I hate to be one of "those people" who complain endlessly about some supposed apocalyptic event that will surely destroy the games we love. But I have to admit that the launch of this so-called Real Money Auction House has me feeling deeply disturbed.
I don't think it will kill Diablo 3. I don't think it will signal the doom of the entire Diablo franchise or Blizzard as a whole. I do think, however, that it signals a shift towards the whole microtransaction business model that more and more games are starting to adopt.
Whatever happened to the good old days where you bought a game for a fixed price, and you got to play as much or as little as you wanted? Those of us who chose to invest more time in it reaped better rewards. Did you know that in Final Fantasy 7 if you spend hours upon hours to breed a gold chocobo, use it to obtain the Knights of the Round materia, then max it out, you can easily beat both Ruby and Emerald weapons? No gimmicks, no cheap work-arounds, and no need to purchase an additional "materia boost pack" from Square Enix for only $5.99. All you have to do is just grind out the work for days.
I'm digressing a little here, I just get very nostalgic about FF7, perhaps the best single-player RPG ever made.
The point is, that microtransactions operate under the principle - "free to play, pay to win", which I despise. It makes sense as a business model - the hardcore gamers these days are no longer teenagers who had to beg mom for $20 to buy the latest Mario game. They're working professionals in their 20s or 30s who have disposable income but little time, and wouldn't hesitate to spend an extra $10 here and there to streamline their gaming process.
Think about it - when you're a broke teenager, you don't mind spending 6 hours on a Saturday to get some crazy good item. When you're in your 20s those 6 hours on a Saturday are valuable, and you'd rather pay some extra cash to get that item rather than waste the day staring at the computer. Come Sunday, both the teenager and the adult have equal items, both paid for it in some way or another. But in the end, the teenager feels a little bit "cheated" out of the deal. Because let's face it, $10 doesn't seem like very fair for something you had to work 6 hours for. But as the adult sees it, it's as if he paid someone $10 to play video games for 6 hours, a task many happily do for free.
Does this make sense? I'm starting to confuse myself a little here. The point is that I see both sides of the argument. I see that it makes sense to charge people with disposable income for a small advantage and let the other folks grind their way towards the same goal.
What Diablo 3 does with the RMAH, however, is taking it a little too far, if you ask me. I know plenty of other games have the microtransaction model, but D3 takes it to a whole new level by giving players absolute control over the economy. It's not a matter of Blizzard selling you a few things here and there, it's a bizarre system in which players have the power to inflate prices, hoard gold and goods, and effectively coerce the "average" player into participation.
I don't want to into all the thousand little ways in which this happens. The big picture is that most people will eventually buy into it and end up buying a few things here and there for $10-20 rather than wait weeks, months, for a good drop they can actually use. I know I probably will.
And this makes me very sad. It's not that I can't afford it. It's the fact that I know the value of a $20 is much greater than some pixels on a screen that will help me kill digital monsters in a digital world. For $20 I can buy myself dinner somewhere, or go out to a movie with a friend, or treat myself to 5 smoothies at Jamba Juice, and as a rational adult I know that these things are just much more worthwhile activities/services/goods than an in-game frill. I know it, yet I also know that we all have that impulse to get what we want, right when we want it, without any actual effort.
And so when I see an amazing upgrade, reasonably priced, I know I will probably click "buyout", even as some rational brain cell in my head is screaming "DON'T DO IT! You could get half a tank of gas for that money!!!". And I know that after I've bought myself all sorts of things, I will probably beat the game very easily rather than struggle through every champion and elite pack as I do now. And after I've beaten the game, I will feel bored and sad.
Then I will probably go back to wow.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Monk in your Trunk
Since wow seems to be on hiatus for the time being, I thought I'd write out some of my thoughts on D3. Why not, seeing as to how D3 makes me nerd rage just as much as wow did.
I signed up to play a monk with the expectation that it would play much like a rogue. I imagined a hard-hitting, fast-moving DPS machine, relying on high burst damaged and mobility to weave and bob my way through enemies and landing big combos.
Instead, as I progress further into inferno mode, I find myself more or less a tank-type character. I stack defensive stats and abilities and I sit there spanking a mob to death. Ever so slowly.
Compared to ranged classes such as a wizard or those completely imba demon hunters, my DPS is pathetic. On average I'm doing only about 30-40% of what my ranged counterparts are doing in terms of pure raw damage. My HP and defensive stats vastly dwarf theirs though, and I can take quite a few more hits and stand in a lot more ground effects than they can.
The problem is, though, that this still doesn't create a fair play situation. Think about it: you run into a swarm of champion enemies who hit like trucks and put down fire patches everywhere. A monk has to be able to take those mack truck hits and occasionally step through fire patches just to be able to hit the mob. A ranged character, however, drops dead as soon as they take a hit or stand in fire. But this is a non-issue as ranged characters never need to put themselves in that situation. As long as they keep their distance, which they do, they can just keep running and shooting, running and shooting, kiting their way merrily until the mob is dead. And mobs die much much quicker when they can rock 40-50k DPS too.
So there I am, cycling through my cooldowns and heals, stepping gingerly around fire whenever I can, getting smacked around by 4 elites while trying to regen enough spirit just to spam my heals, while a DH or wizard runs around in a circle, never taking a hit, and killing the mob in a fraction of the time it takes me.
Of course kiting isn't an easy task and it takes a lot of coordination to be able to do this. And there are some situations where kiting isn't effective at all (jailer mobs, frozen, narrow corridors). But overall ranged have a huge advantage in that they never really have to worry about their defensive stats. They are literally glass cannons that dish out huge damage but can never afford to be touched by a mob. Monks and our poor sad cousins, the barbarians, have to beef up our health and resistance and armor, often at the sacrifice of our DPS which explains why it's so pitifully low.
Another very unfair advantage of wizards and DHs is their passive resource regen (not sure about witch doctors, never played one). Wizards regen mana fairly quickly, and DHs can regen their hatred simply by shooting arrows, regardless of whether it hits a target or not. Monks on the other hand, must have an active target in order to regen our spirit. Which means that if you're on the run from an elite pack and you have no spirit left, you must somehow be able to get near them and hit them to be able to use your abilities. In some situations this is just a no-go. If I can't get near a mob I can't use my mitigation abilities, and I can't use my mitigation abilities unless I can get near a mob. I think this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Not to say that playing a monk isn't fun - it is. It's just not what I expected, and perhaps my expectations were flawed. I do enjoy my monk, and now that my gear is up to snuff Act 1 inferno is a breeze. I can farm the Butcher and punch my way through any combinations of champion packs (yes, even the ones with multiple ground effects + fire chain).
The other night during a 3 person co-op game I was able to solo the Butcher down from about 25% HP remaining - AFTER the fire enrage. After all my party members dropped from the fire, I sat their dodging his hits, rotating my CDs, and slowly whittling down his HP. Did the fire hurt? Yes. Was I standing in it the whole time? Yes. Did my HP ever drop below 50%? No. Is this how I imagined playing a monk? No, but was it freaking awesome how I soloed the Butcher after a hard enrage? Yes.
Act 2 inferno, however, is a different story...that might have to wait until the nerf.
I signed up to play a monk with the expectation that it would play much like a rogue. I imagined a hard-hitting, fast-moving DPS machine, relying on high burst damaged and mobility to weave and bob my way through enemies and landing big combos.
Instead, as I progress further into inferno mode, I find myself more or less a tank-type character. I stack defensive stats and abilities and I sit there spanking a mob to death. Ever so slowly.
Compared to ranged classes such as a wizard or those completely imba demon hunters, my DPS is pathetic. On average I'm doing only about 30-40% of what my ranged counterparts are doing in terms of pure raw damage. My HP and defensive stats vastly dwarf theirs though, and I can take quite a few more hits and stand in a lot more ground effects than they can.
The problem is, though, that this still doesn't create a fair play situation. Think about it: you run into a swarm of champion enemies who hit like trucks and put down fire patches everywhere. A monk has to be able to take those mack truck hits and occasionally step through fire patches just to be able to hit the mob. A ranged character, however, drops dead as soon as they take a hit or stand in fire. But this is a non-issue as ranged characters never need to put themselves in that situation. As long as they keep their distance, which they do, they can just keep running and shooting, running and shooting, kiting their way merrily until the mob is dead. And mobs die much much quicker when they can rock 40-50k DPS too.
So there I am, cycling through my cooldowns and heals, stepping gingerly around fire whenever I can, getting smacked around by 4 elites while trying to regen enough spirit just to spam my heals, while a DH or wizard runs around in a circle, never taking a hit, and killing the mob in a fraction of the time it takes me.
Of course kiting isn't an easy task and it takes a lot of coordination to be able to do this. And there are some situations where kiting isn't effective at all (jailer mobs, frozen, narrow corridors). But overall ranged have a huge advantage in that they never really have to worry about their defensive stats. They are literally glass cannons that dish out huge damage but can never afford to be touched by a mob. Monks and our poor sad cousins, the barbarians, have to beef up our health and resistance and armor, often at the sacrifice of our DPS which explains why it's so pitifully low.
Another very unfair advantage of wizards and DHs is their passive resource regen (not sure about witch doctors, never played one). Wizards regen mana fairly quickly, and DHs can regen their hatred simply by shooting arrows, regardless of whether it hits a target or not. Monks on the other hand, must have an active target in order to regen our spirit. Which means that if you're on the run from an elite pack and you have no spirit left, you must somehow be able to get near them and hit them to be able to use your abilities. In some situations this is just a no-go. If I can't get near a mob I can't use my mitigation abilities, and I can't use my mitigation abilities unless I can get near a mob. I think this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Not to say that playing a monk isn't fun - it is. It's just not what I expected, and perhaps my expectations were flawed. I do enjoy my monk, and now that my gear is up to snuff Act 1 inferno is a breeze. I can farm the Butcher and punch my way through any combinations of champion packs (yes, even the ones with multiple ground effects + fire chain).
The other night during a 3 person co-op game I was able to solo the Butcher down from about 25% HP remaining - AFTER the fire enrage. After all my party members dropped from the fire, I sat their dodging his hits, rotating my CDs, and slowly whittling down his HP. Did the fire hurt? Yes. Was I standing in it the whole time? Yes. Did my HP ever drop below 50%? No. Is this how I imagined playing a monk? No, but was it freaking awesome how I soloed the Butcher after a hard enrage? Yes.
Act 2 inferno, however, is a different story...that might have to wait until the nerf.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The real wow-killer
Every time a new big-name MMO comes out, everyone on the battle.net forums are abuzz with speculation that the new game will finally be the "wow-killer". Ever since WoW has been out, it has pretty much dominated the entire MMORPG scene. Perhaps it would be more apt to call wow the "MMO-in-general-killer".
I've played my share of MMOs back in the day, but until wow came out on the market, there was no real big-name MMO. Sure, there was a huge Lineage following in Asia and there were some rabid Everquest and Ultima Online players in the US & Europe, but even in their heyday EQ/Ultima had nowhere near the number of subscribers that wow did. Over 10 million - no other game has come even close. No one else even had a chance when Blizzard, a household name in the PC gaming world that draws a huge fan base with just its logo alone, decided to enter the MMO market.
When Rift came out, everyone called it the wow killer. They even attempted to advertise themselves as such. Rift came and went, barely breaking 1 million subscriptions. Bioware tried to do what Trion couldn't do and pushed big advertising dollars into its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. SWTOR lost 25% of its players within the first quarter, only reaching about 15% of wow's playerbase at its peak.
Even another renowned Blizzard game, Starcraft 2, couldn't kill wow. But I think that was mostly because SC2 was designed for an entirely different fan base compared to wow. SC2 is for the hardcore, as SC1 was. Once you play through the campaign modes, all that's left is content suited for the hardcore gamer: it's all about APMs and ladder rankings and high-pressure matches, which doesn't appeal to the more casual players of wow. I know a lot of people who did pick up SC2 when it came out, played through it once and came back to wow within a couple weeks.
I have always said that the only true wow killer will be World of Warcraft 2: [insert catchy title here]. The day that wow servers would be truly empty and dead would be the day that a bigger and better version of wow made by Blizzard hit the markets. Only time will prove whether I'm right or wrong. But in the meantime, I think we do have a very strong contender for the title of "wow-killer".
On May 15th, Diablo 3 hit the market, and it seems as though almost everyone I knew who played wow has taken up D3. It makes sense - D3 is more "like" wow than SC2. It's kind of like a more action-adventure version of wow. There's no set class roles, no real need for cooperative gameplay, and not as much depth as wow. But at the same time it's fun, it's fast, it's "clicky" and "smashy", if that makes any sense. In wow you click on a monster and your character will swing a sword and you see the monster chirp and die. In D3, you click a monster and you smack it hard in the face with burning fists and the monster explodes all over the screen and dies. It's more visceral, it's more gory, it's ultimately satisfying in a cheap-thrills kind of way.
It's too early to tell whether D3 will retain a permanent hold on the once-devoted wow players. The game has been out for 3 weeks today. When I logged into wow this morning (for the first time in 3 weeks), I was overjoyed to see 6 friends online! Until I looked at my friends list and realized that they were simply my RealID friends who were logged onto D3.
I could see myself going back to wow eventually once I've worked my way through 99% of D3. This could take a while. Let's just hope there are people left to play with when I get back.
I've played my share of MMOs back in the day, but until wow came out on the market, there was no real big-name MMO. Sure, there was a huge Lineage following in Asia and there were some rabid Everquest and Ultima Online players in the US & Europe, but even in their heyday EQ/Ultima had nowhere near the number of subscribers that wow did. Over 10 million - no other game has come even close. No one else even had a chance when Blizzard, a household name in the PC gaming world that draws a huge fan base with just its logo alone, decided to enter the MMO market.
When Rift came out, everyone called it the wow killer. They even attempted to advertise themselves as such. Rift came and went, barely breaking 1 million subscriptions. Bioware tried to do what Trion couldn't do and pushed big advertising dollars into its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. SWTOR lost 25% of its players within the first quarter, only reaching about 15% of wow's playerbase at its peak.
Even another renowned Blizzard game, Starcraft 2, couldn't kill wow. But I think that was mostly because SC2 was designed for an entirely different fan base compared to wow. SC2 is for the hardcore, as SC1 was. Once you play through the campaign modes, all that's left is content suited for the hardcore gamer: it's all about APMs and ladder rankings and high-pressure matches, which doesn't appeal to the more casual players of wow. I know a lot of people who did pick up SC2 when it came out, played through it once and came back to wow within a couple weeks.
I have always said that the only true wow killer will be World of Warcraft 2: [insert catchy title here]. The day that wow servers would be truly empty and dead would be the day that a bigger and better version of wow made by Blizzard hit the markets. Only time will prove whether I'm right or wrong. But in the meantime, I think we do have a very strong contender for the title of "wow-killer".
On May 15th, Diablo 3 hit the market, and it seems as though almost everyone I knew who played wow has taken up D3. It makes sense - D3 is more "like" wow than SC2. It's kind of like a more action-adventure version of wow. There's no set class roles, no real need for cooperative gameplay, and not as much depth as wow. But at the same time it's fun, it's fast, it's "clicky" and "smashy", if that makes any sense. In wow you click on a monster and your character will swing a sword and you see the monster chirp and die. In D3, you click a monster and you smack it hard in the face with burning fists and the monster explodes all over the screen and dies. It's more visceral, it's more gory, it's ultimately satisfying in a cheap-thrills kind of way.
