PVP Changes in Cataclysm

This topic is rather old, but I think it's interesting.

"■Honor points: These are the lower-tier PvP points, and will be gained from most PvP activities. There will be a maximum amount a player can have, but no cap on how quickly they can be earned.
■Conquest points: These are the higher-tier PvP points, and will be awarded from rated battlegrounds and arenas. There will be a cap on both the amount owned as well as how quickly they can be earned."

So what does this mean exactly? It means pretty much the same system as now, with the exception of rated battlegrounds giving you conquest points.

This brings up one major concern for me now.  Rated battlegrounds will more than likely increase the number of battleground AFKers, because who wouldn't want to earn free arena points?  Even though I'm sure you'll either get MORE points if you win, or none at all, people will still do it.

Additionaly, seeing as I'm Alliance now, I'm screwed on rated battlegrounds. /facepalm  Why are all of you content to just hand a victory over to the Horde?  Because they win more and you automatically assume we're done for the moment you zone in? 

I did a number of random battlegrounds on my warrior last night and EVERY time, one group of 3 people to mage tower, one group of 3 people to the dranei ruins, and THE REST OF THE TEAM ON THE FLAG..ZOMG GET THE FLAG!!!  This strategy is stupid and guarantees a loss, because as the horde will typically do, take their two points, leave the flag alone, and launch an attack party at a third base.  Which, myself being one of the three people at said control point, start swearing up a storm because the rest of the Alliance is still content to get the ZOMG SHINY FLAG, MUST GET!!!  Well hey, that's great.  You've got the flag, and nowhere to capture it.

There is some good that will come of the changes to the pvp system though...

"Most PvP items will have their personal rating requirement removed."

This opens the previously unattainable high end pvp gear to players who may not like arena, or may not perform well in arenas.  Also, and most importantly, this opens weapons to those players who do not have access to higher end raid content weapons due to either not raiding or the position you fill in the raid not affording you the chace to aquire the weapons you need (i.e. sword and board tank wanting a sweet two hander..well assuming the weapons have the ratings removed).

Source

Back on the topic of rated battle ground for a parting note:  If there's going to be rated battlegrounds, I want an R rated one.  A panty raid on silvermoon.  Well, actually, that's more than likely a BAD idea.  Who knows what the male butt elfs wear.  *shudder*

Good bye Area 52. I'm going old school.

So I was going to try to keep from writing about this, but writing is a good catharsis for me...

The first thing I will say is that I really believe now that 90% of people aren't who they seem to be. When you play this game, you form friendships with people... whether its intentional or not. It just happens because of the social aspect of this game. You spend hours each night with these people so that you can kill a douchelord who likes to spit up ooze on you, throw beach balls into your face, or bombs all over the room and blow you off the platform.

Maybe its a personality flaw of mine... I hate to think its a flaw, but maybe it really is... I have faith in people - regardless of all the shit I've been through in my life. I placed faith in a group of people and thought of them as friends. I did a lot for the guild and these people... yet a couple of them found it to be fun to pin something all on me and then portray me as the bad guy.

I found out that these people were saying that I did nothing at all for the guild - I only did what I did because I was told to do it which is the complete opposite of what actually happened. Everything I did was done on my own time at my own will. I also found out that they said they only kept me in the guild because I was just a "hot voice in vent".

Just to give you an idea of what I did for this guild - I created the banner for the guild website, I created the guild application, I kept tabs on the guild bank - I could recite to you from memory what was in that bank and who took out what or deposited what, not to mention I sank about 3k gold to help start that guild bank. I also talked to recruits because a couple of officers didn't want to saying that "they aren't a people person". Whenever someone had a problem they came to me. If someone got GKicked, that person messaged me and I had to play Public Relations. I've even had other officers/GMs of other guilds come to me with a complaint. Not to mention that if the GM/Raid leader wasn't online at raid time, I started the raid group and had to make the decision on who to take to raid and who to sit out... and I did my absolute best while in raid.

Thankfully, a few people stuck up for me and had my back - regardless of their personal feelings for me, they found it childish and ridiculous. To those few, I thank and will always be grateful.

Because of the drama and amount of hurt they caused me, I'm leaving Area 52. Now, I know that regardless of where you go, drama happens... It will always happen because of the number of people who come in contact with each other... but I just can't stay on Area 52 because of transpired... what this drama entailed (I didn't go into the "meat" of this drama), and the people involved... Unfortunately, I'll never be able to escape what happened because of these people.

