Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about the resources available to you to help improve your WOW experience. There are a lot of people who have spent a great deal of time creating websites and blogs about the World of Warcraft. Many of these sites provide valuable information. I want to talk about a few that I have found useful.
INFORMATION SITES
There are three sites that provide information about all aspects of WOW, from item descriptions to quest logs, these sites are the place to go for information. Also, reading the comment section on these pages can assist you in utilizing this information (i.e. under quests, the comments by users will give you advice about completing difficult quests, or location of quest objectives).
WOWWiki
Thottbot
WOWhead
GAME PLAY SITES
There are many game play sites out there, everything from class specific sites to sites that deal with vanity pets or achievements. Here are some I have found useful:
Elitist Jerks- This site is dedicated to high-end game play in WOW. If you want to get the most out of your character, read the forums they have. The information they have is designed for end-of-game raiding and maximizing your abilities, but the information can help you build your character as you level.
WOW-heroes- Want to know how your gear compares to everyone else, check here. Once again, this is designed for end-of-game players. You can look at your character’s gear and get suggestions for upgrades and the best enhancements for your stuff. Site also has game play information.
GOLD SITES
There is a sub-culture in WOW dedicated to making gold. The current gold cap on WOW is just under 1 million gold (999,999g 99s 99c). If you want to get rich, check out these sites:
The Undermine Journal- Primarily, this site lists auction house data for all realms and factions in WOW. However, the data is presented in a usable format. (For example, say you want to make and sell an item. It will list the current auction house price for that item plus the auction house cost for the materials to create that item. This allows you to determine how profitable the item is). There are also articles on the site about making gold.
Just My Two Copper (JMTC)- Is a site whose focus is on making gold.
ADD-ON SITES
There are many add-on sites on the internet that provide add-ons for WOW and other games. I have found it conviniet to use one site, Curse. Curse has a software package (Curse Client) that will download and install your add-ons. It also keeps track of updates to the add-ons you are using. Most, if not all the add-ons you need will be available on this site.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Litch King down: We beat WOW
It has been a while since our last post. Things have changed quite a bit in the World of Warcraft and in this blogger wannabee’s life. Our raiding team successfully killed the Litch King, and on September 30th as originally planned no less.
We had to change things up a bit in order to get the kill. Our 25-man crew had dwindled to a reliable 20 or so, and with the 5 new-ish folks every week, we were really struggling to progress on the LK. So we canned the 25-man effort and instead went for the 10-man kill. After a few nights of practice we were victorious. It was pretty epic and really gave me a sense of great accomplishment.
Looking back on this past year with Wrath of the Litch King I can come up with some awesome memories and a whole ton of fun experiences, which is why I play video games of course. This was my first time living the “end-game” and being a legit (debatable) raider. Progressing through the end-game is an interesting way to spend one’s video game time. The pro is that one gets to work on challenging content with a group of friends (hopefully), and the con is that the game become very repeatable and often frustrating. It is this trade that the end-game raider has to balance in order to find enjoyment from the game after an extended period of time.
So what is next? Well, for me it’s time to take a break from WOW. When the pre-cata patch dropped two weeks ago and the talents, spells, etc… were completely re-worked, I found myself really struggling with the motivation to log in to re-learn how to play the game. So I decided that if I am not excited about playing, I shouldn’t play.
So this blogger is currently spending his video game time refreshing those once vaunted First Person Shooter skills in Halo: Reach. I’ll catch you after my WOW-break, but in the mean time get those last-minute WotLK achievements and enjoy Cataclysm!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Guia Firelands Daily Quests
Neste guia mostraremos um panorama geral das daily quests de Firelands, de quanto tempo levaremos para concluir o evento e dos equipamentos, montarias, pets, etc., que estão disponíveis para quem se fizer as quests. Do ponto de vista da lore, nas daily quests de Firelands você ajudará os heróis da Aliança e da Horda a invadir Firelands e montar uma base por lá. Para fazer as quests, os jogadores devem ser nível 85 e devem ter concluído as quests de Mount Hyjal atá pelo menos a recuperação da área “The Regrowth”. No entanto, não é necessário fazer as quests para obter acesso à nova raid (Firelands), que está aberta a todos os jogadores de nível 85. O evento consiste basicamente de quests em que você coleta Marks of the World Tree, que são usadas para desbloquear novas quests e vendedores, que vendem itens épicos lvl 365, entre outras coisas. Todo o evento leva cerca de 30 dias para ser concluído.
O evento é dividido em várias fases, sendo que você muda de fase conforme coleta as Marks of the World Tree.
1ª fase: quests iniciais (requer 20 Marks para passar de fase)
2ª fase: recrutando a ajuda dos Shadow Wardens e dos Druids of the Talon (requer 150 Marks para cada grupo, 300 Marks no total)
3ª fase: obtendo mais ajuda (requer um total de 375 Marks)
Ajuda de Elderlimb: 125 Marks
Ajuda do armorer: 125 Marks
Ajuda da moonwell: 125 Marks
Para você entender melhor, a coisa funcionará assim: durante os primeiros três dias você fará as quests iniciais até obter 20 Marks e então entrar na 2ª fase. Nessa fase, você precisará obter a ajuda dos Shadow Wardens e dos Druids of the Talon. Cada um desses grupos requer 150 Marks e logo que você liberar o primeiro grupo, terá mais daily quests disponíveis, ou seja, você conseguirá liberar o segundo mais rápido do que o primeiro. Ao todo essa é a fase mais longa, pois serão precisos 10 dias de dailies para o primeiro grupo e mais 7 dias para o segundo. Liberando os dois grupos, você entra na última fase, onde terá que obter a ajuda de três NPCs, sendo que cada um deles requer 125 Marks. Durante essa última fase, você só poderá completar as quests de um dos grupos da segunda fase (Shadow Wardens ou Druids of the Talon) a cada dia, não dos dois no mesmo dia. Obtendo a ajuda dos três NPCs o evento é então concluído.
Achievements
Há um total de 15 achievements no evento, sendo que ao concluí-los você ganha uma mount e um título.
O evento é dividido em várias fases, sendo que você muda de fase conforme coleta as Marks of the World Tree.