It's too early to tell whether D3 will retain a permanent hold on the once-devoted wow players. The game has been out for 3 weeks today. When I logged into wow this morning (for the first time in 3 weeks), I was overjoyed to see 6 friends online! Until I looked at my friends list and realized that they were simply my RealID friends who were logged onto D3.
I could see myself going back to wow eventually once I've worked my way through 99% of D3. This could take a while. Let's just hope there are people left to play with when I get back.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Heroic Hagara down!
After about oh, 20 attempts or so over two raid nights, we finally downed Hagara the stormbinder! Or as I like to call her, Hagara bitchface.
Nothing terribly exciting or anything, just wanted to share our 4th heroic boss kill and talk a little about the fight.
Definitely not one of my favorites due to the insane RNG factor. The Ice lance/Ice tomb mechanic can either make or break your group - like when we had her down to 30% and both our healers got ice tombed. Given that the fight is dependent on 3 healers rotating their cooldowns on the tank every 10 seconds, this meant our tank just dropped like a rock. During another pull our healer ate 3 ice lances at once and died, leaving us in the same crappy situation.
I'm not sure why Blizzard hates healers so much - it seems like almost every other dragon soul encounter description or video guide begins with "this fight is very stressful for your healers..." Yeah, like all the other fights.
At least on heroic mode the phase transitions are more challenging and make the fight less boring. On normal mode it's a total snooze, whereas on heroic the ice phase makes you clench your buttcheeks and grip your mouse!
I think what I miss most from Dragon Soul in general is the lack of adds. It's nice to have one or two tank-and-spank fights as a breather but a whole raid of basically nonstop tank and spank is too much. Spine and Deathwing is really the only add-heavy fight. Blackhorn, maybe, but only for the first phase.
I really miss fights like Valithira Dreamwalker or Lady Deathwhisper. Especially on 25man mode where people would be running all over the room CCing and tanking and kiting and killing things, and someone would scream over vent, "BLAZINGGGG!!!!" or "MC ON ME!!!" and people would drop whatever they were doing and run halfway across the room to take care of business.
Ah, here I go again, reminiscing about the good old days of Wrath. What can I say, ICC was the most epic raiding experience I've had. Nothing in Cata has even come close.
Tonight is Blackhorn!
Nothing terribly exciting or anything, just wanted to share our 4th heroic boss kill and talk a little about the fight.
Definitely not one of my favorites due to the insane RNG factor. The Ice lance/Ice tomb mechanic can either make or break your group - like when we had her down to 30% and both our healers got ice tombed. Given that the fight is dependent on 3 healers rotating their cooldowns on the tank every 10 seconds, this meant our tank just dropped like a rock. During another pull our healer ate 3 ice lances at once and died, leaving us in the same crappy situation.
I'm not sure why Blizzard hates healers so much - it seems like almost every other dragon soul encounter description or video guide begins with "this fight is very stressful for your healers..." Yeah, like all the other fights.
At least on heroic mode the phase transitions are more challenging and make the fight less boring. On normal mode it's a total snooze, whereas on heroic the ice phase makes you clench your buttcheeks and grip your mouse!
I think what I miss most from Dragon Soul in general is the lack of adds. It's nice to have one or two tank-and-spank fights as a breather but a whole raid of basically nonstop tank and spank is too much. Spine and Deathwing is really the only add-heavy fight. Blackhorn, maybe, but only for the first phase.
I really miss fights like Valithira Dreamwalker or Lady Deathwhisper. Especially on 25man mode where people would be running all over the room CCing and tanking and kiting and killing things, and someone would scream over vent, "BLAZINGGGG!!!!" or "MC ON ME!!!" and people would drop whatever they were doing and run halfway across the room to take care of business.
Ah, here I go again, reminiscing about the good old days of Wrath. What can I say, ICC was the most epic raiding experience I've had. Nothing in Cata has even come close.
Tonight is Blackhorn!
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Never met a game I didn't beat
Title says it all. When I get into a game, moderation just goes right out the window. It becomes either do or die and I won't rest easy until I've BEAT the damn game.
I don't mean "beat" as in, get to the final stage and kill the boss. Oh no, I mean more like, beat the last boss, unlock the hard mode, beat that, unlock the super hard challenge mode, and obsess over it for weeks until I beat that too, and unlock all the secret characters and easter eggs and hidden challenges while I'm at it.
Games back then had a simplicity which curbed this dangerous addictive behavior. Take for instance my favorite childhood game - Streets of Rage 2. I mean, once you beat it on easy, normal, and hard, it's over. Games nowadays, however, seem to come standard with at least 5 different difficulty levels, plus bonus stages, plus unlockable extra stages, PLUS a plethora of achievements.
Achievements are both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it gives me a reason to replay the same damn thing over and over just so I can see the bright shiny words "You have earned the achievement - [insert some pointless menial repetitive in-game task, such as kill 20,000 boars for no reason]!". It's also a curse because it gives me a reason to replay the same damn thing over and over. For hours. And then obsess over it and scour online resources when I get stuck on a certain challenge.
Now with games like WoW, you obviously can't just "beat" it. But I think I've come pretty damn close to it, at least when it comes to parts of the game I enjoy. I don't pvp and I really haven't begun to "beat" that aspect of the game, but when it comes to pve...I've killed every damn raid boss multiple times, acquired all sorts of high end gear, and unlocked all sorts of stupid, pointless achievements. Need I reiterate about that time I spent 6 months getting the insane title? Yeah, that sort of thing is only possible when you have an insanely OCD/completionist mentality like mine.
And then there are cute little iPad games that are not meant to draw the hardcore gamers, but appeal to a more broad range of interests. They do have a start and a finish. There are a few difficulty levels and some achievements, but once you beat it all, you really are done.
These are the games that are truly dangerous. Being able to see the end in sight just means that I obsess that much more over it. I have been known to get up in the middle of the night and just spontaneously start playing games on the iPad because my own disturbed thoughts about how to get that one hard achievement woke me up from much-needed sleep. Handing me the iPad is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of moonshine.
Take for instance my Plants VS Zombies addiction that lasted almost a whole year. I played that damn game so many times, I must have killed about a million zombies. I first played it on an iPod, then moved on to the PC platform, where they gave you even more gameplay modes! Not only did I play through the entire campaign over 5 times, I unlocked every single plant, every single upgrade, every single bonus game & play mode, and beat every single one of those too. Oh, and I got all the achievements. Every. Fucking. Achievement. This kind of behavior is pretty much standard whenever I find a game I like.
I remember I played diner dash for like 10 hours straight one day. And that's not even something to brag about! A game like WoW I can at least go brag to my guildies and fellow gamers, "look at this achievement I got!" or "look at this sweet epic drop!". I will not be telling my friends, coworkers and loved ones, "hey I just beat all the minigames in PvZ!".
Sometimes I'm worried about this vicious cycle. But then again, sometimes I'm glad that at least I'm not addicted to worse things, like cocaine or hookers.
I don't mean "beat" as in, get to the final stage and kill the boss. Oh no, I mean more like, beat the last boss, unlock the hard mode, beat that, unlock the super hard challenge mode, and obsess over it for weeks until I beat that too, and unlock all the secret characters and easter eggs and hidden challenges while I'm at it.
Games back then had a simplicity which curbed this dangerous addictive behavior. Take for instance my favorite childhood game - Streets of Rage 2. I mean, once you beat it on easy, normal, and hard, it's over. Games nowadays, however, seem to come standard with at least 5 different difficulty levels, plus bonus stages, plus unlockable extra stages, PLUS a plethora of achievements.
Achievements are both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it gives me a reason to replay the same damn thing over and over just so I can see the bright shiny words "You have earned the achievement - [insert some pointless menial repetitive in-game task, such as kill 20,000 boars for no reason]!". It's also a curse because it gives me a reason to replay the same damn thing over and over. For hours. And then obsess over it and scour online resources when I get stuck on a certain challenge.
Now with games like WoW, you obviously can't just "beat" it. But I think I've come pretty damn close to it, at least when it comes to parts of the game I enjoy. I don't pvp and I really haven't begun to "beat" that aspect of the game, but when it comes to pve...I've killed every damn raid boss multiple times, acquired all sorts of high end gear, and unlocked all sorts of stupid, pointless achievements. Need I reiterate about that time I spent 6 months getting the insane title? Yeah, that sort of thing is only possible when you have an insanely OCD/completionist mentality like mine.
And then there are cute little iPad games that are not meant to draw the hardcore gamers, but appeal to a more broad range of interests. They do have a start and a finish. There are a few difficulty levels and some achievements, but once you beat it all, you really are done.
These are the games that are truly dangerous. Being able to see the end in sight just means that I obsess that much more over it. I have been known to get up in the middle of the night and just spontaneously start playing games on the iPad because my own disturbed thoughts about how to get that one hard achievement woke me up from much-needed sleep. Handing me the iPad is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of moonshine.
Take for instance my Plants VS Zombies addiction that lasted almost a whole year. I played that damn game so many times, I must have killed about a million zombies. I first played it on an iPod, then moved on to the PC platform, where they gave you even more gameplay modes! Not only did I play through the entire campaign over 5 times, I unlocked every single plant, every single upgrade, every single bonus game & play mode, and beat every single one of those too. Oh, and I got all the achievements. Every. Fucking. Achievement. This kind of behavior is pretty much standard whenever I find a game I like.
I remember I played diner dash for like 10 hours straight one day. And that's not even something to brag about! A game like WoW I can at least go brag to my guildies and fellow gamers, "look at this achievement I got!" or "look at this sweet epic drop!". I will not be telling my friends, coworkers and loved ones, "hey I just beat all the minigames in PvZ!".
Sometimes I'm worried about this vicious cycle. But then again, sometimes I'm glad that at least I'm not addicted to worse things, like cocaine or hookers.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Top 5...cash cows
I'm nearing 200k gold on my main toon. I guess it's mostly due to gold inflation during cata, but my net (wow) worth really jumped up since the expansion launched. I remember when I first hit 100k and thinking, wow I'm so rich, I should buy something. But then the tendency to hoard my wealth kicked in, and now I'm almost at double that amount.
I really SHOULD spend it on something, it's just hard to remember that it's just pixels. When you're frugal in RL, that kind of just carries over to your wow spending I suppose.
Anyways, I make my gold the way anyone else makes gold: grind professions & sell things on the AH. While some people claim that you can make a lot of gold just doing dailies, this takes a lot of time. In a fraction of the time it takes you to do 10 dailies (which would fetch about 160g total), I could buy and re-sell a few things on the AH for ten times the profit. You just have to know what are the hot sellers and when you can get a good deal on something.
For anyone who's looking to seriously get into the AH, you must have an addon of some sort. I use auctionator, and I honestly don't know how I ever got along without it. It keeps track of all your auctions, makes buying in bulk so much easier, and even keeps an ongoing database of prices so you can monitor when is a good time to buy an sell.
The other trick is to have a profession that can craft the popular selling items, and have alts with gathering professions that can support the crafting profession. For instance on my main I have alchemy but not herbalism. I use alts to gather herbs, or better yet, buy them in bulk whenever the prices are low. To be honest though, I can't remember the last time I went near an herb. Potions and flasks are not my moneymaker of choice - I go for the transmutes.
Anywho, without further ado, here is my top 5 gold-making schemes that's worked wonders for me:
5. Cloth
This is not something I do actively, but it's something that can generate a lot of profit, especially at low levels, for relatively low effort.
Cloth is everywhere - that shit drops from any humanoid creature and sometimes you find yourself literally swimming in cloth. I know I sure did when I was grinding rep for the Insane title. I had to run Dire Maul over 100 times, and let me tell you, I racked up stacks upon stacks of runecloth.
Rather than just vendor them or try to sell them on the AH, I enlisted the help of my hubby who was a tailor. Stacks of cloth BOLTs almost always sell for more net profit than the cloth counterpart. Don't ask me why, it's certainly not difficult to turn cloth into bolts, but there you have it. I guess people don't want to sit there on their mains making bolts for 10 min straight. The opportunity cost seems relatively small to me, but whatever.
I made a tidy little profit selling all those bolts of runecloth. Even now when I run low level dungeons or raids, I always save up the cloth and sell them as bolts. I've found that frostweave bolts always sell out very quickly at a good price.
Mind you, I don't go "farming" for cloth by any means. The beauty of it is that cloth just seems to appear in your bags mysteriously. After running BC-level raids, for instance, I'll often find several stacks of netherweave in my bags. It's almost like free money!
4. BoE badge gear
I used to do this a lot more during Tier 11 raids and Firelands, not so much anymore. Some badge gear, whether it be justice or valor, is BoE and you can purchase it with your mains and send it to your alts or sell it. Well, often times my main would accumulate a lot of valor points with nothing to spend it on (all my gear came from raids). So I'd buy the BoE bracers or boots and sell them on the AH. When content is first released they sell at upwards of ~7-8k gold so it's a good way to make a lot of cash in a short period of time.
I also did this on my alts during firelands - in the process of grinding valor points I'd also rack up a lot of justice points, which I would use to buy the lower tier BoE gear. They don't sell for as much, but sometimes you're just looking to unload all the JP sitting in your bag. Overall a pretty simple way to make some money if you've got a lot of points and nothing to buy.
3. Low level instances
You'd be really surprised at the cash you can make just by clearing low level dungeons. I noticed that my gold stash was really growing a lot when I used to run tons of BC dungeons for tmog gear.
First of all, there's just the plain old gold drop from mobs. This doesn't make up a significant portion. But then there's stuff like cloth, motes/primals and other crafting mats that drop. Running the zangarmarsh instances, I'd pick up so many primals that would each sell for ~50g.
Then there are random green drops that can be DE'd - the BC level enchanting mats sell pretty well. And sometimes you'll get a random BoE blue or epic, which sell very well nowadays due to people wanting unique gear for tmog. BoEs are generally hard to come by so people are willing to pay upwards of 1000g just for some garish looking sword!
Another big bonus is certain instances drop quest/rep items. Grinding heroic Steamvaults for tmog gear I picked up a lot of coilfang armaments - enough to get me exalted with the Cenarion Circle and plenty more to sell. At one point they were going for ~120g a pop and I would pick up 10 or more each run. The creatures in underbog would drop sanguine hibiscus, which also sold well.
2. Enchanting
Just the ability to DE useless gear is a big bonus. A piece of BoP epic gear will vendor for maybe 20g if you're lucky, but when you DE it into a maelstrom crystal you can sell it for 10 times that price. As you upgrade your own gear instead of just vendoring the old epics, you can DE it and sell the shards. When you pick up BoP epics and blues from dungeon runs, you can DE it and sell the mats! When you pick up a lot of useless greens out in the world, you can DE it and sell that mats again!
I've found that enchanting as a service or trying to sell enchanting scrolls alone is not quite as effective, simply because supply outweighs demand for a lot of the enchanting scrolls. Chanters make them to level their skills and flood the AH with tons of scrolls, so that's never been a good moneymaker for me.
