Anti-Raidism?

To raid, or not to raid. That is the question.

Vind asked me a couple of days ago "When are we going to see you in Ulduar with us?"

The answer flew off my fingers without thinking about it. "Whenever you want me."

My Pally is geared enough now to cope with the basics of raid tanking. He still has blue shoulders, but one night of raiding would give me enough emblems of triumph to replace them quickly anyway. Apart from that, and a couple of 'better' epics I can still get through emblems of conquest, I'm as geared up as I can be at this point.

I'm Def capped, my average HP in a 5-man is a little under 40k, I've got my macros all worked out and my layout and Ui configured well now. So what's stopping me going raiding?

Do I really want to?

I've enjoyed the laid-back approach to Heroics. You know that you're never going to be commited to the game for more than 15-30 minutes per time. It's rare that a run goes badly wrong these days, so emblem grinding is more just a case of scooping them up of the dead bodies every few minutes.
I just find the heroic-scene very sociable.There's no pressure, there's no fuss. There's very little discussion of boss tactics, apart from the occasional "shall we try for the achievement". Things just happen, smoothly, and it feels like things are being achieved.

While my Tanking set is almost where it should be, my healing gear is much more mis-matched. It's pretty epic. I know I've only got a few blues left anyway. But I'm in plate, and mail, and leather, and there might even be some cloth in there too
I know that armor type isn't as important for healers. My last Pally was a mis-match in Kara, and he healed just fine. For healers, it's stats-stats-stats. But it's all wrongly gemmed and I know there are better upgrades out there if I look for them.

Having said that, if I dropped some gold on the AH, I could probably gem my healing gear up nicely, and at least cope as the 2nd / 3rd healer in a 10-man.

I'm also a big believer that skill and experience can make up for lack of gear. There's no point trying to convince me otherwise. I know that it's the truth. The voices in my head tell me.
But in Ulduar, I have no experience, and since I've never even set foot inside, my skills are generic.
It'd be like dropping a freshly dinged level 80 in to the Noth encounter in Naxx. 2 seconds in, WTF, and the group wipes... I don't want to be that nooby.

Tanks are generally the group leaders, it just goes with the territory. And I can't lead what I don't know.
I'd be sat there waiting for Vind to tell me what I need to do, when it would just be simpler and probably more effective for him to do it himself. Why should every body else wait for me? And why should they have to die just because I don't know the encounters that well? They've done their dying, and paid their repair costs to reach the point they're up to.

So do I want to raid in Ulduar?

Yes.

Will I?

I'm not sure right now.

But until I make up my mind, I'll be available for heroics almost any time you see me online.

The Importance of Being Patient

Continuing from my previous post on cornering markets, here's a few extra tips for you.
They're a little bit anti-goblin, so if you're in to mass production and accepting low profit margins, this is not going to be for you.

Let's say that you've managed to pick up the Titanium Plating plans. (They're only 15g, but I just noticed that you also need Exalted with the Vanguard too... not too big a deal).
If you suddenly start churning out loads of them, people will start to notice. And you might do quite nicely out of it for a while. But before long, people are going to realise there's money to be made and start undercutting you.

Tobold posted something similar recently. And I agree with his theory.
If something is expensive, people will only buy it rarely, and will be less willing to part with it, or buy it more than once. But if it's what they need, they will still buy it at least once.
If something is cheap, people will buy it over and over and over again. But they'll also buy something else if it suits them better.

So which is better?

The Goblin (Gevlons) model is mass-production. Make something as cheap as possible, and sell it as cheaply as possible, but in large quantities. Almost all markets end up this way in the end.
But they don't need to start off that way, and if you're starting up a new market, the last thing you want to do is devalue it too quickly.

Think of  DVD players. When they first came out, they cost hundreds of pounds each, that soon dropped below the £100 mark, because more people wanted them. Now, you can pick up a brand new one for about £10 from ASDA (Walmart).

So when you start posting the Titanium plating, keep supply low, and prices high. If other people start undercutting you, undercut them. And not by a few silver. Halve your price. If they go for 120g this week, other people will want a piece of the action. So they'll invest all the time and effort into their production. When they do, slash the value to 60g and they'll be much more wary of competing against you. Because their expectations of profit will be badly shaken.
Repeat the process until the point where either they stop competing, or you can no longer make a profit.

Once the war is over, slowly raise the prices again. If the competition re-appears, lather-rinse-repeat.

So make sure you keep supply low, and only a couple of them on the AH at any one time. Make sure they're priced high. And make as much money you can before the competition tries to muscle in.

Healing Hands

I ran a few heroics last night. And managed to pick myself up a new set of tanking Bracers a new emblem belt, and a few offspec upgrades. I just need to replace my shoulders now and I'll be fully epic, and a new chestpiece would be nice, since I'm currently using one with +Frost Resistance, and Gemming it up to the eyeballs to add +Def.
So my HP now hovers around 33k SelfBuffed, which would mean 30k Unbuffed (since the BoS is +10%).
And I'm at the defense cap. And I don't struggle with my threat generation as much anymore.

I spent most of the night healing. Since that was what we seemed to be short of at the time. But it was a raid night, so it's sort of understandable.

My healing gear is all a bit mix and match, with some cloth, mail and leather pieces. But at the end of the day, I'm a healer.. I shouldn't be getting hit. But It's almost a full epic set now too.

Speed was the key last night, trying to fit things in with guildies before and after Ulduar (although I wasn't raiding myself). In Culling of Stratholme we cleared the extra boss with about 9 minutes to spare, and I was even having a go at DPS'ing while healing, since the damage was so light
.
In Utgarde Keep, the entire place was cleared within about 10 minutes. We litterally chain pulled the entire place, bosses included. No breaks, no downtime, no deaths, no problem. There really should have been an achievement for that. 3 Emblems in 10 minutes makes it the most worthwhile instance in the game.
Vind was tanking though, and he knows his stuff, it might have been harder with a less experienced tank. But we still managed to boost my brothers DK during the run, and he's never set foot in anything but ToC.

In all of my healing encounters last night, my mana rarely dropped below 70%. Even on the bosses. And no one even came particularly close to dying.
I can't take all the credit for this, the gear and abilities of the teams I was with obviously made up for alot.
But now I've mastered the whole 'Beacon of Light' and 'Sacred Shield' thing, it feels alot easier.