1ª fase: quests iniciais (requer 20 Marks para passar de fase)
2ª fase: recrutando a ajuda dos Shadow Wardens e dos Druids of the Talon (requer 150 Marks para cada grupo, 300 Marks no total)
3ª fase: obtendo mais ajuda (requer um total de 375 Marks)
Ajuda de Elderlimb: 125 Marks
Ajuda do armorer: 125 Marks
Ajuda da moonwell: 125 Marks
Para você entender melhor, a coisa funcionará assim: durante os primeiros três dias você fará as quests iniciais até obter 20 Marks e então entrar na 2ª fase. Nessa fase, você precisará obter a ajuda dos Shadow Wardens e dos Druids of the Talon. Cada um desses grupos requer 150 Marks e logo que você liberar o primeiro grupo, terá mais daily quests disponíveis, ou seja, você conseguirá liberar o segundo mais rápido do que o primeiro. Ao todo essa é a fase mais longa, pois serão precisos 10 dias de dailies para o primeiro grupo e mais 7 dias para o segundo. Liberando os dois grupos, você entra na última fase, onde terá que obter a ajuda de três NPCs, sendo que cada um deles requer 125 Marks. Durante essa última fase, você só poderá completar as quests de um dos grupos da segunda fase (Shadow Wardens ou Druids of the Talon) a cada dia, não dos dois no mesmo dia. Obtendo a ajuda dos três NPCs o evento é então concluído.
Achievements
Há um total de 15 achievements no evento, sendo que ao concluí-los você ganha uma mount e um título.
- Ludicrous Speed
- And the Meek Shall Inherit Kalimdor
- King of the Spider-Hill
- Flawless Victory
- The Fiery Lords of Sethria’s Roost
- Gang War
- Infernal Ambassadors
- Master of the Molten Flow
- Fireside Chat
- Ready for Raiding II
- Legacy of Leyara (dá um Smoke-Stained Locket, que o transforma em um Druid of the Flame por 5 minutos)
- The Molten Front Offensive (dá Flameward Hippogryph)
- Death From Above
- Have… Have We Met?
- Veteran of the Molten Front (dá o título The Flamebreaker )
- Vendedores
- Ayla Shadowstorm é desbloqueada entregando 125 Marks of the World Tree para a construção de uma moonwell;
- Varlan Highbough é desbloqueado entregando 125 Marks of the World Tree para recrutar Elderlimb e os ancients;
- Damek Bloombeard é desbloqueado entregando 125 Marks of the World Tree para recrutar um armeiro (armorer).
Monday, September 26, 2011
Death Knight Tier 13 Set Bonuses
Death Knight Tier 13 bonuses, as published by WoW Joystick (or whatever that blog’s name is now):
The bonuses also seem somewhat different to some of the other class bonuses in the tier 13. Priests and Hunters specifically seem to have a direct damage increase here, and although I hate to be doing cross class comparison (as its often not at all valid), it does seem odd.
As a breakdown consider:
Tank 2P sounds useful. Being rune locked and at low health is a bitch sometimes, and it may also help for those DKs (like myself) that get out of sync in the rune usage. I am not sure if it will be a great enhancer for the endgame raiders who don’t make smaller mistakes, or if the use of a blood + other rune might cause the same type of switch-up in the rune cooldowns? It certainly sounds reasonable though to assist when health is sub 35% and you need that health bump while a large heal is being cast.
Tank 4P is it good enough to be worth it for the raid? I’m not not sure. Vampiric Blood reads as: “Temporarily grants the Death Knight 15% of maximum health and increases the amount of health received from healing spells and effects by 25% for 10 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.“
I don’t think of Vampiric Blood as a raid saver, and I see it to save my own skin, not that of the raid. Why have a set bonus, especially a 4pc bonus that has no direct additional benefit to the DK? Sure, the raid might live slightly longer in an AoE fight, but we’re using VB because we’re getting slammed rather than the raid this bonus means nothing. A direct boost, or some ability that was always on would be better.
Dps 2P bonus is useful. At a first glance it reads as if there will be additional free of our abilities that consume no resources, like getting Rime or Sudden Doom twice in a row. But I’m not sure if that is what is meant, as I find that “tooltip” description unclear. Resource free strikes are great. The affect on rotations should be easy to absorb, and it certainly sounds like Frost at least will become even more of a straight Obliterate spec.
Dps 4P will be dependand on the proc rate (how often it goes off). Mastery is very nice and useful for both Unholy and Frost playstyles, and having more for free is good. It may also change the stat weightings for us once we have the four piece bonus, as Mastery might become really darn useful. The EJ forums seem to indicate that the 2P + 4P bonuses might change the stat weighting a little away from Haste and toward Mastery, but this is yet to be math’ed out.
Personally I doubt I’ll see either of the 4p bonuses on my DK, so the 2P bonuses are probably more important to me. I do like the fact that the set bonuses can be tweaked and altered as time passes, so perhaps even if these are a little lackluster now, they can be buffed without smashing the rest of the game altogether.
Ps. I’d also like to see the cosmetic armor model too. It will not make a single sod of difference as far as the mechanics go, but I like to have two reasons to strive for the Tier sets; stats alone are enough – but a good armour set is such a wonderful motivator. I’m sick to death of the non-tier shoulders I have now in both Tank and Dps sets.
- Blood, 2P — When an attack drops your health below 35%, one of your Blood Runes will immediately activate and convert into a Death Rune for the next 20 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once every 45 sec.
- Blood, 4P — Your Vampiric Blood ability also affects all party and raid members for 50% of the effect it has on you.
- DPS, 2P — Sudden Doom has a 30% chance and Rime has a 60% chance to grant 2 charges when triggered instead of 1.
- DPS, 4P — Runic Empowerment has a 25% chance and Runic Corruption has a 40% chance to also grant 710 mastery rating for 12 sec when activated.
The bonuses also seem somewhat different to some of the other class bonuses in the tier 13. Priests and Hunters specifically seem to have a direct damage increase here, and although I hate to be doing cross class comparison (as its often not at all valid), it does seem odd.
As a breakdown consider:
Tank 2P sounds useful. Being rune locked and at low health is a bitch sometimes, and it may also help for those DKs (like myself) that get out of sync in the rune usage. I am not sure if it will be a great enhancer for the endgame raiders who don’t make smaller mistakes, or if the use of a blood + other rune might cause the same type of switch-up in the rune cooldowns? It certainly sounds reasonable though to assist when health is sub 35% and you need that health bump while a large heal is being cast.
Tank 4P is it good enough to be worth it for the raid? I’m not not sure. Vampiric Blood reads as: “Temporarily grants the Death Knight 15% of maximum health and increases the amount of health received from healing spells and effects by 25% for 10 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.“
I don’t think of Vampiric Blood as a raid saver, and I see it to save my own skin, not that of the raid. Why have a set bonus, especially a 4pc bonus that has no direct additional benefit to the DK? Sure, the raid might live slightly longer in an AoE fight, but we’re using VB because we’re getting slammed rather than the raid this bonus means nothing. A direct boost, or some ability that was always on would be better.