But one thing that has sold consistently well are scrolls for rare, useful low-level enchants. For instance, I picked up a enchanting recipe for Fiery Weapon, a popular twink enchant, and I've been buying mats for cheap on the AH and selling the scrolls for 100g a pop for about a year now. People who are twinking or leveling alts buy it up quick whenever I put some up. Of course you need to first farm the recipe to do this, and I was just lucky that it happened to drop for my alt when I was leveling her. I'd say it's worth the extra effort to farm, it's always been a consistent seller!
1. Truegold
Seriously, I've been selling truegold on the auction house since the day cataclysm came out. Ok, maybe not THE day, but let's say within 1 week of cataclysm launch, I was selling truegold and they've been selling like hotcakes since week 1.
With the cata launch came the new epic crafting recipes, which all required a hefty number of truegold. Back then truegold sold for ~1200 a pop when everyone was hungry for new epics and you could turn a really tidy profit! All it takes is some pyrite (expensive on the AH but can be mined with some persistence) and a few volatiles.
Now the price has dropped down to ~300g but it's still a steady seller. If you consider the cost of the reagents it's not much profit, but the beauty of it is that you can easily mine your own mats. I keep a couple of alts handy to mine the pyrite (or smelt the ore if I can buy it for cheap), farm volatile fires at my secret fishing spot in Hyjal, or grind some elementals for volatile air. I also keep another alt with maxed out alchemy who transmutes volatile life into other volatiles as I start to run low. It's a pretty smooth process and when you account for the occasional procs, I'd say I sell anywhere between 5-10 truegolds a week.
Cataclysm has been out for what, a year and a half now? If you assume that I've sold one truegold a day at 300g, that comes out to over 150,000g! Not bad at all. If you're just willing to do a little farming now and then, this is a real moneymaker.
I really SHOULD spend it on something, it's just hard to remember that it's just pixels. When you're frugal in RL, that kind of just carries over to your wow spending I suppose.
Anyways, I make my gold the way anyone else makes gold: grind professions & sell things on the AH. While some people claim that you can make a lot of gold just doing dailies, this takes a lot of time. In a fraction of the time it takes you to do 10 dailies (which would fetch about 160g total), I could buy and re-sell a few things on the AH for ten times the profit. You just have to know what are the hot sellers and when you can get a good deal on something.
For anyone who's looking to seriously get into the AH, you must have an addon of some sort. I use auctionator, and I honestly don't know how I ever got along without it. It keeps track of all your auctions, makes buying in bulk so much easier, and even keeps an ongoing database of prices so you can monitor when is a good time to buy an sell.
The other trick is to have a profession that can craft the popular selling items, and have alts with gathering professions that can support the crafting profession. For instance on my main I have alchemy but not herbalism. I use alts to gather herbs, or better yet, buy them in bulk whenever the prices are low. To be honest though, I can't remember the last time I went near an herb. Potions and flasks are not my moneymaker of choice - I go for the transmutes.
Anywho, without further ado, here is my top 5 gold-making schemes that's worked wonders for me:
5. Cloth
This is not something I do actively, but it's something that can generate a lot of profit, especially at low levels, for relatively low effort.
Cloth is everywhere - that shit drops from any humanoid creature and sometimes you find yourself literally swimming in cloth. I know I sure did when I was grinding rep for the Insane title. I had to run Dire Maul over 100 times, and let me tell you, I racked up stacks upon stacks of runecloth.
Rather than just vendor them or try to sell them on the AH, I enlisted the help of my hubby who was a tailor. Stacks of cloth BOLTs almost always sell for more net profit than the cloth counterpart. Don't ask me why, it's certainly not difficult to turn cloth into bolts, but there you have it. I guess people don't want to sit there on their mains making bolts for 10 min straight. The opportunity cost seems relatively small to me, but whatever.
I made a tidy little profit selling all those bolts of runecloth. Even now when I run low level dungeons or raids, I always save up the cloth and sell them as bolts. I've found that frostweave bolts always sell out very quickly at a good price.
Mind you, I don't go "farming" for cloth by any means. The beauty of it is that cloth just seems to appear in your bags mysteriously. After running BC-level raids, for instance, I'll often find several stacks of netherweave in my bags. It's almost like free money!
4. BoE badge gear
I used to do this a lot more during Tier 11 raids and Firelands, not so much anymore. Some badge gear, whether it be justice or valor, is BoE and you can purchase it with your mains and send it to your alts or sell it. Well, often times my main would accumulate a lot of valor points with nothing to spend it on (all my gear came from raids). So I'd buy the BoE bracers or boots and sell them on the AH. When content is first released they sell at upwards of ~7-8k gold so it's a good way to make a lot of cash in a short period of time.
I also did this on my alts during firelands - in the process of grinding valor points I'd also rack up a lot of justice points, which I would use to buy the lower tier BoE gear. They don't sell for as much, but sometimes you're just looking to unload all the JP sitting in your bag. Overall a pretty simple way to make some money if you've got a lot of points and nothing to buy.
3. Low level instances
You'd be really surprised at the cash you can make just by clearing low level dungeons. I noticed that my gold stash was really growing a lot when I used to run tons of BC dungeons for tmog gear.
First of all, there's just the plain old gold drop from mobs. This doesn't make up a significant portion. But then there's stuff like cloth, motes/primals and other crafting mats that drop. Running the zangarmarsh instances, I'd pick up so many primals that would each sell for ~50g.
Then there are random green drops that can be DE'd - the BC level enchanting mats sell pretty well. And sometimes you'll get a random BoE blue or epic, which sell very well nowadays due to people wanting unique gear for tmog. BoEs are generally hard to come by so people are willing to pay upwards of 1000g just for some garish looking sword!
Another big bonus is certain instances drop quest/rep items. Grinding heroic Steamvaults for tmog gear I picked up a lot of coilfang armaments - enough to get me exalted with the Cenarion Circle and plenty more to sell. At one point they were going for ~120g a pop and I would pick up 10 or more each run. The creatures in underbog would drop sanguine hibiscus, which also sold well.
2. Enchanting
Just the ability to DE useless gear is a big bonus. A piece of BoP epic gear will vendor for maybe 20g if you're lucky, but when you DE it into a maelstrom crystal you can sell it for 10 times that price. As you upgrade your own gear instead of just vendoring the old epics, you can DE it and sell the shards. When you pick up BoP epics and blues from dungeon runs, you can DE it and sell the mats! When you pick up a lot of useless greens out in the world, you can DE it and sell that mats again!
I've found that enchanting as a service or trying to sell enchanting scrolls alone is not quite as effective, simply because supply outweighs demand for a lot of the enchanting scrolls. Chanters make them to level their skills and flood the AH with tons of scrolls, so that's never been a good moneymaker for me.
But one thing that has sold consistently well are scrolls for rare, useful low-level enchants. For instance, I picked up a enchanting recipe for Fiery Weapon, a popular twink enchant, and I've been buying mats for cheap on the AH and selling the scrolls for 100g a pop for about a year now. People who are twinking or leveling alts buy it up quick whenever I put some up. Of course you need to first farm the recipe to do this, and I was just lucky that it happened to drop for my alt when I was leveling her. I'd say it's worth the extra effort to farm, it's always been a consistent seller!
1. Truegold
Seriously, I've been selling truegold on the auction house since the day cataclysm came out. Ok, maybe not THE day, but let's say within 1 week of cataclysm launch, I was selling truegold and they've been selling like hotcakes since week 1.
With the cata launch came the new epic crafting recipes, which all required a hefty number of truegold. Back then truegold sold for ~1200 a pop when everyone was hungry for new epics and you could turn a really tidy profit! All it takes is some pyrite (expensive on the AH but can be mined with some persistence) and a few volatiles.
Now the price has dropped down to ~300g but it's still a steady seller. If you consider the cost of the reagents it's not much profit, but the beauty of it is that you can easily mine your own mats. I keep a couple of alts handy to mine the pyrite (or smelt the ore if I can buy it for cheap), farm volatile fires at my secret fishing spot in Hyjal, or grind some elementals for volatile air. I also keep another alt with maxed out alchemy who transmutes volatile life into other volatiles as I start to run low. It's a pretty smooth process and when you account for the occasional procs, I'd say I sell anywhere between 5-10 truegolds a week.
Cataclysm has been out for what, a year and a half now? If you assume that I've sold one truegold a day at 300g, that comes out to over 150,000g! Not bad at all. If you're just willing to do a little farming now and then, this is a real moneymaker.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Am I spoiled?
As my alt projects all seem to peter out one after another, I have to stop and ask myself...am I just not cut out for anything other than a rogue? Am I spoiled for everything else?
The only modest success I've had with alts is my priest. Almost everything else I've tried I just can't, or won't enjoy it. Even with the priest I'm definitely not at the level of play that my rogue is at. Yeah, it's kind of fun to heal because it's so easy these days and my mana is limitless, but it's not like I'm motivated enough to go raid on my priest. Even when I see trade chat light up "LF 1 more healer for DS fresh" or some other crap, I just don't wanna do it.
All my other alts, I have no problem leveling them up, but end-game play is just way beyond the amount of commitment I want to put in. The rewards are just not there. Sure, I tanked on my paladin for a bit, but I won't even do LFR with her. The thought of tanking for 24 idiots is really too much. My shaman just hit 85 and my god, she's so boring to play. Despite the fact that enhance shamans have one of the more dynamic rotations!
What I've found is that I can't stand any of the following:
Long CDs...or any CDs really
Long cast times
Slow resource regeneration (mana, focus etc)
Having/managing pets
Slow damage ramping
I mean, basically anything that is not a rogue, I don't like playing. I tried to play ret pally and I was outraged that I could not simply spam all my abilities like I do with a rogue. What is this 6 second cooldown nonsense? I have to wait 6 seconds between abilities??? I can spam hemo almost nonstop on my rogue thanks to my ridiculous energy regen. What is this waiting business?
I tried to play a warlock, the pet drove me freaking nuts. Why are you even here? Why do my spells take so damn long to cast? Why do my DoTs take so long to kill anything? The pace just felt glacial.
I tried to play a hunter, and using focus as a resource was aggravating. Why does it refill so damn slow? You mean I can only cast two arcane shots? What is this steady shot nonsense and why the hell does it have a cast bar?
The list just goes on and on. It's a terrible shame because there are 9 other ways to play this game out there and I just can't get into any of it.
Hopefully the monk class will be enjoyable...
The only modest success I've had with alts is my priest. Almost everything else I've tried I just can't, or won't enjoy it. Even with the priest I'm definitely not at the level of play that my rogue is at. Yeah, it's kind of fun to heal because it's so easy these days and my mana is limitless, but it's not like I'm motivated enough to go raid on my priest. Even when I see trade chat light up "LF 1 more healer for DS fresh" or some other crap, I just don't wanna do it.
All my other alts, I have no problem leveling them up, but end-game play is just way beyond the amount of commitment I want to put in. The rewards are just not there. Sure, I tanked on my paladin for a bit, but I won't even do LFR with her. The thought of tanking for 24 idiots is really too much. My shaman just hit 85 and my god, she's so boring to play. Despite the fact that enhance shamans have one of the more dynamic rotations!
What I've found is that I can't stand any of the following:
Long CDs...or any CDs really
Long cast times
Slow resource regeneration (mana, focus etc)
Having/managing pets
Slow damage ramping
I mean, basically anything that is not a rogue, I don't like playing. I tried to play ret pally and I was outraged that I could not simply spam all my abilities like I do with a rogue. What is this 6 second cooldown nonsense? I have to wait 6 seconds between abilities??? I can spam hemo almost nonstop on my rogue thanks to my ridiculous energy regen. What is this waiting business?
I tried to play a warlock, the pet drove me freaking nuts. Why are you even here? Why do my spells take so damn long to cast? Why do my DoTs take so long to kill anything? The pace just felt glacial.
I tried to play a hunter, and using focus as a resource was aggravating. Why does it refill so damn slow? You mean I can only cast two arcane shots? What is this steady shot nonsense and why the hell does it have a cast bar?
The list just goes on and on. It's a terrible shame because there are 9 other ways to play this game out there and I just can't get into any of it.
Hopefully the monk class will be enjoyable...
Monday, April 9, 2012
Fangs of the Father
How is it that I always forget to post about the important things? I got my legendary daggers last week!!!
Amidst attrition and poor raid attendance our guild continued to clear DS week after week. With the hard work of our GM who was able to bring in some semi-regular PuGs to help fill gaps, and the core raid members who didn't complain once about the tough situation, we were finally able to get together the last remaining few gems for my stage 2 legendary collection. As luck would have it, I was exactly 7 short as we began the newly nerfed (15%) Dragon Soul last week.
We downed heroic Morchok with ease and even managed to get heroic Ultraxion on our second try! We had put in quite a few attempts on him already but always came up short on DPS due to some poorly geared people. With the new round of nerfs and the help of some well-geared PuGs, we were able to easily make the enrage timer and down him! My gem count began to climb towards 60...
After we downed spine, I was at 60. I hearthed back to Ravenholdt to turn them in and get the final quest in the chain - kill Deathwing and bring back a fragment of his jaw.
Deathwing went down without much of a fight - to be honest it was stupidly easy with the new nerfs. We were killing the arm tentacles before it even began casting cataclysm and we didn't suffer any of our usual tank deaths on the 4th platform. We downed him in record time and I was back on my way to Ravenholdt to get my hands on the legendaries!
When I entered Ravenholdt I knew something was up. The area was phased so that the grounds were on fire and there were dead dragons scattered about. I found Wrathion and his assistant Fahrad outside in a little clearing. When I turned in the fragment of deathwing's jaw I saw the achievement light up "Fangs of the Father" as well as "Fangs of the Father Guild Edition"! Before I could even respond to the wave of "grats!" the cutscene began to play...
As it turns out Fahrad himself is a member of the black dragonflight. And since Wrathion is the only known black dragon free of the corruption of the old gods...that means Fahrad is also under the sway of the madness that gripped deathwing as well. Wrathion's final command was for me to kill Fahrad, who screams "YOU HAVE BECOME TOO DIFFICULT TO CONTROL!" before transforming into a giant black dragon. I put an end to him and his madness using my gleaming new daggers, and Wrathion disappears mysteriously with the words, "A new age for mortals has dawned, and heroes like you are among the vanguard..."
One thing I was REALLY bummed about was that I downloaded and ran fraps of the whole thing, and for some reason it didn't capture any of the actual cutscene! It only got the portion of my landing on Ravenholdt to turn in the quest and the phased area afterwards. Basically everything except the cutscene, which is obviously the coolest part of the whole experience. Oh well. My guildies can look it up on youtube.
It was kind of lame that I didn't get to have a realm-wide experience upon completion of the legendary like Dragonwrath, but I guess this really goes with the whole theme of rogues better. We work alone in the shadows, it's only fitting that we reap the benefits of our dirty deeds alone as well.
But of course none of it would have been possible without the guild. I thanked them profusely and flew back to org where they were all assembled to check out the fruits of their hard labor. My GM even enchanted them both free of charge! <3
The best part of the legendaries has got to be the wings. Yeah yeah, I know the stats are wickedly awesome, but really it's going to be replaced by even more awesome quest greens when MoP drops. But I'm willing to bet that no quest greens in MoP will have a 5 min CD on-use effect that turns you into batman! My guildies and I really got a kick out of that, I think I'll probably using it whenever it's off CD for the next few months.
