LFR - Looking for raid, or as I like to call it, Looking for retards, is here and with it comes a whole new bucket of drama to go with it.
I was extremely skeptical about the idea of LFR from the moment it was announced. The idea that a random assortment of 25 people could clear a raid instance just sounded ludicrous, especially when I still saw varying degrees of failure in just 5 man dungeons.
The saving grace was that the LFR would be "tuned down" to better accommodate the randomness factor of 25 players. I was still skeptical - so what if they decreased health and damage output? Mechanics are really what kills you. Honestly, how many times do you wipe to enrage timers? It's that ground AoE you didn't interrupt, or that add you didn't kill that blows up your raid.
Anyways, I gave it a try - as much as I hate this fact, there are upgrades in terms of item level. It pisses me off to see people walking around in raid finder gear that equals my hard-earned Firelands gear I got from Ragnaros, but if I can't stop others from getting that gear, then I want it too!
I gave LFR a few runs and understood exactly how it was all possible. You see, they didn't just tune down the HP and damage, they actually completely removed some of the raid-wiping mechanics. Don't get me wrong - the damage nerf is significant, but it's the removal of crucial raid mechanics that make the fights so trivial.
For example on Warlord Zon'ozz, the ball-bouncing mechanic that cost our guild 10+ wipes to learn, is completely negated by the fact that:
1. A tight stack is not required as the explosion radius is very large (hence damage is soaked by everyone whether they are close or not)
2. The ball automatically hits the boss after a certain number of bounces
So basically, a fight that requires high awareness and good positioning on normal raid mode, becomes a downright tank-n-spank fight in LFR.
Another good example is Ultraxion. Most of the mechanics are the same except that there is no requirement for anyone to soak Hour of Twilight. And from what I've seen, even if you're hit by it, it does not kill you. In addition, the fading light debuff only hits the tanks. The complicated taunt rotation and timing required to beat the enrage timer on normal mode is pretty much gone.
On Spine of Deathwing, the kill-stack-roll maneuver to take care of the corruptions is no longer there. I actually got yelled at for killing all the tentacles because apparently on raid finder difficulty, you only need to kill one. I found it kind of ironic that someone would call me a "noob" for this mistake - I was just doing what I'm used to doing on the ACTUAL ENCOUNTER as opposed to a watered-down child level version of it, which apparently makes me a noob.
On the few LFR runs that I've tried, my DPS has been #1 from start to finish. I'm not the best rogue from a hardcore guild nor am I decked out in full heroic T13. I'm an average-geared rogue from an average-progressed raiding guild. The fact that no one even comes within ~3k of my DPS says something about the average damage output of the players in LFR.
I expected a healthy mix of good and bad players - good players who do raid with a guild, but want to fill some gaps in their gear through LFR, and bad players who're looking to the LFR as a quick and easy way to upgrade their gear. What I found was a sadly skewed ratio of more bad than good. In terms of pure DPS, the players I found were not my equals. In terms of raid awareness, I saw at least 2-3 idiots on each fight attacking the wrong targets or not moving out of AoE.
Despite all this, some runs were better than others in the sense that people were relatively polite, did not make a stink about loot, or berate others. Some runs were terrible and made me feel like I was in a Zaldalaris all over again. It's amazing how that one player who is even slightly better (or thinks is better) than his peers wants to vote kick someone who did 0.2% less damage. Or that healer who calls all the DPS garbage and yet doesn't even have a shadow spec to prove he could do any better.
The loot RNG was another big source of grief too. More than once I saw that guy pulling 9k DPS win both the tier tokens and ring I wanted. More than once I saw people ninjaing for their off specs. And once I was even booted (along with 4 other rogues and mages) because someone didn't want competition for their tier tokens.
Overall, I see it as a cheapened experience of actual raiding. The challenge isn't there, the teamwork and fun of downing a hard boss isn't there, and the only thing that is even marginally there are the rewards, which everyone immediately squabbles over.
Will I still run it? Probably, because I need to complete my 4 piece one way or another. But as soon as I don't have to, I won't. It's not satisfying and I find it no less aggravating than running a few 5-mans to get that valor.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
It's my time to shine
The big source of QQing among the general populace has been the introduction of the new legendary. Why the complaints? Unlike any of the previous legendaries, this one is 100% class-specific. You MUST be a rogue to obtain and use this legendary set of daggers.
Sure, Thunderfury was unavailable to some folks (Actually I think besides druids, shamans and priests everyone was able to at least meet the weapon proficiency) - even if it was useless for a mage or something, he could at least use it just for bragging rights. There was no specific flavor text excluding folks like that.
Then came along other legendaries such as Atiesh and Warglaives of Azzinoth which specifically limited the legendary to certain classes. But the point is that it's always been more than one class - Atiesh was open to druids, mages, priests and warlocks, for example. Thori'dal, the legendary bow, clearly was intended for Hunters, but rogues and warriors COULD technically get it (despite the criticism some guilds received for doing so).
Well, the Fangs of the Father is rogue-specific. I don't care if warriors and hunters and shamans can use it too. You're not a rogue, you can't even get the quest.
There was a tense couple of weeks (at least for me) after the announcement of the rogue legendary where I wondered if I was going to get it or not. Legendaries are almost impossible to complete without the backing of an entire guild, as it requires multiple raid clears to collect the quest items. My status in the guild at this time was a little uncertain, as I had recently come back from a 6-month absence during which time I raided with a different guild. There were extenuating circumstances to be sure, but let's just say that there were certainly more loyal guild members than myself who did not jump ship.
Anyways, I was welcomed back with open arms and I filled a gap in the roster (namely melee DPS). I also made it clear that I was totally fine with sitting out on raids - I came back for the friendships, not to be a loot whore. I was also so overcome with gratitude for being allowed back that I damn near flooded the gbank with herbs and fish to help out with the raid supplies, and continue to do so on a regular basis.
Despite my best efforts to show the guild that I was loyal and willing to contribute, whether the guild would back me up on getting the legendary was another story. I think the deciding factor, really, was that there was simply no other rogue to give it to. I was the only main rogue, and while people had alt rogues and such, not one of the were even on the backup raid roster. I think even the veterans in the guild would've agreed that giving the legendary to an alt rogue would have been somewhat unfair.
So about a month before the new patch dropping, I did get a pesudo-confirmation that I was to receive the guild's help in getting the legendary. Woohoo! Step 1 complete.
I scoured information from the PTR related to the legendary questline and it looked pretty fun, and thankfully required minimal participation from the whole guild other than just downing bosses. Apparently there was some real roguish quests involved, requiring you to pickpocket, sap, stealth, and sneak your way into the heart of enemy territory.
As soon as the patch hit we ventured into the new raid, where I was to pickpocket the 4th boss to start off the legendary questline. The first 4 bosses were a breeze and I pickpocketed, turned it in, paid 10,000g for the next step in the quest, and waited 12 hours (also part of quest).
The next part had be stealth my way into Ravenholdt manor, which was very easy. I simply sapped and sprinted my way through the whole thing. After a pretty cool little cutscene where Deathwing's son propositions me, I made my way to the ruins of Gilneas city where I was to repeat the whole sneaking process.
Oh boy, was this one hard. I had read on the PTR forums that it was easy, but apparently they tripled the number of guards or something. The entire city was crawling with mobs, with every corner thickly covered with patrols and idle guards.
I tried my best, but after about 10 attempts where I got no further than halfway in, I gave up! I'm ashamed to admit that I used a trick where you fly in part-way, jump down, and re-stealth to get credit. I guess you can say that a rogue uses all the tricks up her sleeve to get the job done, so in a way it's ok? Whatever, I still don't feel good about it, and if I had another chance I'd like to go back and try to do it without exploits. But the thing was, I only had one night to get this done before the raid went back into Dragon Soul and I didn't want to miss any chances of getting the gem clusters (of which I need 333 for the next part of the quest).
After that, I had to solo an elite-level boss. I was checking my bags to make sure I had enough potions, bandages and whatnot, when I see an alliance rogue come up an engage the boss! It was the same rogue who I had seen wiping over and over to this guy (as evidenced by how many times he had to rez at the questgiver each time). I knew it wasn't quite fair, but I ran in and helped out, and we ended up 2-manning it pretty easily. I normally don't help ally scum, but hey you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
We both emoted /thank to each other, turned in our quests, and now I'm the proud owner of the stage 1 dagger set of Fangs of the Father, the Jaws of Retribution: Fear and Vengeance. Wow, that is a very long title.
These babies are very, VERY nice. It gives you a stacking agility buff which is amazing (basically +100 agility for any fight longer than a minute). I'm pretty sure they're the sole reason why I suddenly skyrocketed to the top of the DPS meters during last night's raid. Let's just say there's a certain warlock whom I've never outDPSed up till now...and last night he was a good ~3000 DPS behind me!
One rather unfortunate thing about this legendary questline is that any rogue, and I mean ANY old scrub rogue, can get the stage 1 daggers. Since it doesn't actually require a raid boss kill (just pickpocket, which resets after a wipe anyways), a rogue can simply pay another guild to just come in for a few minutes at the 4th boss and get the item. The rest of the sneaking, etc, can be soloed.
This has led to a lot of people either asking in trade chat to come pickpocket, or raid leaders advertising that they're willing to let rogues come pickpocket for a fee. This has not been banned or anything yet, so it looks like pretty soon you'll see rogues everyone run around with the Jaws of Retribution.
At least with Dragonwrath, the previous tier legendary, you had to clear ~30 bosses in firelands before you could even get the stage 1 item. With this, however, all you need is some cash and maybe a friend who's in a raiding guild. Sigh.
Oh well, at least the stage 2 doesn't look like a terribly long grind. I'm already up to 51/333 shadowy gems. Looks like the drop rate is about 4-7 per boss, so at this rate I should have the stage 2 daggers, Maws of Oblivion, in about 6 weeks or so.
Legendary, here I come!
Sure, Thunderfury was unavailable to some folks (Actually I think besides druids, shamans and priests everyone was able to at least meet the weapon proficiency) - even if it was useless for a mage or something, he could at least use it just for bragging rights. There was no specific flavor text excluding folks like that.
Then came along other legendaries such as Atiesh and Warglaives of Azzinoth which specifically limited the legendary to certain classes. But the point is that it's always been more than one class - Atiesh was open to druids, mages, priests and warlocks, for example. Thori'dal, the legendary bow, clearly was intended for Hunters, but rogues and warriors COULD technically get it (despite the criticism some guilds received for doing so).
Well, the Fangs of the Father is rogue-specific. I don't care if warriors and hunters and shamans can use it too. You're not a rogue, you can't even get the quest.
There was a tense couple of weeks (at least for me) after the announcement of the rogue legendary where I wondered if I was going to get it or not. Legendaries are almost impossible to complete without the backing of an entire guild, as it requires multiple raid clears to collect the quest items. My status in the guild at this time was a little uncertain, as I had recently come back from a 6-month absence during which time I raided with a different guild. There were extenuating circumstances to be sure, but let's just say that there were certainly more loyal guild members than myself who did not jump ship.
Anyways, I was welcomed back with open arms and I filled a gap in the roster (namely melee DPS). I also made it clear that I was totally fine with sitting out on raids - I came back for the friendships, not to be a loot whore. I was also so overcome with gratitude for being allowed back that I damn near flooded the gbank with herbs and fish to help out with the raid supplies, and continue to do so on a regular basis.
Despite my best efforts to show the guild that I was loyal and willing to contribute, whether the guild would back me up on getting the legendary was another story. I think the deciding factor, really, was that there was simply no other rogue to give it to. I was the only main rogue, and while people had alt rogues and such, not one of the were even on the backup raid roster. I think even the veterans in the guild would've agreed that giving the legendary to an alt rogue would have been somewhat unfair.
So about a month before the new patch dropping, I did get a pesudo-confirmation that I was to receive the guild's help in getting the legendary. Woohoo! Step 1 complete.
I scoured information from the PTR related to the legendary questline and it looked pretty fun, and thankfully required minimal participation from the whole guild other than just downing bosses. Apparently there was some real roguish quests involved, requiring you to pickpocket, sap, stealth, and sneak your way into the heart of enemy territory.
As soon as the patch hit we ventured into the new raid, where I was to pickpocket the 4th boss to start off the legendary questline. The first 4 bosses were a breeze and I pickpocketed, turned it in, paid 10,000g for the next step in the quest, and waited 12 hours (also part of quest).
The next part had be stealth my way into Ravenholdt manor, which was very easy. I simply sapped and sprinted my way through the whole thing. After a pretty cool little cutscene where Deathwing's son propositions me, I made my way to the ruins of Gilneas city where I was to repeat the whole sneaking process.
Oh boy, was this one hard. I had read on the PTR forums that it was easy, but apparently they tripled the number of guards or something. The entire city was crawling with mobs, with every corner thickly covered with patrols and idle guards.
I tried my best, but after about 10 attempts where I got no further than halfway in, I gave up! I'm ashamed to admit that I used a trick where you fly in part-way, jump down, and re-stealth to get credit. I guess you can say that a rogue uses all the tricks up her sleeve to get the job done, so in a way it's ok? Whatever, I still don't feel good about it, and if I had another chance I'd like to go back and try to do it without exploits. But the thing was, I only had one night to get this done before the raid went back into Dragon Soul and I didn't want to miss any chances of getting the gem clusters (of which I need 333 for the next part of the quest).
After that, I had to solo an elite-level boss. I was checking my bags to make sure I had enough potions, bandages and whatnot, when I see an alliance rogue come up an engage the boss! It was the same rogue who I had seen wiping over and over to this guy (as evidenced by how many times he had to rez at the questgiver each time). I knew it wasn't quite fair, but I ran in and helped out, and we ended up 2-manning it pretty easily. I normally don't help ally scum, but hey you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
We both emoted /thank to each other, turned in our quests, and now I'm the proud owner of the stage 1 dagger set of Fangs of the Father, the Jaws of Retribution: Fear and Vengeance. Wow, that is a very long title.
These babies are very, VERY nice. It gives you a stacking agility buff which is amazing (basically +100 agility for any fight longer than a minute). I'm pretty sure they're the sole reason why I suddenly skyrocketed to the top of the DPS meters during last night's raid. Let's just say there's a certain warlock whom I've never outDPSed up till now...and last night he was a good ~3000 DPS behind me!
One rather unfortunate thing about this legendary questline is that any rogue, and I mean ANY old scrub rogue, can get the stage 1 daggers. Since it doesn't actually require a raid boss kill (just pickpocket, which resets after a wipe anyways), a rogue can simply pay another guild to just come in for a few minutes at the 4th boss and get the item. The rest of the sneaking, etc, can be soloed.
This has led to a lot of people either asking in trade chat to come pickpocket, or raid leaders advertising that they're willing to let rogues come pickpocket for a fee. This has not been banned or anything yet, so it looks like pretty soon you'll see rogues everyone run around with the Jaws of Retribution.
At least with Dragonwrath, the previous tier legendary, you had to clear ~30 bosses in firelands before you could even get the stage 1 item. With this, however, all you need is some cash and maybe a friend who's in a raiding guild. Sigh.
Oh well, at least the stage 2 doesn't look like a terribly long grind. I'm already up to 51/333 shadowy gems. Looks like the drop rate is about 4-7 per boss, so at this rate I should have the stage 2 daggers, Maws of Oblivion, in about 6 weeks or so.
Legendary, here I come!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Patch 4.3: Hour of Twilight
The title of the patch is apt, since an hour is about all it takes to see the new major content.
Mind you, I'm not complaining. I love the three new heroics they added in. Each take no more than 20-30 min to run (my record is 15 min in an all-guild run), the mechanics are interesting (yet not so punishing as the Zul's), and the rewards are very nice.
Are they a little too easy? For sure. On my rogue the content is almost trivial. Mobs die so quickly that I can actually just stunlock them for 8-10 seconds and they die silently without ever getting to hit the tank. On my priest it's less trivial, but still quiet easy - let's just say that I've yet to go oom on a pull.