Dps 2P bonus is useful. At a first glance it reads as if there will be additional free of our abilities that consume no resources, like getting Rime or Sudden Doom twice in a row. But I’m not sure if that is what is meant, as I find that “tooltip” description unclear. Resource free strikes are great. The affect on rotations should be easy to absorb, and it certainly sounds like Frost at least will become even more of a straight Obliterate spec.
Dps 4P will be dependand on the proc rate (how often it goes off). Mastery is very nice and useful for both Unholy and Frost playstyles, and having more for free is good. It may also change the stat weightings for us once we have the four piece bonus, as Mastery might become really darn useful. The EJ forums seem to indicate that the 2P + 4P bonuses might change the stat weighting a little away from Haste and toward Mastery, but this is yet to be math’ed out.
Personally I doubt I’ll see either of the 4p bonuses on my DK, so the 2P bonuses are probably more important to me. I do like the fact that the set bonuses can be tweaked and altered as time passes, so perhaps even if these are a little lackluster now, they can be buffed without smashing the rest of the game altogether.
Ps. I’d also like to see the cosmetic armor model too. It will not make a single sod of difference as far as the mechanics go, but I like to have two reasons to strive for the Tier sets; stats alone are enough – but a good armour set is such a wonderful motivator. I’m sick to death of the non-tier shoulders I have now in both Tank and Dps sets.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
More of the online social
These spaces are admittedly very different. Real name spaces like Facebook, where I post an actual picture of my face and chat about things that happen to me and others tend to bring out and reinforce relationships I have offline, for the most part. When I comment or send a message to a friend there, I feel as though I’ve been keeping in touch with people, even if I haven’t seen them in person in literally decades. When I recently saw a few folks at a conference, I felt as though I had been continually connecting with the ones who are my active FB friends. I went to a kind of informal high school reunion a few weeks ago, and some people there were ones I hadn’t seen in a long time, but will feel all the more comfortable with because of exchanges on FB. Although I’m not a Twitter afficionado, in that space, too, I have feelings of connection that transfer readily offline.
But recently, it has become even clearer to me that there are special things about online interactions that make all kinds of social, well, better. Have you ever connected by voice chat and then coordinated watching a movie on Netflix with a dear one? You should, it’s a blast. Beyond IM exchanges or emails, connections we can build in cyberspace allow us to have a range of experiences and shared moments that aren’t standing in for social moments, but are themselves those social moments.
So yeah, online social interaction is most definitely “real” social interaction.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Did someone say Thunderfury
I’ve been farming Molten Core for a couple of months now, mostly for the guild reputation achievement. I’m currently 6169/21000 with the Hydraxian Waterlords; unfortunately, I now only get reputation from bosses, and each complete Molten Core run gets me a little over 1000 reputation.
Yeah.
But a while ago, I got the first half of the Bindings of the Windseeker, which is the first half of the initial questline for Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. Well, on Tuesday (yay for raid reset day) Baron Geddon dropped the second half! A few of our guildies were on (hi guys!) and they were excited about it, too, so we then went on a flurry of farming for thorium and arcane crystals (I already had some of the other quest pieces, including the ingots).
Through the efforts of one intrepid mage and the guild that supports his damn fool, idealistic crusades…
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Too Busy
I wonder sometimes if anyone is still reading this oft neglected blog. Life has thrown me a curve ball, and I'm dealing with it the best I can, which means something had to give. As I am unwilling to give up my fantasy world I escape to daily, the blog has suffered. I'm not going to quit, but I thought you all should know that updates are going to be rather scarce.
If you have visited the main page, you'll have noticed my character feed for Delgada is broken. Yipes! This is not horrible, and I will fix it shortly. I ran up against the problem of too many priests and not enough tanks in my main guild, KNR, so I server transferred Delgada to Eredar to hang out with an old flame. The new guild, Wrath and Redemption, is a great one, and have whisked me into raiding, despite my low gear score. Last night we downed Halfus in the Bastion of Twilight and got in several good attempts on Valiona and Theralion. I'm sure that we'll get it tonight. Just before our last two attempts my client disconnected, and when I logged back in, all my key bindings were gone. I healed our last two attempts from the spell page! Still, I think we got them down to 80%, so I am looking forward to another fun night tonight. I am more prepared than I was last night (who knew they would drag my lowly butt into a raid so soon!) as I now have Deadly Boss Mods installed and my other mods updated. Tell me, any raiders reading this, is it still necessary to be running Omen? I have it installed, but I find I'm not using it.
Delgada has been spending the rest of her time on the server doing dailies and digging for artifacts. She has found quite a few interesting things, even if they are mostly toys. She has uncovered a dig in Uldum, however, that is bringing up pieces of a ring! I might be a little more excited about this if it had some spirit on it. Still, at this point in the game, Delgada is behind the gear curve and ahead of the raiding curve. I don't think I have ever raided so early in an expansion!
While doing dailies, Delgada has managed to make friends with a few other people in other guilds, who seem to have the same altaholic tendencies as I do. Eredar is shaping up to be a friendly and more evenly balanced server than Smolderthorn could ever hope to be. I'm a little sad that KNR has to be there. Thank goodness for Real ID. I'd probably never have even thought of transferring had I not a way to chat with them after the move.
In other news, My wizard Rowan Trollstalker is closing in on the old level cap of 50, and has finished Mooshu! She spends most of her days in her garden, since I haven't got any crowns to unlock Dragonspyre yet. I may finish out Grizzleheim before I head out there, just because I have some areas unlocked there that I haven't touched.
If you have visited the main page, you'll have noticed my character feed for Delgada is broken. Yipes! This is not horrible, and I will fix it shortly. I ran up against the problem of too many priests and not enough tanks in my main guild, KNR, so I server transferred Delgada to Eredar to hang out with an old flame. The new guild, Wrath and Redemption, is a great one, and have whisked me into raiding, despite my low gear score. Last night we downed Halfus in the Bastion of Twilight and got in several good attempts on Valiona and Theralion. I'm sure that we'll get it tonight. Just before our last two attempts my client disconnected, and when I logged back in, all my key bindings were gone. I healed our last two attempts from the spell page! Still, I think we got them down to 80%, so I am looking forward to another fun night tonight. I am more prepared than I was last night (who knew they would drag my lowly butt into a raid so soon!) as I now have Deadly Boss Mods installed and my other mods updated. Tell me, any raiders reading this, is it still necessary to be running Omen? I have it installed, but I find I'm not using it.