And yes, the stats are of course awesome too. The proc is a little more unpredictable than I thought as I have to be actually watching the stacks but I think it will integrate pretty well into my normal rotation after a bit of practice. At the target dummy I was doing upwards of 24-25k with only a agility flask buff. Imagine what I could do fully raid buffed on a static fight like Ultraxion!
Amidst attrition and poor raid attendance our guild continued to clear DS week after week. With the hard work of our GM who was able to bring in some semi-regular PuGs to help fill gaps, and the core raid members who didn't complain once about the tough situation, we were finally able to get together the last remaining few gems for my stage 2 legendary collection. As luck would have it, I was exactly 7 short as we began the newly nerfed (15%) Dragon Soul last week.
We downed heroic Morchok with ease and even managed to get heroic Ultraxion on our second try! We had put in quite a few attempts on him already but always came up short on DPS due to some poorly geared people. With the new round of nerfs and the help of some well-geared PuGs, we were able to easily make the enrage timer and down him! My gem count began to climb towards 60...
After we downed spine, I was at 60. I hearthed back to Ravenholdt to turn them in and get the final quest in the chain - kill Deathwing and bring back a fragment of his jaw.
Deathwing went down without much of a fight - to be honest it was stupidly easy with the new nerfs. We were killing the arm tentacles before it even began casting cataclysm and we didn't suffer any of our usual tank deaths on the 4th platform. We downed him in record time and I was back on my way to Ravenholdt to get my hands on the legendaries!
When I entered Ravenholdt I knew something was up. The area was phased so that the grounds were on fire and there were dead dragons scattered about. I found Wrathion and his assistant Fahrad outside in a little clearing. When I turned in the fragment of deathwing's jaw I saw the achievement light up "Fangs of the Father" as well as "Fangs of the Father Guild Edition"! Before I could even respond to the wave of "grats!" the cutscene began to play...
As it turns out Fahrad himself is a member of the black dragonflight. And since Wrathion is the only known black dragon free of the corruption of the old gods...that means Fahrad is also under the sway of the madness that gripped deathwing as well. Wrathion's final command was for me to kill Fahrad, who screams "YOU HAVE BECOME TOO DIFFICULT TO CONTROL!" before transforming into a giant black dragon. I put an end to him and his madness using my gleaming new daggers, and Wrathion disappears mysteriously with the words, "A new age for mortals has dawned, and heroes like you are among the vanguard..."
One thing I was REALLY bummed about was that I downloaded and ran fraps of the whole thing, and for some reason it didn't capture any of the actual cutscene! It only got the portion of my landing on Ravenholdt to turn in the quest and the phased area afterwards. Basically everything except the cutscene, which is obviously the coolest part of the whole experience. Oh well. My guildies can look it up on youtube.
It was kind of lame that I didn't get to have a realm-wide experience upon completion of the legendary like Dragonwrath, but I guess this really goes with the whole theme of rogues better. We work alone in the shadows, it's only fitting that we reap the benefits of our dirty deeds alone as well.
But of course none of it would have been possible without the guild. I thanked them profusely and flew back to org where they were all assembled to check out the fruits of their hard labor. My GM even enchanted them both free of charge! <3
The best part of the legendaries has got to be the wings. Yeah yeah, I know the stats are wickedly awesome, but really it's going to be replaced by even more awesome quest greens when MoP drops. But I'm willing to bet that no quest greens in MoP will have a 5 min CD on-use effect that turns you into batman! My guildies and I really got a kick out of that, I think I'll probably using it whenever it's off CD for the next few months.
And yes, the stats are of course awesome too. The proc is a little more unpredictable than I thought as I have to be actually watching the stacks but I think it will integrate pretty well into my normal rotation after a bit of practice. At the target dummy I was doing upwards of 24-25k with only a agility flask buff. Imagine what I could do fully raid buffed on a static fight like Ultraxion!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The exodus
It's that time of the year where guilds slowly begin to fold. I'm talking about the exodus of players that occurs a few months before the launch of a new expansion.
Last night I heard that one of the better progression guilds in the server are more or less closing shop. No one is disbanding, but as the number of consistent raiders slowly decline, raid teams begin to shut down one by one until even the best guilds have trouble finding 10 people to push progression.
I joined the game in wrath and back when ICC was first released, there were definitely more hardcore progression guilds. Off the top of my head I can count maybe 10 or so guilds who were pushing heroic modes in ICC at a much faster pace than the rest of the server. About half of them was horde, and the server first guild also happens to be a US-top 20 guild.
Then came the waves of nerfs to ICC and more people were clearing heroics. Finally there came a point where everyone was doing at least half of the heroic modes and the best guilds on the server only had heroic LK standing between them and a full clear (with the exception of our server first - they were the only ones to down heroic LK pre-cata).
And then you saw the best guilds fold, one by one, as raiders got bored and frustrated. Some of them bled people left and right until raids were no longer sustainable, some of them collapsed overnight when the GM server-hopped. Some struggled till the end to recruit with no avail.
My guild was no exception to this. First came the disbanding of 25 man raids. Some people left while some continued on with 10 man raiding. We made it through till the end, finally downing 25 man LK before cata hit. That was a big moment for us, and I think our guild fared much better than others in that we retained most of our people in the transition from wrath to cata.
Then came cata and with it came the permanent disbanding of 25 man raids. I think many of the folks who had been around since BC and pre-BC were burnt out. Attendance problems and unforseen absences got the better of everyone and so raids came to a halt. But within a month or so 10 mans began to pick up and during firelands, the guild was a lot more like what I had remembered from wrath - we had a surplus roster and people actually had to be rotated out! Everyone was excited and eager and we pushed hardmodes with zeal.
And now, a few weeks into dragon soul, we are again having trouble filling a 10 man group. Two of our longest-residing members have left. One had quit the raiding scene a month ago, and now has decided to quit the game. Another had been sporadic about attendance ever since we completed her legendary, and now has faction transferred. I don't know how the rest of the guild took it, but their departure was a shock to me.
This kind of problem seems to be server-wide, as longtime members take temporary or permanent breaks and everyone is falling short on their attendance rosters. Many people, having cleared DS normal, want to take a break until the next expansion. Some have quit the game for good (or so they say) in favor of new MMOs such as SWOTR. Some have just simply burned out, or have new RL commitments and can't raid anymore.
The first group of people are to be expected - it is what inevitably happens during the long lull between the end of an expansion and the start of a new one. The second happened to come at a bad time. It just so happened that a direct competitor to WoW (and pretty much a sci-fi clone, might I add) would launch at a time when WoW's gamer base is bored and looking for something new. The third, well, that is a small minority and there is nothing that can be done about RL problems.
So where do we go from here?
I hope we can stick it out. Recruiting is difficult, but at the least I hope we don't lose any more people than we have already. I hope we can bump up some of the non-raiders in our guild to raider status permanently. I hope that the experienced raiders who want hardmodes can learn to live with a slower pace of progression - we might just have to wait for nerfs at this point. I hope that things do pick up when MoP drops. I, for one, would at least like to give MoP raiding a try before deciding that pandas was a childish idea. Maybe it will be, fun, I don't know.
Things look grim at the moment, but I have faith. I have faith that the people who are currently sustaining our rosters are not the type of people to suddenly up and quit. I think we'll make it. We just need patience to ride out this rough patch.
Last night I heard that one of the better progression guilds in the server are more or less closing shop. No one is disbanding, but as the number of consistent raiders slowly decline, raid teams begin to shut down one by one until even the best guilds have trouble finding 10 people to push progression.
I joined the game in wrath and back when ICC was first released, there were definitely more hardcore progression guilds. Off the top of my head I can count maybe 10 or so guilds who were pushing heroic modes in ICC at a much faster pace than the rest of the server. About half of them was horde, and the server first guild also happens to be a US-top 20 guild.
Then came the waves of nerfs to ICC and more people were clearing heroics. Finally there came a point where everyone was doing at least half of the heroic modes and the best guilds on the server only had heroic LK standing between them and a full clear (with the exception of our server first - they were the only ones to down heroic LK pre-cata).
And then you saw the best guilds fold, one by one, as raiders got bored and frustrated. Some of them bled people left and right until raids were no longer sustainable, some of them collapsed overnight when the GM server-hopped. Some struggled till the end to recruit with no avail.
My guild was no exception to this. First came the disbanding of 25 man raids. Some people left while some continued on with 10 man raiding. We made it through till the end, finally downing 25 man LK before cata hit. That was a big moment for us, and I think our guild fared much better than others in that we retained most of our people in the transition from wrath to cata.
Then came cata and with it came the permanent disbanding of 25 man raids. I think many of the folks who had been around since BC and pre-BC were burnt out. Attendance problems and unforseen absences got the better of everyone and so raids came to a halt. But within a month or so 10 mans began to pick up and during firelands, the guild was a lot more like what I had remembered from wrath - we had a surplus roster and people actually had to be rotated out! Everyone was excited and eager and we pushed hardmodes with zeal.
And now, a few weeks into dragon soul, we are again having trouble filling a 10 man group. Two of our longest-residing members have left. One had quit the raiding scene a month ago, and now has decided to quit the game. Another had been sporadic about attendance ever since we completed her legendary, and now has faction transferred. I don't know how the rest of the guild took it, but their departure was a shock to me.
This kind of problem seems to be server-wide, as longtime members take temporary or permanent breaks and everyone is falling short on their attendance rosters. Many people, having cleared DS normal, want to take a break until the next expansion. Some have quit the game for good (or so they say) in favor of new MMOs such as SWOTR. Some have just simply burned out, or have new RL commitments and can't raid anymore.
The first group of people are to be expected - it is what inevitably happens during the long lull between the end of an expansion and the start of a new one. The second happened to come at a bad time. It just so happened that a direct competitor to WoW (and pretty much a sci-fi clone, might I add) would launch at a time when WoW's gamer base is bored and looking for something new. The third, well, that is a small minority and there is nothing that can be done about RL problems.
So where do we go from here?
I hope we can stick it out. Recruiting is difficult, but at the least I hope we don't lose any more people than we have already. I hope we can bump up some of the non-raiders in our guild to raider status permanently. I hope that the experienced raiders who want hardmodes can learn to live with a slower pace of progression - we might just have to wait for nerfs at this point. I hope that things do pick up when MoP drops. I, for one, would at least like to give MoP raiding a try before deciding that pandas was a childish idea. Maybe it will be, fun, I don't know.
Things look grim at the moment, but I have faith. I have faith that the people who are currently sustaining our rosters are not the type of people to suddenly up and quit. I think we'll make it. We just need patience to ride out this rough patch.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Bye bye Mr. Lich King Guy
A long long time ago
I can still remember
How that raid used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my epic loot
I could give Arthas the boot
And maybe I'd get his epic mount
But December made me shiver
When Cataclysm was delivered
Deathwing on the world map
I couldn't even cast sap
I can't remember if I cried
When I read that Cairne Bloodhoof died
But something touched me deep inside
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Did you pay the forty dollars
And do you have faith in ghostcrawler
If blizzard tells you so
Do you believe in DBM
Will it get you banned by a GM
And can you teach me how to win Tol Barad
Well I know that you love to pvp
'Cause I saw you in that one AV
You both zerged right to Vann
Man I dig that speed boost enchant
I was just a lonely low level scrub
Wearing all quest gear I was a nub
But I still got my Hyjal bear cub
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Now for two years, we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on our hearthstone
But that's not how it used to be
When that lich king used to wipe the raid
Many a repair bills were paid
With the gold made from running dailies
Oh and while the raid was looking down
Bolvar stole his icy crown
The new lich king was born
We all felt a bit torn
And while the raid lead explained the fight
The pallys gave us blessing of might
And we practiced late nights
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Slice and dice and mages' ice
Getting chain-CCed isn't quite so nice
Our healer could use a peel
No one likes a noob who carries the flag
And we all know it's not just the lag
Don't you have better gear in your bag
Now the Eye of the Storm was almost done
One more cap and it would be won
We all got up to zerg
But we didn't have the nerve
The allies tried to take the mid
But the defenders refused to give
Do you recall if anyone lived
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Oh and there we were all in Mt Hyjal
A generation going through withdrawl
With no gear to start again
So Thrall be nimble, Thrall be quick
No one wants to get another gkick
And fire is Deathwing's only friend
Oh and as I watched him in Dragon Soul
I sometimes couldn't help but lol
This dragon born in hell
Died to Dovahkin's yell
And as I saw the loot pile up high
There was nothing that I could call mine
It all got sharded with a sigh
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
I met an orc who sang the blues
I asked him to please avoid the ooze
But he just ignored me and died
I went down to the quartermaster
But the gear was so lackluster
And the man there said I wasn't even honored
And in orgrimmar the raiders raged
Because they got kited by a mage
But not a nerf was spoken
pvp was still broken
And the three bosses I love to kill
Lich King, Marrowgar, and Lana'thel
Caught the last train to razor hill
The day...that Deathwing flied
I can still remember
How that raid used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my epic loot
I could give Arthas the boot
And maybe I'd get his epic mount
But December made me shiver
When Cataclysm was delivered
Deathwing on the world map
I couldn't even cast sap
I can't remember if I cried
When I read that Cairne Bloodhoof died
But something touched me deep inside
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Did you pay the forty dollars
And do you have faith in ghostcrawler
If blizzard tells you so
Do you believe in DBM
Will it get you banned by a GM
And can you teach me how to win Tol Barad
Well I know that you love to pvp
'Cause I saw you in that one AV
You both zerged right to Vann
Man I dig that speed boost enchant
I was just a lonely low level scrub
Wearing all quest gear I was a nub
But I still got my Hyjal bear cub
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Now for two years, we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on our hearthstone
But that's not how it used to be
When that lich king used to wipe the raid
Many a repair bills were paid
With the gold made from running dailies
Oh and while the raid was looking down
Bolvar stole his icy crown
The new lich king was born
We all felt a bit torn
And while the raid lead explained the fight
The pallys gave us blessing of might
And we practiced late nights
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Slice and dice and mages' ice
Getting chain-CCed isn't quite so nice
Our healer could use a peel
No one likes a noob who carries the flag
And we all know it's not just the lag
Don't you have better gear in your bag
Now the Eye of the Storm was almost done
One more cap and it would be won
We all got up to zerg
But we didn't have the nerve
The allies tried to take the mid
But the defenders refused to give
Do you recall if anyone lived
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
Oh and there we were all in Mt Hyjal
A generation going through withdrawl
With no gear to start again
So Thrall be nimble, Thrall be quick
No one wants to get another gkick
And fire is Deathwing's only friend
Oh and as I watched him in Dragon Soul
I sometimes couldn't help but lol
This dragon born in hell
Died to Dovahkin's yell
And as I saw the loot pile up high
There was nothing that I could call mine
It all got sharded with a sigh
The day...that Deathwing flied
Bye bye Mr Lich King guy
Flew my drake to ICC
But the raid was a lie
Them good ol' raiders were nowhere near icecrown
Singing Deathwing is the new boss in town
Deathwing is the new boss in town
I met an orc who sang the blues
I asked him to please avoid the ooze
But he just ignored me and died
I went down to the quartermaster
But the gear was so lackluster
And the man there said I wasn't even honored
And in orgrimmar the raiders raged
Because they got kited by a mage
But not a nerf was spoken
pvp was still broken
And the three bosses I love to kill
Lich King, Marrowgar, and Lana'thel
Caught the last train to razor hill
The day...that Deathwing flied
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Embrace the shadow
Technically my priest's main spec is shadow. By technically, I mean that my primary spec is shadow and holy is my secondary talent tree. But this was simply a result of my old leveling days - it's nearly impossible to level as holy, after all. I consider myself a holy priest with a bit of DPS on the side.