End Time is probably my favorite, since you can literally finish the whole instance in under 20 minutes with a good group and the right combination of bosses. Baine, Sylvannas and Jaina can be killed with no more than 2 trash pulls each. The only one that forces you to pull multiple trash packs is Tyrande, and already that one is becoming everyone's most hated boss.
Murozond is, I think, one of the funnest fights in the expansion. It's a DPS race on speed where you get 5 bloodlusts and burn all your cooldowns with the comforting knowledge that you'll be brought back to full health and full CDs in just a few seconds. I've yet to wipe on Muro, even with the most inexperienced and craptacular DPS.
With everyone getting new gear, DPS in general seems to be improving too. I've only seen one guy pull sub-10k. Despite 10k being the benchmark for the Zandalari dungeons, 10k seems to be adequate to clear these new dungeons. It surprised me a little, as I would've thought blizzard would set the bar a little higher than this. One would expect a ilvl 370-ish player to pull at least 15k but perhaps that is unfair to the 80% of the community who have never heard of elitistjerks.com.
The ease of the new heroics has created a rather interesting conundrum actually. I've found that healing the new heroics is much, much easier than trying to heal an "oldschool" heroic dungeon.
I tried to heal a Stonecore a couple days ago, expecting it to be a breeze, and boy was I wrong. We wiped on Corborus after two DPS ate it on the dust flail. I'd also like the point out that the rogue had the audacity to say "man this game has gone downhill"...as if the game is to blame for your failure.
Whereas with all of the Hour of Twilight dungeons, I've yet to wipe because everyone seems to just be better - better at DPS, better at interrupts, better at not standing in shit...just doing better. I've only seen a handful of truly clueless people but usually the other 4 people make up for the slack. It's so easy to just chain-run 4-5 dungeons in under a couple of hours and cap out on valor, maybe pick up a couple pieces of gear and maelstrom crystals. And if the satchel is up, hey maybe I'll even get a pet or two!
As far as the other content goes, I have not experienced enough of it to say. Our guild did clear 4/8 bosses on one raid night, and we're tackling the rest of it tonight. I didn't think a full clear the first week would be doable, but it might just actually happen, we'll see. Darkmoon Faire just started yesterday and already I have a new pet. The mini games are entertaining, but nothing that I'd actually be doing if it didn't award DMF tickets.
And as for the rogue legendary...I think that deserves a post all on its own. It is, after all, legendary.
Overall a good patch! It's almost like back in wrath when heroics were a joke!
Mind you, I'm not complaining. I love the three new heroics they added in. Each take no more than 20-30 min to run (my record is 15 min in an all-guild run), the mechanics are interesting (yet not so punishing as the Zul's), and the rewards are very nice.
Are they a little too easy? For sure. On my rogue the content is almost trivial. Mobs die so quickly that I can actually just stunlock them for 8-10 seconds and they die silently without ever getting to hit the tank. On my priest it's less trivial, but still quiet easy - let's just say that I've yet to go oom on a pull.
End Time is probably my favorite, since you can literally finish the whole instance in under 20 minutes with a good group and the right combination of bosses. Baine, Sylvannas and Jaina can be killed with no more than 2 trash pulls each. The only one that forces you to pull multiple trash packs is Tyrande, and already that one is becoming everyone's most hated boss.
Murozond is, I think, one of the funnest fights in the expansion. It's a DPS race on speed where you get 5 bloodlusts and burn all your cooldowns with the comforting knowledge that you'll be brought back to full health and full CDs in just a few seconds. I've yet to wipe on Muro, even with the most inexperienced and craptacular DPS.
With everyone getting new gear, DPS in general seems to be improving too. I've only seen one guy pull sub-10k. Despite 10k being the benchmark for the Zandalari dungeons, 10k seems to be adequate to clear these new dungeons. It surprised me a little, as I would've thought blizzard would set the bar a little higher than this. One would expect a ilvl 370-ish player to pull at least 15k but perhaps that is unfair to the 80% of the community who have never heard of elitistjerks.com.
The ease of the new heroics has created a rather interesting conundrum actually. I've found that healing the new heroics is much, much easier than trying to heal an "oldschool" heroic dungeon.
I tried to heal a Stonecore a couple days ago, expecting it to be a breeze, and boy was I wrong. We wiped on Corborus after two DPS ate it on the dust flail. I'd also like the point out that the rogue had the audacity to say "man this game has gone downhill"...as if the game is to blame for your failure.
Whereas with all of the Hour of Twilight dungeons, I've yet to wipe because everyone seems to just be better - better at DPS, better at interrupts, better at not standing in shit...just doing better. I've only seen a handful of truly clueless people but usually the other 4 people make up for the slack. It's so easy to just chain-run 4-5 dungeons in under a couple of hours and cap out on valor, maybe pick up a couple pieces of gear and maelstrom crystals. And if the satchel is up, hey maybe I'll even get a pet or two!
As far as the other content goes, I have not experienced enough of it to say. Our guild did clear 4/8 bosses on one raid night, and we're tackling the rest of it tonight. I didn't think a full clear the first week would be doable, but it might just actually happen, we'll see. Darkmoon Faire just started yesterday and already I have a new pet. The mini games are entertaining, but nothing that I'd actually be doing if it didn't award DMF tickets.
And as for the rogue legendary...I think that deserves a post all on its own. It is, after all, legendary.
Overall a good patch! It's almost like back in wrath when heroics were a joke!
Monday, November 14, 2011
For Glory!
Last week our guild (myself included) got the "Glory of the Firelands Raider" achievement. With it came a shiny new firebird mount and some bragging rights.
It's "kind of" a big deal in the sense that we're maybe like the 10th guild on the server to get this. There are other guilds who have the same boss kill progression who haven't done the Glory meta achievement yet
This is also the first Glory meta mount I've earned in a relevant tier of raiding. In fact, the only other meta mount I have from raiding is the ICC frostbrood drake, which I didn't get until a couple weeks into cataclysm.
The thing about these metas is that it's possible to get about half of them just by sheer luck. The other half require you to do something outrageous that you would never think to do in a normal raid.
For instance the Baleroc meta achievement requires that no one gets the Tormented debuff more than 3 times. This is very easily doable with high DPS without even trying for it. The Rhyolith achievement requires that you only turn in one direction, which is also possible to do without trying (although random volcano placement makes it unlikely).
But then you have things like Bucket List, which requires you to drag Shannox to all corners of the map before killing him. Why on earth would you intentionally do that?
The achievement that we really had a hard time with was Alysrazor's: Do a Barrel Roll. It required that no one in the raid group gets hit with 4 different abilities. Of them 3 are very easily avoidable if people are focused and getting interrupts out correctly, but the last fire attack, the tornado, is what had us banging our heads against the wall for two nights.
It really should've been an individual achievement and not a raid-wide one. Do you know how hard it is to get 10 people to execute this perfectly at the SAME TIME? I admit there were a few people who did it time after time and never got hit once, but inevitably the other half of the raid kept messing up (myself included). It doesn't matter that I did it perfectly 4 times in a row - if I'm the only one who messes up the 5th time, BAM there goes the achievement.
Finally, though, after all the practice we were able to manage it somehow. I pray that I never ever have to do that again.
My guild and I have done some ridiculous things in the name of achievements. Iron Dwarf, medium rare is probably one of the most ridiculous in that it forced us to all gimp our DPS severely, taking care to get the adds' HP down low but not too low, then sit around for 10 minutes doing nothing. Usually after that we had to force a wipe and do it a couple more times so we could get the 25 required kills (you could only do 10-15 before she enrages).
Full House in ICC was also a total clusterF. Normally you want to KILL the adds, not let them run around like crazy going apeshit. The problem was actually that the adds would keep dying from the tanks' autoattack. Finally we had to resort to making the tanks drag the adds far enough away and just sitting there, getting beat on but not attacking.
The most insane one was probably the LK achievement which required you to stack the debuff up to 30 before phase 2. The difficulty of it was the sheer RNG and quick reaction time required. Basically all the DPS had to sit around for about 20 minutes (literally) twiddling their thumbs, unless they got the plague in which case they had to make a mad dash to go stack it on the ghouls. The toughest part was not zoning out and staying alert enough to do this simple action. Not a very difficult achievement in terms of skill, but man, it was ridiculous how hard it was to get that to 30. It would keep falling off at 20, 25 and people would just want to rip out their hair.
The achievement that will forever elude me, I think, is the Safety Dance. I've tried that in multiple PuGs that were wayyyyy overgeared for Naxx, and people still get hit by that stupid poison. There's probably a way to cheese it so that nobody gets hit but to do it the proper way requires way more focus than a typical PuG can provide.
I still have a bunch of 10 man Naxx/Ulduar ones I'd like to do at some point. I haven't even touched the majority of ToC. The content is just difficult enough that I'd need at least a 5 man group or something to try it, and it's not easy getting people to come help you out for no significant reason other than nerd points...
Maybe I can solo all of it when I'm level 90. Maybe.
It's "kind of" a big deal in the sense that we're maybe like the 10th guild on the server to get this. There are other guilds who have the same boss kill progression who haven't done the Glory meta achievement yet
This is also the first Glory meta mount I've earned in a relevant tier of raiding. In fact, the only other meta mount I have from raiding is the ICC frostbrood drake, which I didn't get until a couple weeks into cataclysm.
The thing about these metas is that it's possible to get about half of them just by sheer luck. The other half require you to do something outrageous that you would never think to do in a normal raid.
For instance the Baleroc meta achievement requires that no one gets the Tormented debuff more than 3 times. This is very easily doable with high DPS without even trying for it. The Rhyolith achievement requires that you only turn in one direction, which is also possible to do without trying (although random volcano placement makes it unlikely).
But then you have things like Bucket List, which requires you to drag Shannox to all corners of the map before killing him. Why on earth would you intentionally do that?
The achievement that we really had a hard time with was Alysrazor's: Do a Barrel Roll. It required that no one in the raid group gets hit with 4 different abilities. Of them 3 are very easily avoidable if people are focused and getting interrupts out correctly, but the last fire attack, the tornado, is what had us banging our heads against the wall for two nights.
It really should've been an individual achievement and not a raid-wide one. Do you know how hard it is to get 10 people to execute this perfectly at the SAME TIME? I admit there were a few people who did it time after time and never got hit once, but inevitably the other half of the raid kept messing up (myself included). It doesn't matter that I did it perfectly 4 times in a row - if I'm the only one who messes up the 5th time, BAM there goes the achievement.
Finally, though, after all the practice we were able to manage it somehow. I pray that I never ever have to do that again.
My guild and I have done some ridiculous things in the name of achievements. Iron Dwarf, medium rare is probably one of the most ridiculous in that it forced us to all gimp our DPS severely, taking care to get the adds' HP down low but not too low, then sit around for 10 minutes doing nothing. Usually after that we had to force a wipe and do it a couple more times so we could get the 25 required kills (you could only do 10-15 before she enrages).
Full House in ICC was also a total clusterF. Normally you want to KILL the adds, not let them run around like crazy going apeshit. The problem was actually that the adds would keep dying from the tanks' autoattack. Finally we had to resort to making the tanks drag the adds far enough away and just sitting there, getting beat on but not attacking.
The most insane one was probably the LK achievement which required you to stack the debuff up to 30 before phase 2. The difficulty of it was the sheer RNG and quick reaction time required. Basically all the DPS had to sit around for about 20 minutes (literally) twiddling their thumbs, unless they got the plague in which case they had to make a mad dash to go stack it on the ghouls. The toughest part was not zoning out and staying alert enough to do this simple action. Not a very difficult achievement in terms of skill, but man, it was ridiculous how hard it was to get that to 30. It would keep falling off at 20, 25 and people would just want to rip out their hair.
The achievement that will forever elude me, I think, is the Safety Dance. I've tried that in multiple PuGs that were wayyyyy overgeared for Naxx, and people still get hit by that stupid poison. There's probably a way to cheese it so that nobody gets hit but to do it the proper way requires way more focus than a typical PuG can provide.
I still have a bunch of 10 man Naxx/Ulduar ones I'd like to do at some point. I haven't even touched the majority of ToC. The content is just difficult enough that I'd need at least a 5 man group or something to try it, and it's not easy getting people to come help you out for no significant reason other than nerd points...
Maybe I can solo all of it when I'm level 90. Maybe.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Nostalgia
Patch 4.3 is due to hit soon, and it's got me thinking more and more about gear. Up until now I don't think I've really given a thought to the overall appearance of my character because it was largely out of my control. The only elements of my character's appearance I had any say over was the shirt, tabard, and hair color. And I always did my best to make sure they coordinated my outfit. But as for the rest of my character, stats > appearances. I wore whatever had the best stats.
Well, with the new transmog feature becoming available, there is just no excuse for anyone to be strutting about Orgrimmar in some sort of weirdly put-together clown suit. I predict that once 4.3 is here, you will be considered a scrub if your gear doesn't match.
Anyways, my mind's been on my character appearances a lot lately (so shallow, I know). It got me to thinking, what did I look like prior to...now? You see your character daily and you kind of tend to forget that they actually look like in their raiding outfit. Sure, you know your gear inside and out, but what do you look like?
For that matter, I have an extremely hard time remembering what I was wearing mere months ago. I recall tier11 being pretty damn ugly, and I know it had hideous shoulders and a pretty decent looking helmet. But what weapons was I using? What tabard? What about everything else?
So in a fit of nostalgia, I dug up as many old screenshots as I could of my character. And I think I've put together a pretty accurate representation of how my character looked in the past 2 years. Oh, it all brings back so many memories...
Let's go back in time to mid-wrath...
This is right around when I hit 80. I believe ToC had already been released and people were still working their way through Ulduar. I can't recall what I was wearing the day I dinged 80, but I know that within a couple weeks I had grinded enough badges to buy some of the tier9 pieces. I know that the first thing I bought were shoulderpads, but as for the rest I can't recall. I'm guessing it was more or less a clownsuit. But anyways, this is what I must have looked like when I first began raiding - a mix of dungeon/tier 9 gear.
Not bad, even though I can't recall for the life of me what tabard I was wearing at that point. Later I think I had some Naxx/ulduar gear thrown in as well as my guild was raiding those. I remember when the ICC heroic dungeons came out, trying to grind those for hours in an attempt to replace the last few remaining blue items I had.
Soon after ICC was released, my guild broke up and I moved on as well. ICC definitely had the most fond memories for me because I spent almost a whole year clearing ICC, going through 3 different guilds in the process. It was this repeating cycle where I'd leave one guild for more progression, hit a wall there and move onto another. I'm not proud of the guild-hopping, but hey, it got me to my current guild whom I adore.
So this is what I looked like towards the end of Wrath. My guild had heroic ICC on farm (all except Sindy and Lich king) and I was rocking almost full sanctified shadowblade battlegear. I initially hated the tattered geist look, but it kind of grew on me after a while. The one thing I absolutely hated was the helmet, and I don't think I ever had my helmet displayed throughout all of ICC.
Now fast forward to the release of Cata...
Just as I was getting used to strutting around, showing off my heroic epics, cata hit. BAM - everyone was back to wearing crappy quest greens. It took at least a couple levels before I could replace all the purples with greens, and by the time I reached 85 this is what I looked like:
Not the worst I've seen, although that brown color is about as dull as dishwater. I liked the helmet, which was a nice change from the ICC set. By this point I had grinded dungeons and badges to replace all the greens with blue items at least. I had just switched guilds again and had just started to dip my toes into the tier11 raiding pool. Gear was harder to come by due to EVERYONE needing new gear, so I spent quite a bit of time in this boring starter gear.