My 2 attempts at tanking last night were AN and AK, An went nice and quick. but AK was a little bit of a mess at one point. A bad placement from myself pulled an extra group of mobs and we wiped. Flow managed to ressurect himself and then me, and Bronze, but our position left us in the path of the 1 remaining mob, who promptly spanked us back to death. So we missed out on the 22g Bonus. Shame.

But apart from that cock-up all seems to be going well with the tanking. And the healing is working out nicely as an offspec.

Strange though, in the CoS run, we had 4 potential tanks in the group to choose from, but only 1 healer. The Munquis used to lack good raid tanks, now they seem to be coming out of our ears. But healers are now a little thin on the ground. Luckily it doesn't affect me at this point, since as long as there's one or the other online, I can fill the alternative spot.

Block and Tackle

While levelling my Paladin as a tank, I've been looking into the best way to gear him up.
Tanking isn't always as straightforward as DPS.

With most DPS classes, you focus solely on Attack Power, or on Spell Power or on a particular stat that equates to the same. With Tanks (particularly Pallies), it's more of a juggling act.

You need the +Hit to make sure you're not missing the mobs, and they're not Parrying your attacks, which makes them attack faster.
You need +Defense to reach the point where mobs cannot slam you into the floor with one shot.
You need +Stamina to enable the healer to have time to heal you up before the mobs belt you with their next round of attacks.
And +Spell Power comes in handy for Paladins who need to generate enough threat to keep the mobs on them, and off the squishies. (Presumably Warriors have a similar problem, but use Attack Power or something similar to do the same).

So which is more important? They all are.

+Spell Power is probably the least important of the bunch, since it basically just for extra DPS. If everyone is using Omen, and isn't a noob, they shouldn't pull much aggro anyway.

+Hit isn't as essential, but it helps alot. When mobs parry, they attack quicker, which means they're going to do more DPS to you. Which is never a good thing.

+Stamina IS essential but, while not quite subject to the rule of diminishing returns, once you reach a certain point do you really need any more? If you have 40k HP and your healers can keep you up against any raid boss, is having 50k HP actually of any more use? Yes, but it's minimal.

+Defense IS defintiely essential. Getting critted by Heroic and raid bosses is never a good thing. And if one crit takes you from 100% HP to dead, the group is going to wipe.

But then there's other things to consider. +Block, +Dodge and a whole host of other things too. So what should you aim for with Enchants and extras?

In the post before this, I claimed that the +Block from Titanium plating was better than +Stam. (The -50% Disarm is also a great Bonus stat) And here's why:

Block reduces the amount of damage from melee attacks from mobs standing in front of you (It doesn't work from behind, or too much from the side, that's why you see tanks re-positioning themselves alot when surrounded by trash... or why you should see them re-positioning alot).

The amount of damage that's blocked is basic maths: Amount Blocked = Block Value + (Strength / 2) and that is done after all other reductions from armor, dodge, parry, Righteous Fury etc..

(BTW: These are totally random numbers I'm using here)
So if a mob hits for 1000, and I don't dodge it, my Armor mitigates 60% of that, so the amount that actually gets to me is 400. But I also Block some of the damage, so with 100 Block Value and 100 strength (really 200 but halved) only 200 damage actually reaches me.

1000 Damage - 600 from my Plate Armor - 200 from my Block = Only 200 Damage that hits me.

You don't always block, it's a % chance, but for a Tank, it's a very high %. And those figures soon start to add up to alot more than +18 Stamina would give me.

Using my analogy from above - I have 34k HP SelfBuffed, in good groups I have reached a little under 40K fully buffed. The healers no longer have much of a problem keeping me alive. So adding more HP doesn't really add to my usefulness.
However, when grouped with good DPS'ers I struggle to hold the aggro.
Adding +Block not only reduces the overall amount of damage I'll take throughout a fight, but also adds extra DPS to some of my abilities. For example, my Shield Slam, does more DPS the higher my Block is, so it's not only protecting me, it's increasing my threat generation too. Win -Win.

My other choice of Enchant. The weapon 'Potency' one, is a little bit more straightforward, but continues where the last one left off. 'Strength' directly increases the amount of melee damage I do, and increases my Block Value. So more strength is always handy. The melee damage increase for a Pally is minimal, since most of my threat comes from magical damage, but it all adds up, especially in longer fights.

So does that mean I should ignore Stamina, and Dodge, and Parry, just because I can survive on the Armor and Block stats alone?... No.

That's why there's 2 main schools of Tanks. Mitigation (Who can take huge amounts of damage) and Avoidance (Who try to take a little damage as possible).
If I can dodge an attack, I get zero damage, and that's even better than only 20% damage. If I Parry an attack I might still get some damage, but I also get to attack faster myself.

The problem with trying to increase those stats though is that they're more difficult to do. And even if you manage it, they're subject to the rule of diminishing returns. That means that every time I dodge / parry an attack, I have slightly less chance of dodging / parrying the next one. (Block doesn't have that problem).

As an avoidance tank, eventually you WILL get hit, and when you do, if you've sacrificed too much mitigation that hit is going to hurt... alot... and then some more... and then again.... and your healer isn't going to be able to keep you up.

So Balance is the Tanks best weapon. In one particular boss fight, an avoidance tank might do better, in another mitigation is the answer. But overall, balance is everyones freind.

The Munqui's aren't a hardcore raiding guild we're not likely to start pulling extra tanks out for individual boss fights. Although raid guilds do, and this is why.

A word of advice for would-be tanks though. If you're new to tanking or freshly-dinged level 80. +Stam and +Def are the key to survival. The rest of it is just icing on the cake until you're geared up more. If you go tanking heroics with only 20k HP (like I first did) you'd better have alot of healers in your freinds list, because they're going to be exhausted trying to keep you alive.

So for now, I'm happy with my Tank design. I won't be trying to ebb every last point of one stat or another, I'll just go with the flow. As long as my Defense stays at 540, I'll take the rest of my stats a little less seriously.

Market Niches

Now I know that not everyone plays WoW for the same reasons. Or enjoys the same kind of things.
But persoanlly I like to keep an eye on the AH market. To try and make a few extra gold whenever I see an opportunity.