My shadow spec has remained almost entirely unused since I hit 85. Healers get much quicker dungeon ques and we sometimes even get a satchel for our efforts! Plus, I've never been comfortable enough with my off spec to try my hand at dungeons. Besides, I enjoyed healing and found it a lot less stressful when I didn't have to interrupt bosses.
Anyways, I was asked to come heal for one of my guildmate's "off-days" guild. IE, he's the GM of another raiding guild that he sort of manages "on the side". They were short a healer and asked me to come in for a quick dragon soul run.
I was nervous about healing a raid since my healing experience has mostly been limited to LFR and dungeons (although I have healed firelands with this guild before, which went reasonably well). But I also knew that this particular guild wasn't as geared or as progressed as mine, so their expectation also wasn't as high. I would, for instance, be scared shitless to try to heal for MY guild - especially when our GM is the main healer and I would've looked pathetic in comparison.
Despite my worries, I was happy to find that I could keep up and do just as much healing as the main healer, who is better geared than I am. Even in my inferior LFR gear, I had more than enough spirit to spam flash heals and throw out my biggest AoE heals without running oom. Even during heavy damage phases my holy word: sanctuary, circle of healing, and divine hymn kept everyone at full HP. I have to say that I really love a holy priest's ability to mega-heal an entire raid full of people. Pure quantity over quality!
The hitch came when after a few bosses, we lost someone to computer troubles. There was a lot of shuffling of specs and we finally found someone, another healer. Which meant I was asked to go shadow. Gulp.
As expected, I was last place. Just a few notches above the tanks, around 15-16k or so. What I felt was the biggest issue was gear. I hate to go blaming crappy gear for my crappy DPS but that's where I felt my biggest limitation came from.
I actually don't even have a proper shadow set. Given that holy and shadow both prioritize "sort of" the same stats, and I rarely played shadow anyways, I never bothered to collect a shadow-specific set. I prioritized int and spirit on my holy gear with haste as the preferred secondary stat. While this is ok to apply to shadow, you will never top DPS charts or even remain competitive with other DPSer's who are actually prioritizing stats correctly.
Second only to int, haste is king for shadow priests. Spirit is good too, in that it is converted to spell hit rating, as well as the passive mana regen. But the spell hit cap is only 17%, whereas in my holy gear I was well over 30% spell hit due to my prioritizing spirit. And my haste was vastly lacking since I don't prioritize gear or reforging for it. The main component of spriest damage is DoTs, and DoTs scale with haste, so having a little bit of haste vs. a lot of haste means a world of difference.
Now of course no one blamed me for my low DPS. You can't just bring in a main spec healer and expect them to pull fantastic numbers in their off spec. Especially when they're helping you fill a roster gap - at that point you're just thankful for the 10th person being there. But I still felt kind of bad about it.
I've played my rogue for almost three years and practiced endlessly and perfected the rotation to a point where every move is muscle memory. I can easily break 35k on most DS fights even on bad days. Seeing my poor little shadow priest struggling to break half of what I can do so easily on my rogue just made me feel kind of crappy. I wasn't expecting to top charts or anything, but still, it wasn't a good feeling to be last place. To add insult to injury, there was a rogue in the raid who kept making little hints about how good he was. Oh how I wished I could've brought in MY rogue to teach him a thing or two.
I went about fixing this right away. I can't do anything half-assed when it comes to wow. I can't just start an alt - I have to collect an entire set of heirlooms, bags, and a great name before I do that. I can't just collect a few pets, I need to go for the "all the pets in the game" achievement. So I decided I wasn't happy playing a half-priest. I wanted to be a rockin healer and a competitive DPS too.
I dug out a few pieces of gear that I had received during dungeon runs, but had discarded as I got better pieces with spirit on them. I bought a few more with VP and JP scraped together among a couple other characters. I even did LFR and won a nice pair of boots. Throw these all together, and I had a half-holy half-shadow set that I could work with. I gemmed and reforged all the new pieces to get as much haste as I could, while not touching any of the holy gear I was still using. By the end I had about half the spirit I started with, my hit rating was just at the comfortable 17% mark, and I had about 6% more haste. Not bad.
The improvement in DPS was pretty drastic. Whereas I was struggling to break 10k on a target dummy in my holy gear (self-buffs only, no food/flask), I was easily getting to the 15k mark. Not wasting stat allotments on overcapping hit and upping the haste really did the trick! I think fully raid buffed with the food/flask, I should be able to do 20k easily. While this isn't anyone's definition of "awesome DPS", it should make me at least competitive with other people. It's certainly good enough in LFR, where the average seems to hover at 17-20k.
Next step is of course, practice practice practice. I know that the really good shadow priests out there were doing much more than 20k before DS came out, wearing only firelands gear. Getting the rotation down perfect is where there is the most room for improvement, it just takes a lot more time than acquiring gear.
But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Managing the empowered shadow buff correctly to maximize uptime seems to be a critical component. Timing and refreshing my dots correctly will be important too, and probably a bit tricky given that I've never played a DoT class to this level before. But overall I think it will be a fun journey. I might never become THE shadow priest in a raid, but maybe just once beating a pure DPS at his own game would be fun.
My shadow spec has remained almost entirely unused since I hit 85. Healers get much quicker dungeon ques and we sometimes even get a satchel for our efforts! Plus, I've never been comfortable enough with my off spec to try my hand at dungeons. Besides, I enjoyed healing and found it a lot less stressful when I didn't have to interrupt bosses.
Anyways, I was asked to come heal for one of my guildmate's "off-days" guild. IE, he's the GM of another raiding guild that he sort of manages "on the side". They were short a healer and asked me to come in for a quick dragon soul run.
I was nervous about healing a raid since my healing experience has mostly been limited to LFR and dungeons (although I have healed firelands with this guild before, which went reasonably well). But I also knew that this particular guild wasn't as geared or as progressed as mine, so their expectation also wasn't as high. I would, for instance, be scared shitless to try to heal for MY guild - especially when our GM is the main healer and I would've looked pathetic in comparison.
Despite my worries, I was happy to find that I could keep up and do just as much healing as the main healer, who is better geared than I am. Even in my inferior LFR gear, I had more than enough spirit to spam flash heals and throw out my biggest AoE heals without running oom. Even during heavy damage phases my holy word: sanctuary, circle of healing, and divine hymn kept everyone at full HP. I have to say that I really love a holy priest's ability to mega-heal an entire raid full of people. Pure quantity over quality!
The hitch came when after a few bosses, we lost someone to computer troubles. There was a lot of shuffling of specs and we finally found someone, another healer. Which meant I was asked to go shadow. Gulp.
As expected, I was last place. Just a few notches above the tanks, around 15-16k or so. What I felt was the biggest issue was gear. I hate to go blaming crappy gear for my crappy DPS but that's where I felt my biggest limitation came from.
I actually don't even have a proper shadow set. Given that holy and shadow both prioritize "sort of" the same stats, and I rarely played shadow anyways, I never bothered to collect a shadow-specific set. I prioritized int and spirit on my holy gear with haste as the preferred secondary stat. While this is ok to apply to shadow, you will never top DPS charts or even remain competitive with other DPSer's who are actually prioritizing stats correctly.
Second only to int, haste is king for shadow priests. Spirit is good too, in that it is converted to spell hit rating, as well as the passive mana regen. But the spell hit cap is only 17%, whereas in my holy gear I was well over 30% spell hit due to my prioritizing spirit. And my haste was vastly lacking since I don't prioritize gear or reforging for it. The main component of spriest damage is DoTs, and DoTs scale with haste, so having a little bit of haste vs. a lot of haste means a world of difference.
Now of course no one blamed me for my low DPS. You can't just bring in a main spec healer and expect them to pull fantastic numbers in their off spec. Especially when they're helping you fill a roster gap - at that point you're just thankful for the 10th person being there. But I still felt kind of bad about it.
I've played my rogue for almost three years and practiced endlessly and perfected the rotation to a point where every move is muscle memory. I can easily break 35k on most DS fights even on bad days. Seeing my poor little shadow priest struggling to break half of what I can do so easily on my rogue just made me feel kind of crappy. I wasn't expecting to top charts or anything, but still, it wasn't a good feeling to be last place. To add insult to injury, there was a rogue in the raid who kept making little hints about how good he was. Oh how I wished I could've brought in MY rogue to teach him a thing or two.
I went about fixing this right away. I can't do anything half-assed when it comes to wow. I can't just start an alt - I have to collect an entire set of heirlooms, bags, and a great name before I do that. I can't just collect a few pets, I need to go for the "all the pets in the game" achievement. So I decided I wasn't happy playing a half-priest. I wanted to be a rockin healer and a competitive DPS too.
I dug out a few pieces of gear that I had received during dungeon runs, but had discarded as I got better pieces with spirit on them. I bought a few more with VP and JP scraped together among a couple other characters. I even did LFR and won a nice pair of boots. Throw these all together, and I had a half-holy half-shadow set that I could work with. I gemmed and reforged all the new pieces to get as much haste as I could, while not touching any of the holy gear I was still using. By the end I had about half the spirit I started with, my hit rating was just at the comfortable 17% mark, and I had about 6% more haste. Not bad.
The improvement in DPS was pretty drastic. Whereas I was struggling to break 10k on a target dummy in my holy gear (self-buffs only, no food/flask), I was easily getting to the 15k mark. Not wasting stat allotments on overcapping hit and upping the haste really did the trick! I think fully raid buffed with the food/flask, I should be able to do 20k easily. While this isn't anyone's definition of "awesome DPS", it should make me at least competitive with other people. It's certainly good enough in LFR, where the average seems to hover at 17-20k.
Next step is of course, practice practice practice. I know that the really good shadow priests out there were doing much more than 20k before DS came out, wearing only firelands gear. Getting the rotation down perfect is where there is the most room for improvement, it just takes a lot more time than acquiring gear.
But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Managing the empowered shadow buff correctly to maximize uptime seems to be a critical component. Timing and refreshing my dots correctly will be important too, and probably a bit tricky given that I've never played a DoT class to this level before. But overall I think it will be a fun journey. I might never become THE shadow priest in a raid, but maybe just once beating a pure DPS at his own game would be fun.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Top 5...reasons to hate rogues
An alternate title to this post would be...they see me rollin', they hatin'.
Yeah, yeah, rogues are OP, it's imbalanced, unfair advantage, vanish needs to be nerfed, we've heard it all. I hear it everyday on the forums, I see it in BG chats, and at least one person makes a snarky comment every raid "they need to nerf backstab QQ".
Most of the hate is of course from the pvp crowd, as rogues are arguably the most pvp-oriented class. Here are the top 5 reasons why people hate rogues so much (based on observations gathered from forums QQs, trade chat, and an angry husband who has been kidney shotted for the 12th time in a BG):
5. Ambush is OP
I hear this a lot, and I've experienced this first-hand. At the low levels, a fully heirloom-geared rogue can 2-shot almost every other class with ambush. It's simple, really. Step one: get decked out in heirlooms. Steph two: stealth and wait for prey in a low level BG. Step three: sap anyone stupid enough wander close to you. Step four: ambush. Profit!
Ok, but let's be realistic. Low level pvp means diddly squat. It's like questing, it's just something you do to learn the class and earn some xp. Everyone knows that the real pvp action is at max-level BGs, and I guarantee you that no one is two-shotting anyone in those situations. I mean, unless someone tries to BG naked, two or three-shotting a level 85 player is simply impossible.
Here's the deal: I rarely even use ambush in pvp. It's an OP ability at level 40, not so much at 85. People usually have so much resilience that my role in a BG isn't so much damage as control. So my opener out of stealth is usually cheap shot, to incapacitate my foe. Which really brings me to my next point...
4. Stuns are OP and annoying
Yes, they are annoying. But have you ever been on the giving end of this? Like, have you ever seen someone about to cast a greater healing wave, and then ran up to them, and punched them in the face so hard that they stopped casting? Yeah, that's how good it feels.
In all seriousness, rogues are the best at stuns. And yes, it's really annoying especially if you're a caster and you're getting stunned almost continuously. But remember that stuns are now on diminishing returns, so that each successive application of a stun is shorter and shorter. Realistically, I can only stunlock someone for maybe 10 seconds straight, and that requires me to blow all my CDs. It's annoying for sure, but I mean...that's like, our thing. Deal with it. I don't see anyone complaining about how hunters get pets, because that's totally their thing. Our thing is to stun people.
We also like to sap people randomly on the road. I'm not gonna, lie, that is really annoying. But my god, it's so much fun.
3. Recuperate is OP
Ok, well the thing is...
Actually, you know what? Recuperate IS really OP. No argument there.
2. Vanish is OP
I actually agree that vanish is probably the most useful tool in a rogue's arsenal. The only thing even close to this is hunter's feign death, but that really only works in pve. No one is ever fooled by an FD in pvp. Night elves have shadowmeld, which is kind of like a really really weak and crappy version of vanish. Again, little utility against anyone of actual skill.
Vanish is great, because it literally lets you drop combat and escape with the last tick of your HP remaining. When used in conjunction with cloak of shadows, it also wipes your dots so that your stealth doesn't break right away. The only thing that can really prevent vanish is bleed effects, which many classes do have so it's not like vanish is useful all the time.
But it really is nice. You can use it, for instance, to drop combat, run away and bandage yourself and thereby escaping a tight situation. I often use vanish to sort of "reset start of combat". A rogue's best and strongest abilities require you to be stealthed, so being able to re-enter stealth is a huge advantage. For example, if I really wanted to keep someone locked down, I would start from stealth -> cheap shot -> kidney shot -> vanish -> cheap shot, etc etc.
Of course it is on a long-ish cooldown timer so it's not like we can spam it. And as much as people complain about it, no one has yet to complain when I use vanish to survive a wipe and mass rez people.
1. Rogues fight dirty
Um, yeah. We're ninjas, remember? Who said we had to fight fair? So what if we can stun you, sneak around undetected, drop combat and go invisible, heal ourselves back to full with recuperate, all the while doing insane amounts of damage in pve? As long as we win we don't care.
And honestly, it's not that hard to deal with rogues. We are, at most, really annoying pests. I never saw anyone who was like, "oh no a rogue is coming my way! Run!" It's always more like, "ugh that goddamn rogue is back again". We don't really pwn anyone. We just annoy the crap out of everyone.
Just brush it off, folks. You got griefed a little. Move along, now. Nothing to see here.
Yeah, yeah, rogues are OP, it's imbalanced, unfair advantage, vanish needs to be nerfed, we've heard it all. I hear it everyday on the forums, I see it in BG chats, and at least one person makes a snarky comment every raid "they need to nerf backstab QQ".
Most of the hate is of course from the pvp crowd, as rogues are arguably the most pvp-oriented class. Here are the top 5 reasons why people hate rogues so much (based on observations gathered from forums QQs, trade chat, and an angry husband who has been kidney shotted for the 12th time in a BG):
5. Ambush is OP
I hear this a lot, and I've experienced this first-hand. At the low levels, a fully heirloom-geared rogue can 2-shot almost every other class with ambush. It's simple, really. Step one: get decked out in heirlooms. Steph two: stealth and wait for prey in a low level BG. Step three: sap anyone stupid enough wander close to you. Step four: ambush. Profit!