Delgada has been spending the rest of her time on the server doing dailies and digging for artifacts. She has found quite a few interesting things, even if they are mostly toys. She has uncovered a dig in Uldum, however, that is bringing up pieces of a ring! I might be a little more excited about this if it had some spirit on it. Still, at this point in the game, Delgada is behind the gear curve and ahead of the raiding curve. I don't think I have ever raided so early in an expansion!
While doing dailies, Delgada has managed to make friends with a few other people in other guilds, who seem to have the same altaholic tendencies as I do. Eredar is shaping up to be a friendly and more evenly balanced server than Smolderthorn could ever hope to be. I'm a little sad that KNR has to be there. Thank goodness for Real ID. I'd probably never have even thought of transferring had I not a way to chat with them after the move.
In other news, My wizard Rowan Trollstalker is closing in on the old level cap of 50, and has finished Mooshu! She spends most of her days in her garden, since I haven't got any crowns to unlock Dragonspyre yet. I may finish out Grizzleheim before I head out there, just because I have some areas unlocked there that I haven't touched.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
WoW Guide
You’ve probably all come across an ad for the one or other WoW guide since you picked up the game. Just like me, you were probably a little skeptical what there is to learn from a bunch of PDFs and videos that you haven’t picked up by now anyway. Given the massive amount of free information that’s available online – what’s the point of buying a guide? However, the promises I read did sound quite amazing – insane amounts of gold per hour, easy leveling, PvP goodies… if only half of that would be true, I wouldn’t mind parting with my money.
Last week I decided to give it a shot. After all, even if it turned out to be a waste, at least I could stop wondering if I’m missing out on something. Given that I wanted to see if any of the claims hold up, I went with Dugi’s Guide set – a bundle that promises to cover leveling, gold and questing for both factions.
I was quite pleasantly surprised with the quality of the content. The leveling guides are in-depth and detailed and cover the whole leveling range. The gold guide actually had a number of new strategies, some of them I was even able to put to use already (and got a sizable profit to show for) and the dailies guide made me revamp my whole daily routine, resulting in nearly twice the rewards in the same time.
The extra bonuses that come with the bundle however, are of little use. There are some talent guides for individual classes, but they don’t offer much over what you can find elsewhere for free. It would have been the cherry on top, but I can actually live without that.
All in all I was hoping for some useful tidbits, but actually didn’t expect that much. The main guides he offers are definitely good value for your money. I would estimate that I probably got twice the return on my routine gold-farming methods and the leveling advice is actually quite solid if you don’t want to do the 5th dungeon run in a row.
I’m actually glad I finally gave this a shot. Makes me a little uncomfortable when thinking about the time I wasted in the past doing things the slow way. However, I guess I should be happy about the improved income, rather than ponder the ‘what ifs’ .
All in all, I can honestly recommend Dugi’s Guide bundle.
Last week I decided to give it a shot. After all, even if it turned out to be a waste, at least I could stop wondering if I’m missing out on something. Given that I wanted to see if any of the claims hold up, I went with Dugi’s Guide set – a bundle that promises to cover leveling, gold and questing for both factions.
I was quite pleasantly surprised with the quality of the content. The leveling guides are in-depth and detailed and cover the whole leveling range. The gold guide actually had a number of new strategies, some of them I was even able to put to use already (and got a sizable profit to show for) and the dailies guide made me revamp my whole daily routine, resulting in nearly twice the rewards in the same time.
The extra bonuses that come with the bundle however, are of little use. There are some talent guides for individual classes, but they don’t offer much over what you can find elsewhere for free. It would have been the cherry on top, but I can actually live without that.
All in all I was hoping for some useful tidbits, but actually didn’t expect that much. The main guides he offers are definitely good value for your money. I would estimate that I probably got twice the return on my routine gold-farming methods and the leveling advice is actually quite solid if you don’t want to do the 5th dungeon run in a row.
I’m actually glad I finally gave this a shot. Makes me a little uncomfortable when thinking about the time I wasted in the past doing things the slow way. However, I guess I should be happy about the improved income, rather than ponder the ‘what ifs’ .
All in all, I can honestly recommend Dugi’s Guide bundle.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
My class of Choice
Back in 2008 I wrote a post about My class of Choice. At the time I was an alt-a-holic, with 3 characters who were regularly played in Warcraft, and many more who were used as profession mules.
Fast forward to now and my warcraft time is as different as my life is, then from now. The Paladin, Warlock, and Druid has been replaced by Mortigen, the Death Knight. Wrath saw this class released upon the game, and I’ve never looked back.
The Death Knight was my first character to level 85, and the first I wanted to take to raids. I also now have a Hunter and Druid at 85, and the Paladin, Warlock, and Priest are stuck at 80, with a shamble of Shamans and others throughout the 30s to 70s. In 2008 I said I’d not ever have a Hunter and now its 85 – the game changes you.
Lifestyle wise in 2008 I was living in another city, where my partner (now wife) was regularly working away from home or doing long hours. This facilitated a huge amount of time where i could do as I pleased. The Alts came out in force, and the content was getting smashed left and right.
It is funny to ponder how wow and life changes. Happy Killing.
Fast forward to now and my warcraft time is as different as my life is, then from now. The Paladin, Warlock, and Druid has been replaced by Mortigen, the Death Knight. Wrath saw this class released upon the game, and I’ve never looked back.
The Death Knight was my first character to level 85, and the first I wanted to take to raids. I also now have a Hunter and Druid at 85, and the Paladin, Warlock, and Priest are stuck at 80, with a shamble of Shamans and others throughout the 30s to 70s. In 2008 I said I’d not ever have a Hunter and now its 85 – the game changes you.
Lifestyle wise in 2008 I was living in another city, where my partner (now wife) was regularly working away from home or doing long hours. This facilitated a huge amount of time where i could do as I pleased. The Alts came out in force, and the content was getting smashed left and right.
It is funny to ponder how wow and life changes. Happy Killing.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Hide yo wife, hide yo kids, they robbin' everybody out here!
Blaaargh.......that's how I feel. I don't check the log on my guild tabs that often, because only the officers (me) and GM (me again) have access to the guild bank. Or so I thought. Apparently, over the past week, 2 members of the guild took advantage of a glitch that must have happened. I know I double and triple-checked access for each rank on the guild tabs before I first started inviting people into the guild, but I just found out that Veteran rank had access to all tabs, and were able to withdraw 2 stacks a day. Dasoidon and Demolisher exploited that to the fullest, taking out whatever they pleased. The gold cost of it all doesn't worry me that much, it's the availability of the quest items that is fucking annoying.