I'm going to Tichondrius. I'm going old school. Tichondrius is a PVP server that has been around since the first day. I'll be joining my brother's guild, Blur. They are the #3 guild on the server and are currently working on killing Lich King Hardmode in 25man. Right now, I'm not geared to join in on their Hardmode runs, but I am able to run with their alts (who are nearly as geared as my priest) to get gear and clear content I have yet to see.

Well, anyway... I guess my only advice is to keep your eyes open... It doesn't matter how comfortable you get with a group of people or how good of friends they seem, there is always the possibility that they'll turn on you whenever they feel convenient or even funny.

To my friends staying on Area 52 - I wish you all good luck and I'll see you around.

To the people who talked shit about me - I hope you grow up and see the error of your ways. You lost a friend - the kind of friend that is rare. Its sad that you got your jollies off by listening to my voice in vent... its sad that you disregarded the fact that I'm a real person... a person who would have done anything for you as a friend and anything for the guild.

Mixing RP and Other Servers

Okay, before I get to the main topic, one thing needs to be said:

Me and my big mouth.

I'd written yesterday about how I only tank in emergencies when LFD spewed me into Violet Hold.  (What, you were expecting that I'd be watching Lost?  Nah, that's my wife's addiction, but it did allow me some play time.)  Well, it was a strange grouping, to say the least.  Two mages, a Tree, a DK tank, and Quint.  The first three looked like new 80's judging by their gear, while the tank and I were a bit more on the purple side.  The first bunch of pulls went okay if slow; I had to really dial back on my hits to keep from pulling aggro, and the mages didn't have a lot of firepower.  We got the Void Demon boss, and about 4-5 minutes later we knocked him out.

Then, a couple of pulls into the next phase, the DK tank stops moving.  "I'll BRB; have to go move clothes to the laundry room," he says.  "Pally, you tank."

While I was trying to formulate a response, the next portal opened.

"Use Righteous Fury," was his parting shot.

I know that, I thought.  I just want people to keep me upright.

Luckily, the trash mob was just a Portal Guardian, so that wasn't so bad.  I could see my health bouncing around like a ping-pong ball, and at one point I dumped Lay on Hands on myself, but I survived.

Then DBM announced "Boss Incoming."

Oh.

Crap.

About the only good thing I could say then was that it was the Water Elemental boss.  "Tank?" one of the mages called.  "You back?"

No reply.

"Joy," I said, and pulled aggro.  I almost immediately dropped to 1K, and had to do something to preserve myself.  Lay on Hands was on cooldown, so I had no choice but to bubble and then chase after the boss before she turned the Tree into so much splintered wood.

Finally, the tank returned from doing his laundry and pulled aggro.  Everything returned to normal, sort of.  "Hey, you did fine," he said.

"Dude, if you look up 'tank' in the dictionary, you won't find my name there."

That's what I get for displeasing the WoW gods.

Now, on to other business.  I was perusing the Battlegroups listings yesterday when I noticed that the roleplaying realms were grouped in with the PvE and PvP realms.  Since both the Arenas and the LFG tools use those listings, I wondered why the RP servers were set up that way.  You'd think that the RP servers would be grouped together, so that there's not a lot of metagame talk going on, but I guess that's not the case.

For those of you who play on RP realms, do you simply suspend your RP for the duration of those instance and BG runs?  From the perspective of a long time PnP roleplayer, it would be very hard to remain in character while everybody else is talking about other stuff.  (Yes, I know, that assumes people are talking at all, but still...)  What do you do?  Do you try to remain in character?  Do you even bother?  Should the RP realms be grouped into their own separate Battlegroup to preserve their identity?

One last item (I swear) and then I'm done for the day.  The last couple of runs through Halls of Stone, I've noticed a couple of interesting things:  DBM no longer provides a countdown in the Protect Bran encounter, and there's an AoE that happens after the archive voice says that things are fine.  For the former, it's an add-on, so I'm not surprised too much about that.  As for the latter, at first I thought it was a debuff that someone had not paid any attention to, but during yesterday's run the healer exclaimed "WTH is that?!" and he immediately died.

"Did anyone see anything?" he demanded.  "I was at full health, the encounter was over, and then BAM!"

"I didn't," I replied while I rezzed him.

"I wasn't even close to the beam, either," he added.

Interesting.

Tanks and Tanks Once More

Who, me?

No thanks.  I only tank in emergencies.

However, I'm thinking about the tanking writer of this blog.  The one who loves his DK Tank and has some old fashioned love for his long suffering Warrior Tank.  The same one who isn't sure what to do with creating a toon to run through low level instances with.

Yeah, I know, he could do a Pally tank, but he has one of those, and he's not thrilled with him.

He already has a Warrior.

So why not be a Big Bear Butt tank?

