfect to be intentional.
Bring it back, in a battleground. The idea is originally by Iapetes, but he was talking to me and I'm the person with rose-colored glasses, so I stole it.
The general idea is that each side starts at a doorway and then rushes for the raids. Then they try to capture them as you would a tower in EotS. The new part is that capturing a raid and holding it for a certain amount of time gives stat boosts, reflecting the increased gear. However it can't just be a zerg to the best spots. If you only have low gear, you will take longer to capture an instance. The idea is that initial fights would be over BRD, but the loser might jump to LBRS/UBRS and try to get a leg up. After that it's a huge fight over MC. Again, the loser can retaliate because even after getting MC, the winner will still need UBRS and, should they happen to lose BRD, they will more easily lose MC. The idea is to mimic the old progression and to also add some complex strategy.
Oh yea, and don't forget the risks of dueling on a narrow chain down to BRD and MC. If you're brave, try the lava. Priests, welcome to the glory days of mind control.
You can get any raid or instance at any time, but there are buffs to speed it up.
BRD speeds up MC caps.
BRS speeds up BWL caps.
All of them give gear which will give its own small increase to capping speed but is most useful for the fighting. The higher the instance, the faster the gear comes in the order of BRD < BRS < MC < BWL.
Just as holding an area speeds up caps, not holding it speeds up losses (duh) but also slows the gear gain from the higher area. So don't think you're going to grab BWL and MC and live it easy, not having BRD and BRS will prove to be your undoing.
If this is too complex, just run around killing people, it's what most people do in the other BGs anyway.
Thunderfury AoE mitigation
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Obviously Thunderfury is an avoidance loss over a newer tanking weapon, however I see some potential for it as a mitigation weapon. The proc can be triggered by hammer of the righteous, hitting secondary targets. This means that the attack speed debuff can be on multiple targets at a time, even without switching targets.
I suppose it would be possible to theorycraft this. Compare the avoidance and block loss to the proc chance, the chance that it will hit a new target, and the anit-haste (which has the added benefit of causing HS charges to not get burned through so fast). Unfortunately this is a bit beyond my abilities. Maybe I can finally get recount and make it work properly and do some comparisons.
Or I'll forget and just keep using TF for style points. On that subject, why are people so obsessed with stats that they'll freak out over a weird item here or there? Sure TF is inferior to a new tanking weapon, but is it enough to make a difference? It's like they say: "Good tanking comes from happy tanks, and happy tanks have toys."
I suppose it would be possible to theorycraft this. Compare the avoidance and block loss to the proc chance, the chance that it will hit a new target, and the anit-haste (which has the added benefit of causing HS charges to not get burned through so fast). Unfortunately this is a bit beyond my abilities. Maybe I can finally get recount and make it work properly and do some comparisons.
Or I'll forget and just keep using TF for style points. On that subject, why are people so obsessed with stats that they'll freak out over a weird item here or there? Sure TF is inferior to a new tanking weapon, but is it enough to make a difference? It's like they say: "Good tanking comes from happy tanks, and happy tanks have toys."
Prince Thunderaan
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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
I killed him and took his stuff.
I would like to thank the former members of Word of Redemption for joining me in MC over a year ago. That day Garr dropped the first binding I'd ever seen and the raid told me to take it.
I'd like to say rude things to the idiots that left because they claimed the guild was on an old world kick or something like that. Obviously one person starting a raid on a non-raid night is the same as guild direction.
Bank alts of Zul'jin, thank you for your contributions, including holding onto ore for three years in one case.
To anyone that was mad that they didn't get to be there, I'm sorry. I'd expected some amount of enthusiasm and found almost none. I wasn't in the mood for filling gchat with advertisements, especially not after I would try old world raids and get people arguing about it being a waste of time. After that it's hard to go looking for people.
I have a video of it, though it will need some editing to shorten it. I spent a bit of time near the end just maintaining health as best I could while waiting for a friend to get back online since I thought he might want to see the achievement. Eventually I had to finish off the last 500 health or die. I wasn't eager to see what happens if I die on him, such as the chain bugging out.
Maybe there's something to learn from this. Maybe orange text is somehow corrupting and makes people do mean things without realizing it. Maybe I'd have been better off never seeing that binding drop last winter.
I would like to thank the former members of Word of Redemption for joining me in MC over a year ago. That day Garr dropped the first binding I'd ever seen and the raid told me to take it.
I'd like to say rude things to the idiots that left because they claimed the guild was on an old world kick or something like that. Obviously one person starting a raid on a non-raid night is the same as guild direction.
Bank alts of Zul'jin, thank you for your contributions, including holding onto ore for three years in one case.