I scanned the AH for a long period of time for deals on some of those items, especially the Arcane Tomes, and for someone to just blatantly take them ALL? There's no excuse for it. You'd only need about 60 of them to go from neutral to exalted, I believe, so they just took them to sell.
I can't explain what happened. I know I AM a forgetful person, so I cope by checking and re-checking things that are important to me. I can't believe I would do something so stupid as to leave one rank with open access. Besides, as I recall, I think you'd have to actively enable that, and I know I didn't do that. All I can think is that they either found out a hack to get in, or there was a glitch in one of the patches that enabled that rank to have guild access.
Demolisher had earned over 1.75 million guild xp, and had been paid 1,750 gold for doing that. Dasoidon had earned 250 k guild xp, and had been paid 250 gold for that. Not only that, but since Dasoidon had invited Demolisher into the guild, another little bonus I offer is that if you recruit someone, and they get 1 million gxp, you get a 500 gold bonus. Dasoidon had been paid that.
I just feel betrayed, and angry. It's like inviting neighborhood kids to your house to do work for you, paying them triple what they would normally get, and then you find out that they stole your coin collection to go buy some Mountain Dew. They have no idea what you went through to get it, what it's even worth, they only know that it will get them a little bit of satisfaction.
UPDATE: I talked to Demolisher in-game about it, and he said he was planning on surprising us by putting epic items back into the guild bank, since he had used the items he got out to level his Blacksmithing. I've never asked for ANYTHING from guild members though. You keep your items, and I keep mine, and everyones's happy.
In retrospect, I see he took out stuff that he could use for his profession, but like Mysscia said, he should have known to ask before taking out the truesilver bars and tons of volatiles. I wish him luck in his next guild, and am sorry that this episode happened.
Big Changes Coming
WoW blogs have recently all been abuzz with news of the upcoming class changes in patch 3.1, but somehow I haven't seen any mention of the planned changes to mana regeneration. The gist of it is that they think healers have too much mana regeneration - DPS casters are basically always casting, meaning they only benefit from MP5, while healers often get high mana regeneration by staying outside the 5-second-rule and getting mana back from Spirit. The issue is further exacerbated by various clearcasting-style procs that allow you to cast a spell without using mana, thus still being considered "not casting". To fix it, they will probably make Spirit-based regeneration lower (while making talents like Meditation stronger to give roughly the same MP5).
Now, I don't know what's going on in heroics or raids, but in all the instances I've healed recently I think I only ran out of mana twice, while still having a potion, Inner Focus, Hymn of Hope and the racial Arcane Torrent. In fact, I usually finish most trash fights with full mana. So I can see where Blizz is coming from, and why they want to "fix" it.
However, I'm not at all sure that reducing non-casting regeneration is the solution. First, it would basically demote Spirit back to its old status of "that other stat no one cares about, but seems to be on a lot of caster items". No wonder they're making Divine Spirit a baseline spell for all priests - who'd pay a talent point for such a useless buff? Also, I don't know about other healers, but for me dancing with the 5-second-rule is one of the most enjoyable aspects of healing as a priest.
But, just criticizing without offering a solution of my own won't help, so let's see if I can't think of some other ways to solve the issue. Reading Blizzard's post, they mention 2 specific "problematic" areas: Clearcasting procs and HoTs.
Clearcasting procs let you heal while still benefitting from full mana regeneration, since they don't cost any mana. Blizzard is currently thinking about changing it so that they will return mana when proccing instead of giving clearcasting which, to be honest, makes it much more boring. Instead, they could change clearcasting to cost 1 mana. For all intents and purposes, it's a free cast, but it puts you in a "casting" state gimping your mana regen.
HoTs, especially the long ones, let the healer put up a relatively long heal and sit back and wait for the mana to come flowing in. Now, the only healers who can realistically stack enough HoTs for this sort of behavior are druids. No reason to punish all the priests, paladins and shamans for something that is not only specific to druids - it's the basic concept of druid healing. But let's play along and assume that HoTs are problematic. There's a very easy solution for this - give HoTs shorter durations, let's say, oh I donno, 5 seconds. That way in order to keep someone healed you don't get the chance to leave "casting" state.
Still not good enough? Change it to the 7-second-rule. That way, they still keep Spirit an important stat, while still being a little weaker. It will also require more skill to dance, although whether that's what Blizzard want or not, I don't know. Of course, they say that they don't want "sloppy players" but they also don't want to make things too difficult so they don't scare healers away...
So where does that leave us? Same place we were before this post - Blizzard isn't really going to listen to me on important things like mana regeneration.
Now, I don't know what's going on in heroics or raids, but in all the instances I've healed recently I think I only ran out of mana twice, while still having a potion, Inner Focus, Hymn of Hope and the racial Arcane Torrent. In fact, I usually finish most trash fights with full mana. So I can see where Blizz is coming from, and why they want to "fix" it.
However, I'm not at all sure that reducing non-casting regeneration is the solution. First, it would basically demote Spirit back to its old status of "that other stat no one cares about, but seems to be on a lot of caster items". No wonder they're making Divine Spirit a baseline spell for all priests - who'd pay a talent point for such a useless buff? Also, I don't know about other healers, but for me dancing with the 5-second-rule is one of the most enjoyable aspects of healing as a priest.
But, just criticizing without offering a solution of my own won't help, so let's see if I can't think of some other ways to solve the issue. Reading Blizzard's post, they mention 2 specific "problematic" areas: Clearcasting procs and HoTs.
Clearcasting procs let you heal while still benefitting from full mana regeneration, since they don't cost any mana. Blizzard is currently thinking about changing it so that they will return mana when proccing instead of giving clearcasting which, to be honest, makes it much more boring. Instead, they could change clearcasting to cost 1 mana. For all intents and purposes, it's a free cast, but it puts you in a "casting" state gimping your mana regen.
HoTs, especially the long ones, let the healer put up a relatively long heal and sit back and wait for the mana to come flowing in. Now, the only healers who can realistically stack enough HoTs for this sort of behavior are druids. No reason to punish all the priests, paladins and shamans for something that is not only specific to druids - it's the basic concept of druid healing. But let's play along and assume that HoTs are problematic. There's a very easy solution for this - give HoTs shorter durations, let's say, oh I donno, 5 seconds. That way in order to keep someone healed you don't get the chance to leave "casting" state.
