If there's one thing that stays the same in Classic, it's change.
Or, more specifically, how I deal with guilds.
I'd gotten used to getting invites to guilds as just part of the game. I configured Classic to auto reject guild invites, but I would still get pings on the average of once a day. And not from people nearby or during 5-man runs (or other groupings), but just random guild invites. I treated those with politeness, and if they responded in kind I made a point to not specifically block them.*
The past few weeks, however, I've seen a complete sea change in guild invites.
The guild invites from grouping have pretty much dried up for now**, but the randoms looking to fill out raid slots have spiked. And since Cardwyn is in the low L40s right now, that means she's been getting no guild invites whatsoever. The guild invites that Az gets, as she's sitting at L54 as of this posting, include things like "we'll help you get to L60 so you can raid with us". Even after I point out that raiding isn't my priority, the guild invitees respond with "we've got raid gear for you, and we'll run PvP Battlegrounds as well!"
Now, I've not bothered to look at the needs for Onyxia, Molten Core, and UBRS runs, but I'm pretty sure that Rogues are kind of far down the list. After all, the best interrupt abilities of a Rogue don't necessarily work with non-humanoids, and one of the other abilities (Expose Armor) interferes with a Warrior's Sunder Armor and can cause a Warrior Tank to lose aggro during a fight.
Flattered? Yeah, sort of, but I'd rather not join a guild when they sound so obviously desperate.
Besides, I've kind of made it known enough times that I'm not that interested in joining a guild, because of my history of dealing with guild drama. I get that crap at work, and I don't need it following me home to my hobbies as well.
On the flip side, I do know at least one fellow player who is trying hard to find a guild that fits. She*** has been in a few guilds, but for some reason or another they simply don't work for her. All she really wants is a guild that she can run instances with at max level and just relax and have fun, but she hasn't found that yet. I've told her I'll keep an eye out, but I've not seen as many guild invites as before.
Guild invites are one thing that has changed, while another is that the Auction House has changed yet again.
When Az got her mount in the upper L40s, one sure way to generate gold was make Mageweave Bags and sell them on the AH. It wasn't a lot on Myzrael, but it was about 70-90 silver a bag. Silk bags went for about 40-50 silver, which was pretty good now. So among the fishing that Az performed --to get lockboxes and other assorted rarer fish used in cooking recipes-- I had Cardwyn make a bunch of Silk and then Mageweave bags, ship them over to Az, and have her sell them.
Now that it's time for Cardwyn to get her own mount, however, it looks like the Mageweave and Silk bag market has collapsed.
If anything, it looks like the mats market is doing better than expected, and I'm going to have to study it for a while. But it seems profoundly weird that I can sell bags to a vendor for more than what they're going on the AH right now. Runecloth is the major exception in the bag department, because unless you're willing to go with Mooncloth's pricing Runecloth is the best you can easily get.
I do suspect that part of the reason for the bag market collapsing is that enough people have alts that can easily create bags now, so there's not much of a need for bags from the AH. It also seems the same thing happened with lower level cloth gear, as I used to be able to sell some of that Cardwyn made gear for a decent profit and that has collapsed as well.
So.... Off to work on Cardwyn's fishing skills, I guess. Or start farming mats to sell on the AH.
*I only had to block one guy who simply wouldn't give up and take no for an answer, but in general they've been a decent enough bunch.
**Watch me get one the day this posts. It's just karma, you know.
***I'm going off of the toons she creates, as I've not actually heard her in Discord or something.
Or, more specifically, how I deal with guilds.
I'd gotten used to getting invites to guilds as just part of the game. I configured Classic to auto reject guild invites, but I would still get pings on the average of once a day. And not from people nearby or during 5-man runs (or other groupings), but just random guild invites. I treated those with politeness, and if they responded in kind I made a point to not specifically block them.*
The past few weeks, however, I've seen a complete sea change in guild invites.
The guild invites from grouping have pretty much dried up for now**, but the randoms looking to fill out raid slots have spiked. And since Cardwyn is in the low L40s right now, that means she's been getting no guild invites whatsoever. The guild invites that Az gets, as she's sitting at L54 as of this posting, include things like "we'll help you get to L60 so you can raid with us". Even after I point out that raiding isn't my priority, the guild invitees respond with "we've got raid gear for you, and we'll run PvP Battlegrounds as well!"
Now, I've not bothered to look at the needs for Onyxia, Molten Core, and UBRS runs, but I'm pretty sure that Rogues are kind of far down the list. After all, the best interrupt abilities of a Rogue don't necessarily work with non-humanoids, and one of the other abilities (Expose Armor) interferes with a Warrior's Sunder Armor and can cause a Warrior Tank to lose aggro during a fight.
Flattered? Yeah, sort of, but I'd rather not join a guild when they sound so obviously desperate.
Besides, I've kind of made it known enough times that I'm not that interested in joining a guild, because of my history of dealing with guild drama. I get that crap at work, and I don't need it following me home to my hobbies as well.
On the flip side, I do know at least one fellow player who is trying hard to find a guild that fits. She*** has been in a few guilds, but for some reason or another they simply don't work for her. All she really wants is a guild that she can run instances with at max level and just relax and have fun, but she hasn't found that yet. I've told her I'll keep an eye out, but I've not seen as many guild invites as before.