Okay, I know one reason he'd have issues:  the Night Elf in general.  Aside from that, however, Druid Tanks hold their aggro quite well, thank you very much, and I have to admit I've got a lot of respect for the Druid Tanks I've pugged with.  No, I'm not suggesting he hang out as a Tree --that's not his style-- but a Bear?  Yeah, I can see that.

It Needed to be Said

93 Quests down, only 2907 to go.

Not sure if I'm going to bear listening to "Good Health, Long Life!" for the next several months, however.  (Obviously these Draenei quest givers have never set foot in an instance.)

Just in Case you Don't Read It

Go now.

Go to Achtung Panzercow and read Linedan's Top Ten Predictions for Cataclysm.

If You Can't Beat 'Em...

...join 'em.

I now have two toons loaded to the gills with Heirlooms.

However, I have one big issue:  just who the hell approved the design for [Mystical Pauldrons of Elements], anyway?  They make Tomakan look like he's got antennae sprouting out of his back.  He's a Paladin, not a TV repair guy.

Hardware Review

I have a new toy!

I just recently purchased a new mouse, as my old one was on the fritz.  I went all out this time, purchasing something that would enhance my game play and give me more readily available buttons for macros.

I just recently started getting into the rated arenas, and found out how nice it would be to set a focus target and have macros scripted to do things to my focus target, and not have to worry about manually swapping targets.

I asked some guild members what sort of mouse they use, and what they would recommend.  The answer came back:  Razer Naga.  So as per usual before dropping a chunk of money, I did some research to find out if it all 17 buttons will be worth the money.

I found a world of warcraft player that actually has become sponsored by Razer, and has started making videos about how it's increasing his game play and giving out free equipment to viewers.  It's kinda cool, and amazing that he actually got sponsored.  Talk about a dream job...



I have now had about a week of play time with the mouse, and adjusting to the feel of the very sensitive laser as well as the plethora of buttons has been fun.  My hand is very comfortable resting on this mouse, and I don't get cramps after long gaming sessions as I used to with my old mouse (Logitech G5).

I'm still trying to figure out how to best use all of the new buttons, but it's giving me something to toy with and in the long run, I feel will help out the gaming experience (and it has 17 buttons).  This thing has so many buttons, that in the little packet of papers included, are little rubber pads you can stick on to the keys to help train yourself and develop muscle memory...  How crazy is that!?

Ascetically, it's a very pleasing mouse.  It just looks nice... the symbol on the palm sorta pulses and the mouse wheel having it's own light is just well, it's gaudy. But it looks nice!  And I am very pleased, as I mentioned before, with the way my hand rests on the mouse.  The left and right click have sort of a channel where you fingers rest, and even the third finger has it's own spot to rest off to the right of the mouse (sorry pinky, you still get to dangle, but not uncomfortably so).

3.3.5 Time Draws Near

You raiders have a new toy to play with very shortly, Assault on the Ruby Sanctum.

Enjoy!

Halfway Houses

I occasionally get strange looks when I'm putzing around in The Barrens or Tirisfal Glades, working on low level quests.  I swear that some people must think that I'm the reincarnation of Don Quijote, or that I'm banished by my guild into doing some sort of bizarre penance or something before I'm allowed back into raiding.

Passing through Tarren Mill after having completed a quest from the Hinterlands, I was accosted by a 20ish Hunter loitering around the Bat Handler.  "Dude!  Yr an 80!" he shouted.  "LOL!"

"Yeah," I replied.  "I noticed."

 "U shouldn't be here!"

"I'm not going to be," I said and took the flight path to Light's Hope Chapel.

That didn't hold a Kobold's candle to the crowd that gathered around when I was in the Orc/Troll starting area, working on quests.  I finished a quest and left Quint standing around AFK for a moment.  When I returned, there was a crowd of about eight to ten L1-L5 characters surrounding my Pally.

Okay, I thought, this is weird.  I mean, you just go up the road to Orgrimmar and you can see boatloads of 80s around.

I popped out of AFK, and one of them asked "Are u doing the starting zone quests?"

"Yep."

"Y?"

"I'm working on Loremaster."

"Oooohhhhh," came the collective response.

"Yr crazy!" said one.

"Yeah!" said another.

A third challenged me to a duel, which I declined.

A fourth chimed in with a "That's not hard!"

"Maybe not, but not a lot of people do it."  I took that as my cue to split.

To be fair, the majority of the time I don't get a reaction at all, which suits me just fine.  Other people are doing their business, and I'm doing mine.  Since I'm the oddball high level character in these zones, however, I do try to make myself available should someone need some assistance on a quest.  What's the point of achieving Loremaster if you don't share your knowledge?