I don't consider myself an expert on the matter. If you're looking for expertise I'd visit Gevlons site (http://www.greedygoblin.blogspot.com/). But I occasionally come across area where alot of money could be made, from simple recipes that people don't usually seem interested in.

I have 2 examples at the moment:

The first is Titanium Plating. This recipe is sold for only 15g from a vendor. Yet no one seems to have it. The mats are 4x Titanium Bars and 4x Eternal Shadows. And it is generally considered one of the best shield enchants possible at end game. Particularly for Tanks who are already at the Def cap. The extar Block is great, and adds DPS and threat from shield slams, and then throw in the -50% Disarm and it sort of speaks for itself. Some people prefer the +18 Stam enchant, but is +180 HP really that useful?
Anyway, to get back to the point, this item can be crafted by Blacksmiths for only a handful of gold, but the average price I've seen them on the AH for is between 120g-240g each. I've yet to buy one, because I missed my opportunity, and the next time I saw one it was going for over 300g.

The second is Enchant Weapon - Potency. This is a Burning Crusade drop, that can be found anywhere within Outland or in any BC instance (including Karazahn). Apparently it's got a pretty low drop rate, but the scroll isn't BoP so can be traded.
Again, this is probably the single best enchant for a Prot Pally, as the +Strength brings more benefits through talents than any other enchant. (I hate to use the 'single-best' line, but from what I can see, it's true).
And yet you very rarely see it.
Finding the scroll to learn it might be a bugger, but once you know it, you'd have the market cornered for quite a while, and could easily sell a cheap enchant for large amounts of gold on the AH. I have never managed to find anyone on Darkspear who can make this. Never seen it on the AH, and no one in trade knows what I'm talking about. There's big money to be made.

Openish Invitation

I'm a little busy at work recently, so this blog isn't being updated as often as I'd like it to be. So, rather than let it go to waste, I'm opening it up a little.

Any Munqui Officer, or personal freind of mine, can now also post to this blog.

It's as easy as sending an email to a special address, so there's no technical know-how needed.

If you want to post something, either whisper me in-game, leave a comment on this post, or send me an email.
Once I give you the email address, that's it. You're free to post as little or as often as you like. Or never, if you can never be bothered.

You don't have to agree with all my ideas to post here, and the posts can be as superficial or as detailed as you choose. They should mainly be focused on WoW based issues, or stories of your characters development. But comments on other MMORPGS, excellent game reccomendations, or interesting anecdotes of real world events are just as welcome.

I'll still be moderating the blog, so I'll clean up and formatting problems whenever I see them. (It happens occasionally when things are sent in by email).

Let's hope that at least a few people become regular posters and the blog gets a new lease of life.

Am I Psychic or Am I Just Always Right?

Another night of heroics for me yesterday. With a bag-full of balls-ups to go with it.

I was tanking in healing gear, players were lying dead, people were casting aggro generating abilities on everyone but the tank. Still, it was alot of fun. Because it was all with the Munquis.
Wasn't very good for my EPH though (Emblems per Hour).

The first run was the daily. Nexus.
Myself, Bronze, Barry and Lis brought along a new guildy (who I won't name here). From the very start of the run I had a bad feeling about him. (I don't know if it was a he or a she, but it was a male toon).
He wasn't doing anything particularly wrong, apart from the jumping up and down, all the time, thing that the PvP kiddies seem to do (That really irritates me). I just found myself thinking less and less of him as the fights went on.

He was polite enough, and ready when he needed to be ready. But he seemed to be a little irritating. No sooner had I mentioned my dislike in Officer Chat than things began to get a little worse.
He started spamming the DPS meters in Party, and in Guild. And he cast Army of the Dead the very second the Keristraza activated, meaning that Bronze had to mash his buttons to try and keep aggro in his direction. After we all survived the fight... luckily.
Myself and Bronze pointed out his error with Army of the Dead and explained about the Dragon Boss NoseCone damage. The new guy apologised, again politely.

And then 5 minutes later he left the guild.

Now me and Bronze weren't particularly hard on him. And anything I said about my concerns was in officer chat only. So why did he leave?

Because I was right all along. There was something Not-Munqui about the guy. Maybe he was just a little immature, maybe he bought his account on eBay, or maybe I'm just Psychic.
Either way, he'd be welcome back into the Tribe, because he didn't do anything 'wrong', and he even said goodbye before he /GQuit, so maybe we'll all see him again.

Do you think we were too harsh on him? Maybe us older and wiser players expect too much of newbies. We all know the rules about dragons facing away from the group, and that it's not socially acceptable to spam DPS meters between every trash fight. But how would a newbie know?

A Born-Again Arsehole?

I did something unusual yesterday.

I invited a known asshole back into the guild. This guy had been kicked a while ago, for flaming other guildies... what the f*ck was I thinking?

Maybe it was exhaustion from running 6 Heroics in one night. Or maybe it was boredom from jumping at an instance portal for 10 minutes straight to try and get in. But by chance... while jumping at that bloody instance portal, our group happened to come across the asshole in question.

He was a freind of a well respected guildy, and I'd never heard of him before. Apparently he wasn't in the guild very long last time, so maybe I just missed him. I was quickly told who he was, and what had happened last time. But I got talking to him anyway, and he seemed to admit everything that he'd done wrong. And felt he had changed, or at least that he could be different from now on.

I like that in people... Honesty. You can be the biggest jerk in the world but if you're open and honest about it all then people might not be your best freind, but they usually get used to you.
After re-reading that last sentence, maybe it's because he reminded me of myself?

The question is... Have I done the right thing? Can an arsehole really reform? Or is a d*ckhead a d*ckhead forever?

Festival Faux Pas

I logged on last night, and made myself look dopey.

Someone asked in Guildchat for a tank for the Brewfest Boss. My reply was "Sry but festivals aren't my idea of fun". Now, on the face of it, what I said was true. I usually don't bother with the festival events. I'm not into collecting achievements or costume sets, or the gimmicky stuff that most of the festivals are about.

The one exception was the fire festival, which came in handy while I was levelling for the XP and damage buffs it provided.

But no sooner had I dismissed the Brewfest event, than Bolle and Vind started to laugh at me. It turns out that some of the best Tanking trinkets in the game actually drop from the Brewfest Boss, and he's repeatable as a daily quest by every member of your party. So effectively you can have 5 chances per day to pick them up. Or more if you tag along with other groups or do it with alts.