Still not good enough? Change it to the 7-second-rule. That way, they still keep Spirit an important stat, while still being a little weaker. It will also require more skill to dance, although whether that's what Blizzard want or not, I don't know. Of course, they say that they don't want "sloppy players" but they also don't want to make things too difficult so they don't scare healers away...
So where does that leave us? Same place we were before this post - Blizzard isn't really going to listen to me on important things like mana regeneration.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
So Much To Learn, So Little Time!
These days I don’t have much time for WoW. I play for a few hours on the weekends, and that’s pretty much it.
So you can imagine that it’s not so easy to find the time to read up on all the resources out there to make sure I’m “doin’ it right”.
That’s the thing with WoW though isn’t it? It’s not just a game that you log into and play without any outside help is it?
I mean, not if you want to play to the best of your abilities.
You need to trawl through guide after guide, elitist jerks, and google becomes your best friend.
I can understand why some people just don’t want to do that.
It’s a game after all.
Why should I *have* to spend so much time out of game to learn how to play my character and my spec properly?
Why couldn’t they have some of these “optimal” specs, rotations and other information available somehow in game? Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to let the trainers have some “Tell me about my talents…” type conversations built in?
As for me, I don’t mind looking around for the info, though it doesn’t help my lack of gaming time very much. At least once I’ve got the hang of how to play my spec (again… >_<) that should be it, right? Until the next patch, or expansion at least…
What about you?
Would you prefer not to have to do so much “work” outside of the game to be able to play? Or is that part of the whole experience for you? Is that what makes it more fun? Or does it make you shudder just thinking about having to go through so much garbage to get the morsels of information you needed?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The State of the World…of Warcraft
Here we are, a week after the 4.0.1 patch drop. As I look around at the landscape of my personal gaming friends, I see more than just a game patch that changes how we play the game, but a game changer that is the end for some, and a new beginning for others.
Looking back over my personal gaming career change has always been the catalyst that drives my gaming style. Back on console games I would change games several times per day, constantly wanting something new, regardless as to how I was doing in my current game, a level of Mario, wait, lets play some Tetris. A level of Zelda, oooo, Battle Toads! I was a bit ADD, even if just in my gaming style. Onto the larger world of MMO’s. I started my online gaming career back in Star Wars Galaxies. I had tried Everquest a few years prior, but hated it. I just wasn’t ready for the MMO landscape. Galaxies was a blast. I played from about six months into the game through the NGE, aka New Game Enhancements. This was through two combat upgrades and finally the death of SWG for me, NGE. SO, as you can see, I’m use to combat systems changing. When I left SWG, I migrated to WoW. I’ve loved wow for five years now. It’s been a great game, I’ve made some great friends, and learned alot about some friends I drug (or drugged?) into wow.
Now we sit at a junction. 4.0.1 is one of those game altering changes. Not much about playing wow is as it was just over a week ago. Yes, you still have dps classes, tanks, healers, etc, but how they are played is different. Talents that were once must haves are gone, talents we didn’t know we wanted have magically appeared. Tree’s are simplified, or as in the case of Nimrock’s Druid Fang, only come out every once and a while now! With the coming of 4.0.1 and the huge wealth of information out about it’s imminent arrival I had alot of reading to do. At first I thought to myself, Crap. This is Star Wars Galaxies New Game Enhancements all over again. I was worried that this would alter the game to the point that it was no fun. The game would never be the same for me. I would have to wait six months to play another MMO that looks good to me(TOR). I was wrong for me. Others, this has been the case.
One thing I know about the oncoming Cataclysm is that there is going to be alot more change. Now might be a good time for some of us to “reroll” our characters and let go of what we cherished about wow pre-4.0.1. For some of us, it’s time to rekindle a love for older mains, reuse the characters in our wow-verse that were once very valuable to our playtime. This is where I stand. I’m back with my stabby toon, the rogue, and have almost abandoned my hunter. My DK tank is in the garage for the moment, and to be honest, might not come out again. That’s the brilliance about this game. He can sit there as long as I want, and one day, I may come back to him. For now, times are changing, and I need to roll with it, find something I do like, and nurture that.
For some of my wow friends, I know you have chosen other things. This game isn’t what you remembered, or enjoyed. That’s the choice you have to make. If you ever decide to come back to Wow, know we’ll be here with open arms, and just because you choose not to play this crazy game anymore, doesn’t mean you didn’t mean anything to those of us that still do. You will be missed in game. Keep in touch. Also, I CAN HAZ GOLDZ?
Saturday, September 10, 2011
No heals for you
Now that you've read it, I'd like to inform you that my first ever 80, my holy priest, as well as my current pally-healer has the same issue. I don't just want those health bars to be full, I NEED them to be full.
And ask anyone who has ever sat next to me while I healed a PuG would have often heard me say: "Crap. I hate it when they have confidence in me." This is usually followed by: "That idiot! Pulling THREE groups?! What was he thinking?! I should let him die! But then I'd die.....stupid choices!"
....Seriously. Healing+over-confident-tank=stress for me.
That being said, I'll always be a healer at heart. My first ever character was that Holy Priest. (I'm not counting the trial warrior I played to level 20 on a friend's account in Vanilla that first got me hooked.) And being a Holy priest, I'm used to dying. I almost rerolled a few times due to being too squishy for life, but I stuck to it. My gear still sucks, but it's not as bad as it was.
One of my Warlock buddies says that he loves it when I heal, because he knows he'll live.
My Mage buddy, says he's okay with me healing, but that he knows he'll always die.
Why? Because I do this thing called 'prioritize'. Meaning at the start of each run, everyone gets a number.
Tank is number 1.
Healer (me) is number 2.
Warlocks and hunters are number 3.
Pallies, DKs, warriors are number 4.
Priests and Boomkin druids are number 5.
Shammies, rogues and Catform druids are number 6.
Mages are number 7.
Anyone that annoys me is number 8.
The higher the number, the quicker you get heals.
Usually, everyone is kept at their peak heal, but on boss fights etc. where I have to chose who to heal and who to let die, this is my system.
So, naturally, 'locks love me. Mages, not so much.
My reasoning is that 'locks and hunters have pets, so we lose two dps'ers if they go down.
Pallies, DKs, and warriors wear plate, so they can take a bit more wailing and live longer as they dps.
DPS Priests and Boomkins are next, because Boomkins are massively powerful, and so are S-priests, but neither pull too much aggro.