I've even had this Loremaster mentality creep over into some of my alts.  My mage, who is at L26, dropped into The Ghostlands to finally try soloing Dhar'khan when she found a L21 Hunter thinking the same thing.  I asked the Hunter what she knew of the fight.

"Nothing.  This is my first character," she said.

"That's fine," I replied.  "Even though this is an alt, I'm still fairly new myself.  We'll do this together."

I told her I'd pull the aggro so we didn't have the entire room on us, and then she could let her pet tank attack and take it over.  The strategy worked, sort of --I held aggro better than I expected-- but the net result was one dead necromancer, and one happy Hunter.

"Thanks so much!" she said.

"You're welcome.  Just so you know, you're about to be doing some traveling on the next couple of quests, so get ready to meet some of the leaders of the Horde."

"Cool!"

Ah, new players.


(Oh, the title of this post?  That's simple, really:  I'm officially halfway to Loremaster.  I'm actually much farther along, but I've only dinged Outlands and Eastern Kingdoms.)

Fully Converted

Hello, I'm Mr. Goodie, and I have two shoes.

I am now the proud owner of three high level Alliance characters.

These last few weeks have been a great deal of fun!  I'm a good guy!  I'm all shiny and crap!  I can take on an entire group of horde in WSG all by my lonesome (Ok, I've not tried that, but there's got to be some sort of appeal to it, as I saw a lot of Allies do that when I was horde).

I've been noticing and have been discussing with my guild the differences in the two factions.  And I'm terribly interested in how playing one faction seems to sway your (you the player, and you the character)attitude while playing the game.  It's the small things that you don't notice that influence your game play until you you've made the change yourself.

For instance, you just click an NPC and they don't want to bite your head off, instead they greet you nicely.  And Jaina in the new ICC dungeon's attitude is completely different than Sylvanas' (well.. for obvious reasons).  But the overall impression you get from her is sort of sad.  They're there to kill the Lich King, but there's a sort of grief about it.  Like they're still getting over the loss Arthas' father and the loss of even Arthas (there's always hope for redemption) - albeit he's a murderous sod who unleashed his minions and inflicted mass genocide on everything living.

It's like the Alliance has been pushed around by the Horde for a while, and they're just now getting back on their feet and establishing themselves.  Which should be interesting, seeing as the new Stormwind King is rather confrontational.

But back on topic, it's interesting to just sit and read trade chat.  Sure there's the occasional asshats that like to troll, but the majority of the talk is pretty decent.  That was not the case Horde-side.  I was absolutely boggled the other day by trade chat as a matter of fact.  Somebody asked a somewhat noobie question and got a REAL ANSWER almost immediately. 

I think this carries over to PUG groups as well.  I've not seen too much bashing of other players.  At least not as frequent as on the Horde.

I'm looking forward to jumping into the leveling group of players in the LFD and really seeing if my observations hold true.

Class Attachment

So, as we're nearing the next expansion, I've had a nagging feeling lately to finish leveling my warrior.  Currently, he's level 73.  This guy originally started out as a level 29 Tauren warrior who was a BEAST in the level 29 bracket.  This was back when having a "twinked" character was just becoming popular.  I did so much Warsong Gulch with him that he earned the rank of Sargent in the old ranking system, while  my main character was a stone guard.

My point being, the warrior has been around for a while, but has NEVER been at max level and doing end game stuff.

I've always had a sort of fondness for warrior tanks, as being a squishy rogue raiding Molten Core, I was amazed when our main tank could take up to two of the giants at the same time!

And not only that, but watching old pvp videos like those of High Warlord Pat, just gave me an awesome feeling. (It's funny, now, how small those numbers in the video are)

Warriors are raw, they fully commit to the fight or they die.  There's no nifty get out of jail free card.

So what's holding me back from leveling it out fully?  The frustrations I get when tanking.  It has to be a world of difference once you get geared up, but tanking at my level (while I can do it successfully) seems to be more work than it's worth.  It's not so much that you have to change targets and weave in some cleaves and a devastate or revenge here and there, it's feels like a constant struggle to keep everything focused on me.

Maybe I've been spoiled with my DK's abilities like placing an AOE anywhere I want to grab incoming enemies and having a spiffy pulling mechanic to get casters all lined up nice and pretty for AOE.

I'm thinking now's the time to at least max out level and wait and see how the DK revisions are panning out.  I still love playing my DK, but with a reworking of the entire mechanic, a reworking of the DK talent trees to make blood THE tanking tree, and a reworking of the vital tanking stats, I'm afraid of another brutal balancing act by Blizzard.  At least this way I'll have options once Cataclysm is released.