And then as we got to the point where most of tier11 was on farm (all except the end bosses), I slowly replaced the blues with epics. I can't remember what the last thing I replaced was, but I think it may have been a trinket? At any rate, it wasn't that remarkable because there was a lot of BoE gear for rogues floating about. I had to replace my offhand, thrown, chest, belt, and helmet all through BoEs. Sure, they're nice, but they just don't give the same satisfaction as when you've earned that gear from raiding.
I hated, hated, hated those shoulders. They looked even more ridiculous in-game and the animation was all messed up due to them being so oversized. Paired with the skintight tier legs and feet, they just looked horrendous.
Now, I loved the helm though, actually thought it was the best looking helm I've seen to date. It wasn't the tier piece (which I got later and begrudgingly switched for stat reasons) but it was far better looking than the mummified bandage face look.
And now, this is what I look like at present:
I have to say, this is one of my favorite rogue tiers. The heroic version has a much nicer color, but I like this one too. I would make the shoulders a little less prominent, but the design is beautiful. And I love this helm. While I liked my tier11 helm because it was pretty, this one actually looks like it fits a rogue. I love that sinister raven look it's got going on...
So, in a matter of a few weeks, if not sooner, I will look like one of the following:
1. Golden robot
2. Midnight blue ninja
3. Fuzzy polarbear
I'm personally leaning towards the fuzzy bear...
Well, with the new transmog feature becoming available, there is just no excuse for anyone to be strutting about Orgrimmar in some sort of weirdly put-together clown suit. I predict that once 4.3 is here, you will be considered a scrub if your gear doesn't match.
Anyways, my mind's been on my character appearances a lot lately (so shallow, I know). It got me to thinking, what did I look like prior to...now? You see your character daily and you kind of tend to forget that they actually look like in their raiding outfit. Sure, you know your gear inside and out, but what do you look like?
For that matter, I have an extremely hard time remembering what I was wearing mere months ago. I recall tier11 being pretty damn ugly, and I know it had hideous shoulders and a pretty decent looking helmet. But what weapons was I using? What tabard? What about everything else?
So in a fit of nostalgia, I dug up as many old screenshots as I could of my character. And I think I've put together a pretty accurate representation of how my character looked in the past 2 years. Oh, it all brings back so many memories...
Let's go back in time to mid-wrath...
This is right around when I hit 80. I believe ToC had already been released and people were still working their way through Ulduar. I can't recall what I was wearing the day I dinged 80, but I know that within a couple weeks I had grinded enough badges to buy some of the tier9 pieces. I know that the first thing I bought were shoulderpads, but as for the rest I can't recall. I'm guessing it was more or less a clownsuit. But anyways, this is what I must have looked like when I first began raiding - a mix of dungeon/tier 9 gear.
Not bad, even though I can't recall for the life of me what tabard I was wearing at that point. Later I think I had some Naxx/ulduar gear thrown in as well as my guild was raiding those. I remember when the ICC heroic dungeons came out, trying to grind those for hours in an attempt to replace the last few remaining blue items I had.
Soon after ICC was released, my guild broke up and I moved on as well. ICC definitely had the most fond memories for me because I spent almost a whole year clearing ICC, going through 3 different guilds in the process. It was this repeating cycle where I'd leave one guild for more progression, hit a wall there and move onto another. I'm not proud of the guild-hopping, but hey, it got me to my current guild whom I adore.
So this is what I looked like towards the end of Wrath. My guild had heroic ICC on farm (all except Sindy and Lich king) and I was rocking almost full sanctified shadowblade battlegear. I initially hated the tattered geist look, but it kind of grew on me after a while. The one thing I absolutely hated was the helmet, and I don't think I ever had my helmet displayed throughout all of ICC.
Now fast forward to the release of Cata...
Just as I was getting used to strutting around, showing off my heroic epics, cata hit. BAM - everyone was back to wearing crappy quest greens. It took at least a couple levels before I could replace all the purples with greens, and by the time I reached 85 this is what I looked like:
Not the worst I've seen, although that brown color is about as dull as dishwater. I liked the helmet, which was a nice change from the ICC set. By this point I had grinded dungeons and badges to replace all the greens with blue items at least. I had just switched guilds again and had just started to dip my toes into the tier11 raiding pool. Gear was harder to come by due to EVERYONE needing new gear, so I spent quite a bit of time in this boring starter gear.
And then as we got to the point where most of tier11 was on farm (all except the end bosses), I slowly replaced the blues with epics. I can't remember what the last thing I replaced was, but I think it may have been a trinket? At any rate, it wasn't that remarkable because there was a lot of BoE gear for rogues floating about. I had to replace my offhand, thrown, chest, belt, and helmet all through BoEs. Sure, they're nice, but they just don't give the same satisfaction as when you've earned that gear from raiding.
I hated, hated, hated those shoulders. They looked even more ridiculous in-game and the animation was all messed up due to them being so oversized. Paired with the skintight tier legs and feet, they just looked horrendous.
Now, I loved the helm though, actually thought it was the best looking helm I've seen to date. It wasn't the tier piece (which I got later and begrudgingly switched for stat reasons) but it was far better looking than the mummified bandage face look.
And now, this is what I look like at present:
I have to say, this is one of my favorite rogue tiers. The heroic version has a much nicer color, but I like this one too. I would make the shoulders a little less prominent, but the design is beautiful. And I love this helm. While I liked my tier11 helm because it was pretty, this one actually looks like it fits a rogue. I love that sinister raven look it's got going on...
So, in a matter of a few weeks, if not sooner, I will look like one of the following:
1. Golden robot
2. Midnight blue ninja
3. Fuzzy polarbear
I'm personally leaning towards the fuzzy bear...
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Top 10 MSLE moments
Note: MSLE = Multi shot, lightning enchant. Ring any bells?
The big announcement at Blizzcon was the new xpac - Mists of Pandaria. I have concerns about it that I considered making a post about, but I think I will wait on that for a little while. There is still a lot that hasn't been revealed and I honestly haven't mulled over every detail yet, and I (for once) want to reserve judgment for the time being.
The other announcement was that Diablo 3 would be available for free to anyone who renews their wow subscription for a year. So you get the full digital version of D3, as well as a little bonus in-game mount for WoW!
I signed up for it immediately, because I probably would've bought D3 when it came out anyways. I was hardcore into D2 and I played that for a good 2-3 years before moving onto WC3 and finally WoW. This way, I get D3 for free and I get to keep playing WoW - and let's face it, if the new xpac tanks, at least I get a free game out of it.
I began perusing the Diablo wiki page to get myself re-acquainted with the D3 universe. I'd forgotten just how much of a step-up in ESRB rating Diablo is. Everything is dark, sinister, gory, and the whole storyline has a much greater sense of urgency. I remember I actually used to get scared when venturing out into the world of Diablo 3, a feeling that I've yet to experience in WoW (well, maybe in PvP).
It brought me back to the days when I would only play D3 in a brightly lit room with the gamma turned up all the way because it was just too fracking scary otherwise. And there were just certain moments in the game that made you shit yourself.
So I've compiled a list. The top 10 shit-your-pants moments of Diablo 2. For nostalgia's sake.
*Please note that a lot of this stuff was nerfed in later patches - the stuff I mention is relevant to the earlier patch I played.
10. Diablo on Nightmare/Hell
Regular old Diablo. Not nearly as terrifying as Uber or Pandemonium Diablo.
We'll start out pretty tame. As it turns out, the Lord of Terror isn't all that terrible at number 10. On normal mode he's actually a pretty big pushover. As long as you have some fire/lightning resist gear, his attacks are laughable. If you have any cold attacks that can slow him, he hits you maybe like once every 5 seconds, and if you're ranged he's pretty easy to kite around.
But on Nightmare things get a bit scary. He hits for a lot more with his lightning attacks and it used to be a one-shot for low HP casters. For a melee such as myself (played a javazon and an assassin) I could handle it pretty well with some high resist gear and fast life stealing.
On Hell mode...yeah, that's pretty much why he's even on this list. In the blink of an eye you could see your HP drop to 5. It was almost essential to have max resist and bring lots of full rejuvies with you.
9. The Smith
Highly reminiscent of the infamous "Butcher" from D1.
I think that the location of the monster and the anticipation has a lot to do with the shit-your-pants factor. If you know that a superunique monster spawns at a specific location, the anticipation of fighting him/her always scares the crap out of me, almost even more so than the actual battle.
The Smith is a good example. He's actually not that hard. He's just your basic "I'm gonna hit you harder than your average monster" melee guy with no weird enchantments or curses to one-shot you with. But what makes me shit my pants over this guy is the fact that:
-You always know where he is going to spawn because you can see the Horadric Malus icon on your minimap. When you see it, you know he's going to come after you.
-He is always Extra Fast, so as you creep closer towards the Malus, BAM he comes out of nowhere, especially for a big fat dude.
-The location he spawns in is this freaky, dimly lit narrow little room with little space to kite him around. Also, the Act 1 Monastery is just a freaking scary place in general.
All this combined makes The Smith quite the intimidating foe. Now imagine doing this quest for the first time on a level 10 character! Terrifying indeed.
8. Beetleburst
Dung beetles eat poop. Then spit out lightning?
Oh Beetleburst...now his ability to make you shit your pants has nothing to do with his location as his spawn point is more or less random and it's in a wide open dessert. He is just scary because as a beetle, he emits lightning bolts when struck. Now since he is a superunique, those lightning bolts hit for a LOT more. And he brings with him several minion beetles who also emit lightning bolts. Combine this with some other scary modifier like a Conviction Curse or god forbid, an added lightning enchant, every hit you get on him will hit you for a big chunk of health. Don't even think about any type of AoE when you're surrounded by the beetles.
My tactic has always been to run away, draw out one minion at a time and kill it, then corner Beetleburst by getting a lake or structure between us and throwing darts at him.
Also, bugs are just gross.
7. The Ruined Temple entry
Oh the joys of getting your corpse trampled by a pack of scantily dressed zombies...
I HATE going into this place, but the quest rewards are 5 stat points, which you just can't pass up. Before they fixed the issue with a patch, I was guaranteed almost instant death upon zoning into this place on Nightmare or Hell.
There's usually several champions and uniques crawling about this place, and if you had bad internet connection chances are by the time the Ruined Temple has loaded, you are probably already dead. This of course brings up the question of how to recover your corpse when it's at the entrance of this place, likely being trampled on by a big group of champions?
6. Fangskin
Notice his vivid blue color makes him extra deadly.
Fangskin, a superunique found near the chest containing the head of the horadric staff, spawns with a huge pack of minions. They're all salamander types, and move with lightning quick speed. The reason Fangskin is so deadly, however, is that he is lightning enchanted. This modifier, combined with the speed and knockback/stun of Fangskin and all his minions combined meant that I always dreaded going into the Claw Viper temple level 2.
5. Tristram on Hell mode
I love getting hit with every type of magic in the face.
Tristram is a sad reminder for any of us that played D1. Our old stomping grounds, now reduced to ash, rubble, and a breeding ground for all sorts of champions, uniques, and superuniques.
You may think, oh it's only Act 1, what's there to shit your pants about? Well, on Hell mode this place is completely overrun with super buffed mobs at every turn. No sooner have you defeated a pack of Champions, you'll encounter some unique with a ludicrous set of modifiers. After you've fought through all the packs of skeletons and devilkins and goat men, you have to face Griswold, who hits you like a freaking Mack truck on Hell mode. Not to mention that he has a mega enormous health pool.
I guess ultimately the reason Tristram was always so scary for me was that I would underestimate the difficuly on Hell mode. Need to do a quick item/XP run? Well, let's go to Tristram, a bunch of champions spawn there. Then I'd zone in and promptly get smacked in the face, die, and not be able to retrieve my corpse due to the portal being overrun by mobs. Then I'd remember that Tristram is a nightmare on Hell mode, only to forget the very next week and die again. Do you know how much XP I've lost on Hell mode Tristram?
4. Bremm Sparkfist WTF
Does...does that say what I think it says???
For an Act Boss, Mephisto is a huge pushover. Even on Hell difficulty he's a piece of cake for most people. What's really dangerous, though, are the minions lurking in his Durance of Hate.
The Council members guarding the dungeon entry are pretty nasty themselves, but none is deadlier than good ol' Bremm Sparkfist. Do you know what happens when you come across a Multi Shot with Lightning Enchant? MSLE is one of the most lethal modifier combos, especially for rapid strikers like an assassin. Even with full lightning resist you'll eat a lot of damage from that stupid multi shot.
Now throw to the mix the CONVICTION AURA. It lowers your magic resist, so that now you're eating raw, unmitigated lightning damage. This is pretty much a one-shot killer right here.
I recall the days of playing cat and mouse with Bremm, kiting him to the stairs then using a portal to get back in the chamber and doing all sorts of LoS-ing and ranged attacks in my desperate attempts to down Bremm. In my opinion, the real act boss is Bremm, not Mephisto, who is totally anti-climactic after the Bremm encounter.
3. Popping Lord De Seis
This is what I call a no-win scenario: being surrounded by Oblivion Knights.
Oblivion Knights are arguably the most feared mobs in the entire game for melee classes. They put on very dangerous curses (Iron Maiden can one-shot you) and throw out massive damage in every school of magic.
Lord De Seis spawns with six of these badasses, and he brings with him my most favoritest aura of all time - Conviction. Getting stripped of my magic resistance then blasted in the face with fire, ice, lightning, and poison damage? Priceless.
Let's not forget that he used to have the uniquie modifier "Thief", which meant that every spell he threw at you would cause you to drop a potion. It gets super annoying after about your 5th run back to town to buy more pots.
Opening his seal was always the worst, too, since the seal is at the end of the passage and unless you could book it out of there, he would spawn and close in on you, effectively cornering you in the hallway. Definitely the most deadly boss in Chaos Sanctuary, even more than big bad Diablo himself.
2. Nihlathak and the OP Corpse Explosion
How bout we try fighting without any of your stupid minions, tough guy?
Some of the deadliest boss mechanics involve using the player's own skills against them, and that's what Nihlathak does best. He is located in a small room filled with minions and hellspawns. They're easy enough to kill, but that's when it gets interesting. He starts blasting you with corpse explosion that hits for insane amounts of damage and at practically unlimited range. Even high HP build barbarians couldn't survive the damage output.
Even after you somehow destroy all the corpses, he just summons more minions to blow up in your face. There was just no way to clear the room and engage him alone, and you constantly had to battle your way through a giant pack just to land some hits on him.
On Hell mode especially, the minions are immune to cold so shattering the corpses is not even a viable option for assassins. And as long as there are corpses, there will be corpse explosions. As the mob's HP scales up, so does the damage and...you get the picture.
I absolutely hated going into Halls of Vaught just for this reason. The small space makes it impossible to cleverly kite him around or tease him out from his hordes of corpse explosion ammo. The only thing you could do was avoid the swarm as best you can while hitting Nihlathak, who also, btw, teleports around the room. Like...WTF.
1. Duriel's Chamber aka Loading Screen of Death
What's he supposed to be? Praying Mantis? Scorpion? I mean, what IS that?
Duriel is without a doubt the biggest, baddest mofo to ever make me shit my pants in D2. I say that because I can attribute about 70% of my deaths to Duriel.
I believe they fixed it at some point, but in the early patches of D2 Duriel was infamous for killing you before you even realized it. On a good internet day you'd have maybe 4-5 seconds between clicking the door and actually being ported into his chamber, and that was enough for him to slaughter your defenseless character.
So you'd click the door, wait a few seconds, and then you'd see that screen: You have died. You have lost 16 million experience and 50,000 gold.
W...T...F.
He hits like a truck on steroids, he's extra fast (for a big fat bug he's like greased lightning), AND he has holy freeze aura, slowing down your movement speed and effectively making you a fish in a barrel. He can charge/stun you to boot, and even after getting past the initial lag spike rush he was a deadly foe.
I can't even count the number of times he's killed me before I even had a chance to scream, and most of the time the only way to get my body back was to either reset the game and rez in town or die about 12 more times in the process of retrieving the corpse.