Ok, but let's be realistic. Low level pvp means diddly squat. It's like questing, it's just something you do to learn the class and earn some xp. Everyone knows that the real pvp action is at max-level BGs, and I guarantee you that no one is two-shotting anyone in those situations. I mean, unless someone tries to BG naked, two or three-shotting a level 85 player is simply impossible.
Here's the deal: I rarely even use ambush in pvp. It's an OP ability at level 40, not so much at 85. People usually have so much resilience that my role in a BG isn't so much damage as control. So my opener out of stealth is usually cheap shot, to incapacitate my foe. Which really brings me to my next point...
4. Stuns are OP and annoying
Yes, they are annoying. But have you ever been on the giving end of this? Like, have you ever seen someone about to cast a greater healing wave, and then ran up to them, and punched them in the face so hard that they stopped casting? Yeah, that's how good it feels.
In all seriousness, rogues are the best at stuns. And yes, it's really annoying especially if you're a caster and you're getting stunned almost continuously. But remember that stuns are now on diminishing returns, so that each successive application of a stun is shorter and shorter. Realistically, I can only stunlock someone for maybe 10 seconds straight, and that requires me to blow all my CDs. It's annoying for sure, but I mean...that's like, our thing. Deal with it. I don't see anyone complaining about how hunters get pets, because that's totally their thing. Our thing is to stun people.
We also like to sap people randomly on the road. I'm not gonna, lie, that is really annoying. But my god, it's so much fun.
3. Recuperate is OP
Ok, well the thing is...
Actually, you know what? Recuperate IS really OP. No argument there.
2. Vanish is OP
I actually agree that vanish is probably the most useful tool in a rogue's arsenal. The only thing even close to this is hunter's feign death, but that really only works in pve. No one is ever fooled by an FD in pvp. Night elves have shadowmeld, which is kind of like a really really weak and crappy version of vanish. Again, little utility against anyone of actual skill.
Vanish is great, because it literally lets you drop combat and escape with the last tick of your HP remaining. When used in conjunction with cloak of shadows, it also wipes your dots so that your stealth doesn't break right away. The only thing that can really prevent vanish is bleed effects, which many classes do have so it's not like vanish is useful all the time.
But it really is nice. You can use it, for instance, to drop combat, run away and bandage yourself and thereby escaping a tight situation. I often use vanish to sort of "reset start of combat". A rogue's best and strongest abilities require you to be stealthed, so being able to re-enter stealth is a huge advantage. For example, if I really wanted to keep someone locked down, I would start from stealth -> cheap shot -> kidney shot -> vanish -> cheap shot, etc etc.
Of course it is on a long-ish cooldown timer so it's not like we can spam it. And as much as people complain about it, no one has yet to complain when I use vanish to survive a wipe and mass rez people.
1. Rogues fight dirty
Um, yeah. We're ninjas, remember? Who said we had to fight fair? So what if we can stun you, sneak around undetected, drop combat and go invisible, heal ourselves back to full with recuperate, all the while doing insane amounts of damage in pve? As long as we win we don't care.
And honestly, it's not that hard to deal with rogues. We are, at most, really annoying pests. I never saw anyone who was like, "oh no a rogue is coming my way! Run!" It's always more like, "ugh that goddamn rogue is back again". We don't really pwn anyone. We just annoy the crap out of everyone.
Just brush it off, folks. You got griefed a little. Move along, now. Nothing to see here.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Me and the Cappin' makin it happen
There is a huge book of wow-related Murphy's Laws hidden somewhere in the deep mysterious dungeon known as Blizzard HQ. It must be coded into the programming language somehow too.
My most hated battleground is Warsong Gulch, followed closely by its almost exact carbon copy, Twin Peaks. And it seems like whenever I que for a random, I almost always get one of these two, causing me to just drop group and eat a 15 min deserter debuff half the time.
Why do I hate them so much, you say? I think it all stems from way back when the very idea of pvp made me want to throw up. Being a wow noob, I had no idea what I was doing, and the very first battleground I ever tried had me running away with my tail tucked between my legs, wondering what fun anyone could ever derive from repeatedly getting tossed around between two death knights playing keep away with you, chain-stunned and eaten alive, and finally getting graveyard camped for 10 minutes.
Then I started doing some more pvp, and while I was aware of how awful I was at it, I found that in larger battlegrounds, such as Alterac Valley and Wintergrasp, it was easy to "blend in" with the crowd. Just run around and look for a group of 5-6 people from your faction ganking one dude, join in the fun and get a couple hits in, and tada! You now have an honorable kill and maybe the feeling that you contributed something. Even though you didn't.
And then as I got better I started to learn some strategies for some of the 15-person BGs as well.
In Arathi Basin, for example, I usually play defense because it's safe, it keeps your death counter relatively low, and still lets you contribute to the game. I mean, yeah, it's important to go farm those HKs and take bases, but someone has to sit at the farm calling out the incoming rush, right? Plus as a rogue I'm pretty perfect for the job since I just sit there stealthed and enemies come running in never suspecting that I'm just waiting to sap them.
For Strands, I always either kill demos or drive demos. It's really the only way to go, and avoids the need for any actual pvp. Eye of the Storm, I dislike due to its similarity to WSG, but I usually sit on a base and defend, which seems to work for me.
WSG and Twin Peaks, however, I still do not have the hang of. Yeah I get that you get flags and stuff, but there is really no way to avoid constant pvp in a battleground that small with that few people. There's no way to hide in the crowd, really. And if one person is stupid, clueless, or plain bad, then it really brings the whole team down.
So anyways, the real point of this post is this: I recently got into a twin peaks. And I kicked ass.
The score was 0-0, both sides has each other's flags and the FCs were tucked into their own bases, well covered by DPSers and healers. What else does anyone expect from the first 2 minutes of these matches? Usually what happens next is a painfully drawn-out back-and-forth tug of people trying to kill the FCs.
I rushed out to the enemy base, stealthed, and checked out the situation. A DK had the flag and was well guarded with a shammy healer, a paladin, and a hunter. I waited for reinforcements to arrive before opening up straight onto the DK. I knew it was useless to try to kill the shammy without a coordinated attack so I just went right for the FC. I stunned her, dropped a smoke bomb to prevent healing for a few seconds, popped my CDs and dug into her like crazy. Her hp dropped fast but not fast enough, and sure enough when smoke bomb cleared the shammy was on her.
Then someone else had locked down the shammy and the DK knew she was in trouble. As I whittled down her hp she made a very stupid mistake - she jumped off the platform and briefly went out of the shammy's healing range.
I almost couldn't believe it as I landed the killing blow and she dropped our flag. I returned it, and the next instant our FC capped. Score was 1-0.
What happened next was probably the crowning moment of my entire pvp career.
Everyone seemed kind of confused, or maybe it was just me. We sat there, our assault force and their defense, attacking each other kind of absent mindedly. Then the flags reset. I saw it, sitting in the base right next to me, and I thought...do I dare click this thing???
Well, I did. My HP was barely at half and the moment I picked it up a paladin fixated onto me. He hammer-stunned me, I trinketed out, hit him a couple times for combo points and popped sprint and ran out of that room as fast as I could. On the way I used recuperate to try to bring my HP back up a bit. As soon as sprint ran out I hit preparation to reset the CD and sprint again. I had a good lead on my chasers, but they were now mounted and catching up quick.
When they caught up I popped evasion and hit the shammy a couple times to start recuperate ticking again. I could see the bridge ahead now, and lo and behold a horde shaman was closing in on me. I knew that as soon as I could get within healing range of him, I was safe. My HP was dangerously low, hovering around the 5k mark. One good hit would kill me for sure.
Evasion ran out and I was still running. I popped combat readiness and chugged a potion as a last ditch attempt. My HP still drained from the relentless assault, and then the next instant - I was up to half HP. The shammy was healing me! He slapped earth shield on me and I cheered and ran. I saw the shammy getting pummeled and I stopped quickly to peel off his attackers. I used combo points for recuperate. My HP started falling again but more reinforcement were arriving. Soon a druid had put HoTs on me and a paladin Lay on Hands me. I left them all to fight it out as I made a beeline for our base...and within seconds I was there and I had capped the flag.
Score was now 2-0. And all this within 5 minutes of the start of the BG.
The allies, discouraged by our early lead, seemed almost to give up. Almost immediately our horde pally picked up the flag and capped again, with practically no resistance. And the battleground was won.
This doesn't happen to me often. I just wanna put that out there. But it felt good.
Really good.
My most hated battleground is Warsong Gulch, followed closely by its almost exact carbon copy, Twin Peaks. And it seems like whenever I que for a random, I almost always get one of these two, causing me to just drop group and eat a 15 min deserter debuff half the time.
Why do I hate them so much, you say? I think it all stems from way back when the very idea of pvp made me want to throw up. Being a wow noob, I had no idea what I was doing, and the very first battleground I ever tried had me running away with my tail tucked between my legs, wondering what fun anyone could ever derive from repeatedly getting tossed around between two death knights playing keep away with you, chain-stunned and eaten alive, and finally getting graveyard camped for 10 minutes.
Then I started doing some more pvp, and while I was aware of how awful I was at it, I found that in larger battlegrounds, such as Alterac Valley and Wintergrasp, it was easy to "blend in" with the crowd. Just run around and look for a group of 5-6 people from your faction ganking one dude, join in the fun and get a couple hits in, and tada! You now have an honorable kill and maybe the feeling that you contributed something. Even though you didn't.
And then as I got better I started to learn some strategies for some of the 15-person BGs as well.
In Arathi Basin, for example, I usually play defense because it's safe, it keeps your death counter relatively low, and still lets you contribute to the game. I mean, yeah, it's important to go farm those HKs and take bases, but someone has to sit at the farm calling out the incoming rush, right? Plus as a rogue I'm pretty perfect for the job since I just sit there stealthed and enemies come running in never suspecting that I'm just waiting to sap them.
For Strands, I always either kill demos or drive demos. It's really the only way to go, and avoids the need for any actual pvp. Eye of the Storm, I dislike due to its similarity to WSG, but I usually sit on a base and defend, which seems to work for me.
WSG and Twin Peaks, however, I still do not have the hang of. Yeah I get that you get flags and stuff, but there is really no way to avoid constant pvp in a battleground that small with that few people. There's no way to hide in the crowd, really. And if one person is stupid, clueless, or plain bad, then it really brings the whole team down.
So anyways, the real point of this post is this: I recently got into a twin peaks. And I kicked ass.
The score was 0-0, both sides has each other's flags and the FCs were tucked into their own bases, well covered by DPSers and healers. What else does anyone expect from the first 2 minutes of these matches? Usually what happens next is a painfully drawn-out back-and-forth tug of people trying to kill the FCs.
I rushed out to the enemy base, stealthed, and checked out the situation. A DK had the flag and was well guarded with a shammy healer, a paladin, and a hunter. I waited for reinforcements to arrive before opening up straight onto the DK. I knew it was useless to try to kill the shammy without a coordinated attack so I just went right for the FC. I stunned her, dropped a smoke bomb to prevent healing for a few seconds, popped my CDs and dug into her like crazy. Her hp dropped fast but not fast enough, and sure enough when smoke bomb cleared the shammy was on her.
Then someone else had locked down the shammy and the DK knew she was in trouble. As I whittled down her hp she made a very stupid mistake - she jumped off the platform and briefly went out of the shammy's healing range.
I almost couldn't believe it as I landed the killing blow and she dropped our flag. I returned it, and the next instant our FC capped. Score was 1-0.
What happened next was probably the crowning moment of my entire pvp career.
Everyone seemed kind of confused, or maybe it was just me. We sat there, our assault force and their defense, attacking each other kind of absent mindedly. Then the flags reset. I saw it, sitting in the base right next to me, and I thought...do I dare click this thing???
Well, I did. My HP was barely at half and the moment I picked it up a paladin fixated onto me. He hammer-stunned me, I trinketed out, hit him a couple times for combo points and popped sprint and ran out of that room as fast as I could. On the way I used recuperate to try to bring my HP back up a bit. As soon as sprint ran out I hit preparation to reset the CD and sprint again. I had a good lead on my chasers, but they were now mounted and catching up quick.
When they caught up I popped evasion and hit the shammy a couple times to start recuperate ticking again. I could see the bridge ahead now, and lo and behold a horde shaman was closing in on me. I knew that as soon as I could get within healing range of him, I was safe. My HP was dangerously low, hovering around the 5k mark. One good hit would kill me for sure.
Evasion ran out and I was still running. I popped combat readiness and chugged a potion as a last ditch attempt. My HP still drained from the relentless assault, and then the next instant - I was up to half HP. The shammy was healing me! He slapped earth shield on me and I cheered and ran. I saw the shammy getting pummeled and I stopped quickly to peel off his attackers. I used combo points for recuperate. My HP started falling again but more reinforcement were arriving. Soon a druid had put HoTs on me and a paladin Lay on Hands me. I left them all to fight it out as I made a beeline for our base...and within seconds I was there and I had capped the flag.
Score was now 2-0. And all this within 5 minutes of the start of the BG.
The allies, discouraged by our early lead, seemed almost to give up. Almost immediately our horde pally picked up the flag and capped again, with practically no resistance. And the battleground was won.
This doesn't happen to me often. I just wanna put that out there. But it felt good.
Really good.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Killing you Subtly
On Tuesday I finally collected the last of the shadowy gems I needed for stage 2 of the rogue legendaries. Luckily we cleared the entirety of Dragon Soul that night so I knew I had the rest of the week to work on getting stage 2 without resorting to "AMG RAID STARTS IN 5 MIN AND IM STUCK ON THE STEALTH PART!!!" type of panic.
I read a few guides that suggested combat or subtlety for the stage 2 boss, Nalice. I can't stand playing combat (tried it, pulled decent numbers but I hated it) and I personally feel like subtlety has more survivability and neat "tricks", so I fixed up my spec, loaded up on bandages, potions, food, and got prepared to tackle the next stage in the quest progression.
I had watched the video so I knew the stealth part would be significantly easier than Creed. Creed was an absolute nightmare, and it took me close to 20 tries before I realized I was never getting in through the front door. Whereas with Nalice, within 10 or so tries I had made it to the boss. There are quite a few mobs, but way fewer pats and the behavior seemed a lot more patterned. With Creed I swear mobs literally jumped out of nowhere to ambush me.
So anyways, Nalice. I was ready to wipe more than a few times before I actually got in, and well...it was a long fight to be sure (maybe 5 min or so? That's pretty long for an unscripted, solo fight). But in terms of difficulty? Cakewalk.
It all came down to using the right "rogue trick" at the right moment. When she uses her weapon, disarm or stun her. When she casts, kick. When she enrages, shiv off the enrage. When she puts up armor, expose armor. As long as you take care of each boss buff/debuff mechanic, things were pretty smooth sailing. I had recuperate up the entire time for self-heals but honestly I think I could've managed with just a potion and a bandage. My health barely got below 90% the whole fight, and she hits like a wet noodle.