But this all raises an interesting question; and one I've been thinking about recently.  What drives you to play a certain class?  It is role choice?  FOTM?  One ability you love and can't do without?

ZOMG I CAN DO 28K DPS ON AOE TRASH I'M BETTER THAN YOU!

Ok, so this past week we had a new Boomkin join our guild. His gear was good, and at first he didn't really say a lot. Which I could understand since he was new to the guild and I guess getting a feel for who we are.

Last night in raid, we found quickly that it was a mistake to invite him. I should've known that someone with a gearscore as high as his that is unguilded is so for a certain reason, but we gave him a shot.

Now what I want to know is how someone who was able to get the gear he as not know what LoS means or not know to stop DPS when he pulls aggro off a mob the tank is not on... Not to mention why someone like this feels the need to whisper people asking for a mage table or tell them how to play their class.

After globally muting him in Vent, we continued our run. We get to Rotface and we decide to go ahead and take a 5 min break to wait for our Sated Debuff to wear off. What does this boomkin do? Hearths and goes to Orgrimmar... We didn't have a warlock in the raid last night so we couldn't summon him back.. /facepalm

He then asked us for a summon. Uhm... no lock.. so what does he do? Starts spamming trade for a mage portal.. instead of you know... taking the zep to Borean Tundra and flying over to ICC. No, I guess that would be easy... so we booted him from the raid and from the guild... and OF COURSE, I get the whisper from him asking why he was booted. It was explained to him that he was annoying everyone when whispering them about how to play their characters, how when a tank was trying to LoS a mob (scientist), he would start dpsing it and keeping the mob from coming around the corner... AND how when he pulled aggro on a mob the tank wasn't targeting, he wouldn't stop dps. Me and the other healer purposefully let him die because he continued to do so and I was sick of seeing the aggro indicator come up on his name.

It was then he decided to call Nate a little bitch and that he was the best player in our guild. No, sorry... when you do 6k dps on a boss and NEVER switched to adds when you're supposed to, have no situational awareness, and consistently annoy the piss out of everyone in the raid, you're not the best player in the guild. No one gives a fuck if you can do 28k DPS on AOE trash when you die 30 seconds into a pull.

I swear I'm a magnet for retards. This is why I added the question "Do you have Downs?" to our guild application.

Drop Drip Drop

I may not like it, but I've gotten used to people porting in, seeing the instance and/or gear scores, and dropping.  Heck, I've kind of gotten used to people dropping after a wipe -Halls of Reflection will do that to you- or even after a boss.  When someone actually apologizes and leaves, I consider it a victory for civility.

But if there's one thing I'll never get used to, it's when people drop in the middle of a pull.

What sort of person does this, anyway?

I know that others have written about it -Darth Solo, Vidyala, and Tam, among others- but the lack of respect for your fellow player is just ridiculous.  We're paying for the privilege to operate in an MMO world, and as much as some people fly solo (guilty as charged) you still have to interact with people to play the game.  People will talk to you; you can be an ass and ignore them, but the courteous thing to do is reply, even if you're not interested in what they're saying.

What got me all worked up about this?  I got queued up for two 5-man runs today: Halls of Reflection and Forge of Souls.  Both of them had instances wherein someone dropped mid-pull.  In Halls of Reflection, it was the Healer midway through the waves of trash between the first and second bosses.  Naturally, when the Healer goes in that place, the tank almost immediately bites it, and so does everyone else.  The second one, in Forge of Souls, the Boomkin warlock died right after pulling aggro on the trash in the run-up to the Bronjahm.  Rather than wait for a rez or releasing and running back, he just dropped.

Now, in both cases, there was no lasting damage.  We had delays in the runs, but that was it.  But the lack of courtesy -especially in the HoR run- really got under my skin.  Just like what the warrior DPS in an Utgarde Pinnacle run last night told the rest of us:  he was abused by the tank in the previous 5-man he was on because he was pulling so low a DPS.  I mean, he's a new 80, and instead of trying to tank Heroics he's trying to DPS them to pick up gear to improve his DPS.  What more could you want?

I'm aware of the general consensus out there in the blogosphere that the LFD tool has enabled or exacerbated this sort of boorish behavior, but my contention is that even without the tool the MMO community has been gradually moving in this direction anyway.  The MMO world is a reflection of society -a geeky segment of society, no doubt- and it was only a matter of time before the lack of civility out there in our society found its way into all aspects of WoW.  Even I got tired of Trade Chat and dropped it from my channels, and that's saying a lot.  I used to think that if these people who are spamming trade chat were forced to say that out loud in a public gathering, they'd shut their mouths a bit more often.  Sadly, I think that won't deter a lot of these people.

