Finally updated my picture! Been meaning to do that for a while. The old tabard was the Field of Honor guild that we were in. Since then I had joined another guild with the GM from Field of Honor and another friend. We since left that guild after some guild drama there to start our own all over again. Guess we don't learn too quickly. As an inside joke we called it Crazy Club meaning to change it before hand, but my friend forgot and although initially I didn't like it, it's kind of grown on me.
The picture doesn't look much different than the last one, because the upgrades look almost the same. I have since acquired the Justicar Gloves, some new leggings, etc. I've also got Light's Justice showing there now too.
Continue reading 'Updated Picture'
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Common Courtesy: Sleeping with the Dodo
Has common courtesy gone the way of the dodo? Maybe I’m just too old. Let me tell you what I mean.
If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you know that I was recently part of a Kara group that fell apart. I’m desperately trying to get into a new group to experience some of the BC endgame content before the new expansion hits and nobody wants to go anymore. AQ? Bless you!
I’ve spent the past week hitting the trade channel from time to time trying to recruit Kara ready players. It hasn’t worked at all. I have discovered that if you’re a Holy Paladin that you will get requests like crazy to join their guild. Interesting that it can be so nice to be wanted and yet annoying beyond belief all at the same time.
Since the recruiting wasn’t going so well, I decided to at least entertain the idea of joining another guild or hope to find one willing to group with us. So I watched the trade channel for recruiting macros. I asked for information such as a website, raid times, etc. Then I started hitting up Warcrafter and Be Imba! to review their gear levels and whether or not it appeared they really could do the raids they advertised.
Eventually I talked to someone that invited us to join their guild which I’m always wary to do initially. Want to try someone out before committing to joining. Don’t want to be known as a guild jumper. However, she seemed really nice and what we are looking for so I talked to her for a bit and said I’d talk to my friends about setting something up.
Skipping through some of the issues getting set up, which became apparent later, we joined up and started running through Karazhan. My first warning should have come when we showed up and I wasn’t sure who the other healer was. I later found out it was the GM I had been talking to. I could have sworn I ran a report on her and she was a tank. Maybe I was wrong, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t think about it. But maybe she was asked to respec.
It turned out that the raid leader had just joined the guild. Apparently he was there to help smaller guilds run through Karazhan and then move on to others in an attempt to train first time raiders for the end game content. That said I ran a Be Imba! report on him and he came out with Karazhan gear and a gear score of 174. Nothing indicating he had done the higher end content. Granted, I have no idea if he has an alt.
On the first pull he informed everyone to stand within melee range. Didn’t say why, just instructed everyone to stay in melee range. For ranged dps and healers this was a different concept. He offered no explanation, no one asked. At first I thought, OK we might have a “know-it-all” here, but I’ll give him a chance. Turns out he had a point.
I’ve been to Kara several times, but never really thought about the first trash pull. The groups I’ve been in have always done the classic stay out of range, etc. Some particular steeds charge when the aggro switches making it difficult for the tanks to stay on them. The closer you are the easier it is for the tank to get back. Only after it happened a few times did the Raid Leader sarcastically say “That’s why we stay in melee range.” This guy started to rub me the wrong way.
But again he was here to train these guys run Kara. This isn’t my guild. We’re here to test it out. Give it a chance and see what happens. The guy definitely did know and understand Kara and quite frankly pointed out some things that I knew but never thought about, or just didn’t know. Nothing big, nothing profound, just small things that made it go a little bit smoother.
By the time we got to Attumen and he explained the fight, we took the boss down with relative ease. The one difference for us is that it took almost twice as long as we are used to. This guild’s dps is very low compared to what we had in the past. It’s doable, but I don’t believe we’ll get too far the first few times with them. They need more gear to up that dps. We’re fine with helping out. We were there a month ago.
The Fiery Warhorse’s Reins dropped. Before rolling the RL announced that the GM, since she was the GM, would get a +10 roll to her roll for the reins. OK, I don’t know if this is typical in other guilds, but I’ve never seen this before. Just because someone is in a management position doesn’t entitle them to special benefits. Everyone is an equal. Everyone did their job to take down the boss. What entitles any particular person to be elevated above any other? Because it’s just the reins, I didn’t say anything. It also didn’t bother me that much, but I still think WTH?! Didn’t matter because my tanking friend won the roll anyway, which made me bust out laughing.
As we moved to the stairs to tackle the next boss, the Raid Leader informed us we were skipping Moroes and moving to Maiden. OK fine, I like Maiden more anyway. Still want her mace drop. Somewhere along the line he decides that he’s going to replace my fire mage friend with a shadow priest. Not sure why and never found out. He announces in voice chat “Thanks for coming, appreciate it.” and then kicks him out of the party and invites another. My friends and I are stunned! We don’t know what just happened! There was no warning, there was no request, just a blatant dismissal and let’s move on.
At once, my warrior friend announces that he can leave too if they want to bring a mage and leaves the party. I whisper the GM that I’m leaving as well that “We don’t play that way. We all succeed together or fail together. I’d be just as upset if he kicked out one of yours without asking.” The four of us promptly left Karazhan.