It also made me recognize that subtlety has a lot more potential than I previous gave credit. I was prepared for a really long drawn out fight as a pvp-survival subtlety spec, but surprisingly I was pulling 11-12k DPS (considering that I had no raid buffs and was facing the boss the whole time, this is pretty good). With a more DPS-oriented spec, for instance putting the points into Honor among Thieves, I think those numbers could be much higher. The rotation was not too onerous, and if I didn't have to worry about saving energy for disarm, kick, gouge, etc, I think it's very manageable. Just get the slice n dice & recuperate rolling and it all comes down to good energy management.
The DPS cooldowns for subtlety are not as straightforward, I'll admit. With mutilate basically you just coordinate the timing so that you can use all of your CDs in conjunction. Which mainly comes down to vanish -> garrote -> vendetta -> racial buff. Whereas with subtlety, the main DPS CD comes from shadowdance which should be used in conjunction with shadowstep, not only for the added buff but because positioning is so crucial to effectively utilize shadowdance. There is basically no point in popping shadowdance unless you're in a position to ambush, which require you to be behind the boss. With practice and maybe a couple macros, it should not be a huge challenge, I bet.
One thing about subtlety is that I won't be seeing huge 50k crits like I do with mutilate spec. But there are many upsides, such as a vastly increased survivability, faster energy regen, quick combo point regeneration, and excellent mobility. I also won't have such a huge dependence on poisons as a main component of my DPS, which is not really an advantage but more of a personal preference. I think it's weird that my poisons hit harder than daggers. Doesn't that seem backwards?
With that said, managing the buffs are trickier than mutilate for sure. And subtlety has such as huge dependence on positioning to maintain competitive DPS - on fights like Ultraxion I'd be a sitting duck, unable to utilize my strongest DPS CD. And who knows, maybe after a while spamming hemo might get just as old as spamming mutilate.
It's also hard to try out something else when you're doing so well in your current spec. I'm usually top DPS or #2 on most fights, and I'd obviously drop down as subtlety until I really master the spec. That hurts the raid, which sometimes does depend on me to pull through during DPS check encounters (I'm not carrying anyone, but I will say that we still struggle to meet the enrage on Ultraxion, and every little extra I bring helps). Not to mention the pride factor here - I like being #1.
But we'll see. Maybe once the content becomes easy enough and we go on farm mode, I can attempt a transition.
I read a few guides that suggested combat or subtlety for the stage 2 boss, Nalice. I can't stand playing combat (tried it, pulled decent numbers but I hated it) and I personally feel like subtlety has more survivability and neat "tricks", so I fixed up my spec, loaded up on bandages, potions, food, and got prepared to tackle the next stage in the quest progression.
I had watched the video so I knew the stealth part would be significantly easier than Creed. Creed was an absolute nightmare, and it took me close to 20 tries before I realized I was never getting in through the front door. Whereas with Nalice, within 10 or so tries I had made it to the boss. There are quite a few mobs, but way fewer pats and the behavior seemed a lot more patterned. With Creed I swear mobs literally jumped out of nowhere to ambush me.
So anyways, Nalice. I was ready to wipe more than a few times before I actually got in, and well...it was a long fight to be sure (maybe 5 min or so? That's pretty long for an unscripted, solo fight). But in terms of difficulty? Cakewalk.
It all came down to using the right "rogue trick" at the right moment. When she uses her weapon, disarm or stun her. When she casts, kick. When she enrages, shiv off the enrage. When she puts up armor, expose armor. As long as you take care of each boss buff/debuff mechanic, things were pretty smooth sailing. I had recuperate up the entire time for self-heals but honestly I think I could've managed with just a potion and a bandage. My health barely got below 90% the whole fight, and she hits like a wet noodle.
It also made me recognize that subtlety has a lot more potential than I previous gave credit. I was prepared for a really long drawn out fight as a pvp-survival subtlety spec, but surprisingly I was pulling 11-12k DPS (considering that I had no raid buffs and was facing the boss the whole time, this is pretty good). With a more DPS-oriented spec, for instance putting the points into Honor among Thieves, I think those numbers could be much higher. The rotation was not too onerous, and if I didn't have to worry about saving energy for disarm, kick, gouge, etc, I think it's very manageable. Just get the slice n dice & recuperate rolling and it all comes down to good energy management.
The DPS cooldowns for subtlety are not as straightforward, I'll admit. With mutilate basically you just coordinate the timing so that you can use all of your CDs in conjunction. Which mainly comes down to vanish -> garrote -> vendetta -> racial buff. Whereas with subtlety, the main DPS CD comes from shadowdance which should be used in conjunction with shadowstep, not only for the added buff but because positioning is so crucial to effectively utilize shadowdance. There is basically no point in popping shadowdance unless you're in a position to ambush, which require you to be behind the boss. With practice and maybe a couple macros, it should not be a huge challenge, I bet.
One thing about subtlety is that I won't be seeing huge 50k crits like I do with mutilate spec. But there are many upsides, such as a vastly increased survivability, faster energy regen, quick combo point regeneration, and excellent mobility. I also won't have such a huge dependence on poisons as a main component of my DPS, which is not really an advantage but more of a personal preference. I think it's weird that my poisons hit harder than daggers. Doesn't that seem backwards?
With that said, managing the buffs are trickier than mutilate for sure. And subtlety has such as huge dependence on positioning to maintain competitive DPS - on fights like Ultraxion I'd be a sitting duck, unable to utilize my strongest DPS CD. And who knows, maybe after a while spamming hemo might get just as old as spamming mutilate.
It's also hard to try out something else when you're doing so well in your current spec. I'm usually top DPS or #2 on most fights, and I'd obviously drop down as subtlety until I really master the spec. That hurts the raid, which sometimes does depend on me to pull through during DPS check encounters (I'm not carrying anyone, but I will say that we still struggle to meet the enrage on Ultraxion, and every little extra I bring helps). Not to mention the pride factor here - I like being #1.
But we'll see. Maybe once the content becomes easy enough and we go on farm mode, I can attempt a transition.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Love the one you're with
I like the peruse the wow forums when I have spare time, and my favorite section is always the "raid and guild leadership" forum.
People air their woes, either from a raid/guild member standpoint or from a raid/guild leader standpoint. If you can get past the fact that this is all over a video game, the discussions people have are always interesting. As a guild member, I always find the guild officers' opinions insightful. They deal with issues that I'm happily unconcerned with and do a surprisingly amount of work to get a group of different people to get along and work together.
I have never raid led or been an officer, nor do I want to. Sometimes I get snippets from the officers or GM about the drama they have to deal with, and my reaction is always "what drama???". I guess a lot of drama unfolds itself through private vent channels and whispers, and that's something I'm glad to not be a part of. As far as I'm concerned, I show up on time, do my best, and get some loot. Don't we all do that? Isn't everybody happy?
The most frequent complaint I see on the forums is this: "my guild isn't a 100% match with what I want out of this game. Should I leave my guild?"
It's a silly question, really. It's a video game, you should do whatever you want. If you're not happy, leave and explore greener pastures.
But speaking from experience, I have to say that guild loyalty pays off. What does guild hopping really get you in the end? If you have the mentality that your guild must change to suit your needs, than you're really looking at it backwards. Guilds change and evolve (and sometimes devolve) with time and it's not "them" that needs to adapt to your wants, it's you who has to adapt.
Believe me, I learned my lesson when I left a beloved guild because we switched from structured, progression-driven 25man raiding to casual 10man raids. It seemed perfectly justified at the time, but I ended up coming back in a few months because I missed my old crew. That was when it hit me that it wasn't the format or the content that made raiding enjoyable - it was the people. The PEOPLE!
I mean it when I say that I'd rather be clearing dragon soul farm content with my current group every single week than pushing heroic progression with some die-hard group of elitists. It's the friendships and connections you make with like-minded people that really adds the "fun" component of a raid. If the thrill of killing bosses was enough for me, why wouldn't I be playing Zelda?
Yeah, I know it's a game and I know there are people out there who will say, "LOL go find some real people to hang out with". And if others want to be close-minded and continue to believe that the only "real" interaction in this digital age is face-to-face interaction, then that's fine. Eventually they will need to get their heads out of the sand. I speak to these people a few hours each week. I recognize their voices when they speak. I know what they look like, where they live, what they like and what they're into. I know that when I make some stupid obscure reference about Skyrim or Star Wars or Family Guy, that someone will chime in and laugh. To me that's as real as any "real life" friendships can get.
Oh dear, this post has become inadvertently sentimental. It's the weather, I swear. My point is, when you find a guild with great people that you have fun with, stick with it. The shiny epic loot is tempting, but just remember that in a few months it all gets replaced by even shinier, epic-er loot anyways. Because when you find 9 other people who know what you mean when you say "I demand a Shrubbery!" and continue to quote Monty Python for 15 minutes, that's a beautiful thing. Love your nerdy friends and love the guild you're with.
People air their woes, either from a raid/guild member standpoint or from a raid/guild leader standpoint. If you can get past the fact that this is all over a video game, the discussions people have are always interesting. As a guild member, I always find the guild officers' opinions insightful. They deal with issues that I'm happily unconcerned with and do a surprisingly amount of work to get a group of different people to get along and work together.
I have never raid led or been an officer, nor do I want to. Sometimes I get snippets from the officers or GM about the drama they have to deal with, and my reaction is always "what drama???". I guess a lot of drama unfolds itself through private vent channels and whispers, and that's something I'm glad to not be a part of. As far as I'm concerned, I show up on time, do my best, and get some loot. Don't we all do that? Isn't everybody happy?
The most frequent complaint I see on the forums is this: "my guild isn't a 100% match with what I want out of this game. Should I leave my guild?"
It's a silly question, really. It's a video game, you should do whatever you want. If you're not happy, leave and explore greener pastures.
But speaking from experience, I have to say that guild loyalty pays off. What does guild hopping really get you in the end? If you have the mentality that your guild must change to suit your needs, than you're really looking at it backwards. Guilds change and evolve (and sometimes devolve) with time and it's not "them" that needs to adapt to your wants, it's you who has to adapt.
Believe me, I learned my lesson when I left a beloved guild because we switched from structured, progression-driven 25man raiding to casual 10man raids. It seemed perfectly justified at the time, but I ended up coming back in a few months because I missed my old crew. That was when it hit me that it wasn't the format or the content that made raiding enjoyable - it was the people. The PEOPLE!
I mean it when I say that I'd rather be clearing dragon soul farm content with my current group every single week than pushing heroic progression with some die-hard group of elitists. It's the friendships and connections you make with like-minded people that really adds the "fun" component of a raid. If the thrill of killing bosses was enough for me, why wouldn't I be playing Zelda?
Yeah, I know it's a game and I know there are people out there who will say, "LOL go find some real people to hang out with". And if others want to be close-minded and continue to believe that the only "real" interaction in this digital age is face-to-face interaction, then that's fine. Eventually they will need to get their heads out of the sand. I speak to these people a few hours each week. I recognize their voices when they speak. I know what they look like, where they live, what they like and what they're into. I know that when I make some stupid obscure reference about Skyrim or Star Wars or Family Guy, that someone will chime in and laugh. To me that's as real as any "real life" friendships can get.
Oh dear, this post has become inadvertently sentimental. It's the weather, I swear. My point is, when you find a guild with great people that you have fun with, stick with it. The shiny epic loot is tempting, but just remember that in a few months it all gets replaced by even shinier, epic-er loot anyways. Because when you find 9 other people who know what you mean when you say "I demand a Shrubbery!" and continue to quote Monty Python for 15 minutes, that's a beautiful thing. Love your nerdy friends and love the guild you're with.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Top 5...worst grinds
I put off playing (starting) wow for a really long time. Being a longtime blizzard fangirl, I knew about it the moment it was released, and I knew I should stay away from it. Almost since the initial launch, people recommended it to me. People asked me if I played it. People asked me why I didn't play it.
MMORPGs are like crack cocaine to me, you see. The first MMORPG I ever tried had me glued at the computer screen for an entire summer where I slept 6 hours a day and spent the other 18 hours nonstop gaming. I realized it was a very dangerous drug and consciously forced myself to never pick up any other MMO.
I think what's so addictive is that whole concept of neverending goals. There are nearly an infinite number of things to do, new levels to attain and new things to do that gets you logging in night after night.
I think it's certainly what makes WoW so damn hard to quit. There are so many big and small things to do. Big things like end-game raiding, completing a legendary, getting a full set of heroic raid tier gear, getting server first kills, getting your 2200 arena rating, etc. Then there are the little things like collecting pets, getting rare vanity items, holiday events, finding easter eggs...the list goes on and on.
What really revolutionized all this was the introduction of the achievement system, which every single MMO (and even other unrelated games like mobile app games - farmiville etc) has adopted by now. Now not only do YOU know that you're a proud owner of that rare mount or you killed that raid boss, but the whole world (potentially, although I doubt anyone else really looks) knows it too! Seeing that achievement tab light up whenever you complete an objective gives players a much more tangible goal to work towards, and thus a bigger incentive than ever to keep playing.
I, for one, am a total achievement junkie. There are some pretty ridiculous things that I've sunk countless hours into for the sake of one achievement, or title, or mount. My list of WoW achievements are very impressive and at the same time, very very sad, knowing how many hours were sunk into it.
So without further ado, here is my own personal top 5 craziest grinds I've suffered through just for the sake of "achieving" something.
5. The Loremaster
Basically, do every single quest, ever. While this seems like an awful grind, it actually wasn't the most painful (but still the 5th most painful) grind. With Cataclysm, they practically cut in half the number of quests required in each zone so that you really only needed to do half - 3/4 of the available quests in each Azeroth zone.
They did not, however, nerf the quest numbers for Outland and Northrend, so those were definitely an annoying grind. By far the worst zones were Area 54, where I lost the highly linear quest trail and was abruptly cut off and forced to wander for an hour or so, and Icecrown, where you had to do like 140 quests, most of them in a linear chain. *shudder*
4. Iron Chef/Hail to the Chef
I really can't choose which was harder, because as you can see I got them at the same exact time. I had been working on Iron Chef for some time by hunting the AH for every cooking recipe I didn't have, and even camping out at low-level vendors for the rare ones I missed.
I was getting really close to the 200 mark, so I even had my hubby use his alliance alt to mail me some unique alliance-only ones that can't be bought from Horde vendors.
At the same time I noticed I was only missing one recipe from the Northrend gourmet achievement (which in turn was the one achievement missing from the Hail to the Chef achievement) - the Haunted Herring recipe. After much trash farming in Naxx, I finally came across it only to find that I couldn't even pick it up. Thinking it was a bug, I ticketed the GM, who kindly told me that in fact I already had the recipe, but to earn the achievement one must actually cook the damn thing. Imagine my embarrassment!
Anyways, I cooked the damn herring and BAM I had my chef achievement & title. A few minutes later I camped a vendor in Desolace and BAM I had my Iron Chef achievement!
Not really difficult, but man, was that time consuming.
3. What a Long, Strange Trip it's been
This one is probably a big one for lots of folks. It takes a year to finish, no less. You basically have to get every achievement from every holiday quest.
No biggie, most of the holiday ones are not hard, just really time-consuming and requires you to do all the seasonal dailies. Some of them have you sneak into ally cities or whatever, but with flying mounts these days it's not hard. Heck, even without flying mounts it's perfectly possible to get into ally cities by persistent corpse runs.