Those dark days...they were terrible indeed.
So, now I'm thinking, what unspeakable horrors does D3 have in store for us?
The big announcement at Blizzcon was the new xpac - Mists of Pandaria. I have concerns about it that I considered making a post about, but I think I will wait on that for a little while. There is still a lot that hasn't been revealed and I honestly haven't mulled over every detail yet, and I (for once) want to reserve judgment for the time being.
The other announcement was that Diablo 3 would be available for free to anyone who renews their wow subscription for a year. So you get the full digital version of D3, as well as a little bonus in-game mount for WoW!
I signed up for it immediately, because I probably would've bought D3 when it came out anyways. I was hardcore into D2 and I played that for a good 2-3 years before moving onto WC3 and finally WoW. This way, I get D3 for free and I get to keep playing WoW - and let's face it, if the new xpac tanks, at least I get a free game out of it.
I began perusing the Diablo wiki page to get myself re-acquainted with the D3 universe. I'd forgotten just how much of a step-up in ESRB rating Diablo is. Everything is dark, sinister, gory, and the whole storyline has a much greater sense of urgency. I remember I actually used to get scared when venturing out into the world of Diablo 3, a feeling that I've yet to experience in WoW (well, maybe in PvP).
It brought me back to the days when I would only play D3 in a brightly lit room with the gamma turned up all the way because it was just too fracking scary otherwise. And there were just certain moments in the game that made you shit yourself.
So I've compiled a list. The top 10 shit-your-pants moments of Diablo 2. For nostalgia's sake.
*Please note that a lot of this stuff was nerfed in later patches - the stuff I mention is relevant to the earlier patch I played.
10. Diablo on Nightmare/Hell
Regular old Diablo. Not nearly as terrifying as Uber or Pandemonium Diablo.
We'll start out pretty tame. As it turns out, the Lord of Terror isn't all that terrible at number 10. On normal mode he's actually a pretty big pushover. As long as you have some fire/lightning resist gear, his attacks are laughable. If you have any cold attacks that can slow him, he hits you maybe like once every 5 seconds, and if you're ranged he's pretty easy to kite around.
But on Nightmare things get a bit scary. He hits for a lot more with his lightning attacks and it used to be a one-shot for low HP casters. For a melee such as myself (played a javazon and an assassin) I could handle it pretty well with some high resist gear and fast life stealing.
On Hell mode...yeah, that's pretty much why he's even on this list. In the blink of an eye you could see your HP drop to 5. It was almost essential to have max resist and bring lots of full rejuvies with you.
9. The Smith
Highly reminiscent of the infamous "Butcher" from D1.
I think that the location of the monster and the anticipation has a lot to do with the shit-your-pants factor. If you know that a superunique monster spawns at a specific location, the anticipation of fighting him/her always scares the crap out of me, almost even more so than the actual battle.
The Smith is a good example. He's actually not that hard. He's just your basic "I'm gonna hit you harder than your average monster" melee guy with no weird enchantments or curses to one-shot you with. But what makes me shit my pants over this guy is the fact that:
-You always know where he is going to spawn because you can see the Horadric Malus icon on your minimap. When you see it, you know he's going to come after you.
-He is always Extra Fast, so as you creep closer towards the Malus, BAM he comes out of nowhere, especially for a big fat dude.
-The location he spawns in is this freaky, dimly lit narrow little room with little space to kite him around. Also, the Act 1 Monastery is just a freaking scary place in general.
All this combined makes The Smith quite the intimidating foe. Now imagine doing this quest for the first time on a level 10 character! Terrifying indeed.
8. Beetleburst
Dung beetles eat poop. Then spit out lightning?
Oh Beetleburst...now his ability to make you shit your pants has nothing to do with his location as his spawn point is more or less random and it's in a wide open dessert. He is just scary because as a beetle, he emits lightning bolts when struck. Now since he is a superunique, those lightning bolts hit for a LOT more. And he brings with him several minion beetles who also emit lightning bolts. Combine this with some other scary modifier like a Conviction Curse or god forbid, an added lightning enchant, every hit you get on him will hit you for a big chunk of health. Don't even think about any type of AoE when you're surrounded by the beetles.
My tactic has always been to run away, draw out one minion at a time and kill it, then corner Beetleburst by getting a lake or structure between us and throwing darts at him.
Also, bugs are just gross.
7. The Ruined Temple entry
Oh the joys of getting your corpse trampled by a pack of scantily dressed zombies...
I HATE going into this place, but the quest rewards are 5 stat points, which you just can't pass up. Before they fixed the issue with a patch, I was guaranteed almost instant death upon zoning into this place on Nightmare or Hell.
There's usually several champions and uniques crawling about this place, and if you had bad internet connection chances are by the time the Ruined Temple has loaded, you are probably already dead. This of course brings up the question of how to recover your corpse when it's at the entrance of this place, likely being trampled on by a big group of champions?
6. Fangskin
Notice his vivid blue color makes him extra deadly.
Fangskin, a superunique found near the chest containing the head of the horadric staff, spawns with a huge pack of minions. They're all salamander types, and move with lightning quick speed. The reason Fangskin is so deadly, however, is that he is lightning enchanted. This modifier, combined with the speed and knockback/stun of Fangskin and all his minions combined meant that I always dreaded going into the Claw Viper temple level 2.
5. Tristram on Hell mode
I love getting hit with every type of magic in the face.
Tristram is a sad reminder for any of us that played D1. Our old stomping grounds, now reduced to ash, rubble, and a breeding ground for all sorts of champions, uniques, and superuniques.
You may think, oh it's only Act 1, what's there to shit your pants about? Well, on Hell mode this place is completely overrun with super buffed mobs at every turn. No sooner have you defeated a pack of Champions, you'll encounter some unique with a ludicrous set of modifiers. After you've fought through all the packs of skeletons and devilkins and goat men, you have to face Griswold, who hits you like a freaking Mack truck on Hell mode. Not to mention that he has a mega enormous health pool.
I guess ultimately the reason Tristram was always so scary for me was that I would underestimate the difficuly on Hell mode. Need to do a quick item/XP run? Well, let's go to Tristram, a bunch of champions spawn there. Then I'd zone in and promptly get smacked in the face, die, and not be able to retrieve my corpse due to the portal being overrun by mobs. Then I'd remember that Tristram is a nightmare on Hell mode, only to forget the very next week and die again. Do you know how much XP I've lost on Hell mode Tristram?
4. Bremm Sparkfist WTF
Does...does that say what I think it says???
For an Act Boss, Mephisto is a huge pushover. Even on Hell difficulty he's a piece of cake for most people. What's really dangerous, though, are the minions lurking in his Durance of Hate.
The Council members guarding the dungeon entry are pretty nasty themselves, but none is deadlier than good ol' Bremm Sparkfist. Do you know what happens when you come across a Multi Shot with Lightning Enchant? MSLE is one of the most lethal modifier combos, especially for rapid strikers like an assassin. Even with full lightning resist you'll eat a lot of damage from that stupid multi shot.
Now throw to the mix the CONVICTION AURA. It lowers your magic resist, so that now you're eating raw, unmitigated lightning damage. This is pretty much a one-shot killer right here.
I recall the days of playing cat and mouse with Bremm, kiting him to the stairs then using a portal to get back in the chamber and doing all sorts of LoS-ing and ranged attacks in my desperate attempts to down Bremm. In my opinion, the real act boss is Bremm, not Mephisto, who is totally anti-climactic after the Bremm encounter.
3. Popping Lord De Seis
This is what I call a no-win scenario: being surrounded by Oblivion Knights.
Oblivion Knights are arguably the most feared mobs in the entire game for melee classes. They put on very dangerous curses (Iron Maiden can one-shot you) and throw out massive damage in every school of magic.
Lord De Seis spawns with six of these badasses, and he brings with him my most favoritest aura of all time - Conviction. Getting stripped of my magic resistance then blasted in the face with fire, ice, lightning, and poison damage? Priceless.
Let's not forget that he used to have the uniquie modifier "Thief", which meant that every spell he threw at you would cause you to drop a potion. It gets super annoying after about your 5th run back to town to buy more pots.
Opening his seal was always the worst, too, since the seal is at the end of the passage and unless you could book it out of there, he would spawn and close in on you, effectively cornering you in the hallway. Definitely the most deadly boss in Chaos Sanctuary, even more than big bad Diablo himself.
2. Nihlathak and the OP Corpse Explosion
How bout we try fighting without any of your stupid minions, tough guy?
Some of the deadliest boss mechanics involve using the player's own skills against them, and that's what Nihlathak does best. He is located in a small room filled with minions and hellspawns. They're easy enough to kill, but that's when it gets interesting. He starts blasting you with corpse explosion that hits for insane amounts of damage and at practically unlimited range. Even high HP build barbarians couldn't survive the damage output.
Even after you somehow destroy all the corpses, he just summons more minions to blow up in your face. There was just no way to clear the room and engage him alone, and you constantly had to battle your way through a giant pack just to land some hits on him.
On Hell mode especially, the minions are immune to cold so shattering the corpses is not even a viable option for assassins. And as long as there are corpses, there will be corpse explosions. As the mob's HP scales up, so does the damage and...you get the picture.
I absolutely hated going into Halls of Vaught just for this reason. The small space makes it impossible to cleverly kite him around or tease him out from his hordes of corpse explosion ammo. The only thing you could do was avoid the swarm as best you can while hitting Nihlathak, who also, btw, teleports around the room. Like...WTF.
1. Duriel's Chamber aka Loading Screen of Death
What's he supposed to be? Praying Mantis? Scorpion? I mean, what IS that?
Duriel is without a doubt the biggest, baddest mofo to ever make me shit my pants in D2. I say that because I can attribute about 70% of my deaths to Duriel.
I believe they fixed it at some point, but in the early patches of D2 Duriel was infamous for killing you before you even realized it. On a good internet day you'd have maybe 4-5 seconds between clicking the door and actually being ported into his chamber, and that was enough for him to slaughter your defenseless character.
So you'd click the door, wait a few seconds, and then you'd see that screen: You have died. You have lost 16 million experience and 50,000 gold.
W...T...F.
He hits like a truck on steroids, he's extra fast (for a big fat bug he's like greased lightning), AND he has holy freeze aura, slowing down your movement speed and effectively making you a fish in a barrel. He can charge/stun you to boot, and even after getting past the initial lag spike rush he was a deadly foe.
I can't even count the number of times he's killed me before I even had a chance to scream, and most of the time the only way to get my body back was to either reset the game and rez in town or die about 12 more times in the process of retrieving the corpse.
Those dark days...they were terrible indeed.
So, now I'm thinking, what unspeakable horrors does D3 have in store for us?
Monday, October 24, 2011
Rerollin'
Why do so many say "I'm going to role a priest" or "I'm making a DK for my rerole"? I know it's a "role-playing" game, but the rolling thing comes from the fact that old-school D&D required you to "roll" a dice to determine your stats. Hence you "roll" a certain character, not "role". Anyways...
A few days ago I ran into an ex-guildie of mine during a random Headless Horseman run. Luckily I was on one of my seldom-played alts but he recognized me and we got to chatting. It turns out he and a few people from my old guild (the one I was all throughout T11 content) had started an alliance guild on another server.
I had always wanted to play to 85 on alliance, because the lore and storyline that unfolds in the questing is really the only unique part of choosing to play either faction. Once you're 85, it's the same daily grinds, same raid bosses, same dungeons, same gear same everything. But the zone quests are unique - not all of them, sometimes you have those generic quests that are more or less the same for each faction. There are other quests that are only available to one faction, and the starting zone is the best example of faction-specific quests.
The problem with rolling an ally, I've found, is that it's so difficult to start from square one. Imagine having no gold, no heirlooms, no high level main to send you bags, BoE drops, or mats to level your tradeskills, no friends to play with, etc. I've tried rolling an ally on my current server when they implemented the cross-faction heirloom thing, but it was just too tough to start out with no bag slots, no gold, and no guild.
So finding out that I have some potential friends/guild on another server was a big plus. I'm maxed out on character slots on my current server anyways, so this way I wouldn't have to delete any characters that are well into their 50s and 60s (I will get them to 85 someday...).
I rolled another rogue since that's what I know best. I chose worgen because I've heard that the Gilneas starting storyline is pretty goth and epic.
I have to tell ya...this shit's TOUGH with no heirlooms! I had forgotten what it feels like to actually fear for your life as a level 3 rogue. Heirlooms boost your damage and health to the point where elites are a joke and everything else die in 2 shots. This time...I was the one constantly getting killed. Mobs took a good 15 seconds to finally die under my pathetically weak daggers. Anytime I pulled more than one mob I had a 50% chance of dying. Let's just say that this is the first time I've relied so much on sap in order to avoid certain death.
After all the ordeal I somehow made it to level 13 and out of the starting zone. The quests were pretty fun and sometimes emotional, and definitely very different from the silly, happy goblin starting zone.
And once again I find myself with no money, no bags, no gear, and no idea where to go. I'm in Darnassus, so I guess Darkshore would be the place to start. Having no money really sucks. Now I can understand the kind of desperation that drives lowbie players to beg for gold on the trade chat...
Luckily I do have some tricks up my sleeve. The first thing I did was make a bank alt that I could park in Stormwind. That way I don't have to use up my precious bag space carrying around things that I eventually want to sell on the AH. Already I've picked up some stuff to sell - things like a few stacks of leather I spent an hour skinning, some low-level gems and random greens, things like that. I'd say 20g in 1 day for a brand new alt isn't too bad!
I was thinking of rolling a DK and picking up mining & skinning just so I can use that character as both a bank alt and to generate some gold. But it takes so long to get out of that DK starter zone...maybe someday, when I have more time to invest in this character.
As soon as I hit 20 or so I'm going to hit up my friend for an invite. I generally like to hold off before asking for guild invites, because there's a good chance I might just give up and not play that character anymore after a certain point. I'd hate to waste anyone's time and wedge myself into a guild on a toon I'll never play.
So we'll see how this alt ally adventure plays out. One thing is for sure - Yo ho yo ho, a rogue's life for me!
A few days ago I ran into an ex-guildie of mine during a random Headless Horseman run. Luckily I was on one of my seldom-played alts but he recognized me and we got to chatting. It turns out he and a few people from my old guild (the one I was all throughout T11 content) had started an alliance guild on another server.
I had always wanted to play to 85 on alliance, because the lore and storyline that unfolds in the questing is really the only unique part of choosing to play either faction. Once you're 85, it's the same daily grinds, same raid bosses, same dungeons, same gear same everything. But the zone quests are unique - not all of them, sometimes you have those generic quests that are more or less the same for each faction. There are other quests that are only available to one faction, and the starting zone is the best example of faction-specific quests.
The problem with rolling an ally, I've found, is that it's so difficult to start from square one. Imagine having no gold, no heirlooms, no high level main to send you bags, BoE drops, or mats to level your tradeskills, no friends to play with, etc. I've tried rolling an ally on my current server when they implemented the cross-faction heirloom thing, but it was just too tough to start out with no bag slots, no gold, and no guild.
So finding out that I have some potential friends/guild on another server was a big plus. I'm maxed out on character slots on my current server anyways, so this way I wouldn't have to delete any characters that are well into their 50s and 60s (I will get them to 85 someday...).
I rolled another rogue since that's what I know best. I chose worgen because I've heard that the Gilneas starting storyline is pretty goth and epic.
I have to tell ya...this shit's TOUGH with no heirlooms! I had forgotten what it feels like to actually fear for your life as a level 3 rogue. Heirlooms boost your damage and health to the point where elites are a joke and everything else die in 2 shots. This time...I was the one constantly getting killed. Mobs took a good 15 seconds to finally die under my pathetically weak daggers. Anytime I pulled more than one mob I had a 50% chance of dying. Let's just say that this is the first time I've relied so much on sap in order to avoid certain death.