What I'm afraid of is that the boorish behavior in MMOs is now becoming the norm, and people like me who want some courtesy among strangers are now on the sideline.

Love - Hate Relationships

I spent the early morning and then the late evening running lots of 5-man heroics.  I don't normally chain run a bunch of them at a time -hell, I don't normally have the time to do that either- but since I'm going to port a character loaded with heirlooms over to Ysera, I'd better make it count.

By the end of the day, my head was kind of spinning.  Some of the highlights of the runs included:

• A Forge of Souls run wherein I replaced a DPS who went AFK right before the Devourer of Souls.  Apparently he never mentioned anything and didn't disconnect, but he just stopped moving.  So I was brought in, we zapped the Devourer of Souls, instance over.  Had to be the quickest instance I've ever been in.
• A later run in the Forge of Souls where I actually had the music turned up.  What's with all the guitars and musical references with The Brohnjam?  An inside WoW joke about a developer who plays a lot of air guitar?
• An Azjol-Nerub run wherein I don't die.  I've had this bad streak lately where I'm the one that gets pounded, and I'm getting sick of it.  Even when the tank has a good lock and I'm on the side or the rear, Anub-arak spins at the last second and grinds me into the dust.
• A stupid tank move in Utgarde Pinnacle.  You know how Ymrion makes everyone cower in fear several times while he buffs himself?  Well, the tank was in a hurry and decided to pull the last trash mob up into Ymrion so that "we could get this done quicker".  Well, guess what happens when you're cowering in fear and there's trash wailing on you?  Yep, you take lots of damage.  The tank assumed that, but what he forgot was that the healer was also cowering in fear.  No healer, no heals.  Oops.  Once the tank wiped, the Hunter's pet became the tank for the last 1/3 of the fight.  Amazingly enough, even with Righteous Fury turned on I couldn't pull aggro off of that pet; the pet held aggro better than the tank did.
• A Drak run where the healer said "pull the whole room, I'll cover it".  I groaned.  The tank stared at him.  "Oookay," she said at last, and proceeded to do it.  For a change, the healer actually delivered on his boast.  "I'm just tired of this place," he said as we pressed onward.
• A Halls of Reflection run where the healer was on the verge of dropping.  "I don't think I'm good enough for this," he said.  "You'll do fine," I replied.  And the remarkable thing about that run was that nobody did die.  (Yes, it does happen.)
• A Trial of the Champion run where I bit it because I was "standing in the green goo".  Well, newsflash, Blizz:  I was outside of the green goo by a good margin, but I still was dropping as if I were standing in the middle of the stuff.   The lag monster bites again.
• The tank that got lost in The Oculus, and tried to tank on a Bronze drake.  I should mention that I did ask beforehand if anybody was going for an achievement, and nobody spoke up.  When one of the DPS noticed the tank getting a Bronze, he took a Red drake.  Good thing he did, because the tank died on the final fight trying to tank it from the Bronze, and then because the Green drake was spending so much time trying to heal the tank the Red drake dropped.  In the end it was just me and the Green drake in a race against the last boss to see who would drop first.  Miracle of miracles, the boss did.  (Then the tank -in a hurry to get back to claim his loot- flew by a whelp and killed both himself and me.  Sometimes life is not fair.)
• Oh, and we got the big ol' doggy boss in Violet Hold, so both I and the Mage pulled out our corehound pets before the fight.  "I couldn't resist," I told her, and she agreed. "It was like a Pug vs. a German Shepherd."

Sandwiched in between all of these runs were several uneventful instances.  Well, there was the one time where the tank ported in and started running, but when the healer hollered "I have no mana!" that kind of brought that little game to a stop.

Ah, what fun indeed.

Good Advice

Here's one of my fellow tank's explanation on how to tank the Rotface fight.

It's Good to be Back

I had a nice surprise awaiting me when I logged in this morning.

Twenty five mails of stuff.

And one corehound pet for each toon.

I haven't seen the e-mail from the results of the investigation, but at least my stuff is back.  I was a bit rusty in UK and ToC, tho.

Two BC Races - A Study in Opposites

It's been mentioned before on this blog that a race's starting area is designed to influence your thinking and enhance the viewpoint of that race.  That's what makes the Forsaken stand apart from the other Horde races:  enemies on every corner, they are consumed by vengeance; hemmed in and reviled by the living, they learn to give as well as receive; hunted by the Scarlet Crusade, they despise them as much if not more than the Scourge.  The Tauren have the lush, rolling fields, the spirits and hunting paths to guide them; and the Orcs and Trolls learn early that the world is a rough place and you have to claw and fight your way if you want to survive.