The GM spent the rest of the evening apologizing saying the RL was new and didn’t know how things were done. She said this isn’t typical of her guild and not allowed. She didn’t know he was going to do that. Basically she spent the evening trying to salvage whatever potential relationship we might have. We all agreed that she was sincere, but regardless if this guy knows his stuff or not, that’s no excuse for lack of common courtesy.
My friends and I play to hang out with friends, experience new content together, celebrate in each other’s victories, help each other out, etc. This guild appears to have the same attitudes towards the game as we do.
We do not allow or accept the following:
If a sign up system is set up and followed, that is different. If I can’t go because I signed up late, that’s my fault. No one dictated. If a rank system is set up that supersedes sign up times, again that is different. If I’m told that I can’t go because my gear is inadequate, that is different. Basically, if I’m being told to do something arbitrarily, I won’t do it. There must be a reason and that reason must be valid and fair.
I don’t tell you how to play your class, don’t tell me how to play mine. I’m barely an expert, if at all, at my own class. I’d look like an idiot telling you what to do. Besides, it’s rude. Offering advice has its place. It must be handled lightly and with care. Generally speaking, don’t do it. Let the person’s friend do it; whatever it takes to avoid hurting feelings. Raiders might find that statement stupid. But my response is what gave you the right to be an ass because you’re hiding behind an online avatar? Ask yourself, would you do this in person? If so, how would you handle it? Given that the average person is at least somewhat of a decent person, handle it that way.
If you set up a group for whatever reason and someone in that group isn’t cutting it, you fail together. Accept it. Kicking someone out will only lead to hurt feelings, anger, bitterness, guild drama, etc. Abandon and regroup another time. Easier said than done. Hopefully if you are one of those people, please offer to leave. It makes it easier on everyone else who doesn’t want to be rude. If you are asked to leave in a polite manner, please do so and remember that as the others gear up and move through, they'll be that much better to help you to come back.
There is no problem with asking a particular person to leave. You’ll ask them to not take it personal, but please realize that they will. If they refuse, disband and end it. You accepted their help. They got you to whatever point you ended up at. They deserve to see it to the end or none do. If they accept, replace them and move on. Common courtesy.
My question is am I unrealistic to expect these things in a raiding guild? Are there no raiding guilds out there like this? If there are any in Arathor, please let me know because I’m looking for one.
Have I just gotten old? Or is common courtesy sleeping with the dodo? Continue reading 'Common Courtesy: Sleeping with the Dodo'
If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you know that I was recently part of a Kara group that fell apart. I’m desperately trying to get into a new group to experience some of the BC endgame content before the new expansion hits and nobody wants to go anymore. AQ? Bless you!
I’ve spent the past week hitting the trade channel from time to time trying to recruit Kara ready players. It hasn’t worked at all. I have discovered that if you’re a Holy Paladin that you will get requests like crazy to join their guild. Interesting that it can be so nice to be wanted and yet annoying beyond belief all at the same time.
Since the recruiting wasn’t going so well, I decided to at least entertain the idea of joining another guild or hope to find one willing to group with us. So I watched the trade channel for recruiting macros. I asked for information such as a website, raid times, etc. Then I started hitting up Warcrafter and Be Imba! to review their gear levels and whether or not it appeared they really could do the raids they advertised.
Eventually I talked to someone that invited us to join their guild which I’m always wary to do initially. Want to try someone out before committing to joining. Don’t want to be known as a guild jumper. However, she seemed really nice and what we are looking for so I talked to her for a bit and said I’d talk to my friends about setting something up.
Skipping through some of the issues getting set up, which became apparent later, we joined up and started running through Karazhan. My first warning should have come when we showed up and I wasn’t sure who the other healer was. I later found out it was the GM I had been talking to. I could have sworn I ran a report on her and she was a tank. Maybe I was wrong, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t think about it. But maybe she was asked to respec.
It turned out that the raid leader had just joined the guild. Apparently he was there to help smaller guilds run through Karazhan and then move on to others in an attempt to train first time raiders for the end game content. That said I ran a Be Imba! report on him and he came out with Karazhan gear and a gear score of 174. Nothing indicating he had done the higher end content. Granted, I have no idea if he has an alt.
On the first pull he informed everyone to stand within melee range. Didn’t say why, just instructed everyone to stay in melee range. For ranged dps and healers this was a different concept. He offered no explanation, no one asked. At first I thought, OK we might have a “know-it-all” here, but I’ll give him a chance. Turns out he had a point.
I’ve been to Kara several times, but never really thought about the first trash pull. The groups I’ve been in have always done the classic stay out of range, etc. Some particular steeds charge when the aggro switches making it difficult for the tanks to stay on them. The closer you are the easier it is for the tank to get back. Only after it happened a few times did the Raid Leader sarcastically say “That’s why we stay in melee range.” This guy started to rub me the wrong way.
But again he was here to train these guys run Kara. This isn’t my guild. We’re here to test it out. Give it a chance and see what happens. The guy definitely did know and understand Kara and quite frankly pointed out some things that I knew but never thought about, or just didn’t know. Nothing big, nothing profound, just small things that made it go a little bit smoother.