Shammies, rogues and cats.....they do killer DPS, but they pull aggro ridiculously! And backchat if you ask them to tone it down a bit.*
And mages....they not only pull aggro, but they get one-shotted. *
And for those who annoy me..... well, they rarely get any heals...or rezzes....or kindness in general until they apologise for their stupidity.**
I am quick to let people die. If I'm explaining a fight, and you charge over towards the boss, or pull something, no heals for you.
If I click my drinking macro***, and you pull, no heals for you. Until I've got my mana back at least.
If you are constantly playing "Simon Says Companion Pets"****, no heals for you.
If you talk in only cAPS & NUMB3R5 after I ask you not to, because it hurts my eyes, no heals for you.
If you say "Get with the times grandpa" after the above occurs, no heals for you.
If you ask for heals, you get a macro#, but no heals.
If you whine about my macros, no heals.
If you polymorph ANYTHING that you're not supposed to (critters, the next group, etc), especially during fights.
If we wipe and you unjustly blame me, no heals.
If we wipe and you justly blame me, I will apologise. (Shocked?)
If we wipe and you demand to be rezzed, you won't be.
If we wipe and you say nothing and don't release......depends on my mood.
If we wipe and you ask for a rez.....you'll usually get one
If we wipe and you ask for a rez politely, you will almost always get one.
If we wipe and you say you get lost, I say "lol, I hear that" and rez you. Assuming of course, I don't get lost on the way to your corpse## =/
*The 1st Law of Mana Conservation comes into play here. "If you're non-essential, and it takes more mana to keep you alive than to rez you, the group is better if you die."
**I'm making a full post about this later, but in the meantime please don't hate. I acknowledge the difference between ignorance and stupidity. That is factored in.
***For those interested it's:
/e sits to drink.
/use (water of choice goes here)
/p GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!
/p I am currently out of mana, and no more heals will be coming till my blue bar's full. With that knowledge, feel free to pull. If you really think it's the smart thing to do.
****I'll admit, this game is rather fun, but during fights it just isn't appropriate.
#The macro depends on the class. My Priest's is:
/p Thankyou for requesting a heal!
/p For Greater Heal, please press 1.
/p For Flash Heal, please press 2.
/p For Renew, please press 3.
/p A healing representative will be with you shortly! Have a nice day!
##I am known for getting lost in ToC. ....Seriously. Not finding it. While in it. .....yeah.
And ask anyone who has ever sat next to me while I healed a PuG would have often heard me say: "Crap. I hate it when they have confidence in me." This is usually followed by: "That idiot! Pulling THREE groups?! What was he thinking?! I should let him die! But then I'd die.....stupid choices!"
....Seriously. Healing+over-confident-tank=stress for me.
That being said, I'll always be a healer at heart. My first ever character was that Holy Priest. (I'm not counting the trial warrior I played to level 20 on a friend's account in Vanilla that first got me hooked.) And being a Holy priest, I'm used to dying. I almost rerolled a few times due to being too squishy for life, but I stuck to it. My gear still sucks, but it's not as bad as it was.
One of my Warlock buddies says that he loves it when I heal, because he knows he'll live.
My Mage buddy, says he's okay with me healing, but that he knows he'll always die.
Why? Because I do this thing called 'prioritize'. Meaning at the start of each run, everyone gets a number.
Tank is number 1.
Healer (me) is number 2.
Warlocks and hunters are number 3.
Pallies, DKs, warriors are number 4.
Priests and Boomkin druids are number 5.
Shammies, rogues and Catform druids are number 6.
Mages are number 7.
Anyone that annoys me is number 8.
The higher the number, the quicker you get heals.
Usually, everyone is kept at their peak heal, but on boss fights etc. where I have to chose who to heal and who to let die, this is my system.
So, naturally, 'locks love me. Mages, not so much.
My reasoning is that 'locks and hunters have pets, so we lose two dps'ers if they go down.
Pallies, DKs, and warriors wear plate, so they can take a bit more wailing and live longer as they dps.
DPS Priests and Boomkins are next, because Boomkins are massively powerful, and so are S-priests, but neither pull too much aggro.
Shammies, rogues and cats.....they do killer DPS, but they pull aggro ridiculously! And backchat if you ask them to tone it down a bit.*
And mages....they not only pull aggro, but they get one-shotted. *
And for those who annoy me..... well, they rarely get any heals...or rezzes....or kindness in general until they apologise for their stupidity.**
I am quick to let people die. If I'm explaining a fight, and you charge over towards the boss, or pull something, no heals for you.
If I click my drinking macro***, and you pull, no heals for you. Until I've got my mana back at least.
If you are constantly playing "Simon Says Companion Pets"****, no heals for you.
If you talk in only cAPS & NUMB3R5 after I ask you not to, because it hurts my eyes, no heals for you.
If you say "Get with the times grandpa" after the above occurs, no heals for you.
If you ask for heals, you get a macro#, but no heals.
If you whine about my macros, no heals.
If you polymorph ANYTHING that you're not supposed to (critters, the next group, etc), especially during fights.
If we wipe and you unjustly blame me, no heals.
If we wipe and you justly blame me, I will apologise. (Shocked?)
If we wipe and you demand to be rezzed, you won't be.
If we wipe and you say nothing and don't release......depends on my mood.
If we wipe and you ask for a rez.....you'll usually get one
If we wipe and you ask for a rez politely, you will almost always get one.
If we wipe and you say you get lost, I say "lol, I hear that" and rez you. Assuming of course, I don't get lost on the way to your corpse## =/
*The 1st Law of Mana Conservation comes into play here. "If you're non-essential, and it takes more mana to keep you alive than to rez you, the group is better if you die."
**I'm making a full post about this later, but in the meantime please don't hate. I acknowledge the difference between ignorance and stupidity. That is factored in.
***For those interested it's:
/e sits to drink.
/use (water of choice goes here)
/p GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!
/p I am currently out of mana, and no more heals will be coming till my blue bar's full. With that knowledge, feel free to pull. If you really think it's the smart thing to do.
****I'll admit, this game is rather fun, but during fights it just isn't appropriate.
#The macro depends on the class. My Priest's is:
/p Thankyou for requesting a heal!
/p For Greater Heal, please press 1.
/p For Flash Heal, please press 2.
/p For Renew, please press 3.
/p A healing representative will be with you shortly! Have a nice day!
##I am known for getting lost in ToC. ....Seriously. Not finding it. While in it. .....yeah.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Magic Fun Time
Ok, fine. I had no idea what to call the post today. First thing that popped into my head when I saw the screenshot here is, you guessed it, “Magic Fun Time”. Yeah, I’m strange.