After all the ordeal I somehow made it to level 13 and out of the starting zone. The quests were pretty fun and sometimes emotional, and definitely very different from the silly, happy goblin starting zone.
And once again I find myself with no money, no bags, no gear, and no idea where to go. I'm in Darnassus, so I guess Darkshore would be the place to start. Having no money really sucks. Now I can understand the kind of desperation that drives lowbie players to beg for gold on the trade chat...
Luckily I do have some tricks up my sleeve. The first thing I did was make a bank alt that I could park in Stormwind. That way I don't have to use up my precious bag space carrying around things that I eventually want to sell on the AH. Already I've picked up some stuff to sell - things like a few stacks of leather I spent an hour skinning, some low-level gems and random greens, things like that. I'd say 20g in 1 day for a brand new alt isn't too bad!
I was thinking of rolling a DK and picking up mining & skinning just so I can use that character as both a bank alt and to generate some gold. But it takes so long to get out of that DK starter zone...maybe someday, when I have more time to invest in this character.
As soon as I hit 20 or so I'm going to hit up my friend for an invite. I generally like to hold off before asking for guild invites, because there's a good chance I might just give up and not play that character anymore after a certain point. I'd hate to waste anyone's time and wedge myself into a guild on a toon I'll never play.
So we'll see how this alt ally adventure plays out. One thing is for sure - Yo ho yo ho, a rogue's life for me!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Warglaive, bitches
Weellllllpppp, you heard right. I am now the proud owner of a legendary weapon.
It was our business as usual transmog raid night, where a group of geared 85s go en masse into BC raids and basically fill our bags with all sorts of pretty purple BC gear.
Why BC raids? Well, there aren't many vanilla raids left anymore - Zul Gurub, Naxxramas, and Onyxia's Lair have all been converted to higher-level instances. All that's left is MC, BWL, and AQ20/40. Since AQ20/40 doesn't drop any tier gear, there is little interest in farming those. MC is easily soloable by almost any geared 85. BWL has a tricky mechanic that requires at least 2 people on the first boss, but the rest is pretty easy as well.
Northrend raids, on the other hand, are a tad bit harder to "farm". Sure, they're doable with a reasonable number of 85s, but it just takes a lot longer. Not to mention that most people didn't really love the look of Northrend gear, and it's still a tad too "fresh" in their memories to evoke nostalgia.
So that leaves us with BC. Plenty of un-nerfed, un-touched, un-revamped old raids to clear with just a handful of 85s. And lots of shiny, cool-looking loots.
BC is pretty famous, I hear, for brightly-colored, garish items. I have an epic screenshot somewhere of a level 60 priest wearing the quest rewards from hellfire peninsula and oh my...it's like a clown suit. Tight lavender pants, bright orange vest, black motorcycle gloves, a frilly gold cape and a glowing blue staff. The kicker was the purple-and-yellow fedora.
Anyways, so people love BC gear, and our guild has been organizing BC raid nights to get said gear. With 7-8 people we blow through Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, Gruul's, Magtheridon, Sunwell Plateau, Black Temple, and Battle for Hyjal in about 4 hours flat. That's 7 raids, people!
I've been collecting some tier4-6 pieces just for shits and giggles (too ugly to actually wear, in my opinion), but I'm mainly there for capes and daggers. BC had some wicked looking daggers that you just can't find in any other expansion. And the capes are the same - the ornate designs and bright colors are just nonexistent elsewhere.
Anyways, so we're in black temple and we're about to pull Illidan. As usual, I say, "Come onnnnn, Warglaives!", which everyone chuckles at. Warglaives are probably THE most unique and badass looking weaponry in the whole game, and hence most sought-after. And what do you know, we kill Illidan and on his loot screen I see them - the bright orange name indicating Legendary quality. Warglaive. Of. Azzinoth.
I rolled a 65. A pally rolled 45. Then a warrior rolled 20. There was another rogue in the raid but he was a low level alt and didn't roll. A few agonizing seconds ticked by and I saw the message "You receive loot [Warglaive of Azzinoth]"
I'm ecstatic, of course! It doesn't look as cool without its twin, but I'm just happy to even own a legendary. Who knows, maybe the other blade will drop next time...must...farm...BT...
It was our business as usual transmog raid night, where a group of geared 85s go en masse into BC raids and basically fill our bags with all sorts of pretty purple BC gear.
Why BC raids? Well, there aren't many vanilla raids left anymore - Zul Gurub, Naxxramas, and Onyxia's Lair have all been converted to higher-level instances. All that's left is MC, BWL, and AQ20/40. Since AQ20/40 doesn't drop any tier gear, there is little interest in farming those. MC is easily soloable by almost any geared 85. BWL has a tricky mechanic that requires at least 2 people on the first boss, but the rest is pretty easy as well.
Northrend raids, on the other hand, are a tad bit harder to "farm". Sure, they're doable with a reasonable number of 85s, but it just takes a lot longer. Not to mention that most people didn't really love the look of Northrend gear, and it's still a tad too "fresh" in their memories to evoke nostalgia.
So that leaves us with BC. Plenty of un-nerfed, un-touched, un-revamped old raids to clear with just a handful of 85s. And lots of shiny, cool-looking loots.
BC is pretty famous, I hear, for brightly-colored, garish items. I have an epic screenshot somewhere of a level 60 priest wearing the quest rewards from hellfire peninsula and oh my...it's like a clown suit. Tight lavender pants, bright orange vest, black motorcycle gloves, a frilly gold cape and a glowing blue staff. The kicker was the purple-and-yellow fedora.
Anyways, so people love BC gear, and our guild has been organizing BC raid nights to get said gear. With 7-8 people we blow through Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, Gruul's, Magtheridon, Sunwell Plateau, Black Temple, and Battle for Hyjal in about 4 hours flat. That's 7 raids, people!
I've been collecting some tier4-6 pieces just for shits and giggles (too ugly to actually wear, in my opinion), but I'm mainly there for capes and daggers. BC had some wicked looking daggers that you just can't find in any other expansion. And the capes are the same - the ornate designs and bright colors are just nonexistent elsewhere.
Anyways, so we're in black temple and we're about to pull Illidan. As usual, I say, "Come onnnnn, Warglaives!", which everyone chuckles at. Warglaives are probably THE most unique and badass looking weaponry in the whole game, and hence most sought-after. And what do you know, we kill Illidan and on his loot screen I see them - the bright orange name indicating Legendary quality. Warglaive. Of. Azzinoth.
I rolled a 65. A pally rolled 45. Then a warrior rolled 20. There was another rogue in the raid but he was a low level alt and didn't roll. A few agonizing seconds ticked by and I saw the message "You receive loot [Warglaive of Azzinoth]"
I'm ecstatic, of course! It doesn't look as cool without its twin, but I'm just happy to even own a legendary. Who knows, maybe the other blade will drop next time...must...farm...BT...
Friday, October 14, 2011
Top 5...Most badass NPCs
NPCs come in many different sizes, shapes, and flavors. Some NPCs are cute and funny while others are menacing and mean. And some are just really really badass, so much to the point where you feel compelled to make Chuck Norris jokes about them.
Now I know a lot of people think Garrosh is badass, but let's not kid ourselves, ok? There's clearly a difference between being a pigheaded bully and a true badass who has a noble cause, but plays by no one else's rules. Garrosh is just a schoolyard bully, a bully on testosterone!
5. Garona Halforcen
"I can make you look like an accident."
Yes, she was once a ruthless assassin who betrayed King Llane, but really, he was filthy alliance scum to begin with. Besides, she's way past all that drama now, and is dedicated to eradicating the Twilight Cult once and for all.
You have to admit that many rogue NPCs strike you as "cunning" or "sly", and Garona is probably the only exception to that. She's brutal and unapologetic and merciless, just how an orc should be.
4. Vol'jin
"Da Horde is my people, if it be war you bring, den I stand against you."
You think Garrosh is badass? How about the guy who openly threatens a big brute like Garrosh right to his face?
"And when tha time comes dat ya failure is complete and ya "power" is meaningless, I will be dere to end ya rule, swiftly and silently. Ya will spend ya reign glancin' over ya shoulda and fearin' tha shadows, for when tha time comes and ya blood be slowly drainin' out, ya will know exactly who fired da arrow dat pierced ya heart."
Did you know Vol'jin spent months in the deep, ancient jungles of the lost isles, battling the ancient Loa spirits in order to become a shadow hunter? Did you know that he single-handedly led the charge against Zalazane and took back the Echo Isles? Did you know that he dared take up arms against the entire combined forces of the Zandalari, Amani, and Gurubashi trolls for the sake of the Horde?
I admit Vol'jin, as the troll racial leader, has somewhat of a special place in my heart. But even without being a troll I think he earns a place as one of the most badass NPCs.
3. Illidan Stormrage
"Imprisoned for ten thousand years. Banished from my own homeland. And now you dare enter MY realm? You are not prepared...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!"
Hey, I never said that only the good guys can be badass. Out of all the raid bosses who try so hard to be badass (Arthas comes to mind...he tried harder than anyone else and just came off as whiney), Illian really takes the cake.
Let's break it down - first of all, he turned all crazy and evil because the woman he loved chose his harmless & boring brother over him. That's kind of a romantic way to go batshit psycho if you ask me. Everyone else is all like "oh the Old Gods whispered some enticing words" or "Oh I was just suuuuuper power hungry". No, that's not how Illidan rolls. He's all like "I'm heartbroken and hell bent on revenge!"
Secondly, he burned out his own freaking eyeballs and made a demonic pact and basically sold his soul for power. I know all the cool kids are selling their souls these days, but how many kids ritually burn off their eyeballs?
Third, have you SEEN the BC opening cinematic? Illidan's bitter, chilling words are the first things to greet you. And the oft-parodied outro, "You are NOT PREPARED!" is still one of the most popular boss quotes of all time. He's been exiled to Outland, he's super pissed, and now you DARE set foot in Outland? Into HIS realm? You are clearly NOT PREPARED!
And lastly, even when you kill him, he gets the last word: You have won... Maiev... But the huntress... is nothing... without the hunt... You... are nothing... without... me...
Out of all the raid bosses with anger/revenge/demonic/girl issues, Illidan is definitely the most complex and the most badass.
2. Grand Apothecary Putress
"Now, all can see this is the hour of the Forsaken!"
Technically he is a bad guy since you kill him during the battle for the Undercity. But I dunno, I think of him as somewhat of a misguided hero. Sure, he ended up killing a bunch of innocent people but let's remember that half of them were alliance, our sworn enemies. The other half were unfortunately Horde, but I dunno, I always think of the Forsaken as kind of out for themselves anyways. Sure, they're part of the Horde and all, but they're really in it just for their own benefit. I don't think for one second the Forsaken care for the "Blood and Honor" shit that orcs are always going on about.
So in that light, Grand Apothecary Putress was serving his own people, in his own twisted way. Besides, you have to admit there is a significant element of badass-ness in the way that he will stop at nothing for revenge. What he wants is revenge against Arthas and the scourge, and he will stop at nothing to get it. Just mark his words as he unleashes the deadly plague upon the undead and living alike:
"Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! Death to the Scourge! And death to the living!"
I just love those first two sentences - the Forsaken have NOT forgotten, and they certainly have NOT forgiven Arthas. And their vengeance is terrible indeed.
And now...the most badass NPC of all time...
1. High Overlord Varok Saurfang
"I am he who watches they. I am the fist of retribution. That which does quell the recalcitrant. Dare you defy the Warchief? Dare you face my merciless judgement?"
Saurfang is legendary in the world of warcraft. Numerous Saurfang jokes are known across the fields of Azeroth (Chuck Norris is Saurfang's alt, Saurfang's hearthstone crits for 1337k damage, Saurfang uses [Thunderfury] for mining). He is a veteran from not only the first and second, but the third war as well. He's lived through the War of the Shifting Sands all the way to the fall of the Lich King. He rules with an Iron Fist and is the loyal protector to the Horde and the Warchief. Just listen to his bone-chilling speech prior to the battle with the Qiraji:
"An orc - a true orc warrior - wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy...We defend. We stand. We show that as one. United. We destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones. Our old ones. Our… loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?"
What is probably the most badass of all, is that he isn't a single-minded brainwashed maniac like most other badasses. Much like Vol'jin, he is a rational and intelligent leader. Varok's true badassery comes from the fact that he is incredibly wise, and he'll cleave you in the face with his axe if you try to do something stupid. He's a veteran and he's seen all the bloodshed and horror of war, and so different from the petulant Garrosh who just wants to crack open skulls. He's known personal tragedy too, like the loss of his only son at the Wrathgate and the heartbreaking reanimation of his corpse into a Death knight. He weeps as he picks up the broken body of his son at the footsteps of Icecrown Citadel, and says these memorable words:
"Honor, young heroes... no matter how dire the battle... Never forsake it!"
We salute you, High Overlord Saurfang...you are the greatest badass to walk on Azeroth!
(No alliance are mentioned in this list because alliance are in general wussies)
Now I know a lot of people think Garrosh is badass, but let's not kid ourselves, ok? There's clearly a difference between being a pigheaded bully and a true badass who has a noble cause, but plays by no one else's rules. Garrosh is just a schoolyard bully, a bully on testosterone!
5. Garona Halforcen
"I can make you look like an accident."
Yes, she was once a ruthless assassin who betrayed King Llane, but really, he was filthy alliance scum to begin with. Besides, she's way past all that drama now, and is dedicated to eradicating the Twilight Cult once and for all.
You have to admit that many rogue NPCs strike you as "cunning" or "sly", and Garona is probably the only exception to that. She's brutal and unapologetic and merciless, just how an orc should be.
4. Vol'jin
"Da Horde is my people, if it be war you bring, den I stand against you."
You think Garrosh is badass? How about the guy who openly threatens a big brute like Garrosh right to his face?
"And when tha time comes dat ya failure is complete and ya "power" is meaningless, I will be dere to end ya rule, swiftly and silently. Ya will spend ya reign glancin' over ya shoulda and fearin' tha shadows, for when tha time comes and ya blood be slowly drainin' out, ya will know exactly who fired da arrow dat pierced ya heart."
Did you know Vol'jin spent months in the deep, ancient jungles of the lost isles, battling the ancient Loa spirits in order to become a shadow hunter? Did you know that he single-handedly led the charge against Zalazane and took back the Echo Isles? Did you know that he dared take up arms against the entire combined forces of the Zandalari, Amani, and Gurubashi trolls for the sake of the Horde?
I admit Vol'jin, as the troll racial leader, has somewhat of a special place in my heart. But even without being a troll I think he earns a place as one of the most badass NPCs.
3. Illidan Stormrage
"Imprisoned for ten thousand years. Banished from my own homeland. And now you dare enter MY realm? You are not prepared...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!"
Hey, I never said that only the good guys can be badass. Out of all the raid bosses who try so hard to be badass (Arthas comes to mind...he tried harder than anyone else and just came off as whiney), Illian really takes the cake.
Let's break it down - first of all, he turned all crazy and evil because the woman he loved chose his harmless & boring brother over him. That's kind of a romantic way to go batshit psycho if you ask me. Everyone else is all like "oh the Old Gods whispered some enticing words" or "Oh I was just suuuuuper power hungry". No, that's not how Illidan rolls. He's all like "I'm heartbroken and hell bent on revenge!"
Secondly, he burned out his own freaking eyeballs and made a demonic pact and basically sold his soul for power. I know all the cool kids are selling their souls these days, but how many kids ritually burn off their eyeballs?
Third, have you SEEN the BC opening cinematic? Illidan's bitter, chilling words are the first things to greet you. And the oft-parodied outro, "You are NOT PREPARED!" is still one of the most popular boss quotes of all time. He's been exiled to Outland, he's super pissed, and now you DARE set foot in Outland? Into HIS realm? You are clearly NOT PREPARED!