By the time we got to Attumen and he explained the fight, we took the boss down with relative ease. The one difference for us is that it took almost twice as long as we are used to. This guild’s dps is very low compared to what we had in the past. It’s doable, but I don’t believe we’ll get too far the first few times with them. They need more gear to up that dps. We’re fine with helping out. We were there a month ago.
The Fiery Warhorse’s Reins dropped. Before rolling the RL announced that the GM, since she was the GM, would get a +10 roll to her roll for the reins. OK, I don’t know if this is typical in other guilds, but I’ve never seen this before. Just because someone is in a management position doesn’t entitle them to special benefits. Everyone is an equal. Everyone did their job to take down the boss. What entitles any particular person to be elevated above any other? Because it’s just the reins, I didn’t say anything. It also didn’t bother me that much, but I still think WTH?! Didn’t matter because my tanking friend won the roll anyway, which made me bust out laughing.
As we moved to the stairs to tackle the next boss, the Raid Leader informed us we were skipping Moroes and moving to Maiden. OK fine, I like Maiden more anyway. Still want her mace drop. Somewhere along the line he decides that he’s going to replace my fire mage friend with a shadow priest. Not sure why and never found out. He announces in voice chat “Thanks for coming, appreciate it.” and then kicks him out of the party and invites another. My friends and I are stunned! We don’t know what just happened! There was no warning, there was no request, just a blatant dismissal and let’s move on.
At once, my warrior friend announces that he can leave too if they want to bring a mage and leaves the party. I whisper the GM that I’m leaving as well that “We don’t play that way. We all succeed together or fail together. I’d be just as upset if he kicked out one of yours without asking.” The four of us promptly left Karazhan.
The GM spent the rest of the evening apologizing saying the RL was new and didn’t know how things were done. She said this isn’t typical of her guild and not allowed. She didn’t know he was going to do that. Basically she spent the evening trying to salvage whatever potential relationship we might have. We all agreed that she was sincere, but regardless if this guy knows his stuff or not, that’s no excuse for lack of common courtesy.
My friends and I play to hang out with friends, experience new content together, celebrate in each other’s victories, help each other out, etc. This guild appears to have the same attitudes towards the game as we do.
We do not allow or accept the following:
Now I know exactly what raiders might say to the first two. Please re-read carefully what I wrote.Being told what, where, when, how, and with whom we can raid, quest, or group with.
Telling others what, where, when, how, and with whom they can raid, quest or group with.
Being told or telling others how to spec or play their classes.
Removing or replacing someone from a raid or group because we need to, want to, or just have the power to do so.
Everyone’s an equal, whether you’re in Tier 6 gear or the lowly level 5 in the guild.
Being rude or inconsiderate in any way, shape, or fashion. Just follow the Golden Rule.
If a sign up system is set up and followed, that is different. If I can’t go because I signed up late, that’s my fault. No one dictated. If a rank system is set up that supersedes sign up times, again that is different. If I’m told that I can’t go because my gear is inadequate, that is different. Basically, if I’m being told to do something arbitrarily, I won’t do it. There must be a reason and that reason must be valid and fair.
I don’t tell you how to play your class, don’t tell me how to play mine. I’m barely an expert, if at all, at my own class. I’d look like an idiot telling you what to do. Besides, it’s rude. Offering advice has its place. It must be handled lightly and with care. Generally speaking, don’t do it. Let the person’s friend do it; whatever it takes to avoid hurting feelings. Raiders might find that statement stupid. But my response is what gave you the right to be an ass because you’re hiding behind an online avatar? Ask yourself, would you do this in person? If so, how would you handle it? Given that the average person is at least somewhat of a decent person, handle it that way.
If you set up a group for whatever reason and someone in that group isn’t cutting it, you fail together. Accept it. Kicking someone out will only lead to hurt feelings, anger, bitterness, guild drama, etc. Abandon and regroup another time. Easier said than done. Hopefully if you are one of those people, please offer to leave. It makes it easier on everyone else who doesn’t want to be rude. If you are asked to leave in a polite manner, please do so and remember that as the others gear up and move through, they'll be that much better to help you to come back.
There is no problem with asking a particular person to leave. You’ll ask them to not take it personal, but please realize that they will. If they refuse, disband and end it. You accepted their help. They got you to whatever point you ended up at. They deserve to see it to the end or none do. If they accept, replace them and move on. Common courtesy.
My question is am I unrealistic to expect these things in a raiding guild? Are there no raiding guilds out there like this? If there are any in Arathor, please let me know because I’m looking for one.
Have I just gotten old? Or is common courtesy sleeping with the dodo? Continue reading 'Common Courtesy: Sleeping with the Dodo'
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
What do I do now?
So after my tirade on the last post, "What do I do now?"
I guess I need to spend some time thinking about why I play WoW. I need to determine if that reason has changed. If it has am I OK with that? If it hasn't how do I get back to feeling about it the way I did?
If it has changed and I really have converted over to the raiding aspect fully and that's the most important thing to me, then I need to find a guild to fill that need whether my friends go with me or not.