Both the trinkets provide +170 Stamina. That's not to be sniffed at in anyones book. So luckily 2 of the guildies took pity on me and came along to help me have a couple of tries at him.
First go, he went down easily. But no trinket for me. Although the Brewfest Ram dropped, we all needed and Naru won.
We then used Narus attempt at the boss, and again, no trinket for me.
We couldn't use Biafras go, as he'd already done it that day, but Naru re-logged to give us a 3rd try.

Unfortunately something went wrong, I got feared and the mobs charged at Biafra and Naru, wiping them in seconds.
I carried on fighting the boss, using bubble-healing, a pot and my LoH, but it wasn't to be. I got feared again, and again, and while I couldn't defend myself or attack them the mobs spanked me to the graveyard.
You only get one try, you can't abandon and retry the quest. So that was the chance wasted.

Oh well, lessons learned. And I guess for the next week or so, if someone asks for a tank or healer for the Brewfest boss I won't be so casual about saying "no".

Healy Holy vs Tanky Spanky

If you've read my previous post, you'll know that I healed last night.

Not my soul, not my broken-heart, not the rift between me and my long-lost brother who lives in Bora-Bora and is married to the leader of a tribe of Amazonian women. No... none of the these mythical things.
What I healed was real... I healed guildies. And I healed them heroically.

If you've been following this blog, you'll have seen me mention that Tanking is my Main-Spec. I plan to keep it that way. However, I couldn't help but enjoy the feeling of well-being I got from keeping people alive last night.
Maybe it was just nostalgia from the Karazahn days, or the fun feeling I get when I feel like I'm mastering something new. (My macros and new set-up made it alot easier to handle).

I liked it.

My healing gear is very minimalistic. Its nothing more than crappy AH blues, and 1 epic set of legs that dropped randomly (which I haven't even bothered to gem and enchant). But I still managed to heal heroic Violet Hold and Utgarde Keep, with zero wipes, and only the occasional death from an over-aggro'er (which doesn't count because it serves them right).
Actually, I died once myself, but that was due to the stupid Axe from the last boss in UK, that just wouldn't leave me alone. But that doesn't count.

With a decent set of healing gear, I could definitely see myself healing a raid. The mechanics are just the same as I remember, apart from the whole Beacon of Light issue, and Judgements of the Pure, Oh and Sacred Shield, Oh and the Overhealing changes, Oh and not forgetting the shared healing from Holy Light. But apart from all that, it was just like the good old days.

Obviously some things have changed from TBC days. Bu underneath it's still the same point-and-click-and-click-and-click-and-click pattern that it used to be. Tanking will be staying my focus, but it's good to know that I've still got the healing hands. And can dust them off if needed.

I really do need to get an addon for Beacon-of-Light though. The macro helped alot, but it still wasn't up anywhere near 100% of the time.

Let them eat cake

We have an issue in the guild. It's not unique to our guild, and I'm pretty sure every guild out there suffers from it. Particularly bigger guilds. But more and more people are pointing it out to me, so people are obviously finding it more noticeable.

Elitism.

Now, there's two ways of looking at this. At first glance, 'Elitism' sounds like a bad thing. It conjours up visions of snobbery and looking down on others. Or ignoring those less gifted than you are. But there's another way to look at it too:

People have commented that the officers and ex-officers of the tribe always seem to get priority for Raid spots, or Heroic groups, or are much more likely to get help if they ask for it. Sounds like a fair comment to me. The officers themselves have dicussed this issue, and there's no simple answer to it.

Officers (and Ex-Officers) are players too. Most of us have been playing together for upto several years now. We're obviously freinds. And what do freinds do? ... ... They help each other out.

Also, having played for a long-time, many of the officers are also highly skilled players, or experts in their class(es). They are also the kind of person who is willing to accept advice, and help advise others. If they weren't, they wouldn't be officers. The officers in the Munqui Tribe don't get paid. We don't use guild funds for repairs. And, on average, we actually use the guild bank less than the non-officers.
So the officers are already sacrificing their 'game' time, to help run the guild. That's an important word... 'Game'. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. "Officers are players too".

So lets take an example:

Last night Biafra (an ex-officer) asked for a group for a heroic... any heroic. (He's emblem farming, similar to myself). Within a minute he had a full team. Made up of Myself (GM), Vind (Officer), Vedd (Officer), and Spud (Non-Officer). No one else volunteered.
The original plan was that I tanked, and Vind would re-spec. But that would have been a waste, and I felt confident that I could heal enough in simple heroics like VH and UK.

I was right. But how did I know I'd be able to cope? (I ran HoL with another team the other day, and although it was sucessful, it was also a bit of a wipe-fest).
The reason is "I know all of those players well". I've been in countless heroics / raids / encounters with that exact same team before. And I know what Vind is like as a player, I know he's a more than capable tank. I know that Vedd is a Rogue master, since he's been playing one for years, I knew that Kaleo (Biafra's Shammy) could hold his own, since I've teamed with him several tinmes in the last week. And I knew that Spud (on Dups) knew how to be a DPS DK. So I had faith in myself, because I had faith in my team.
If it had been made up of guildies, but ones that I didn't know very well, I wouldn't have offered to heal, because I wouldn't have felt it was possible.

These are my freinds, and I have faith in them.

After VH, Vind and Vedd needed to leave. A quick shout in guild-chat got us two instant replacement DPS. Tins (an officer) and Argas (on Xerxis) (Non-Officer). Both of whom I've teamed with god-knows how many times before.

Now at this point some people will moan. They'll say "Well, whenever I ask for groups, I never get any replies, or if I do, they take forever to set up... How come when an officer asks they get a group straight away?!"

The answer is simple. The officers, ex-officers, and the players who have been in the guild for years are established and respected. People know what they are capable of, and know that they are reliable and skilled. If 'NoobyJohn' joins the guild tomorrow and starts spamming guild-chat asking for groups, people aren't always going to jump to help him, because they're not sure if it's going to be a wipefest, or if that new guildy is a fun person to play with.

So given the choice, what would you do?

More Examples:

For this next section: If you're an officer reading this, imagine you're not an officer. If you're not an officer reading this, just imagine you're you.