And lastly, even when you kill him, he gets the last word: You have won... Maiev... But the huntress... is nothing... without the hunt... You... are nothing... without... me...
Out of all the raid bosses with anger/revenge/demonic/girl issues, Illidan is definitely the most complex and the most badass.
2. Grand Apothecary Putress
"Now, all can see this is the hour of the Forsaken!"
Technically he is a bad guy since you kill him during the battle for the Undercity. But I dunno, I think of him as somewhat of a misguided hero. Sure, he ended up killing a bunch of innocent people but let's remember that half of them were alliance, our sworn enemies. The other half were unfortunately Horde, but I dunno, I always think of the Forsaken as kind of out for themselves anyways. Sure, they're part of the Horde and all, but they're really in it just for their own benefit. I don't think for one second the Forsaken care for the "Blood and Honor" shit that orcs are always going on about.
So in that light, Grand Apothecary Putress was serving his own people, in his own twisted way. Besides, you have to admit there is a significant element of badass-ness in the way that he will stop at nothing for revenge. What he wants is revenge against Arthas and the scourge, and he will stop at nothing to get it. Just mark his words as he unleashes the deadly plague upon the undead and living alike:
"Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! Death to the Scourge! And death to the living!"
I just love those first two sentences - the Forsaken have NOT forgotten, and they certainly have NOT forgiven Arthas. And their vengeance is terrible indeed.
And now...the most badass NPC of all time...
1. High Overlord Varok Saurfang
"I am he who watches they. I am the fist of retribution. That which does quell the recalcitrant. Dare you defy the Warchief? Dare you face my merciless judgement?"
Saurfang is legendary in the world of warcraft. Numerous Saurfang jokes are known across the fields of Azeroth (Chuck Norris is Saurfang's alt, Saurfang's hearthstone crits for 1337k damage, Saurfang uses [Thunderfury] for mining). He is a veteran from not only the first and second, but the third war as well. He's lived through the War of the Shifting Sands all the way to the fall of the Lich King. He rules with an Iron Fist and is the loyal protector to the Horde and the Warchief. Just listen to his bone-chilling speech prior to the battle with the Qiraji:
"An orc - a true orc warrior - wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy...We defend. We stand. We show that as one. United. We destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones. Our old ones. Our… loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?"
What is probably the most badass of all, is that he isn't a single-minded brainwashed maniac like most other badasses. Much like Vol'jin, he is a rational and intelligent leader. Varok's true badassery comes from the fact that he is incredibly wise, and he'll cleave you in the face with his axe if you try to do something stupid. He's a veteran and he's seen all the bloodshed and horror of war, and so different from the petulant Garrosh who just wants to crack open skulls. He's known personal tragedy too, like the loss of his only son at the Wrathgate and the heartbreaking reanimation of his corpse into a Death knight. He weeps as he picks up the broken body of his son at the footsteps of Icecrown Citadel, and says these memorable words:
"Honor, young heroes... no matter how dire the battle... Never forsake it!"
We salute you, High Overlord Saurfang...you are the greatest badass to walk on Azeroth!
(No alliance are mentioned in this list because alliance are in general wussies)
Domo Arigato & Casualcore
Our guild downed heroic Domo last night - we are now 3/7 hardmodes! I'm incredibly proud of us and how far we've come in just a few short weeks. Since the nerf we've downed one new heroic boss per week and we're showing no signs of slowing down! As we down more bosses, we're getting more signups to raid and you can feel a renewed sense of enthusiasm in the raid group.
I've noticed though that we're starting to go back to that "serious progression" mindset. While I don't mind serious progression, I like knowing where we stand one way or another. Are we a progression-driven, casualcore guild that keeps track of attendance, performance, min/maxing etc etc? Or are we strictly casual and missing one raid is not going to land me on the bench indefinitely? It's hard to gauge things right now.
When we raid we do joke around plenty and the RLs don't fly off the handle if we get one no-show or someone is 15 min late. During a boss fight people still crack jokes and poke fun at each other, even if it's a progression fight.
But last night we were told by the more serious of the two RLs to "stop messing around and focus". His tone wasn't mean or snippy, it was just a calm, but firm warning. It caught me a little off guard because while it was hardmode Domo, we had only put in a couple attempts so far - it was far from a situation where everyone is pissy from 2 hours of almost-had-it situations. And the other RL was joking around too, and I thought we were all having a good time and being a little goofy.
I didn't take it personally because I knew it wasn't directed just at me, but it did dampen my attitude for the rest of that night. And yeah, we downed Domo after all and everyone was happy. But I dunno...are we really the type of guild that can't tolerate a few silly comments during fights?
I know my guild used to be a pretty serious progression guild - that's why I joined, and that's why I left, because we no longer raided. At that time I wanted raid progression, and I treated the guild as a means to get what I wanted out of the game (as I'm sure many of the raiders did as well).
And now I'm back in this guild because I like the people, I like our atmosphere and I like that I click well with everyone - we have similar nerdy hobbies, similar sense of humor and similar interests. I'm not here to push bleeding edge progression - I'm just here to have fun. Which is why I don't mind sitting out a couple nights or I don't sweat it if a raid gets cancelled.
I guess the whole point of this is that I don't know if I would be happy going back to the old model. I gave up hardcore progression for a reason - it was too much like a job. It took a lot of enjoyment out of the game to treat raiding as the single all-important element of the game. When you stake 3 hours worth of fun on getting down a raid boss, and that raid gets cancelled or you wipe all night, you end up just feeling crappy and angry at other people for not showing up, not playing well, etc.
I still enjoy raiding and still look forward to every raid night - I think end-game raiding will always be a big part of wow for me, but I've learned to not get hung up on it so much. I would be happy raiding once a month or twice a week and anything in between, as long as it's with the right people and it's a chill atmosphere. I've learned to branch out and enjoy other aspects of the game (soloing old instances, BGs, achievement farming, alts, the list goes on). Raiding is not the ultimate goal anymore - it's just one of the many things I do on wow.
Well, I guess we'll see how things play out. At this point it's nothing more than a gut feeling that's worrying me. I know that we're going to continue pushing progression likely until heroic Rag goes down, and then the Deathwing raid will be right around the corner. I just don't want to go back to that "THIS IS SRS BSNS" mentality at this point. It's no fun to sweat bullets during a raid.
I've noticed though that we're starting to go back to that "serious progression" mindset. While I don't mind serious progression, I like knowing where we stand one way or another. Are we a progression-driven, casualcore guild that keeps track of attendance, performance, min/maxing etc etc? Or are we strictly casual and missing one raid is not going to land me on the bench indefinitely? It's hard to gauge things right now.
When we raid we do joke around plenty and the RLs don't fly off the handle if we get one no-show or someone is 15 min late. During a boss fight people still crack jokes and poke fun at each other, even if it's a progression fight.
But last night we were told by the more serious of the two RLs to "stop messing around and focus". His tone wasn't mean or snippy, it was just a calm, but firm warning. It caught me a little off guard because while it was hardmode Domo, we had only put in a couple attempts so far - it was far from a situation where everyone is pissy from 2 hours of almost-had-it situations. And the other RL was joking around too, and I thought we were all having a good time and being a little goofy.
I didn't take it personally because I knew it wasn't directed just at me, but it did dampen my attitude for the rest of that night. And yeah, we downed Domo after all and everyone was happy. But I dunno...are we really the type of guild that can't tolerate a few silly comments during fights?
I know my guild used to be a pretty serious progression guild - that's why I joined, and that's why I left, because we no longer raided. At that time I wanted raid progression, and I treated the guild as a means to get what I wanted out of the game (as I'm sure many of the raiders did as well).
And now I'm back in this guild because I like the people, I like our atmosphere and I like that I click well with everyone - we have similar nerdy hobbies, similar sense of humor and similar interests. I'm not here to push bleeding edge progression - I'm just here to have fun. Which is why I don't mind sitting out a couple nights or I don't sweat it if a raid gets cancelled.
I guess the whole point of this is that I don't know if I would be happy going back to the old model. I gave up hardcore progression for a reason - it was too much like a job. It took a lot of enjoyment out of the game to treat raiding as the single all-important element of the game. When you stake 3 hours worth of fun on getting down a raid boss, and that raid gets cancelled or you wipe all night, you end up just feeling crappy and angry at other people for not showing up, not playing well, etc.
I still enjoy raiding and still look forward to every raid night - I think end-game raiding will always be a big part of wow for me, but I've learned to not get hung up on it so much. I would be happy raiding once a month or twice a week and anything in between, as long as it's with the right people and it's a chill atmosphere. I've learned to branch out and enjoy other aspects of the game (soloing old instances, BGs, achievement farming, alts, the list goes on). Raiding is not the ultimate goal anymore - it's just one of the many things I do on wow.
Well, I guess we'll see how things play out. At this point it's nothing more than a gut feeling that's worrying me. I know that we're going to continue pushing progression likely until heroic Rag goes down, and then the Deathwing raid will be right around the corner. I just don't want to go back to that "THIS IS SRS BSNS" mentality at this point. It's no fun to sweat bullets during a raid.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Mogging efforts
I am so excited for transmogging, and with every preview and PTR patch notes, the harder it is to contain my excitement! I'm finally going to look the way I want my character to look, as opposed to whatever garbage gear blizz decides to slap onto me.
I don't expect to look "unique" or anything - from what I've gathered on the forums, every other rogue is going to be rocking Bloodfang, so I don't expect to be original. Hopefully though, most people will go for the original red bloodfang rather than the blue recolor that I'm going for.
After months of BC heroic dungeon grinding, I have finally completed the look I want - it's mainly the blue recolor of the bloodfang set they introduced in BC, but with a few tweaks of my own. I swapped out the bulky boots (makes me calves look big!) with a more skintight version, added in a matching cloak and found a good dark blue shirt to go with it. I'm not a fan of the exposed-elbow-look you get when you don't stick on a shirt with set pieces.
As for the weapons I thought that Timeslicer matched perfectly, with the graceful yet deadly blue design. Starlight dagger was also a good choice (I love the brutal serrated edges), but unfortunately it's a specifically main hand dagger :( I just want to add that getting that stupid dagger took me about 20 kills of Epoch Hunter in Old Hillsbrad. Anyone who's tried to farm a scripted instance knows that a pain in the ass that is...by the end I wanted to kill Thrall myself.
Here is also another set that I like - I might have to switch between the bluefang (ooh I just made up a nickname) and this one. It's rather flashy for a rogue (can you imagine trying to sneak around while flashing this much bling?) but who really cares? This isn't an RP realm...
It's the gold recolor of the Nightslayer set, another excellent and popular set that drops from Molten Core. I especially love the look of the mask/helm - subtle yet chic. Unfortunately the original Nightslayer was a little too "bleh" for me. I already had a dark bluish set, I really didn't feel the need for another one. The gold recolor looked absolutely gorgeous, and had that cool plate mail look to it that I loved but is unfortunately not often available to leather classes.
My only problem was the shoulders - the original ones look like bowling balls (or D-cups, depending on who you ask) and it just looked hideous. Trying to find something else that matched was also a big challenge since that bronzed-gold tone is unique to this set. I experimented with pretty much every shoulder model & color that wowhead had to offer, and came up with this one. I'd have preferred a black motif, of course, but at least this one has a gold trim that matches the rest of the set pretty well (many gold tones looked too orange or yellow). By throwing on a red/gold cape and completing the look with black/gold/red daggers, the shoulders flow with the rest of the set pretty nicely.
The minor tweak I had to make was to swap out the fat calf boots with a skintight version. Other than that I think everything is the original intended recolor except the shoulders.
Farming this one will be a bit tricky though - while I can acquire everything easily from BC heroics, the weapons are a drop from a Sunwell raid boss. My guild is doing some transmog gear runs, and my best bet is to just hope that it drops during one of those runs. I don't think you can 2-man Sunwell easily...
So yeah, it looks like when 4.3 hit, I'll be rolling around Orgrimmar either as a dark blue assassin, or a ritzy gilded ninja. Can't wait!
I don't expect to look "unique" or anything - from what I've gathered on the forums, every other rogue is going to be rocking Bloodfang, so I don't expect to be original. Hopefully though, most people will go for the original red bloodfang rather than the blue recolor that I'm going for.
After months of BC heroic dungeon grinding, I have finally completed the look I want - it's mainly the blue recolor of the bloodfang set they introduced in BC, but with a few tweaks of my own. I swapped out the bulky boots (makes me calves look big!) with a more skintight version, added in a matching cloak and found a good dark blue shirt to go with it. I'm not a fan of the exposed-elbow-look you get when you don't stick on a shirt with set pieces.
As for the weapons I thought that Timeslicer matched perfectly, with the graceful yet deadly blue design. Starlight dagger was also a good choice (I love the brutal serrated edges), but unfortunately it's a specifically main hand dagger :( I just want to add that getting that stupid dagger took me about 20 kills of Epoch Hunter in Old Hillsbrad. Anyone who's tried to farm a scripted instance knows that a pain in the ass that is...by the end I wanted to kill Thrall myself.
Here is also another set that I like - I might have to switch between the bluefang (ooh I just made up a nickname) and this one. It's rather flashy for a rogue (can you imagine trying to sneak around while flashing this much bling?) but who really cares? This isn't an RP realm...
It's the gold recolor of the Nightslayer set, another excellent and popular set that drops from Molten Core. I especially love the look of the mask/helm - subtle yet chic. Unfortunately the original Nightslayer was a little too "bleh" for me. I already had a dark bluish set, I really didn't feel the need for another one. The gold recolor looked absolutely gorgeous, and had that cool plate mail look to it that I loved but is unfortunately not often available to leather classes.
My only problem was the shoulders - the original ones look like bowling balls (or D-cups, depending on who you ask) and it just looked hideous. Trying to find something else that matched was also a big challenge since that bronzed-gold tone is unique to this set. I experimented with pretty much every shoulder model & color that wowhead had to offer, and came up with this one. I'd have preferred a black motif, of course, but at least this one has a gold trim that matches the rest of the set pretty well (many gold tones looked too orange or yellow). By throwing on a red/gold cape and completing the look with black/gold/red daggers, the shoulders flow with the rest of the set pretty nicely.
The minor tweak I had to make was to swap out the fat calf boots with a skintight version. Other than that I think everything is the original intended recolor except the shoulders.
Farming this one will be a bit tricky though - while I can acquire everything easily from BC heroics, the weapons are a drop from a Sunwell raid boss. My guild is doing some transmog gear runs, and my best bet is to just hope that it drops during one of those runs. I don't think you can 2-man Sunwell easily...
So yeah, it looks like when 4.3 hit, I'll be rolling around Orgrimmar either as a dark blue assassin, or a ritzy gilded ninja. Can't wait!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
FL Nerf
Last week our guild went into FL for the first time since the massive raid-wide nerf (25% nerf to all bosses HP and damage). Having downed normal Rag literally a few days before the nerf hit, we pat ourselves on the back and took a short break, and came back ready to f*** s*** up.
We decided to go straight away for heroic Shannox. He still wasn't a pushover on heroic mode, and it took us a good 20 attempts or so to down. Having spend the majority of the raid night on the encounter, we called it a night.
The next day we came back and to clear the rest of the raid on normal. We only had 9 people online so we begin clearing trash, figuring that once someone logs on we'll work on bosses.
We waited a while and no one came on, so we decided to 9-man Rhyolith. And he went down easy. Like, we poked him a few times with a sharp stick and he cried, "I surrender!" and crumbled. And dropped my new helm! Finally I can get rid of the ugly monstrosity known as tier 11.
Next was Beth'tilac. Again, easily one-shotted. Alysrazor was a total joke. Not only was HP and damage nerfed, they had nerfed the two most crucial mechanics that made the fight somewhat difficult - the fire tornado was slowed down, and the flame druid initiates no longer spammed fieroblast. Given that my personal biggest screwup is not interrupting the fieroblast, that made my life a whole lot easier. And given that whenever someone dies, it's usually to that fire tornado, the encounter was a breeze. With 9 people we were able to beat our previous kill record, and everyone was just sort of stunned into silence after we downed her. "Seriously...that's it?"