If it hasn't changed, but raiding is still important to me, then I need to discuss with them what we're going to do. We started our guild with the understand that we had 10 of us ready to join and start raiding Kara. A couple of these guys were already past Kara, but were willing to join up and get us caught up to them. That didn't happen. In the meantime a couple of others joined large raiding guilds and didn't want to give up the opportunities that presented themselves beyond Kara. Can't blame them really.
So first thing I could do is just find my own guild and go. Still stay in contact with my friends, but go and do the raiding thing with or without them.
Second, I could look for a raiding guild that would take all of us and more importantly allow us to group together.
Third, I could look for a small guild that doesn't have enough people to raid and join forces whether or not we join the guild.
Fourth, we could recruit for our guild and try to build a solid base for raiding. The concern here is that we'll recruit people who aren't quite ready, because those who are probably have already found their place elsewhere.
I've already talked this over with one of my friends and he has the same concerns as I. We both want to see and experience as much content as possible before Wrath of the Lich King comes out. We won't be able to do that spending a lot of time helping others gear up, especially if they only leave us after doing so.
Guess I got a lot of thinking to do. What do I do now? Continue reading 'What do I do now?'
I guess I need to spend some time thinking about why I play WoW. I need to determine if that reason has changed. If it has am I OK with that? If it hasn't how do I get back to feeling about it the way I did?
If it has changed and I really have converted over to the raiding aspect fully and that's the most important thing to me, then I need to find a guild to fill that need whether my friends go with me or not.
If it hasn't changed, but raiding is still important to me, then I need to discuss with them what we're going to do. We started our guild with the understand that we had 10 of us ready to join and start raiding Kara. A couple of these guys were already past Kara, but were willing to join up and get us caught up to them. That didn't happen. In the meantime a couple of others joined large raiding guilds and didn't want to give up the opportunities that presented themselves beyond Kara. Can't blame them really.
So first thing I could do is just find my own guild and go. Still stay in contact with my friends, but go and do the raiding thing with or without them.
Second, I could look for a raiding guild that would take all of us and more importantly allow us to group together.
Third, I could look for a small guild that doesn't have enough people to raid and join forces whether or not we join the guild.
Fourth, we could recruit for our guild and try to build a solid base for raiding. The concern here is that we'll recruit people who aren't quite ready, because those who are probably have already found their place elsewhere.
I've already talked this over with one of my friends and he has the same concerns as I. We both want to see and experience as much content as possible before Wrath of the Lich King comes out. We won't be able to do that spending a lot of time helping others gear up, especially if they only leave us after doing so.
Guess I got a lot of thinking to do. What do I do now? Continue reading 'What do I do now?'
World of Warcraft Fatigue?
Well it finally happened! I never thought this day would come, but I actually reached a point where I left playing WoW for fun.
As stated before, the last week hadn't been the greatest. The Kara raid group I was in fell apart due to one person getting a burr under his saddle because the raid group took down Netherspite without him. Well shame on you for leaving and not coming back within the 30 minute break. They waited 90 minutes for you! I had to leave early that night and didn't get to go. Was I disappointed? Yes! But not their problem and I would never have expected them to hold the raid just for me.
Now there's an uncomfortable rift between all of us who didn't have it out, but are tied to one of the two who did. As such, it's made it difficult to try and fill in the gaps. We tried and were successful in taking down Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Curator, and Big Bad Wolf. We tried several times to take down Shade, but to no avail. I believe I can point the finger, but I won't here. I'll keep it to myself. The sad thing is this took all week to do. We did this in 3 hours the previous week.
Tonight along with the reset, we had planned on going to Kara again. We knew that our main tank wasn't going to be on very long, because Tuesday is one of his raiding nights with his guild. As Arathor is a Pacific Time Zone server and most of my friends are in the Eastern and Central time zones, this doesn't present too much of a problem. He helps out where he can. As such, we should have been able to get together to take down Attumen and probably Moroes. Well no one logged on. The tank called a buddy of his to whisper me that he had to work late. Didn't matter at that point because it was already too late to start and again no one was on.
So that probably set the tone for my night. I began to get frustrated looking forward to another week without a real Kara run. Without realizing it, I had changed my mindset.
I've always been an advocate of trying new things. I haven't cared about the enormous repair costs that I've had to dish out when we've wiped repeatedly. I couldn't have cared less because I was with friends and experiencing new things for the most part. That's all changed.
I'd like to compare Kara to a drug, but I've never seen anything more powerful than marijuana. So I can only imagine what a drug addict must feel like and Kara is what I compare it to. Karazhan is a great instance. The feel, the music, the atmosphere of the whole place entices you to explore. The bosses are challenging, but not impossible and the loot is fantastic for someone at my stage of the game. I've been lucky the past month in that I've gotten at least two pieces of gear every week. Most of it has been healing drops, but I've gotten a couple of off-spec tanking gear. I got sucked into the loot problem.