Your freinds, who you've been playing with for years, are discussing whether to run a heroic, or do some other fun thing. You're obviously going to be welcome to tag along with them. And you know it'll be fun, and you'll get emblems and drops, even if things don't go well.
'NoobyJohn' is online, and is asking for a group for a Heroic Nexus run. You need an epic drop from the Nexus. And you know that your freinds group definitely won't be going there, because one of them did it earlier. What would you do?

Put yourself in the position of 'NoobyJohn' who's not an officer, and has only been in the guild for a few weeks / months:

'NoobyJohn' thinks this guild is crap. He logs on every day this week, and he's been dying to get a Heroic Nexus run to get a quest item, and hopefully the random epic he knows drops from Kerestraza.
He feels that he's being ignored by the rest of the guild. And maybe he is. Because while he's been begging for a Heroic Nexus run, Lisje has been asking for a Voilet Hold run. But NoobyJohn didn't think to volunteer to help her instead.
He'd still have got emblems, and random drops. And he would have shown to the other guildies, who have no idea who he is, that he can be trusted, and is a reliable player.

Now put yourself in the position of an Officer / Ex-Officer / One who you consider to be 'Elitist':

We'll use Grenth as an example (no offence Grenth). Grenthal is grinding dailies for cash, and for that hard to reach Sons of Hodir rep. He needs about 2k gold for his epic gems and 'enchantment of uberism' on his epic socks. He sees NoobyJohn asking for a group, and considers it, but he wants to focus more on improving his bank balance. So doesn't reply.
Vind then logs on, and asks for a group for a group for Violet Hold. Grenth immediately offers to help Vind out... Why?
Because Grenth is a player too. He knows Vind well, and he knows that any run with him is probably going to be quick and succesful. He'll happily put aside his rep and gold grind for a short while, because Vind has helped Grenth recently in instances that Grenth needed and Vind didn't. Grenth will also make a profit out of the run, because he knows it won't be a wipe-fest. And while he's wearing his Wyrmrest tabard, he'll also be gaining rep towards the dragon he'll eventually pick up.
All NoobyJohn sees is Grenth immediately jumping to the assistance of Vind, he sees Elitism, and it pisses him off.

I garauntee that if NoobyJohn had helped Lis out one day, and wasn't a complete arsehole, Lis and the others he'd teamed with would be much more willing to help him out next time he asked.
If the runs he's involved with keep going well, before long, he'll find himself able to get a group much more easily.

Now NoobyJohn isn't the only one seeing this problem, people who've been in the guild for a while, also see the same thing. But put yourself in the position of others, and then decide if they're being 'Elitist Pigs' or they're just doing what you would do.

It's a 'Game'. People play games for fun. People play games with their freinds. Freindships take effort.

And if, after reading all this, you still think that we're all snobby, stuck-up, arse-licking, brown-nosing, elitist bastards... ... ... Tough Shit. (There's only so much explaining I'm prepared to do).

Balancing Act

My gearing up for my new Paladin is going quite well. He's now got epic Helm, Boots, Shield, Legs, Gloves, 1H Weapon, Belt, 2x Rings and Neck.

So I've just got to sort my Cloak, Libram, Shoulders and Trinkets. The majority of those will probably be coming from emblem rewards, so the randomness of drops isn't much of an issue any more. He's now upto about 27k HP Unbufed, and 29k with self-buffs. A big improvement from the 22k he started with.
The only thing I've got to watch for is the Defense Cap. I've had to switch alot of my +Stam enchants and Gems for +Def again. The sooner I can get rid of those the better, as it will mean even more HP. Emblems are my freind in this matter.

So, with that in mind, I've been trying to run as many Heroics as possible. It would seem that I'm becoming easier to keep alive, as there haven't been as many wipes as there were when I first began my tanking career.
I still have a little difficulty maintaining my aggro against a 1-1 DPS'er. Particularly Ret Pallies and DK's. They've often pulled aggro from my main target when I've had to switch targets to taunt them off a healer / squishy.

I'm not totally sure if this is entirely my fault. I've always been a believer in the "You taunt it, you tank it" philosophy. Overaggro is no ones freind. And since when did Omen stop being a 'required' addon?

The overaggro'ers are usually fulyl epic'd or raid-DPS spec'd. So maybe they're just used to their tanks being uber threat generators, who couldn't lose aggro if they fell asleep mid-fight. But I'm not one of those... yet.

So for now, I'm quite happy with the way things are going.

For the sake of emblems I also tried doing some healing in my Offspec. This was a mixed result. Generally the healing was fine, but I found myself /OOM too often, and my action bars weren't configured quite right, leaving me missing out on some of the important stuff, simply becaus eI couldn't find it quick enough. Having said that, my attempt at healing HoL wasn't a total failure, the place was cleared. Although repair bills were probably higher than people expected them to be.

After the healing run, I re-jigged my action bar, equipped a few cloth and leather healing items, to help boost my SpellPower and Intell, and made a few macros for the important abilities like Beacon of Light. I think the macros still need tweaking a bit, but it felt much more comfortable using them.

Healing was fun, and brought back memories of the good-old Kara days. When my previous Pally was one of the guilds main healers. The mechanics are mostly the same, but Beacon of Light takes away some of the required concentration on the tank, when I remember to keep it up.
A little of the frantic whack-a-mole healing has been lost though, and that used to be alot of fun in itself.

I'm planning on sticking to the tanking first though. Once I've got a full tanking gear set, I'll look at picking up an epic healing set. If un-needed stuff drops during my heroics I'll obviously pick it up. I've already got epic legs for that set. But I won't be investing any more money into it at this point.

Panning of Gold

Since hitting level 80 with my Pally, I've been battling to earn enough cash to pick up epics for him.
It seems that these days you're expected to be an uber player from the minute you hit level 80, or you get frowned on even in heroics.

With my Hunter, I had every rep and quest item to the best possible spec before entering a single heroic. What it meant was my DPS was massively higher than everyone elses on every occasion.
Now, months later, my Hunter has had an almost full gear upgrade (mising a few trinkets and rings, simply because I havent come across one better than my blues). And the resut is that his DPS has improved, but everyone elses has improved more. He can still hold his own in a fight where he can stand still and unleash the fury, or AOE the shit out of millions of mobs, but in tactical fights his DPS is a little under par.