To anyone that was mad that they didn't get to be there, I'm sorry. I'd expected some amount of enthusiasm and found almost none. I wasn't in the mood for filling gchat with advertisements, especially not after I would try old world raids and get people arguing about it being a waste of time. After that it's hard to go looking for people.
I have a video of it, though it will need some editing to shorten it. I spent a bit of time near the end just maintaining health as best I could while waiting for a friend to get back online since I thought he might want to see the achievement. Eventually I had to finish off the last 500 health or die. I wasn't eager to see what happens if I die on him, such as the chain bugging out.
Maybe there's something to learn from this. Maybe orange text is somehow corrupting and makes people do mean things without realizing it. Maybe I'd have been better off never seeing that binding drop last winter.
Today's PvE
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Sunday, March 1, 2009
CoT achievement
Amazingly I found a CoT group that wasn't doing a timed run. So I ran with them for Zombiefest. The trick to it was to run normally until the second boss. Drag him into the inn and then wait for the zombies to all respawn. Kill him. When Arthas arrives, carry on as normal until the gauntlet and then stop. The tank then runs around the start area to round up every zombie, taking care to not kill them. Run back to the gauntlet and pull a few more zombies, 10-20 should be enough. AoE them all down and there you go.
Well, I did it wrong. I completely outran the zombies and pulled too much of the gauntlet. I'd been very clear about doing nothing, not even healing, until I said. So, I was dying. I yelled for heals, and got the, just in tome for the 85 zombies at the start to arrive. It's best to let them catch up a bit before pulling the gauntlet rather than having them show up 15 seconds late and beat the crap out of your healer before you can react. But I lived and despite thinking I'd failed my group, we got the achievement.
OS 10
Skill karma caught up with me and just as my mistakes killed my healer, so did the OS 10 PUG kill me. Apparently no one knew the drakes, so we wiped. Also despite having two warriors in the group, one prot one DPS, meaning battle shout > untalented BoM, the shaman kept demanding might. We tried to explain that BS was better. He said they stack. After a bit of people spamming to give him might I threatened to stab the RL: "I will put sharp things in you" and he said not to give him (meaning the resto druid RL) might. I was too confused to be annoyed. Then the spoils and bag were mislooted (someone got spoils instead of the bag). I walked out with T7 gloves (made them into holy),my first OS 10 kill, and my first time tanking either mode.
AQ40
I was feeling ambitious and was still hated with the Brood of Nozdormu, so I did what any sensible person would do: went and did a raid that isn't two (three?) years old and instead did something worthwhile. Sorry, I mean I started a AQ40 PUG. It all went very well until Twin Emps. We skipped the optional bosses due to frost shock being our only frost spell and me forgetting that the bug trio exists (I later learned that I cannot solo them).
I tanked the left side, doing both caster and melee since we had very few tanks. The other side was supposed to be filled by a warrior and warlock. Unfortunately the warlock didn't know how to tank the caster, which in retrospect was probably because I never really told him. Oops. A few wipes ensued, many involving rogues spamming fan of knives into the scarabs (after I said no AoEs) and eventually a rupture (after I said no DoTs) causing major melee tanking problems (port->beeline to other side). Eventually they died after I had a DK tanking caster on the left with me tanking both on the right, though halfway in I had to send the fury warrior to go tank caster left because the DK couldn't get aggro. Yay dead things. I'll skip to the fun part...
C'thun's room: someone runs in, it chains to most of the raid, mostly wiping us.
Hunter feigns. Okay all good now? I pop SS. He sends in his pet to "finish it off." I die again. Due to not knowing about the sneaky dragons near the first boss, I run all the way back, having everyone else stay put so they don't get lost. We wipe again due to total fail involving eye beams. Then another time. I remember that it's bugged and shoots out the back as well. We start advertising for the last boss and get zerged with players. We go in with 20 people and down him in only a couple minutes, including the start of phase two doing raid-wise probably double-digit DPS. I then was blinded by the sight of 20 people getting the AQ40 achievement at the same time.
Unrelated News
In unrelated news I found another ore on the AH for 400g, so I'm at 5/10 ore. Trade chat turned up very little except someone that tried to charge 1000g each and then said I'd go no ore when I pointed out the two on the AH for 500g. I did eventually find someone who claimed to have a friend with a ton of ore for 500g each. I'll probably settle for that if my next BWL run isn't a finisher (5 ore in one run is pretty unlikely). Within a week I may be waving a legendary around and getting yelled at by guildies for wearing the wrong gear, because it will be paired with a few pieces of judgement, a force reactive disk, and a crown of destruction. But it's okay! I'll still be well-geared in my mind. Poor, poor healers...