We brought in a 10th finally for Baleroc, but I feel like we could've easily 9-manned that too. At least we got the speed kill achievement.
Ragnaros was also significantly easier. We had only one wipe and the second try was a little messy but we got the job done. I didn't notice much in the way of damage reduction but the phase transitions sure went a heck of a lot quicker with that massive 25% nerf to HP.
We're planning on attempting more heroic modes this week. My guess is they'll be pretty challenging, but given how boring the normal modes were, the heroics will actually provide some challenge. I guess my question to Blizz is, did you really have to nerf so much? I feel like a simple 10% nerf would've been sufficient, or maybe just a 25% nerf to HP and leave the mechanics alone. Yes, we like loot but we also like to not pass out from boredom while raiding.
We decided to go straight away for heroic Shannox. He still wasn't a pushover on heroic mode, and it took us a good 20 attempts or so to down. Having spend the majority of the raid night on the encounter, we called it a night.
The next day we came back and to clear the rest of the raid on normal. We only had 9 people online so we begin clearing trash, figuring that once someone logs on we'll work on bosses.
We waited a while and no one came on, so we decided to 9-man Rhyolith. And he went down easy. Like, we poked him a few times with a sharp stick and he cried, "I surrender!" and crumbled. And dropped my new helm! Finally I can get rid of the ugly monstrosity known as tier 11.
Next was Beth'tilac. Again, easily one-shotted. Alysrazor was a total joke. Not only was HP and damage nerfed, they had nerfed the two most crucial mechanics that made the fight somewhat difficult - the fire tornado was slowed down, and the flame druid initiates no longer spammed fieroblast. Given that my personal biggest screwup is not interrupting the fieroblast, that made my life a whole lot easier. And given that whenever someone dies, it's usually to that fire tornado, the encounter was a breeze. With 9 people we were able to beat our previous kill record, and everyone was just sort of stunned into silence after we downed her. "Seriously...that's it?"
We brought in a 10th finally for Baleroc, but I feel like we could've easily 9-manned that too. At least we got the speed kill achievement.
Ragnaros was also significantly easier. We had only one wipe and the second try was a little messy but we got the job done. I didn't notice much in the way of damage reduction but the phase transitions sure went a heck of a lot quicker with that massive 25% nerf to HP.
We're planning on attempting more heroic modes this week. My guess is they'll be pretty challenging, but given how boring the normal modes were, the heroics will actually provide some challenge. I guess my question to Blizz is, did you really have to nerf so much? I feel like a simple 10% nerf would've been sufficient, or maybe just a 25% nerf to HP and leave the mechanics alone. Yes, we like loot but we also like to not pass out from boredom while raiding.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Batman
Wow. The new rogue tier 13 was unveiled today, and all I have to say is...wow. It sure is one ugly set.
Yeah, everyone thinks that their class set is the ugliest (although the shamans seem to be pretty happy with the Flinstones look), I have to say this is a new low.
Rogues (like every other class) has had their ups and downs when it comes to tier sets. I personally love tier2, the bloodfang set, because I think it's both really awesome and deadly looking, while keeping in line with the whole idea of a stealthy, sneaky rogue. The dark red/black combo of the bloodfang set, combined with the not-too overdone shoulders and general motif made it look really great. The darkened headpiece that completely shrouds the face was also a great touch and made you look more sinister than ever.
The BC recolors of the tier2 set were really nice too - hence, that is why I'm collecting the dark blue/black recolor for my transmog set. I'd love to get my hands on the original bloodfang but alas, blackwing lair is not soloable...
Tier 1 set is alright too, you can tell blizz really drew some inspiration from ninjas, what with that headpiece and the scaled leg armor. While it looks nice overall, I find it a touch too bright for my tastes, and I just can't get over the bowling ball-look of the shoulderpads. If I could find an alternate shoulderpiece I'd consider getting the set for transmog.
Then blizz starts getting all weird on us. I mean, look at the Netherblade set. What is that bizarre shiny space suit all about? Because nothing says "rogue, master of stealth" like a bright glowing lavender chrome suit?
Things seem to get better with tiers 6-7, a bit too gladiator-like but still not too bad. Then blizz goes and makes it totally weird again with the Terrorblade series. What is with those creepy skeleton masks???
Tiers 9-10 I think are quite alright. Garona's set was pretty nice looking, actually. The Shadowblade set looked weird to me at first, with the tattered plague geist look and all that, but over time I grew to like the twisted, sinister look it had going on. Especially the 10H/25 version of the gear had a nice darkened look to it too.
And then came the abomination known as Wind Dancer's Regalia, which unfortunately I had to suffer through most of Cataclysm with. Those big ugly glowing shoulderpads looked awful on every single race. The helmet was truly the ugliest I'd seen in a long time (in fact I haven't seen a helmet I'd actually display since tier 2). I jumped for joy when I finally got some new shoulderpads...
Tier 12 looked great, I loved the Dark Phoenix set. Not sure why they went with that theme, but visually it looked pretty nice, even down to a mean-looking helm (which I have yet to acquire). Both the normal and heroic versions look good, though the darker purple set looks a tad bit prettier.
And now...tier 13. The ugly ass batman suit. Is this what I have to look forward to in the next patch? Thank god for transmog!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Top 2%
Heh, I just read a forum post where a guy was QQing that only 2% (by his rough estimates) have killed Ragnaros on normal mode. He was of course complaining that it was too hard, casuals deserve easier raids and more loot, etc etc etc.
Our guild just downed normal mode Rag after extending a raid lockout this Tuesday. We said, hey, let's not expend energy clearing the bosses over again, let's just get to Rag and DO THIS THING!
Especially given the announcement that they were going to nerf both normal and heroic Ragnaros next week, everyone was quite anxious to get him, come hell or high water.
We went for a pretty radical new strategy we had never used before and decided to 2-heal the fight. Things seemed a bit dicey at first, but around the 10th try or so, we got him down!
It reminded me a bit of the Nefarian fight, where we just struggled so damn much just to see the last phase. And once we made it to the last phase, it wasn't hard at all (at least for DPS, I imagine the healers were sweating bullets).
We were having trouble with the 2nd phase transition where the lava Scions come out. We were using a 3 healer strat previously, which meant that almost every time one of the sons of flame would get lose (due to lack of stuns on the last one) while the tanks picked up the scions, blow up and wipe the raid. Prior to tuesday night we had only managed to get past this transition once, and with half the raid dead at that.
But we decided to 2-heal it and have the tanks focus on stunning the sons and ignore the scions at the start. It worked like a champ, and even though it took us a few wipes to get to the phase transition, once it clicked, it worked. We had no problem getting the adds down, and we wiped once while the scions were still up due to fire (it's all fire. Fire is everywhere in Firelands). But the next time, the scions went down smoothly and the next phase finally started with everyone in the raid still alive.
This was the "meatball" phase, which I don't think anyone in the raid had really done before. But we knew we had to kite it, then attack it right before it hits you and send it bouncing to someone else. We still had about 25% more to push before Rag went down but luckily everyone was alive and focused. The meatballs bounced around, Rag summoned engulfing flames everywhere, and everyone was burning (the boss, not standing in fire) as hard as they could.
Someone died due to engulfing flames around 20%. I saw someone else die to...something. Then a DPS blew up from the meatball right next to me. 6% more to go. I see one of the tanks go down. Engulfing right under my foot! I'm fixated by a meatball! 2% left to go. It's coming towards me but it's far away. I pop every single CD I have available and literally start mashing some buttons. And just as I see that meatball about to run me over...Rag dies and everything vanishes.
Ah, it's always an epic feeling to down an end boss. Not to mention that we're in the top 2% of the population that managed to do it before the nerfs.
Deathwing, you're next.
Our guild just downed normal mode Rag after extending a raid lockout this Tuesday. We said, hey, let's not expend energy clearing the bosses over again, let's just get to Rag and DO THIS THING!
Especially given the announcement that they were going to nerf both normal and heroic Ragnaros next week, everyone was quite anxious to get him, come hell or high water.
We went for a pretty radical new strategy we had never used before and decided to 2-heal the fight. Things seemed a bit dicey at first, but around the 10th try or so, we got him down!
It reminded me a bit of the Nefarian fight, where we just struggled so damn much just to see the last phase. And once we made it to the last phase, it wasn't hard at all (at least for DPS, I imagine the healers were sweating bullets).
We were having trouble with the 2nd phase transition where the lava Scions come out. We were using a 3 healer strat previously, which meant that almost every time one of the sons of flame would get lose (due to lack of stuns on the last one) while the tanks picked up the scions, blow up and wipe the raid. Prior to tuesday night we had only managed to get past this transition once, and with half the raid dead at that.
But we decided to 2-heal it and have the tanks focus on stunning the sons and ignore the scions at the start. It worked like a champ, and even though it took us a few wipes to get to the phase transition, once it clicked, it worked. We had no problem getting the adds down, and we wiped once while the scions were still up due to fire (it's all fire. Fire is everywhere in Firelands). But the next time, the scions went down smoothly and the next phase finally started with everyone in the raid still alive.
This was the "meatball" phase, which I don't think anyone in the raid had really done before. But we knew we had to kite it, then attack it right before it hits you and send it bouncing to someone else. We still had about 25% more to push before Rag went down but luckily everyone was alive and focused. The meatballs bounced around, Rag summoned engulfing flames everywhere, and everyone was burning (the boss, not standing in fire) as hard as they could.
Someone died due to engulfing flames around 20%. I saw someone else die to...something. Then a DPS blew up from the meatball right next to me. 6% more to go. I see one of the tanks go down. Engulfing right under my foot! I'm fixated by a meatball! 2% left to go. It's coming towards me but it's far away. I pop every single CD I have available and literally start mashing some buttons. And just as I see that meatball about to run me over...Rag dies and everything vanishes.
Ah, it's always an epic feeling to down an end boss. Not to mention that we're in the top 2% of the population that managed to do it before the nerfs.
Deathwing, you're next.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Nerd Rage Topic: heroics =/= normal
Since when did heroics become so...non-heroic? By that I mean the general player base perception of heroics, not the dungeon difficulty itself.
Yeah, yeah, wrath was too easy and heroics were a joke, I get it, I get it. I was there too so I can understand where the mentality comes from. But I mean, cata has been out almost a year now, don't people understand that the wrath days of roflstomping a heroic in 15 minutes is gone?
Normals are easy. Normals are forgiving. One-shot abilities don't actually one-shot you because a good healer can heal through most anything on normal mode. Sure, let those shock blasts go off once or twice or every single time. Go ahead and stand in front of Ozruk, eat those ground slams and shatters, I will heal your sorry ass back up to full because everyone makes mistakes, right?
Heroics are not easy. They are not forgiving. Sure, you might think it's no more difficult than normals because you were lucky and got into a good run a few times where the tank was chain pulling and you stood in the fire and someone healed you through it. It made you cocky, it made you think heroics are just like normals!
No. No they are not. If you get in with the average dungeon group, heroics are a different experience, because you will end up with 1-4 idiots who do not know the difference between a normal and heroic dungeon.
NEWS FLASH: not only do things in heroics hit you harder, faster, and more frequently in the face, one-shot mechanics will ACTUALLY one-shot you.
Normal modes are where you learn these things, but the problem is no one learns the correct thing to do because they never see that doing the wrong thing = death. You tell a noob "don't stand in this" and he does, sees that he didn't die despite standing in it, so he thinks that it's ok to stand there. You tell the noob "interrupt this ability" and he forgets, and sees that no one died from it, so he thinks you can ignore the interrupts.
Which just leads to a big clusterf**k when you enter a heroic with one of these idiots. You see them just standing there. IN FIRE. Just standing there, their hp dropping faster than the time it takes you to cast a flash heal. They die, and wonder what happened, and about half the time they jump to this amusing conclusion: "I died because you're a bad healer"
Like the time I got Stonecore with a very intellectually challenged mage. First he almost dies to trash by standing in whirlwind. I life-gripped him out a couple times and managed to keep him alive.
At Corborus, he stands in the dust trail during the submerge phase and gets one-shotted. After the fight his words are "That's really weird, I wonder how I died."
I told him that he stood in the dust trail, and his response? "I don't think so, that's never happened to me before"
/facepalm.
Then he stands right in the crystal barrage during Slabhide, doens't even try to LoS the damn thing and dies almost immediately. After we kill him I say, "if you need an explanation on the fight just say so."
His response? "Lol I've done this place like 10 times, dude"
"Is that why you ate the crystal barrage to the face?" I asked. He just shrugged at me.
Finally at the pack of mobs with the sentry, he ignores the sentry (marked with a skull) and it ends up pulling another pack. As we're running back he says "how did we aggro the other group? That's never happened before"
I checked his achievement and lo and behold, he did not have the heroic: stonecore achievement. So the 10 times he had done Stonecore was on normal mode, which is why he was failing so miserably. I dropped group as soon as I zoned in.
What bothered me the most about his attitude was the constant "that's never happened before", which usually is an indirect way of saying it was someone else's fault, since it's clearly never happened to that player in another group. OR MAYBE it's never happened before because you've never done the goddamn heroic mode dungeon?!?! It's great that you've done the fight 10 times on normal, you know what that means? You don't know shit about the fight on heroic mode.
Healing is stressful enough, the last thing I need to hear is some snotty fail DPS pulling 4k making some thinly veiled jab and trying to blame me for their repairbill.
I'm not an unreasonable person, I don't expect you to go research the fights. I know I didn't, I simply learned from other people. Just speak up and admit you don't know it and I'd be more than happy to explain it to you. And if you're so terrible of a player that you can't even be bothered to admit that, then at least keep your mouth shut when you die and gratefully take the rez.
/end rant
Yeah, yeah, wrath was too easy and heroics were a joke, I get it, I get it. I was there too so I can understand where the mentality comes from. But I mean, cata has been out almost a year now, don't people understand that the wrath days of roflstomping a heroic in 15 minutes is gone?
Normals are easy. Normals are forgiving. One-shot abilities don't actually one-shot you because a good healer can heal through most anything on normal mode. Sure, let those shock blasts go off once or twice or every single time. Go ahead and stand in front of Ozruk, eat those ground slams and shatters, I will heal your sorry ass back up to full because everyone makes mistakes, right?
Heroics are not easy. They are not forgiving. Sure, you might think it's no more difficult than normals because you were lucky and got into a good run a few times where the tank was chain pulling and you stood in the fire and someone healed you through it. It made you cocky, it made you think heroics are just like normals!
No. No they are not. If you get in with the average dungeon group, heroics are a different experience, because you will end up with 1-4 idiots who do not know the difference between a normal and heroic dungeon.
NEWS FLASH: not only do things in heroics hit you harder, faster, and more frequently in the face, one-shot mechanics will ACTUALLY one-shot you.
Normal modes are where you learn these things, but the problem is no one learns the correct thing to do because they never see that doing the wrong thing = death. You tell a noob "don't stand in this" and he does, sees that he didn't die despite standing in it, so he thinks that it's ok to stand there. You tell the noob "interrupt this ability" and he forgets, and sees that no one died from it, so he thinks you can ignore the interrupts.
Which just leads to a big clusterf**k when you enter a heroic with one of these idiots. You see them just standing there. IN FIRE. Just standing there, their hp dropping faster than the time it takes you to cast a flash heal. They die, and wonder what happened, and about half the time they jump to this amusing conclusion: "I died because you're a bad healer"
Like the time I got Stonecore with a very intellectually challenged mage. First he almost dies to trash by standing in whirlwind. I life-gripped him out a couple times and managed to keep him alive.
At Corborus, he stands in the dust trail during the submerge phase and gets one-shotted. After the fight his words are "That's really weird, I wonder how I died."