Anyway, back to my Pally. I now have epic shield, boots, legs, helm and weapon.
The shield was courtesy of Grenth and his BOE Blacksmithing, as were the boots, my helm is the sob story. I paid out around 500-600g in mats and enchants for another BoE from Grenth, only for a better one to drop first go in Heroic ToC... Bastard. Thats a few days work that I'll never see again.
But it seems it was my night for drops. I also got my Legs, and my Weapon too.
So 3 epics in a day, and my HP has now jumped from 22k (SelfBuffed) to just under 29k. Maybe now people will stop sneering at me when I say I'm the tank.

So after spending a couple of hours questing (and building hodir rep) I'd saved up another 300g, and spent most of it on the AH re-enchanting, and buying gems etc..

I think I still need a bit more practice with my Tanking. I'm getting the hang of it. But I'm still struggling a little bit with multi-mobs. Saying that, overaggro has been a problem from some players. I know that in a raid situation, with a fully geared tank, it's almost impossible to pull the aggro. But with a fresh tank, with nothing but blues, you need to be more careful. Particularly if your fully epic'd yourself. When did Omen stop being an essential requirement at end game?

Anyway, that's enough moaning for now. Things are actually going well with the Paladin. He's already over the Defence cap, I'm already exchanging +Def for +Stam wherever possible, and it won't be too long before he's got a good set of gear and will be able to help out in raids.

Extending my Patience

Blizz has apparently decided to extend the maintenance on the Darkspear server, until around 2pm today. The cheeky Bastards!

They've thanked me for my patience and understanding, but I don't think they appreciate that today was one of the rare days where I'm actually able to play for the full day. I was obviously expecting to be offline until after 10am due to the regular weekly maintenance, but for christs sake...2pm??

If I wasn't enjoying the game so much at the moment, I'd cancel my subscription in disgust.
OK, now that I've gotten that rant out of the way, I've tried to use my time effectively.

So I've had a look at what gear I can pick up for my Pally's Tanking-Set. And it looks like my best options are BOE Blacksmithing recipes for most of the slots.
Meaning I'll be skipping most of the heroic gear altogether, and jumping directly to Raid levels of gearing.

I know Grenth can make some of this stuff, but that means waiting till he's online. So here's my list of required items, give me a shout in-game if you can make them:

Breastplate of the White Knight
Titanium EarthGuard Chain
Indestructible Plate Girdle
Saronite Swordbreakers
Tempered Titansteel Treads
Tempered Titansteel Helm

I might not be able to buy them all at once, depending on what mats are needed. So I'll probably spend today doing some instances, and trying to grind some more cash. A few thousand gold should be more than enough for my needs. And will just leave me needing trinkets, rings and legs.

Craftingness

I've always tried to avoid having a crafting profession on any of my toons.
Sometimes when I've rolled a new one, I've started them out with something I thought might be useful. But in the end I've usually ended up switching it for a second gathering prof.

I've just never really seen the point. Most of the end-game gear is better or equal to the crafted items. And it's effectively easier to get, because it either comes from rep rewards or from instances which other people will also be doing, and also provide additional drops and benefits.

I think part of the problem is that the lower level items produced by crafters are just totally pointless now. Essentially you're going to be grinding out the lower levels, and spending extortionate amounts of gold leveling your prof, just to reach the higher levels where things start to become useful again.
Having said that, I've levelled my Engineering on my new Pally. To the point where I can now use the AH in Dalaran. Now it's cost me around 800-1000g to reach that point. But I've also made some ofthat back by selling some of the crafted mats.
I also have maxed mining skill, but I try never to use my own mats. What I do instead is buyout any underpriced ores / bars on the AH, and then post mine at just under the price of the next highest.
This isn't always posible, obviously, if the prices are stable, and there's lots of an item available, sometimes it's just more sensible to use my stuff, rather than paying the posting fee, and letting the AH take its cut too.

But anyway, the point is realy the crafting. Using engineering as an example:

Between certain level ranges, the lower level engineering items are used in higher level items. For example, blasting powders are used in many items, but the powders themselves are crafted at a much lower level than the items they are created for. This makes sense.

But once you pass the next level of the profession (e.g. Moving up to Grandmaster) all the stuff you've made and learned before that level is wasted. The items are useless to you, and with the excpetion of a few crafted materials they're worthless on the AH and with vendors.

Now, in my opinion, what Blizz need to do is allow items to be recycled (this would especially fit in with the engineering prof). Essentially this is the same as dis-enchanting, where materials are extracted from a crafted item.
You wouldn't get back everything that you put into it. But you'd at least salvage some of the mats to re-use or re-sell.
Or, the lower level items should be useable or transmuteable into higher level items. Think of the skinning Prof. Every skin can be transmuted into a higher version. It might need 10 of a certain skin to make 1 of the next level, but so what? If they don't get used, they'll eventually just get vendor'd.

With everyone who's trying to level a profession needing to make exactly the same items just for the sake of levelling, they're bound to be worthless to others, or have little value on the AH.
I know Blizz like their money-pits, but in the case of professions, they're going to be making enough back anyway. Do they really need to have us vendoring all of that crap?

With all that said, I'll be sticking with my engineering, although I won't be pushing hard to max it. It was more for the AH and the funnily-useful stuff like portable mailboxes and repair bots, rather than for epics.

Dings and Dongs

Well what a surprise that was!

After spending the day slowly levelling my Paladin, through his final level, I got called up to DPS Malygos because some of the raiders hadn't turned up.
I'll be honest, after waiting nearly 35 minutes to start (which is a long time when you were called in as a replacement), meaning that we only agro'd him just after 9pm, when the raid was due to start at 8pm. I was almost ready to say "thanks, but no thanks" and go back to my pally.

But I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did. First try we got to Phase 3 in plenty of time, but about 8 of the raiders were dead within seconds of phase 3 starting. After a quick but effective explanation from Vind, and a demo of the skills using the daily quest dragons, we tried again. The bastard just would not go down though. We got him to 1.8% before the wipe.

Spurred on by our almost-win, we tried again. Didn't do so well on the 3rd try, but on the 4th attempt down he went, easily. Most of the raiders were still alive by the end of it, and the chat screen flooded with achievement dings from all of the players. Good job all....