I call it a problem, because as the focus of the game becomes less on the socialization, the questing, the just having all around fun enjoying the many aspects of the game, loot begins to take center stage. I've seen this with a lot of others. I've refused to join a raiding guild because even running heroic instances with some people has been a test in patience, not because they weren't good, but because they were jerks.
The majority of raiders I've run into are elitist know-it-alls. They think they know every aspect of every spec of every class and know exactly what to tell you to do. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "What's your healing at?" soon after a wipe, sending me the silent question as to why I suck? Well right now it's at 1860 unbuffed @$$hole!! I can buff it to 2000 and with other raid buffs it's higher than that. Is this great? I have no idea. I haven't been beyond Kara, but I know it's pretty good there.
Pally healing is completely different than Priest, Druid, or Shaman healing. I kick ass on the heal meters every time I go in a raid. I've often doubled the total heals of the priest and halved the over-heals. Is this because I'm better? No! It's because of the way Pallys heal. We spam Flash of Light. It costs me 180 mana to cast. At my current state it heals an average of 1500hp, but crits probably half the time for 2500hp. I regenerate mana during casting at a rate of 100mp5. If all I have to do is spam Flash of Light it never runs out!!! Holy Light will kill me. It heals for 4000hp on average and crits at 6500hp, but it costs me 840 mana!!
But I digress. We decided to run heroic Mechanar, which to be honest I've only ever tried once without getting far. Wipe after wipe, I grew more and more irritated only to have it compounded by the fact that the rogue we brought with us kept playing an off tank's role and having to heal him was a pain. Also when we wiped, which was often, he decided not to rez and fly back. I'll never understand that about Tempest Keep. You rez at full health. It's not that far. Healers don't have to use food to replenish their mana after rezzing and healing your lazy ass. You don't have to use food to replace your health or mana after rezzing. This isn't Coilfang people!
Anyway, after getting to the 4th boss and wiping for the third time I was done. I was so irritated and getting so angry about everything that I said I'm done, left the party, hearthed back to Shat, and logged right after saying in guild chat "I've made the game not fun for myself. Maybe after I've cooled down I'll be back tomorrow. Maybe not." Or something to that effect.
I've made the game about Kara. I've made the game about loot. I've forgotten what it means to play with the friends I've made. I've forgotten why I played in the first place. The adventure. Continue reading 'World of Warcraft Fatigue?'
As stated before, the last week hadn't been the greatest. The Kara raid group I was in fell apart due to one person getting a burr under his saddle because the raid group took down Netherspite without him. Well shame on you for leaving and not coming back within the 30 minute break. They waited 90 minutes for you! I had to leave early that night and didn't get to go. Was I disappointed? Yes! But not their problem and I would never have expected them to hold the raid just for me.
Now there's an uncomfortable rift between all of us who didn't have it out, but are tied to one of the two who did. As such, it's made it difficult to try and fill in the gaps. We tried and were successful in taking down Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Curator, and Big Bad Wolf. We tried several times to take down Shade, but to no avail. I believe I can point the finger, but I won't here. I'll keep it to myself. The sad thing is this took all week to do. We did this in 3 hours the previous week.
Tonight along with the reset, we had planned on going to Kara again. We knew that our main tank wasn't going to be on very long, because Tuesday is one of his raiding nights with his guild. As Arathor is a Pacific Time Zone server and most of my friends are in the Eastern and Central time zones, this doesn't present too much of a problem. He helps out where he can. As such, we should have been able to get together to take down Attumen and probably Moroes. Well no one logged on. The tank called a buddy of his to whisper me that he had to work late. Didn't matter at that point because it was already too late to start and again no one was on.
So that probably set the tone for my night. I began to get frustrated looking forward to another week without a real Kara run. Without realizing it, I had changed my mindset.
I've always been an advocate of trying new things. I haven't cared about the enormous repair costs that I've had to dish out when we've wiped repeatedly. I couldn't have cared less because I was with friends and experiencing new things for the most part. That's all changed.
I'd like to compare Kara to a drug, but I've never seen anything more powerful than marijuana. So I can only imagine what a drug addict must feel like and Kara is what I compare it to. Karazhan is a great instance. The feel, the music, the atmosphere of the whole place entices you to explore. The bosses are challenging, but not impossible and the loot is fantastic for someone at my stage of the game. I've been lucky the past month in that I've gotten at least two pieces of gear every week. Most of it has been healing drops, but I've gotten a couple of off-spec tanking gear. I got sucked into the loot problem.
I call it a problem, because as the focus of the game becomes less on the socialization, the questing, the just having all around fun enjoying the many aspects of the game, loot begins to take center stage. I've seen this with a lot of others. I've refused to join a raiding guild because even running heroic instances with some people has been a test in patience, not because they weren't good, but because they were jerks.
The majority of raiders I've run into are elitist know-it-alls. They think they know every aspect of every spec of every class and know exactly what to tell you to do. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "What's your healing at?" soon after a wipe, sending me the silent question as to why I suck? Well right now it's at 1860 unbuffed @$$hole!! I can buff it to 2000 and with other raid buffs it's higher than that. Is this great? I have no idea. I haven't been beyond Kara, but I know it's pretty good there.