I told him that he stood in the dust trail, and his response? "I don't think so, that's never happened to me before"
/facepalm.
Then he stands right in the crystal barrage during Slabhide, doens't even try to LoS the damn thing and dies almost immediately. After we kill him I say, "if you need an explanation on the fight just say so."
His response? "Lol I've done this place like 10 times, dude"
"Is that why you ate the crystal barrage to the face?" I asked. He just shrugged at me.
Finally at the pack of mobs with the sentry, he ignores the sentry (marked with a skull) and it ends up pulling another pack. As we're running back he says "how did we aggro the other group? That's never happened before"
I checked his achievement and lo and behold, he did not have the heroic: stonecore achievement. So the 10 times he had done Stonecore was on normal mode, which is why he was failing so miserably. I dropped group as soon as I zoned in.
What bothered me the most about his attitude was the constant "that's never happened before", which usually is an indirect way of saying it was someone else's fault, since it's clearly never happened to that player in another group. OR MAYBE it's never happened before because you've never done the goddamn heroic mode dungeon?!?! It's great that you've done the fight 10 times on normal, you know what that means? You don't know shit about the fight on heroic mode.
Healing is stressful enough, the last thing I need to hear is some snotty fail DPS pulling 4k making some thinly veiled jab and trying to blame me for their repairbill.
I'm not an unreasonable person, I don't expect you to go research the fights. I know I didn't, I simply learned from other people. Just speak up and admit you don't know it and I'd be more than happy to explain it to you. And if you're so terrible of a player that you can't even be bothered to admit that, then at least keep your mouth shut when you die and gratefully take the rez.
/end rant
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Top 5...Epic Bromances
Ra ra ah ah ah, Roma roma-ma, ga, ga, ooh-la-la...what's your wow bromance?
Sometimes you see characters in wow that are just a little more than friends. The bromance is so blatantly obvious that you know it wasn't just poor dialogue choice, it was very deliberate, and shows that the devs have a sense of humor after all...
5. Kalecgos and Korialstrasz
At first they seem to be at war - the Nexus war, to be specific. But regardless of Kalec's allegiance to his flight, he admits to having deep respect and admiration for the red dragon Korialstrasz. This is fleshed out in much greater detail in the Sunwell Trilogy, the novels Night of the Dragon and Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, to some degree.
Sure, they bicker at first, but their begrudging friendship soon gives way to a budding bromance. With Korialstrasz's unfortunate and untimely demise in the latest novel, we won't be seeing any more of this draconic bromance. But these two show that even dragons have feelings!
4. Gidwin Goldbraids and Tarenar Sunstrike
You first encounter these energetic and sometimes troublesome duo in the Eastern Plaguelands. If you follow the entirety of Fiona's caravan questchain, you'll see them bicker, banter, frolic and finally rescue each other in a dramatic conclusion.
It's so cute how they both aspired to become paladins of the argent crusade ever since they were boys. Which also begs the question, how did they meet? I mean, Tarenar is a blood elf...Gidwin is a dwarf...technically they're supposed to be hated enemies. I like to think that they both lost their parents to the scourge and grew up in the same orphanage! How they ended up with a Gypsy Worgen caravan saleswoman named Fiona I'll never know.
3. Jadaar and Asric
These two would have to be classified as the bitter old bromance, sort of like two old married people who, deep down, do love each other but bicker constantly and don't even realize what they're fighting about. They've been arguing since Shattrath city, to the Dalaran Sewers, and finally have settled at the Argent Tournament grounds, drinking and lobbing insults at each other.
Their dialogue is really funny if you take the time to listen:
Jadaar says: Remind me again why I tolerate your company, Asric.
Asric smirks wryly.
Asric says: I have decades of practice handling blowhards like yourself, and I'm the only one you know here in this abominably freezing land.
Jadaar says: I should leave you to rot in this sewer with the filth.
Asric says: No doubt.
Jadaar says: You are beneath me.
Asric says: A lowly worm, I'm sure.
Jadaar says: Stop agreeing with me!
Asric says: You're right, of course, it's a terrible practice.
Jadaar says: AGH!
And then this little gem at the Argent Tourney grounds:
Jadaar says: You realize, of course, that we would likely have to joust one another should we enter the tournament.
Asric says: There is no doubt in my mind you'd lose. Speed and wit triumphs over brute strength and bullheadedness any day of the week.
Jadaar says: Bullheadedness? It is my perseverance that has gotten us this far, dandy. You wouldn't last five seconds.
Asric says: Typical empty boasting. Still, the stables are rather distant and the drinks here are decent enough.
Jadaar says: I hear those lances are rough-hewn, too. I'm no fan of splinters.
Asric says: Just as well.
Just listening to them talk about splinters cracks me up!
2. Koltira Deathweaver and Thasaarian
They were sworn enemies in life (Thasaarian actually even killed Koltira), but in undeath they seem to have worked out their differences. They claim it's just a totally "brotherly bond" (see Thasaarian's dialogue below), but I suspect there's more at work here...
Orbaz Bloodbane says: Why do you care, Thassarian?
Orbaz Bloodbane says: His weakness led to his capture.
Orbaz Bloodbane says: Only the strong should survive. Not to mention...
Thassarian says: What, Orbaz? That he's a blood elf?
Thassarian says: In life we were hated enemies - this is true...
Thassarian says: But in death... We are the children of the damned. The bastard sons and daughters of the Scourge.
Thassarian says: In death we are brothers.
Orbaz Bloodbane says: To hell with you, Thassarian.
Don't tell me it's just camaraderie when these two are being all buddy-buddy even after going back to their respective original allegiances. You know in Andorhal when they talk about how they'll kill each other, they're staring deeply and soulfully into each other's eyes when they say that. Er, as soulfully as they can, being death knights and not having a soul and all that...
And finally, the most EPIC wow bromance of all time...
1. Tholo Whitehoof and Anren Shadowseeker
Oh, these two are totally bromantic and they don't even bother to hide it! When you first stumble upon them they are standing back-to-back (described as a 'druid combat circle'), fighting mobs and cheering each other on in a most bromantic way. Just listen to some of the stuff they say to each other:
"Together we can do anything, Anren!"
"You are a good friend, Tholo!"
"I will stay with you, Anren!"
"Stay on my back, Tholo!" (EHEM)
"I will protect you, Anren!"
"I wish I knew how to quit you, Tholo."
Ok, so that last part isn't actually in the game, but these two are completely bromantic for each other, in a way that is very reminiscent of JD and Turk. You can almost just hear them singing 'Guy Love' when you're not looking...
Double points for that fact that not only is this bromance inter-horde/alliance, inter-racial, but like, inter-SPECIES! Tholo being a tauren and Anren being a night elf, just makes this bromance mind-blowingly adorable on so many levels.
So that's it for the most epic bromances of wow. Maybe someday I can find some examples of wow girl crushes for the next blog post.
Sometimes you see characters in wow that are just a little more than friends. The bromance is so blatantly obvious that you know it wasn't just poor dialogue choice, it was very deliberate, and shows that the devs have a sense of humor after all...
5. Kalecgos and Korialstrasz
At first they seem to be at war - the Nexus war, to be specific. But regardless of Kalec's allegiance to his flight, he admits to having deep respect and admiration for the red dragon Korialstrasz. This is fleshed out in much greater detail in the Sunwell Trilogy, the novels Night of the Dragon and Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, to some degree.
Sure, they bicker at first, but their begrudging friendship soon gives way to a budding bromance. With Korialstrasz's unfortunate and untimely demise in the latest novel, we won't be seeing any more of this draconic bromance. But these two show that even dragons have feelings!
4. Gidwin Goldbraids and Tarenar Sunstrike
You first encounter these energetic and sometimes troublesome duo in the Eastern Plaguelands. If you follow the entirety of Fiona's caravan questchain, you'll see them bicker, banter, frolic and finally rescue each other in a dramatic conclusion.
It's so cute how they both aspired to become paladins of the argent crusade ever since they were boys. Which also begs the question, how did they meet? I mean, Tarenar is a blood elf...Gidwin is a dwarf...technically they're supposed to be hated enemies. I like to think that they both lost their parents to the scourge and grew up in the same orphanage! How they ended up with a Gypsy Worgen caravan saleswoman named Fiona I'll never know.
3. Jadaar and Asric
These two would have to be classified as the bitter old bromance, sort of like two old married people who, deep down, do love each other but bicker constantly and don't even realize what they're fighting about. They've been arguing since Shattrath city, to the Dalaran Sewers, and finally have settled at the Argent Tournament grounds, drinking and lobbing insults at each other.
Their dialogue is really funny if you take the time to listen:
Jadaar says: Remind me again why I tolerate your company, Asric.
Asric smirks wryly.
Asric says: I have decades of practice handling blowhards like yourself, and I'm the only one you know here in this abominably freezing land.
Jadaar says: I should leave you to rot in this sewer with the filth.
Asric says: No doubt.
Jadaar says: You are beneath me.
Asric says: A lowly worm, I'm sure.
Jadaar says: Stop agreeing with me!
Asric says: You're right, of course, it's a terrible practice.
Jadaar says: AGH!
And then this little gem at the Argent Tourney grounds:
Jadaar says: You realize, of course, that we would likely have to joust one another should we enter the tournament.
Asric says: There is no doubt in my mind you'd lose. Speed and wit triumphs over brute strength and bullheadedness any day of the week.
Jadaar says: Bullheadedness? It is my perseverance that has gotten us this far, dandy. You wouldn't last five seconds.
Asric says: Typical empty boasting. Still, the stables are rather distant and the drinks here are decent enough.
Jadaar says: I hear those lances are rough-hewn, too. I'm no fan of splinters.
Asric says: Just as well.
Just listening to them talk about splinters cracks me up!
2. Koltira Deathweaver and Thasaarian
They were sworn enemies in life (Thasaarian actually even killed Koltira), but in undeath they seem to have worked out their differences. They claim it's just a totally "brotherly bond" (see Thasaarian's dialogue below), but I suspect there's more at work here...
Orbaz Bloodbane says: Why do you care, Thassarian?
Orbaz Bloodbane says: His weakness led to his capture.
Orbaz Bloodbane says: Only the strong should survive. Not to mention...
Thassarian says: What, Orbaz? That he's a blood elf?
Thassarian says: In life we were hated enemies - this is true...
Thassarian says: But in death... We are the children of the damned. The bastard sons and daughters of the Scourge.
Thassarian says: In death we are brothers.
Orbaz Bloodbane says: To hell with you, Thassarian.
Don't tell me it's just camaraderie when these two are being all buddy-buddy even after going back to their respective original allegiances. You know in Andorhal when they talk about how they'll kill each other, they're staring deeply and soulfully into each other's eyes when they say that. Er, as soulfully as they can, being death knights and not having a soul and all that...
And finally, the most EPIC wow bromance of all time...
1. Tholo Whitehoof and Anren Shadowseeker
Oh, these two are totally bromantic and they don't even bother to hide it! When you first stumble upon them they are standing back-to-back (described as a 'druid combat circle'), fighting mobs and cheering each other on in a most bromantic way. Just listen to some of the stuff they say to each other:
"Together we can do anything, Anren!"
"You are a good friend, Tholo!"
"I will stay with you, Anren!"
"Stay on my back, Tholo!" (EHEM)
"I will protect you, Anren!"
"I wish I knew how to quit you, Tholo."
Ok, so that last part isn't actually in the game, but these two are completely bromantic for each other, in a way that is very reminiscent of JD and Turk. You can almost just hear them singing 'Guy Love' when you're not looking...
Double points for that fact that not only is this bromance inter-horde/alliance, inter-racial, but like, inter-SPECIES! Tholo being a tauren and Anren being a night elf, just makes this bromance mind-blowingly adorable on so many levels.
So that's it for the most epic bromances of wow. Maybe someday I can find some examples of wow girl crushes for the next blog post.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
RRF - will it bring back PuGs?
I used to PuG a lot. Like, all the time. This was at a time when ICC had just come out, ToC was already old news and my guild at the time was still struggling with Ulduar.
Even after joining ICC-level guilds, I used to run a lot of 25man PuGs since the raid lockouts were separate. They usually didn't get past the first 5 bosses in ICC, but that was fine with me, you still got your frost badges, a couple pieces of gear and maybe even a shoulder tier token. Things were good.
Then they merged the 10/25 man raid lockouts and effectively killed pug raids, in my opinion. I've done a single pug since then, and was later given a huge guilt trip for pugging one boss in Firelands. Sigh.
Now I hear that Raid Finder, similar to the Dungeon Finder, will be available soon. All I can say to the people who will subject themselves to that level of torture...good luck with that.
If the random dungeon finder was any indication, random raid finder will be 100x worse in terms of bad behavior and general fail. Currently you see people ninjaing and then raging over ilvl 333 gear. How do you think the said ninja and rager will react over ilvl 359 gear? It will be a disaster!
I think they should only let you pug the previous tier's content, but that's almost a moot point. I don't think a completely random pug has any chance to down relevant patch content. I'd actually be shocked if a randomly chosen pug made up of the average player you see in a random dungeon could even down a significant portion of Firelands trash.
Basically I imagine this kind of scenario:
Raid leader: Ok guys, everyone knows this fight right?
Healer: Wait let me drink, I'm oom.
DPS: Cmon guys I'm in a hurry gogogo
Tank: Ok pulling
Healer: Wait! I'm getting mana!
DPS: Too late I MD'ed tank
DPS: Oh crap I pulled the trash! *FD's next to healer*
Healer: I'm dead!
DPS: Brez him!
Raid leader: Brez!
Everyone: Brez brez brez!
*Wipe*
Healer: DK why didn't you brez him?
DK: What's brez? I don't have that spell.
DPS: Ooh that trash dropped a BoE tank sword
Hunter rolls need, wins sword, drops group
*everyone rages, calls names, then leaves*
That is actually a combination of several things I've witnessed in a random dungeon.
I might join a couple PuGs on my alts, just to lol at the fail...
Even after joining ICC-level guilds, I used to run a lot of 25man PuGs since the raid lockouts were separate. They usually didn't get past the first 5 bosses in ICC, but that was fine with me, you still got your frost badges, a couple pieces of gear and maybe even a shoulder tier token. Things were good.
Then they merged the 10/25 man raid lockouts and effectively killed pug raids, in my opinion. I've done a single pug since then, and was later given a huge guilt trip for pugging one boss in Firelands. Sigh.
Now I hear that Raid Finder, similar to the Dungeon Finder, will be available soon. All I can say to the people who will subject themselves to that level of torture...good luck with that.
If the random dungeon finder was any indication, random raid finder will be 100x worse in terms of bad behavior and general fail. Currently you see people ninjaing and then raging over ilvl 333 gear. How do you think the said ninja and rager will react over ilvl 359 gear? It will be a disaster!
I think they should only let you pug the previous tier's content, but that's almost a moot point. I don't think a completely random pug has any chance to down relevant patch content. I'd actually be shocked if a randomly chosen pug made up of the average player you see in a random dungeon could even down a significant portion of Firelands trash.
Basically I imagine this kind of scenario:
Raid leader: Ok guys, everyone knows this fight right?
Healer: Wait let me drink, I'm oom.
DPS: Cmon guys I'm in a hurry gogogo
Tank: Ok pulling
Healer: Wait! I'm getting mana!
DPS: Too late I MD'ed tank
DPS: Oh crap I pulled the trash! *FD's next to healer*
Healer: I'm dead!
DPS: Brez him!
Raid leader: Brez!
Everyone: Brez brez brez!
*Wipe*
Healer: DK why didn't you brez him?
DK: What's brez? I don't have that spell.
DPS: Ooh that trash dropped a BoE tank sword
Hunter rolls need, wins sword, drops group
*everyone rages, calls names, then leaves*
That is actually a combination of several things I've witnessed in a random dungeon.
I might join a couple PuGs on my alts, just to lol at the fail...
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