On the subject of gold, I finally got back into the economy, selling off probably 1000g worth of various mats. Then someone traded all my titansteel for mats and 25g (each, 13 total), so that will keep me occupied for two weeks. Maybe this is why I'm so willing to drop 2500g for a pretty toy. I suppose that's cheaper than my mechano-hog.
I'm not sure what changed over the past few days, but WoW just seems to be fun again. Perhaps it's just luck that people are doing the kind of stuff I like: old raids and silly achievements.
Amazingly I found a CoT group that wasn't doing a timed run. So I ran with them for Zombiefest. The trick to it was to run normally until the second boss. Drag him into the inn and then wait for the zombies to all respawn. Kill him. When Arthas arrives, carry on as normal until the gauntlet and then stop. The tank then runs around the start area to round up every zombie, taking care to not kill them. Run back to the gauntlet and pull a few more zombies, 10-20 should be enough. AoE them all down and there you go.
Well, I did it wrong. I completely outran the zombies and pulled too much of the gauntlet. I'd been very clear about doing nothing, not even healing, until I said. So, I was dying. I yelled for heals, and got the, just in tome for the 85 zombies at the start to arrive. It's best to let them catch up a bit before pulling the gauntlet rather than having them show up 15 seconds late and beat the crap out of your healer before you can react. But I lived and despite thinking I'd failed my group, we got the achievement.
OS 10
Skill karma caught up with me and just as my mistakes killed my healer, so did the OS 10 PUG kill me. Apparently no one knew the drakes, so we wiped. Also despite having two warriors in the group, one prot one DPS, meaning battle shout > untalented BoM, the shaman kept demanding might. We tried to explain that BS was better. He said they stack. After a bit of people spamming to give him might I threatened to stab the RL: "I will put sharp things in you" and he said not to give him (meaning the resto druid RL) might. I was too confused to be annoyed. Then the spoils and bag were mislooted (someone got spoils instead of the bag). I walked out with T7 gloves (made them into holy),my first OS 10 kill, and my first time tanking either mode.
AQ40
I was feeling ambitious and was still hated with the Brood of Nozdormu, so I did what any sensible person would do: went and did a raid that isn't two (three?) years old and instead did something worthwhile. Sorry, I mean I started a AQ40 PUG. It all went very well until Twin Emps. We skipped the optional bosses due to frost shock being our only frost spell and me forgetting that the bug trio exists (I later learned that I cannot solo them).
I tanked the left side, doing both caster and melee since we had very few tanks. The other side was supposed to be filled by a warrior and warlock. Unfortunately the warlock didn't know how to tank the caster, which in retrospect was probably because I never really told him. Oops. A few wipes ensued, many involving rogues spamming fan of knives into the scarabs (after I said no AoEs) and eventually a rupture (after I said no DoTs) causing major melee tanking problems (port->beeline to other side). Eventually they died after I had a DK tanking caster on the left with me tanking both on the right, though halfway in I had to send the fury warrior to go tank caster left because the DK couldn't get aggro. Yay dead things. I'll skip to the fun part...
C'thun's room: someone runs in, it chains to most of the raid, mostly wiping us.
Hunter feigns. Okay all good now? I pop SS. He sends in his pet to "finish it off." I die again. Due to not knowing about the sneaky dragons near the first boss, I run all the way back, having everyone else stay put so they don't get lost. We wipe again due to total fail involving eye beams. Then another time. I remember that it's bugged and shoots out the back as well. We start advertising for the last boss and get zerged with players. We go in with 20 people and down him in only a couple minutes, including the start of phase two doing raid-wise probably double-digit DPS. I then was blinded by the sight of 20 people getting the AQ40 achievement at the same time.
Unrelated News
In unrelated news I found another ore on the AH for 400g, so I'm at 5/10 ore. Trade chat turned up very little except someone that tried to charge 1000g each and then said I'd go no ore when I pointed out the two on the AH for 500g. I did eventually find someone who claimed to have a friend with a ton of ore for 500g each. I'll probably settle for that if my next BWL run isn't a finisher (5 ore in one run is pretty unlikely). Within a week I may be waving a legendary around and getting yelled at by guildies for wearing the wrong gear, because it will be paired with a few pieces of judgement, a force reactive disk, and a crown of destruction. But it's okay! I'll still be well-geared in my mind. Poor, poor healers...
On the subject of gold, I finally got back into the economy, selling off probably 1000g worth of various mats. Then someone traded all my titansteel for mats and 25g (each, 13 total), so that will keep me occupied for two weeks. Maybe this is why I'm so willing to drop 2500g for a pretty toy. I suppose that's cheaper than my mechano-hog.
I'm not sure what changed over the past few days, but WoW just seems to be fun again. Perhaps it's just luck that people are doing the kind of stuff I like: old raids and silly achievements.
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