Pally healing is completely different than Priest, Druid, or Shaman healing. I kick ass on the heal meters every time I go in a raid. I've often doubled the total heals of the priest and halved the over-heals. Is this because I'm better? No! It's because of the way Pallys heal. We spam Flash of Light. It costs me 180 mana to cast. At my current state it heals an average of 1500hp, but crits probably half the time for 2500hp. I regenerate mana during casting at a rate of 100mp5. If all I have to do is spam Flash of Light it never runs out!!! Holy Light will kill me. It heals for 4000hp on average and crits at 6500hp, but it costs me 840 mana!!
But I digress. We decided to run heroic Mechanar, which to be honest I've only ever tried once without getting far. Wipe after wipe, I grew more and more irritated only to have it compounded by the fact that the rogue we brought with us kept playing an off tank's role and having to heal him was a pain. Also when we wiped, which was often, he decided not to rez and fly back. I'll never understand that about Tempest Keep. You rez at full health. It's not that far. Healers don't have to use food to replenish their mana after rezzing and healing your lazy ass. You don't have to use food to replace your health or mana after rezzing. This isn't Coilfang people!
Anyway, after getting to the 4th boss and wiping for the third time I was done. I was so irritated and getting so angry about everything that I said I'm done, left the party, hearthed back to Shat, and logged right after saying in guild chat "I've made the game not fun for myself. Maybe after I've cooled down I'll be back tomorrow. Maybe not." Or something to that effect.
I've made the game about Kara. I've made the game about loot. I've forgotten what it means to play with the friends I've made. I've forgotten why I played in the first place. The adventure. Continue reading 'World of Warcraft Fatigue?'
A Tale of Two Viewpoints: World of Warcraft Grouping
Recently, Tobold wrote about What can be done to save grouping in WoW? The comments all revolved around Blizzard making it more feasible for everyone to be able to more easily do a little bit of everything. Using my words, they want a Jack-of-all-Trades.
I definitely didn't agree with the comments, maybe perhaps because I'm a healer myself and experienced tanking while leveling as a Paladin. So I posted a comment that I will admit became somewhat long-winded. I wanted to address several points that were being made, that I consider to be part of the "I'll never be happy with the system" crowd. I honestly believe these people will always find one more thing to complain about and never be happy with the system.
Evidently I'm not the only person who thinks so and over at Blessing of Kings there's a post that sums up what I was trying to say.
I definitely didn't agree with the comments, maybe perhaps because I'm a healer myself and experienced tanking while leveling as a Paladin. So I posted a comment that I will admit became somewhat long-winded. I wanted to address several points that were being made, that I consider to be part of the "I'll never be happy with the system" crowd. I honestly believe these people will always find one more thing to complain about and never be happy with the system.
Evidently I'm not the only person who thinks so and over at Blessing of Kings there's a post that sums up what I was trying to say.
The best thing about MMOs is that you can play with other people.Here's the comment I posted:
The worst thing about MMOs is that you have to play with other people.
I’m going to approach the other side of the argument here and say that the current system is generally fine. I do believe that Blizzard’s LFG system is completely broken. Nobody uses it and spams the Trade channels. Blizzard needs to create the LFG channels in every city too. I can’t get into the channel in most cities without first activating the LFG. Stupid way of doing it.Continue reading 'A Tale of Two Viewpoints: World of Warcraft Grouping'
“i would really like to see the day that a guild is looking for well geared pvpers for something more meaningful than rolling pugs.”
Set up a pvp guild. Don’t know if there are any out there, but you could be the first.
“I've always liked the duel spec idea”
Unless I’m misunderstanding this comment, dual spec refers to being able to change specs on the fly. If we’re able to do that, then what’s the point of having specs anyway? You could change it mid instance, switch your gear, and go. This effectively removes a large majority of the challenge in the game. If it became too easy, would you really want to play?
“They need to make choosing to be a Healer or Tank more attractive to people”
“A main tank or a healer absolutely has to be on the ball in most of these dungeons in order to succeed. It's a role that brings a lot of attention if you are struggling.”
“Every healer/tank I know has a dps alt, but not every dps player I know has a tank/healer alt (most have other dps alts).”
I don’t know that they need to make this more attractive to people. I think the real problem here is that the average person is going to find tanking and healing extremely boring compared to dishing out the hurt. Also when the blame game starts, who gets blamed? Tanks and healers. Generally DPS only gets blamed when they break crowd control or don’t watch their aggro. This is a general statement so take it with a grain of salt, but it takes a particular mindset/personality to have fun playing a tank or healer.
“…think the tank/dps warrior roles need to be combined into one class… you could dispense with Healers altogether, and if not, seriously nerf the amount of healing that is required in the average instance…”
The problem with these comments is you are asking for a class that can do it all. What then would be the point of some of these classes? Each class/spec should have a particular strength above all others or what’s the point of even offering that class/spec? And shame on you for suggesting the removal of healers! [I’m a holy pally. :)] You’re attempting to make the group content the same as the solo aspect and I believe they should be distinctly different and offer completely different challenges. Part of that challenge should be more specialization in my opinion. Remember ultimately WoW is a multi-player game. Making classes that can do it all removes a lot of the need for that multi-player aspect. May as well go play a single player role-playing game at that point. Final Fantasy anyone?