So after that hour or so of distraction, I relogged on my pally. With only 200k XP to grind. And 20-30 mins later, he Ding'd too.

So off to IF to learn all my final skills, for both specs. And then to the AH to empty my bags and begin my hunt for Epics.
In the last 2 levels of grinding I've made another 2k gold, so I've got a good amount to start me off.
My best investment was a TitanSteel Shield Wall, courtesy of Grenths BS. They sell for around 600g on the AH, but the mats were just short of 400g. (There's a profit to be made there if there are any goblins among you).
I could have also picked up the Tempered TitanSteel Treads, and Helm. (Again selling for 600g, but mats at 400ish) But 1 Epic was enough for the night. And I didn't want to spend all my money at once.

So today I'll check what rep-rewards are available, and then begin my next grind. To achieve 540 defence. I'm at 495 already, so it shouldn't be too hard to reach. (The 2 BS epics might even push me upto that anyway).

So, all in all, it was a good night.

Final(ish) Destinations

Not planning to play much last night, I logged on while watching Final Destination 3.

Somehow, while watching a couple of bimbos get their boobs fried on a sunbed, a steroid abusing meat-head get his melon squashed by a gym machine, a nail-gun accident that some Goths would beg for, and a roller-coaster ride that makes Blackpool Pleasure Beach look almost 'safe'. I managed to ding to level 77.

I wasn't particularly trying very hard. And I was intended to go to Zul'Drak next. But at the Dalaran FP was a priesty type of NPC offering to give me quick transport to Sholazar. So why not?

100's of Rhinos, Sabres, and Giraffes later, with a bang and a flash, I levelled. Spent my extra talent point on some non-Prot related talent, Soulstoned to Lagaran, and logged off.

Apologies if I didn't say goodbye. But the film was coming to an end, and I'd already been online for longer than I expected to.

Levelling Tip #136:
Place a cheesy film on your TV, pay very little attention to it, apart from the obligatory nudy scenes, of course, and the levels will just fly by.

ABC.. It's easy as PvP

2 posts in a week about PvP, from a non-PvP player like me... I must be feeling particularly agressive at the moment.

As my post yesterday shows, I'm not at all against PvP content. I'm just not into the ranked matches etc... In my opinion, a good first person shooter shows off my leet skills much better than a turn-based combat system. And there's very little tactical challenge when you need to be within a certain range of any target, to do anything lethal.
Yep... you guessed it... I usually play a sniper in FPS games. And usually a pretty good one at that, patience and planning is my area of expertise.

But I digress.

I think more should be done to encourage World-PvP. Outside the confines of arenas, and battlegrounds. Let things take place in the real-world where random factors can come into play, and the tide of a battle can really be turned by calling in re-inforcements from an ally.

Who else remembers the undercity raid that never was? Or the times when capital cities have been under siege by NPC's? Those are fun times.

I've no idea if anyone from Blizz reads this blog. And they probably don't. But funnily enough they seemed to go along with almost every suggestion I made about the next expansion. So there's no harm in trying again.

I suggest World-PvP. I don't mean forcing everyone to join in if they don't want to. That's what PvP servers are for. But I think there should be more encouragement for kicking off fights with the opposing factions.

How about a daily / weekly quest to kill all the leaders of the opposing faction? Complete it all within the week, and you gain a decent stash of gold, maybe like 1k gold.
I know there's an achievement similar to this. But some of us prefer to spend our time doing more useful things.
If the reward for killing all the leaders was 5k, and could be repeated weekly, how many people do you think would farm that quest? There would be alot more confrontation, as capital cities were constantly raided, and leaders slain.
At the moment. If you complete this feat you get... jack shit. Maybe you get a title... I'm not sure.. and who cares. But what if by completing the quest, not only did you get your 1k. But for the rest of the week all your faction also got a buff, or a bonus?
Maybe access to an extra dungeon, like in Wintergrasp. Or to a Buff that simply provides a 10% Rep gain boost?

Here's how I'd see it working:

All faction leaders have a decent amount of difficulty - Say something equivalent to a raid boss.
If a team defeats a leader, then the leader is captured, and imprisoned in the throne room of an opposing faction.
While their leader is imprisoned, that faction has a small debuff applied. (Along the lines of -5% gold from vendors).
Those leaders can be freed by the Hordies defeating the leader holding them captive. This then returns that leader to their throne room, and imprisons our leader.
If all leaders are captured at the same time, then the conquering faction recieves the a buff for the rest of the week. (10% rep, or extra gold or whatever).

This could help promote a constant battle between the two sides, without affecting the overall lore of the game. No leaders are killed in the making of this lore, and no one has to take part iof they don't want to.

And keep in mind that by Cataclysm, there'll be 6 leaders for each side, that's a big mission for someone to take on. So maybe the rewards need to be higher.
I wouldn't suggest any DPS style buffs / debuffs as a reward though, as that could take alot of balancing.

The one big downside I can see to this is framerates. Some of the capital cities already struggle just to deal with the number of people they hold. Start an all out war inside them, and watch the servers meltdown.

Does my HP look big in this?

Managed to get some more questing done last night. As well as a normal Azjol-Nerub run with Bolle, DM, a PUG'd DPS, and my old freind Skullz (now known as Volkan).
Turns out that Bolle, and Volkan are now in the same raid guild together... Small world eh?

Random Violence must have a pretty decent raid team, since they left both Bolle, and Volkan out last night. But their loss is my gain. And AN went down without a hitch. Apart from a bugged boss that totally regen'd once he reached 20% HP. The fight lasted about 5 minutes, and we could have kept it up, but we realised it was definitely a no-go'er and a quick Divine Intervention on Bolles preist, meant a quick wipe, and a quick recover. The same boss went down within about 30 seconds on the next go... Pussy.

My Tanking felt a little smoother this time. At least to me.
Marking macros worked well. Remembered to keep Divine Plea up most of the time. And chain pulled whenever possible. Now that I've got my rotation set-up things don't seem quite as hectic during fights.

Since we couldn't find a big enough group to do any other runs, we broke the party up and went off to do our individual things. Personally I went back to the Grizzly Hills, and cleared every single quest in the zone. Giving me a Ding, and I'm already 60% of the way to the next level.