The starting areas are what make the two Burning Crusade races such a study in opposites.

Blood Elves are set in their old homeland of Eversong, learning how to cope without the Sunwell.  Some Blood Elves can't handle their addiction to arcane magic, and turn into the Wretched.  The Scourge and Arthas are to blame for this, we're told, but there's hope for the Blood Elves:  they know that there's an Eden awaiting them in a magical place called Outland.  You learn to deal with the Wretched, push back the Scourge from the infected forests of Quel'Thas (renamed the Ghostlands), and wreak vengeance on the necromancer Dar'khan Drathir.

By Contrast, the Draenei starting area is an unknown.  They've just crash landed on Azeroth, hunting for this "Alliance" to help them out with the Burning Legion, not knowing where the hell "here" is.  You start off thinking that your group is the only batch of survivors, and you pitch in to help the group survive.  After a while you discover other Draenei and you are led through the starting area by the hook of finding others of your kind.  You also learn very quickly that Blood Elves have followed you there to eliminate your threat.

Interesting, no?

Having played several Blood Elves, I know without a doubt you never hear about any of the following while you're leveling:

• Draenei
• Outland is in turmoil with the Burning Legion
• You're the bad guy

Likewise, the Draenei haven't heard (as of yet in the toon I'm playing) of any of the following:

• The Scourge
• Arthas, Illidan and their relationship to the Burning Legion
• You landed on the Blood Elves' homeland

When you play a Blood Elf, you have absolutely no idea there's something wrong in Outland until you reach 58 and can port to the Blasted Lands.  Then, right before you go through the Dark Portal, you have that conversation with the Draenei and the Orc leaders, you start to wonder WTH is on the other side.

I have no idea if the Draenei are fed a steady diet of "hate the Blood Elves", but if the BE model is transposed onto the Draenei, they won't have an inkling up until they reach Outland that a whole boatload of despised, evil Blood Elves are now fighting on your side.  Talk about hitting you with a 2x4.

I have to admit that Blizz has done a bang up job in creating stark differences between the two races.  If I develop split personalities later in life, maybe I can blame these two races for my malady.

Hmmm.... What to do.... What to do....

Since I seem to have a copious amount of time on my hands, I've been thinking about the future.  No, not Cataclysm -I'm trying to not think about that too much- but what I intend to do once my main goals of Loremaster and Seeker are achieved.

I guess I should specify that my main goal is to have Quintalan complete Loremaster and Seeker on the Horde side.  Once that's done, I figured I'd slip Quint into semi-retirement, using him to accumulate Emblems for Heirloom items.  (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)  He could chill around Dalaran, or hang on a park bench in Silvermoon and harass the newbies all afternoon. 

"Whining about Dar'Khan Drathir, are you?  You young whippersnappers don't know how easy you have it!  Why, back in my day we got ganked 10 times a day in Tarren Mill, and we liked it!"

"Aw, shut up you old Geezer!"

"Come back here or I'll whack you with my cane!  I'll have you know I got this wound fighting alongside Sylvanas Windrunner herself!  Call me Geezer, eh?  STAY OFF MY LAWN!"

But what after that?

Originally, the plan was to transfer and faction change Quint to follow Souldat and Millalyn to Ysera, but since I can't really finish the Horde side Loremaster that way, Quint will have to stay Horde for the time being.  At the current rate I was on with questing, it would have been about early summer before Quint would ding that last quest to capture both achievements.  With my account in a holding pattern until my stuff gets returned, that timeline will slip into mid summer.

My backup plan was to generate a new Alliance toon on Area 52, load the toon with Heirlooms, and ship him/her over to Ysera to begin a new life.  (And start running instances with similarly leveled toons that Soul and Milla would have.)  I was planning on shipping a Paladin over so I could take my lumps as a Holy Spec without the backup of an overgeared tank, but it might be smarter that I ship my Blood Elf Mage over instead.  She's already at L26 and has all but the Heirloom trinkets.  I'd have to find a decent Alliance toon that has her snarky BE attitude, but that might make the most sense.

Once the toon gets shipped over, then what?  Just run LFD?

Part of me wants to go for Loremaster on the Alliance side, just because I can say that I've covered all of my bases.  (Crazy?  Yes.  Insane?  Nah; it's just another challenge.)  Another part of me thinks that it would be smart to get in early on PVP, so that you don't have to learn what the hell you're doing at 80 in the battlegrounds.  Either way, my time spent online ought to fit with within my budget.