Anyway, bottom line I think the system is fine. I enjoy the customization inherent with specializing. It allows for more freedom of play. Is it frustrating to level a tank or healer? Yeah! Get out there and make some friends for the harder stuff. It’s an MMO people.
Monday, April 14, 2008
In the meantime...
This post is a little old, but I laughed so hard that I just had to share!
Karazhan Bingo!
In the meantime, it's been quite a while since my last post. I've started a couple, but never get around to finishing them. Ironically, one is a list of things I need and want to do to help me prioritize my goals.
Work has been busy. Just got handed another project to buy out and I didn't have the first clue as to what I was looking at. Still need to spend some time looking at the plans and specs.
As for WoW, I've been busy there too. Just a month ago, my gear score over at Be Imba! was 145. Today it's 184!!! Pretty happy about that. Spent the last month getting into Karazhan and getting close to getting it on farm. Two weeks ago we happened to clear Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Oz, and Curator in 3 hours. We one shotted all the bosses except Moroes because we had a hunter break CC resulting in two wipes. First time, shame on you! Second time, shame on us!
Anyway, all in all it went great. By Saturday we got through Shade, Chess, and Prince. Which by the way due to my semi-bad luck both Light's Justice and Helm of the Fallen Champion dropped. As there was another Paladin and a Rogue in the group, they rolled for the Tier 4 token and I automatically got Light's Justice. This arrangement was more than fair, but man a Tier 4 token!! Still, I probably have more of a chance getting the pally token again than the mace, so I'm pretty happy.
Actually over the past month in Karazhan I've gotten a crapload of gear, both for healing and off-spec tanking, I've had more than my fair share of luck. Healing gear has dropped on half of the bosses each time we've gone. I've also spent a lot of time on my enchanting and getting everything I can out of healing bonuses. Last night I finally reached Exalted with the Aldor. Spent about 3 hours grinding for Fel Armaments and Marks of Sargeras to get the last 3800 reputation points I needed. I was able to then upgrade my shoulder enchant to Greater Inscription of Faith. Granted it's only 4 more healing points and 4mp5, but it was one of those things on my to do list that I can scratch off now.
Unfortunately, our Karazhan raids fell apart last week. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details as I wasn't actually there and I'm getting enough information second hand to make anyone wonder, but it all happened two Saturdays ago.
We had made fairly quick progress through the week and got stuck on Prince the Friday night before I got my Light's Justice. Every time the totem like adds [sorry can't remember what they're called right now] fell, they fell right on top of us or blocked our way around when we had to relocate. Every one was a frustrating battle as we beat on Prince only to lose to an unlucky placement of adds. So we decided on Saturday that we would try again. We agreed on 3pm server time and only a handful of us showed.
I've gotten some real life aggro from my wife about the amount of time I've started dedicating to WoW, so I made a deal with her to cut back some and plan accordingly. We finally got everyone back on board late that evening and after downing Prince we moved on to Netherspite. I had never been here before and it was pretty impressive. I'll admit I made a classic "noob" mistake by not reading up on it. Didn't know that we were going to try considering everyone talked about how hard it was and indications were we weren't doing it. Should have been prepared though.
After a few tries, my wife was getting angry as I had agreed to watch a movie with her that evening, so I finally said I had to go. The group agreed to take a 30min break and find a replacement for me. That's when it fell apart.
Our Kara group was made up of primarily two groups. There are 6 of us that were members of an old guild and we now comprise parts of 2 guilds. The other 4 are all part of another guild we partnered up with. The GM of that guild was always the Loot Master. Let me first say that in general I like this guy. He seems to know what he is doing and coordinates the fights well calling out incomings, etc. He is somewhat young and his age shows it in his cockiness, but I can forgive that as he is a nice guy. Sadly, he seems to be at the root of what happened.
This GM never came back that evening. The rest of the raid group waited for 90 minutes and finally decided to replace him. On the second try, they downed Netherspite. Everyone was pretty excited.
The following day we gathered together to try Karazhan again, but the GM said that he'd been every day this last week and didn't want to go today. When he was told that's fine, he accused others of having an attitude with him. My buddy, the main tank and raid leader, ended up having a talk with this guy and supposedly words were exchanged to a point that it got kinda ugly. Well, needless to say we aren't grouping with them anymore.
The bad thing is we finally had the majority of Kara on farm after four weeks. We'd all learned how to group together and knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. It was going great!
We're bummed, but we're hopeful we can recruit a few more in our guild to start again. My buddy and his girlfriend are way past Kara when it comes to gear and joined a new guild that's in Mt. Hyjal, so they're able to spend less and less time with us. Although we've done the first half of Kara this week, it took days to do.
Actually we'll be talking about it this evening on whether we should recruit or join a raiding guild. Continue reading 'In the meantime...'
Karazhan Bingo!
In the meantime, it's been quite a while since my last post. I've started a couple, but never get around to finishing them. Ironically, one is a list of things I need and want to do to help me prioritize my goals.