So Smythadin is now officially Level 76, and a half. At no point, in any of the quests in Grizzly hills, have I struggled. I don't think I've even seen a graveyard there. And that includes solo'ing all of the 'group' quests. Prot-Pallies are just too powerful.

The nearest I ever got to death was solo'ing an Elite with over 100k HP, plus 4 adds, plus the 8 worgen he summons during the fight. He got me down to about 10% HP, and he was only at 20%. But even then, all I had to do was click Lay-on-Hands and down he went.
After the fight I even realised that I'd forgotten to pop my trinkets and uber-buff. So more fool me, I could have saved myself the shame of using my 'oh shit' button.
The quest was 'Hour of the Worg', in case you're interested.

Then it was off to defeat Ursoc the bear-god. And luckily enough she was already lying there dead. The quest didn't require me to kill her, just to sprinkle some ashes on her corpse. So bingo, another quest done, and some nice blue plate legs, and a blue shield as a quest reward. Excellent.

I also made the nooby mistake of not reading quest text, so went to the area where you have to set fire to some trolls, and started killing them. Only thing is, they respawn very very fast. So I ended up in a continous fight for about 10 minutes. But at no point did my HP drop below 50% or my Mana below 90%. I was even able to re-read the quest text during the fight and /facepalm myself for being an idiot. Without focusing on the fight.

So I've now cleared Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, DragonBlight, and Grizzly Hills. So next it's off to Zul'Drak, where the armies of the undead and demons have no idea what they're in for.
If bears and trolls stood no chance against the uber-pally, the ghosts and ghoulies had better take a few days off.

It's taking me about 5 hours per level, but that includes travelling time, and time spent at the AH, and waiting for groups etc.. I think the actually levelling time would be about 4 hours per level if I quested non-stop. So if I can get some time online tonight, then I'll ding 77, and should be looking to hit the level cap probably just after the weekend. Then it's rep grinding time.

I've also sussed why Blizz is only adding 5 levels to the next expansion... They don't need any more.
At level 76, for both my Prot and Holy specs, I'm now wondering where to place those last few talent points. In neither spec wil they actually add to my main jobs of tanking or healing. So they're getting placed into extra DPS, which is always a bit of a bonus.

With Blizz only adding 5 levels to the expansion, that means only 5 extra talent points to play with. And probably only 1 more link in each talent tree. The points are probably going to be pretty uneccesary though.
Unless Blizz change the whole dynamics of combat, my Paladin at level 85, will still be just as unkillable even if he didn't have the extra 5 points.

Damn... that turned into quite a long post. I was only planning to do a quick 2 minute update on my Pally's progress. I think I'll go for a lie-down now.

World of Warcraft: Catechism

Once upon a time, many many years ago. A young(er) man sat in front of his out-dated PC, playing what he thought was one of the best games he'd ever seen.

The graphics were vivid and colourful, the scenery was beautifully rendered, and the multi-player atmosphere was generally very welcoming. He felt that he was actually part of a major storyline, and was sharing those adventures with the other players around him.

And then he made a decision. He had always wanted to try something different, something even mroe immersive. So he pulled out his wallet, blew the dust off his cash-card and went out to pick up a copy of World of Warcraft.
The graphics weren't as good, the scenery wasn't as nice, the multi-player side of things seemed so overwhelming that it was almost easier just to play the entire game as a single-player and never speak to anyone or share an adventure.

And for all his efforts, he was also having to pay £9 a month, for the privellege.
But for some reason, many many years later, he's still paying his 9 quid, and wouldn't seriously consider going back to his original game. Even though it ran better, looked nicer, and didn't have a monthly fee.... ... But why?

World of Warcraft was dominating, back in 2006 when I began to play it. And by that, I don't mean that it was at the top of the charts, or the best game around. I mean it was 'intimidating' and 'daunting' and lot of other 'ings'.

Guild Wars, where everything is instanced, and the only time you'll even see someone outside your group is in a city, felt very much like the game was on rails. It was a semi-safe environment.
You couldn't even reach the next area without being a certain level, or completing a particular quest.

When I first logged in to Azeroth, and got myself out of the starting zone, the world was my oyster. If I'd wanted to walk from one end of it to the other, I could have done. And it would have taken me hours. And then there was a totally seperate continent, more dominated by the opposing faction, that even today I haven't fully explored.

I loved the fact that not everyone was on the same side. And that if I saw an Orc wandering around in the same place I was, that he'd probably be looking for a fight, and have 10 mates secretly hidden behind a nearby rock.

And then TBC arrived. I missed the actual roll-out because I was moving between houses at the time. But it stopped the Orc from being my enemy. The years I'd spent talking about the 'dirty-hordies' now seemed a little pointless. They were now just people who I couldn't speak to, despite them playing the very same game. I'd see them in the same zones, doing the same quests, and occasionally we'd even help each other out without ever saying a single word or emote.
It felt.... weird.

WotLK didn't help much either. It was the same old story. Apart from the guards in cities, everyone else seemed to have completely forgotten about the old rivalries. They were doing the same quests, and helping the same NPC's as I was. What was the point in being on one side or the other?

I know the storyline was moulded to make the two factions team-up(ish) to defeat a common foe. But if that's the case, how come we still can't speak to each other? Or actually create teams together?

Cataclysm has been announced, and hopefully it will do something to renew the hatred between the 2 sides. I've always wondered if I should have rolled on a PvP server?
I'm not a big PvP player, but it would add an extra dimension to the game if there was always a risk when I was outside of my homelands.

The Orcs and the Humans, The NElfs and the UnDead... we're not supposed to play nicely together. We're supposed to hate each other with a passion, and even if we have a common goal, we'd still give each other a kicking if we thought no one was looking.

So I've got my fingers crossed. That when the new expansion hits, some dirty-hordie will jump out from behind a random tree and spank me. And then I'll have to call in my mates, and he'll call in his mates, and we'll all sort it out like the mass-murdering, plundering and pillaging, homicidal 'Heroes' that we all are.

So paint your faces in blue biro, put on a skirt, grab the nearest dealy object, and repeat after me:

"Our enemies who art nothing but scum. Hordies be they name. Thy time has come, thout will be done. On Azeroth, as it was in early 2007."
"Give us today are daily quests, and forgive not our trespasses, as we do not forgive those who trespass against us"
"For ours are the kingdoms, the power and the glory, forever, and ever Amen!"