What everyone QQs about is the children's week achievements, "School of Hard Knocks" which requires you to complete several BG objectives with your orphan pet out. I've noticed that most of the hardcore achievement junkies are PVE'ers, and therefore the outrage from both the PVE and PVP community at this achievement requirement is significant each year.
PVP crowd: We're sick of having the PVE scrubs mess up our BGs without actually trying to win games! Nerf the achievement!
PVE crowd: These objectives are too hard! I'm not skilled enough to cap a flag/defend a base/cap a tower etc etc. Nerf the achievement!
I also thought these would be uber tough, but once I tried to do it...I had them done in about 10 BGs, no more. Sure, being a rogue helps, but I found that with persistence, basic knowledge of BG objectives, and a little luck, it really isn't that hard. So enough QQ!
2. Menagerie
I'm actually still working towards the 150 pets achievement. This alone was no easy feat. Some of the pets were only obtained through endless farming low-level instances (I cringe at the thought of going back into Magister's terrace). Some of them were obtained through grinding months of dailies (I will never do an argent tournament quest again). Some of them were through other achievements (the hours I spent camping dalaran for book spawns...). Some of them were from quests, some were random drops, and towards the end I was so desperate to get 125 I started buying whatever I didn't have from the AH. I even have a few blizz store pets!
I'm still missing 19 pets...I know where they are, I'm just not quite desperate enough to grind for these just yet. Nor do I want to spend 50,000 on a pet. I still need a few more from the new Darkmoon Faire, and I'm still working to get Pebble from Deepholm. And once our caster gets her legendary I should have another to add to the list.
1. Insane in the Membrane
Well, obviously this was going to be number 1. By far the worst, most terrible, most carpal tunnel-inducing achievement yet.
Basically, you have to get exalted with:
Darkmoon Faire (before we had all these freaking daily quests available)
Shendra'lar (doesn't even exist anymore)
Ravenholdt
All the goblin factions
Booty Bay
Bloodsail Buccaneers
All at the same time too - they nerfed it in cata so you don't have to do the bloodsails and booty bay at the same time. And they took out Shendra'lar, which are the two toughest things in the whole damn achievement.
Because of the painful memories, I won't go into sordid details about the aggravating hours I spent on this. I think it took me a little over 6 months of almost constant chipping away whenever I had free time to play. Oh, the stacks upon stacks of herbs I had to mill for inks to make Darkmoon cards. Oh, the Scholomance and Stratholme runs I did to collect quest items (curse you pristine black diamonds!). Oh the hours I spent running all over EPL to collect bloods. Oh the hours I spent killing booty bay guards, the hours spent pickpocketing junkboxes, the hours I spent scouring the AH for mats. And oh, the hours upon hours I spent running Dire Maul over and over and over to save that damn goblin.
Well, now I feel sad about so much of my life spent earning pixel points.
MMORPGs are like crack cocaine to me, you see. The first MMORPG I ever tried had me glued at the computer screen for an entire summer where I slept 6 hours a day and spent the other 18 hours nonstop gaming. I realized it was a very dangerous drug and consciously forced myself to never pick up any other MMO.
I think what's so addictive is that whole concept of neverending goals. There are nearly an infinite number of things to do, new levels to attain and new things to do that gets you logging in night after night.
I think it's certainly what makes WoW so damn hard to quit. There are so many big and small things to do. Big things like end-game raiding, completing a legendary, getting a full set of heroic raid tier gear, getting server first kills, getting your 2200 arena rating, etc. Then there are the little things like collecting pets, getting rare vanity items, holiday events, finding easter eggs...the list goes on and on.
What really revolutionized all this was the introduction of the achievement system, which every single MMO (and even other unrelated games like mobile app games - farmiville etc) has adopted by now. Now not only do YOU know that you're a proud owner of that rare mount or you killed that raid boss, but the whole world (potentially, although I doubt anyone else really looks) knows it too! Seeing that achievement tab light up whenever you complete an objective gives players a much more tangible goal to work towards, and thus a bigger incentive than ever to keep playing.
I, for one, am a total achievement junkie. There are some pretty ridiculous things that I've sunk countless hours into for the sake of one achievement, or title, or mount. My list of WoW achievements are very impressive and at the same time, very very sad, knowing how many hours were sunk into it.
So without further ado, here is my own personal top 5 craziest grinds I've suffered through just for the sake of "achieving" something.
5. The Loremaster
Basically, do every single quest, ever. While this seems like an awful grind, it actually wasn't the most painful (but still the 5th most painful) grind. With Cataclysm, they practically cut in half the number of quests required in each zone so that you really only needed to do half - 3/4 of the available quests in each Azeroth zone.
They did not, however, nerf the quest numbers for Outland and Northrend, so those were definitely an annoying grind. By far the worst zones were Area 54, where I lost the highly linear quest trail and was abruptly cut off and forced to wander for an hour or so, and Icecrown, where you had to do like 140 quests, most of them in a linear chain. *shudder*
4. Iron Chef/Hail to the Chef
I really can't choose which was harder, because as you can see I got them at the same exact time. I had been working on Iron Chef for some time by hunting the AH for every cooking recipe I didn't have, and even camping out at low-level vendors for the rare ones I missed.
I was getting really close to the 200 mark, so I even had my hubby use his alliance alt to mail me some unique alliance-only ones that can't be bought from Horde vendors.
At the same time I noticed I was only missing one recipe from the Northrend gourmet achievement (which in turn was the one achievement missing from the Hail to the Chef achievement) - the Haunted Herring recipe. After much trash farming in Naxx, I finally came across it only to find that I couldn't even pick it up. Thinking it was a bug, I ticketed the GM, who kindly told me that in fact I already had the recipe, but to earn the achievement one must actually cook the damn thing. Imagine my embarrassment!
Anyways, I cooked the damn herring and BAM I had my chef achievement & title. A few minutes later I camped a vendor in Desolace and BAM I had my Iron Chef achievement!
Not really difficult, but man, was that time consuming.
3. What a Long, Strange Trip it's been
This one is probably a big one for lots of folks. It takes a year to finish, no less. You basically have to get every achievement from every holiday quest.
No biggie, most of the holiday ones are not hard, just really time-consuming and requires you to do all the seasonal dailies. Some of them have you sneak into ally cities or whatever, but with flying mounts these days it's not hard. Heck, even without flying mounts it's perfectly possible to get into ally cities by persistent corpse runs.
What everyone QQs about is the children's week achievements, "School of Hard Knocks" which requires you to complete several BG objectives with your orphan pet out. I've noticed that most of the hardcore achievement junkies are PVE'ers, and therefore the outrage from both the PVE and PVP community at this achievement requirement is significant each year.
PVP crowd: We're sick of having the PVE scrubs mess up our BGs without actually trying to win games! Nerf the achievement!
PVE crowd: These objectives are too hard! I'm not skilled enough to cap a flag/defend a base/cap a tower etc etc. Nerf the achievement!
I also thought these would be uber tough, but once I tried to do it...I had them done in about 10 BGs, no more. Sure, being a rogue helps, but I found that with persistence, basic knowledge of BG objectives, and a little luck, it really isn't that hard. So enough QQ!
2. Menagerie
I'm actually still working towards the 150 pets achievement. This alone was no easy feat. Some of the pets were only obtained through endless farming low-level instances (I cringe at the thought of going back into Magister's terrace). Some of them were obtained through grinding months of dailies (I will never do an argent tournament quest again). Some of them were through other achievements (the hours I spent camping dalaran for book spawns...). Some of them were from quests, some were random drops, and towards the end I was so desperate to get 125 I started buying whatever I didn't have from the AH. I even have a few blizz store pets!
I'm still missing 19 pets...I know where they are, I'm just not quite desperate enough to grind for these just yet. Nor do I want to spend 50,000 on a pet. I still need a few more from the new Darkmoon Faire, and I'm still working to get Pebble from Deepholm. And once our caster gets her legendary I should have another to add to the list.
1. Insane in the Membrane
Well, obviously this was going to be number 1. By far the worst, most terrible, most carpal tunnel-inducing achievement yet.
Basically, you have to get exalted with:
Darkmoon Faire (before we had all these freaking daily quests available)
Shendra'lar (doesn't even exist anymore)
Ravenholdt
All the goblin factions
Booty Bay
Bloodsail Buccaneers
All at the same time too - they nerfed it in cata so you don't have to do the bloodsails and booty bay at the same time. And they took out Shendra'lar, which are the two toughest things in the whole damn achievement.
Because of the painful memories, I won't go into sordid details about the aggravating hours I spent on this. I think it took me a little over 6 months of almost constant chipping away whenever I had free time to play. Oh, the stacks upon stacks of herbs I had to mill for inks to make Darkmoon cards. Oh, the Scholomance and Stratholme runs I did to collect quest items (curse you pristine black diamonds!). Oh the hours I spent running all over EPL to collect bloods. Oh the hours I spent killing booty bay guards, the hours spent pickpocketing junkboxes, the hours I spent scouring the AH for mats. And oh, the hours upon hours I spent running Dire Maul over and over and over to save that damn goblin.
Well, now I feel sad about so much of my life spent earning pixel points.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Warmaster Blackhorn
Now that I've written a somewhat scathing review of Madness of Deathwing, I think that Dragon Soul overall is not without its merits. Some of the bosses are enjoyable and challenging, even creative and unexpected. I think Warmaster Blackhorn is definitely the high point of the raid for me.
I give the fight 9/10 - an intense but fun multi-phase, multi-add battle in the sky. And damn challenging too.
You start off the fight on top of a gunship (ICC anyone?) where adds land and must be killed before the next set drops (3 sets of 2 each). There are also drakes in the sky that shoot bomb-like projectiles at the ship and must be killed by the range DPS. There is also a sneaky little sapper that gets dropped every once in a while and must be killed quickly or he blows up the boat, kamikaze style. And once this is all done, the boss himself finally lands on the boat and it's a tank and spank from there on.
What makes the fight interesting are the variety of adds and their abilities during phase 1. First of all, the 2 big adds cleave like a truck so positioning is important for tanks. On top of that they randomly charge at a player and anyone in the path gets mowed down as well. So you constantly have to be watching to make sure you're not in the way or targeted.
The fire bombs the drakes spit at the ship are dangerous too. What's really fun is that you DON'T want to move out of it - if no one takes the damage, then the ship takes the full brunt of it instead, and if your ship takes too much damage it blows up (there is a HP bar for the ship).
So unlike every other instinct in your fingertips telling you to move the hell out of the swirling purple fire, you actually want to be standing in it. Sometimes there are extra large bombs that everyone in the raid must stand in, or else it does a lot of damage to the ship.
Then there are the sappers, clever and quick little bastards that sneak their way to the back of the ship and blow it up. Their HP is low but they move fast, and drop smoke bombs to make them untargettable until they're halfway across the ship. This is where rogue stuns (and any other insta-stuns) come in real handy. There have been many a time where I wished I was subtlety spec so I could shadowstep over to that sucker and knock him out.
Besides that, the boss, once he lands, is pretty much a tank and spank. He does a massive frontal cone AoE towards a random raid member which can be tricky for ranged DPS to move out of, but for melee you can just run through the boss. He also does a "shout" attack which has a funny audio effect (basically he cackles like a maniac and everyone takes damage???).
All in all a great fight that took my guild many wipes until we could execute it. I give it 9/10 for creativity, 8/10 for difficulty and 10/10 for awareness level required. You really need to be watching everything at all times!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Madness of Deathwing
Overall I give this fight a 4/10. Not stellar. Not amazing. Sub-mediocre. And certainly not befitting the end boss of a whole expansion.
I know, I know, people are pretty sick of fighting yet another gigantic dragon. We've already had several of them this expansion, what with Atramedes, Nefarian, Theralion & Valiona, etc etc. There are only so many things you can do to make a fight fresh and new and exciting when the end boss is a dragon (ie the standard tail whip, cleave & breath).
Which is why I think they went with a whole new direction. The Madness of Deathwing is not a dragon boss fight, even though he's technically a dragon. But by this point you've pried off his armor plating and he's starting to unravel and come undone from his own physical form.
So what are you left with when you have a dragon whose own crazy evil corrupted insides are spilling out from him like lava? Apparently it disintegrates into a series of wildly flailing limbs and tentacles.
The entire fight consists of jumping around several platforms as you take down his mutated tentacles one by one. Not once do you even get a glimpse of Deathwing or anything that might resemble deathwing during this entire phase. When all of his tentacles are done, you are basically DPSing a giant wall that is supposed to be deathwing's head or something (this is pure speculation since you are, quite literally, DPSing a giant lava-covered wall).
The whole punch-the-dragon-wall thing, I guess, is to put into perspective just how gigantic this mofo of a dragon is. But didn't we already establish that he's freaking huge in the previous fight, spine of deathwing? You know, where the entire raid is riding around on his back?
While it may get the point across that deathwing is really, really, REALLY big, it's also not that fun to sit there stabbing a wall for 5 minutes. At least give it some identifying features or a claw or something. Towards the end I kind of felt sorry for the poor sucker, sitting there helplessly like a big rock while all these insane bloodlusted orcs and trolls wailed on his defenseless hide.
The fact that you never actually see deathwing in any recognizable form also detracts a lot from the fact that this is end-game boss. Compare with Lich King, for example. I mean, there's no doubt that what you're fighting is none other than the Lich King. He might not have been a gigantor (although he was much bigger than a tauren...), it was exciting to finally tackle the one and only Lich King.
Whereas with Deathwing...hey here's that guy that wrecked the world. Let's kill a series of tentacles! Do you see where I'm going here???
As for the execution of the fight, phase 1 was somewhat interesting, involving a lot of add control and movement and raid cooldowns. I still would've liked to see more variation in the 4 different platforms - our guild used the same strategy on all of them except the last. It would be a lot more challenging and fun to deal with different types of adds and different mechanics per platform, as opposed to a carbon copy except what kind of buff you get. The buffs don't change the strategy much at all.
Phase 2 was extremely disappointing. Shrapnel debuff is incredibly stupid and way too dependent on RNG (for example if a healer or tank gets 2 in a row that's a wipe). I would personally like to never see that stupid emerald dream button ever again (Ultraxion's button was more than enough for one raid).
Also, 2 phases in a end boss fight? Really? I don't know about the others but LK had like, what, 5 phases? 6 if you count getting trapped in the sword? Defile was an interesting and fun mechanic that really had you on your toes. The Valkyrs really highlighted a rogue's burst DPS and stuns. The vile spirits required ranged to be on top of their game.
With Deathwing, you have adds but all they do is whack you randomly for stupid amounts of damage. Tanks need to eat CDs and DPS just has to pray that they don't get hit twice in a row. No snares, no traps, no rescuing, just kill adds then stab boss. Kill adds then stab boss. The elementium bolt was somewhat interesting but again, nothing so engaging and dynamic as the Valkyrs or the Frostmourne mechanic in LK.
Perhaps I'm being a little harsh. The only other comparison I have is LK, and maybe it's just that LK was my very first end-game kill and I have fond memories of ICC. However that affects my assessment of the Deathwing fight, I can't help but feel that it had boring, uninteresting busywork-type mechanics and could have used a lot more creativity and thought.
Oh well, he's dead now. Maybe heroic mode will be more interesting, although I doubt we'll be getting to that anytime soon. Perhaps MoP will bring the return of interesting, innovative boss mechanics (and perhaps some new graphics too! I'm tired of reskinned bosses).
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