Work has been busy. Just got handed another project to buy out and I didn't have the first clue as to what I was looking at. Still need to spend some time looking at the plans and specs.
As for WoW, I've been busy there too. Just a month ago, my gear score over at Be Imba! was 145. Today it's 184!!! Pretty happy about that. Spent the last month getting into Karazhan and getting close to getting it on farm. Two weeks ago we happened to clear Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Oz, and Curator in 3 hours. We one shotted all the bosses except Moroes because we had a hunter break CC resulting in two wipes. First time, shame on you! Second time, shame on us!
Anyway, all in all it went great. By Saturday we got through Shade, Chess, and Prince. Which by the way due to my semi-bad luck both Light's Justice and Helm of the Fallen Champion dropped. As there was another Paladin and a Rogue in the group, they rolled for the Tier 4 token and I automatically got Light's Justice. This arrangement was more than fair, but man a Tier 4 token!! Still, I probably have more of a chance getting the pally token again than the mace, so I'm pretty happy.
Actually over the past month in Karazhan I've gotten a crapload of gear, both for healing and off-spec tanking, I've had more than my fair share of luck. Healing gear has dropped on half of the bosses each time we've gone. I've also spent a lot of time on my enchanting and getting everything I can out of healing bonuses. Last night I finally reached Exalted with the Aldor. Spent about 3 hours grinding for Fel Armaments and Marks of Sargeras to get the last 3800 reputation points I needed. I was able to then upgrade my shoulder enchant to Greater Inscription of Faith. Granted it's only 4 more healing points and 4mp5, but it was one of those things on my to do list that I can scratch off now.
Unfortunately, our Karazhan raids fell apart last week. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details as I wasn't actually there and I'm getting enough information second hand to make anyone wonder, but it all happened two Saturdays ago.
We had made fairly quick progress through the week and got stuck on Prince the Friday night before I got my Light's Justice. Every time the totem like adds [sorry can't remember what they're called right now] fell, they fell right on top of us or blocked our way around when we had to relocate. Every one was a frustrating battle as we beat on Prince only to lose to an unlucky placement of adds. So we decided on Saturday that we would try again. We agreed on 3pm server time and only a handful of us showed.
I've gotten some real life aggro from my wife about the amount of time I've started dedicating to WoW, so I made a deal with her to cut back some and plan accordingly. We finally got everyone back on board late that evening and after downing Prince we moved on to Netherspite. I had never been here before and it was pretty impressive. I'll admit I made a classic "noob" mistake by not reading up on it. Didn't know that we were going to try considering everyone talked about how hard it was and indications were we weren't doing it. Should have been prepared though.
After a few tries, my wife was getting angry as I had agreed to watch a movie with her that evening, so I finally said I had to go. The group agreed to take a 30min break and find a replacement for me. That's when it fell apart.
Our Kara group was made up of primarily two groups. There are 6 of us that were members of an old guild and we now comprise parts of 2 guilds. The other 4 are all part of another guild we partnered up with. The GM of that guild was always the Loot Master. Let me first say that in general I like this guy. He seems to know what he is doing and coordinates the fights well calling out incomings, etc. He is somewhat young and his age shows it in his cockiness, but I can forgive that as he is a nice guy. Sadly, he seems to be at the root of what happened.
This GM never came back that evening. The rest of the raid group waited for 90 minutes and finally decided to replace him. On the second try, they downed Netherspite. Everyone was pretty excited.
The following day we gathered together to try Karazhan again, but the GM said that he'd been every day this last week and didn't want to go today. When he was told that's fine, he accused others of having an attitude with him. My buddy, the main tank and raid leader, ended up having a talk with this guy and supposedly words were exchanged to a point that it got kinda ugly. Well, needless to say we aren't grouping with them anymore.
The bad thing is we finally had the majority of Kara on farm after four weeks. We'd all learned how to group together and knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. It was going great!
We're bummed, but we're hopeful we can recruit a few more in our guild to start again. My buddy and his girlfriend are way past Kara when it comes to gear and joined a new guild that's in Mt. Hyjal, so they're able to spend less and less time with us. Although we've done the first half of Kara this week, it took days to do.
Actually we'll be talking about it this evening on whether we should recruit or join a raiding guild. Continue reading 'In the meantime...'
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
A Bard's Tale...
Once upon a time...
So if you've checked Blizzard's website recently you've noticed their front page news of the new Hero Class: the Bard!!! If you haven't, check it out!!!
If you don't want me to spoil it, please check out the site first before reading further.
As soon as I saw it I started laughing hysterically! Obviously it's an April Fool's joke. But it was amusing nonetheless. Continue reading 'A Bard's Tale...'
So if you've checked Blizzard's website recently you've noticed their front page news of the new Hero Class: the Bard!!! If you haven't, check it out!!!
If you don't want me to spoil it, please check out the site first before reading further.
As soon as I saw it I started laughing hysterically! Obviously it's an April Fool's joke. But it was amusing nonetheless. Continue reading 'A Bard's Tale...'
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