***
Guild invites are one thing that has changed, while another is that the Auction House has changed yet again.
When Az got her mount in the upper L40s, one sure way to generate gold was make Mageweave Bags and sell them on the AH. It wasn't a lot on Myzrael, but it was about 70-90 silver a bag. Silk bags went for about 40-50 silver, which was pretty good now. So among the fishing that Az performed --to get lockboxes and other assorted rarer fish used in cooking recipes-- I had Cardwyn make a bunch of Silk and then Mageweave bags, ship them over to Az, and have her sell them.
Now that it's time for Cardwyn to get her own mount, however, it looks like the Mageweave and Silk bag market has collapsed.
If anything, it looks like the mats market is doing better than expected, and I'm going to have to study it for a while. But it seems profoundly weird that I can sell bags to a vendor for more than what they're going on the AH right now. Runecloth is the major exception in the bag department, because unless you're willing to go with Mooncloth's pricing Runecloth is the best you can easily get.
I do suspect that part of the reason for the bag market collapsing is that enough people have alts that can easily create bags now, so there's not much of a need for bags from the AH. It also seems the same thing happened with lower level cloth gear, as I used to be able to sell some of that Cardwyn made gear for a decent profit and that has collapsed as well.
So.... Off to work on Cardwyn's fishing skills, I guess. Or start farming mats to sell on the AH.
*I only had to block one guy who simply wouldn't give up and take no for an answer, but in general they've been a decent enough bunch.
**Watch me get one the day this posts. It's just karma, you know.
***I'm going off of the toons she creates, as I've not actually heard her in Discord or something.
I think rogues are one of the top dps classes in Classic raids, but I'm guessing mainly that guild will be looking because of the upcoming BWL launch and needing rogues to disarm the Suppression Room...
ReplyDeleteWell, "top DPS classes" is kind of deceiving. Beyond the burst damage a Rogue has, their best utility is kind of limited depending on the enemy they're fighting. When you're in an instance with a heavy non-humanoid presence, such as Uldum and Strat Undead side, the ability of a Rogue to interrupt or lay down a DoT is kind of limited. Rogues are pretty much built for PvP from the ground up.
DeleteAs for the BWL item, I was wondering. I saw some data about a month ago that Rogues were the least popular class on Myzrael, so if there's a sudden premium placed on Rogues, that's actually kind of funny.
Yeah, but we were talking raids here. In Classic raids utility is needed a lot less or at least not in large numbers. Might as well get one utility guy and fill the rest of the group with dps. :D You can see here that all the top damage dealers in MC are warriors and rogues.
DeleteYou know, you're being kind of polite saying that the top damage dealers are Warriors and Rogues. Sure, Rogues might be #2, but when you look at the numbers it's more like Warrior - Warrior - Rogue - Warrior - Warrior. Rogue might be #2, but obviously only the very best Rogues out there --likely running Combat spec-- are at the top. It's a LOT easier to be a top DPS as a Warrior.
DeleteRogues are the #1 single target dps class in classic as long as it's specced for it, generally, into BWL, and then trading back and forth with warriors through AQ40. Mages will overtake us both come Naxx.) I've been playing a rogue and we are top in MC unless our really well geared (Obsidian Edged Blade-using arms or dual Deathbringer-wielding fury) warriors have lots of execute space. The vast majority of rogue raid dps is white damage, so the most important thing is to keep slice and dice up and then find ways to weave in as many eviscerates as you can without dropping S&D.
DeleteOf course this all means I am not pvp specced and get destroyed there. PVP spec gives you better stealth (the difference between "heh, I see you 10 feet away lul" and "where did YOU come from?!?"), attendant move speed in stealth and something much closer to stunlock. On top of that, the hemo build requires daggers and I made the mistake of going swords in pve.
The biggest issues I am having at the moment is respec cost and the grind. I want to pvp, both for (limited) gear and for enjoyment, but that creates such perverse incentives. So few people run dungeons now, what with most everyone on my server at 60 and few people playing alts, that the gold from running a dungeon is more or less closed off, while the crafting meta is pretty much "solved", so the only way to make money is to whore yourself out for tips (lock boxes, mage portals, lock stones), and I think this addresses a bit of your post, farming mats for professions, or making some gold from consumables. Now I am looking at 50g respecs and spending more time farming than raiding or pvping. While they screwed a lot of things up with future changes, arguably Cataclysm being the start of the unfixable ones, a lot of the QoL changes like spec viability and dual spec were better than any drawbacks they brought in.
Rogues like Az, who run Subtlety, are kind of few and far between. I rarely run into another Rogue who is running something other than Combat, but I'm also stuck at L55 which is the "slaughtering zone" for AV. (Well, anything less than L58 means that you're a lot easier to find and pick off by the enemy in a BG that goes from L51/52 - L60.)
DeleteAnd yes, S&D is the biggest bang for the buck out there, even for specs that don't use the Improved Slice and Dice. But me, I can't give up Improved Sap for the world. I use it religiously in difficult pulls in instances, even with the 90% success rate being lower than I like, but I've found the utility so important that I can't see respeccing out of Subtlety for raiding purposes.