Anyway, I’m not particularly sure I have much to say, but I feel like writing anyway. Yes, I’m still playing WoW. I’m mainly playing on raid nights at this point and doing the Molten Front dailies on my Druid. Those have petered out a bit. It’s pretty crazy the number of quests you have to get through daily now. I have unlocked the 2 factions that take 150 each (I think) and now have a few things that take 125 it seems. Obviously, I’m getting a little bored of them..
I haven’t been a big one for dailies as is but Blizzard did a good job with these so I’ve stuck them out for a while. I also figured I can maybe get some gear for my druid without having to get her dragged through a raid.
Speaking of raiding. We’re doing pretty well. We got to Alysrazor for the second time this past week and got her down to 90k!!! OMG.. It was heartbreaking. We are definitely getting better at it. Lord Rhyolith still gives us problems too.
In my non-WoW news, my Rift Mage is now level 49. The cap in Rift is level 50 and I’m about 25% there. We’ll have to see if I keep playing after that. I was charged now for my second month, so I guess I have to play it until that runs out at least. I’ve been enjoying the game quite a bit though.
That’s it. That is my update. Hope everyone else is having a good time.
Druids and dungeon queue
This is a late update I know 
Saturday night my hubby went out, so given that I had not made any plans, I decided to put in some solid levelling on my druid. I got to level 40 by 9.30pm and was rather happy with that.
I decided at 6.30pm to chain run some dungeons – how bad could it be? Not at all I found out. My first couple of runs were with randoms who were insane with aggroing entire rooms – no fear at lower levels huh?
On my third run, I was grouped with a priest healer and dps warrior from my server in a guild called…hrmm….refuge I think….they were fabulous comedy Also had another priest who was unguilded and she (toon) was lovely. We were grabbing random tanks, but we ran a few runs together and it was nice to find some lower level people just hoofing through instances having some fun together.
Found out boomkin is not all that great at lower levels when comparing one self to a SP or mage….my 100dps was just not getting close to their 300dps..so i went to the AH spent 10g on some gear and then went back in and I managed to hit 120dps
Mind you to be fair; I would get 3 instant casts off and the mob (excluding bosses) would be dead.
I really have no idea what I am doing as yet though – I need to spend some time reading about playing boomkin, at the moment I am almost mashing keys and hoping for things to die. ALMOST!! I don’t really understand how the lunar/solar thing works..YET!
Definitely should have believed everyone when they said I had to get past level 20 to start enjoying a druid! I am loving it. Nowehere near as much as my mage – and probably not as much as my pally – but certainly more than my warrior I can’t wait to get to 85 – I may even try healing on her too…it seems sort of fun!
Saturday night my hubby went out, so given that I had not made any plans, I decided to put in some solid levelling on my druid. I got to level 40 by 9.30pm and was rather happy with that.
I decided at 6.30pm to chain run some dungeons – how bad could it be? Not at all I found out. My first couple of runs were with randoms who were insane with aggroing entire rooms – no fear at lower levels huh?
On my third run, I was grouped with a priest healer and dps warrior from my server in a guild called…hrmm….refuge I think….they were fabulous comedy
Also had another priest who was unguilded and she (toon) was lovely. We were grabbing random tanks, but we ran a few runs together and it was nice to find some lower level people just hoofing through instances having some fun together.Found out boomkin is not all that great at lower levels when comparing one self to a SP or mage….my 100dps was just not getting close to their 300dps..so i went to the AH spent 10g on some gear and then went back in and I managed to hit 120dps
Mind you to be fair; I would get 3 instant casts off and the mob (excluding bosses) would be dead.I really have no idea what I am doing as yet though – I need to spend some time reading about playing boomkin, at the moment I am almost mashing keys and hoping for things to die. ALMOST!! I don’t really understand how the lunar/solar thing works..YET!
Definitely should have believed everyone when they said I had to get past level 20 to start enjoying a druid! I am loving it. Nowehere near as much as my mage – and probably not as much as my pally – but certainly more than my warrior
I can’t wait to get to 85 – I may even try healing on her too…it seems sort of fun!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
In Heroic Grim Batol
It's been awhile since I logged into WoW and even longer since I posted anything. I did the random daily heroic the last couple days onWranngar.
Now when I look in the dungeon finder it says I can do five more dungeons this week. It also shows 70 Valor Points as the reward. I think they made it so you can do all seven of your dungeons in one day, and get 70 Valor Points from each, but the cap is seven per week. After your seven for the week are up I would assume you get gold like you would have after your first one each day. I am not sure, I will try it out the next time I am on.
Now when I look in the dungeon finder it says I can do five more dungeons this week. It also shows 70 Valor Points as the reward. I think they made it so you can do all seven of your dungeons in one day, and get 70 Valor Points from each, but the cap is seven per week. After your seven for the week are up I would assume you get gold like you would have after your first one each day. I am not sure, I will try it out the next time I am on.
Blizzard Have Introduced A New Tier To 5 Man Instances.
The main reason for my pleasure at this development is the effect it has had on the atmosphere in 5 mans now. The nadir that pugging reached around the time of the introduction of the Call to Arms rewards for needed roles (well, tanks then) has passed and I find myself ranting in 5 mans less a less. If I want to get annoyed with ignorance, rudeness and stupidity I can queue for a Zandalari instance for twenty-five minutes, have random people insta-quit and watch morons overreach themselves, cause tirades and scorn and /ragequits. I can wait for my dungeon cooldown to expire for thirty minutes and then queue for twenty odd minutes all over again to repeat my last Zandalar experience.
If I want to have a good fun 5 man run with four total strangers I drop half a tier, shard all the loot and take half the Valor points. Why is this better? Well that’s really simple: I can complete four non-Zandalari heroic 5 mans, for 280 Valour points, in the time it takes to fail to complete several idiot infested ZA/ZG runs, for zero Valor points. OK, I do miss out on the chance of pretty ilvl 353 purple gear, but I increase my chances of completing a run and earning Valour pointsexponentially.
In the non-Zandalari heroics people are less concerned with speed and elite DPS, healing or tanking slowly and often very productively (completing all bosses) progress through their dungeons. If they don’t actually need the gear they’ve learnt that this more measured pace makes for a better and more fun run. Plus they can squeeze in two runs for 140 Valour points. All in the time that it takes the tank who has the best gear in the game, the largest health pool on his server and doesn’t need any DPS just to find a healer that will actually stay in the group with him for more than two packs.
While the morons slug it out (with each other, not the mobs) in the Zandalari instances, I will be slowly but surely accumulating more points with the more patient, friendly and fun players at 70 Valor points a time.
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