Well, I've got plenty of time to stew over my options, although I definitely wish I had less time right now.  My trigger finger is getting plenty itchy.

Progress? It does exist!

Awesome, awesome raid week with my new guild.

We downed Rotface in 25 man, which was both a new kill to me and the guild.  We also were able, in one night, to get 8 bosses down in icc 10.

The Valithria Dreamwalker fight was really fun.  And it was even more fun to listen to the hoots and hollers after downing (raising?)  a new boss.  As a side note, our one holy pally had a crit heal on the boss for 83,000.  *boggle*

And, on top of that, I joined up with a resto shaman for a twos team, and we got up to about a 500 team rating.  Not bad for the first week.  And I am teamed up with the very same resto shaman and a ret pally for a 3s team.  ZOMG, combine my spiffy new sword from icc 25 + heroism (bloodlust) + ret pally bust damage = something dead and FAST.  Our 3s team is at 739 after my first week of joining them.

All in all, it was a great week of PVE and PVP content.

Being a "good guy" has its benefits.

Arena.. schmarena

So... I lost my 2s partner when Soul left.. I was quite sad because we were actually starting to do well and I had no doubt in my mind we'd be hitting at least 1800 soon. /sigh.

Well, last night before resets, I was asked to do some 2s. I said sure, might as well at least get my 10 games in for the points since I only have 1 upgrade left before I need ratings.

Now, this person plays a hunter... Hunter/Priest? I really couldn't see it working very well, but what the hell, I wanted my points. First map is Nagrand Arena. YAY! This is probably one of my favorite arena maps. We go in and I tried to live as long as I could, but my partner just didn't have the burst to dps down 2 plate wearers.

Second map is Ring of Valor. Not really my favorite, but it doesn't bother me. Both DPS focus on me.. Not really something I'm a stranger to since most people tend to want to pick on the priest... Except I don't think they were prepared for a priest with 1334 Resilience and just under 30k HP. I lived forever it seemed, however my partner just lacked the burst to kill either one of them. /sigh.

Right as I queued for the next match, he says to me in vent, "Are you ready to give up? Cause I am". I was like, uhh no, I'd like to just get the 10 games in. So we go into the third match. The same problem... I live live live live no one can kill me, however my partner's dps wasn't enough. He managed to get the rogue down and almost had the other guy dead as I died... but it really seemed that once I died, he just sort of gave up. MEH.

Fourth game... Dalaran Arena.. one of my least favorites but hey, whatever, I go with what I get. We're up against a resto druid and a ret pally. Ok, I figured this was probably going to be a difficult team for us because my partner lacked the burst to kill the druid and his sustained dps wasn't going to kill the pally. I gave it my all though.. I kept him alive although he was being focused. For the most part, I was left alone running around keeping my partner alive. I knew this team wasn't very versed in Arenas because I was allowed to heal at my heart's desire. Regardless of this, my partner emo-spiraled because I guess he realized how bad he really was and just left the game. Yes. He left the arena mid-battle. I was left alone in there. I left the game, asked in vent if he's just going to give up when it gets rough, and he replies with "yeah". Well eff you too. I logged out of vent and out of WoW.

I'm a pretty patient person... and I think Soul knows this since our first week or so in Arena was rough, but we still had fun. Our 2nd week, we started winning games and we were having a great time... I came from a 2k rated 2s team on my old server, so I do know a bit about it. This isn't to say that I think I'm some sort of pro and I'm this god's gift to arena. I don't believe that at all... but I do believe that to get to a rating like that, you can't just give up. We may not have had the best comp for 2s, but who cares? If you try and do your homework, we may have been able to get some wins in.

This person has pissed me off to no-end a few times before last night. I don't hold grudges.. pretty much just say "Hey you prick, you pissed me off. Don't fucking do it again". Then I just move on. I've done that on 2 recent occasions already... Should I do it again? Probably. Will I? Doubtful. Why is this time different? Because its a trend with him... it doesn't go his way, he'll emo-nerd-rage. Will I keep raiding with him? Yeah, I want to raid... and I won't let personal feelings get in the way of that... but will I continue to do things outside of that with this person? No.. probably not... at least not voluntarily.

A Short Update

 I've received an e-mail from Blizz saying that I've been assigned a specialist in my case, and he/she'll be contacting me via e-mail with the results of his investigation.  My account's password was reset (and lo, I changed it yet again within a week).  They also gave me the standard they'll do their best to restore my stuff and whatnot.

So, at least I've got a little acknowledgment that my ticket has been received.  I have time now to read plenty of WoW blogs while I wait, I suppose.