I've done Hall of Reflections three times now, and the last time was the first one I didn't die on.
Part of this is the benefit of experience. You can read about an instance all you want online, but until you actually do it, you won't internalize the details.
The first time HoR came up in my early morning runs, I was completely unprepared -hell, I didn't know I had the gear capable of it until the picture popped up- and I dropped almost as soon as possible. It wasn't the proudest moment in my WoW career, bugging out of an encounter due to dread, but I knew I wasn't ready. I spent the next lunch hour reading up on HoR online, and when it came up in the queue again, I told myself I'm going to try.
"Oh crap," said one DPS. "@#$%!" said another.
The healer was unimpressed. "It's not a big deal," said the Priest. "You'll live through it."
Of course he could say that; he had a 5900 GS filled to the brim with ICC gear.
The first trash mob, I wipe. Everyone else is busy staying alive, so I figure that the trip is a short one so I release and fly back to the instance. When I get there, I realize I'd forgotten one of the things I'd read online: DON'T RELEASE AND RUN BACK! THE DOORS REMAIN CLOSED!
Luckily, after the first boss the doors flew open and I came back inside. The rest of the instance I didn't die, but it was a very near thing. I'm used to making an impact of some sort, but about half of the time I was healing myself to keep up with the load the priest was handling. I felt very out of place, kind of like the last time I tried my hand at healing an instance.
That brings me to another part of surviving as a melee DPS: understand tanking.
Doesn't seem so hard, right? You let the tank acquire threat, wait a couple of seconds for the tank to get a good lock, and then go behind and start supporting the tank. If the tank directs you to a different target, you go to the different target. If you see something bad getting ready to happen -like the tank standing way too close to the cliff in Pit of Saron that a simple knockback would turn the tank into a skydiver- you call out to let the tank know.
Well, the second HoR run gave me a different insight on tanking.
The first two times the PuG tries, we wipe on the trash. It was getting very frustrating, particularly so since I wasn't able to really get going before I watched in surprise as I pulled threat from something other than the tank's -and my- focus.
Time to reevaluate things.
The third trash attempt, I waited and watched. Those first ten seconds of the trash pull were the hardest ten of my pugging career, as I itched to close the gap and start taking the pressure off the tank. But as I watched, I saw something I hadn't before: the speed of the trash closing in on the tank was incredibly slow, completely unlike the trash in any other instance. The first one or two undead get there at the same time, but the last two or three are up to four or five seconds behind. It was those latter two that were giving me trouble. Therefore, I had to wait more than twice as long as I usually do before closing and starting combat.
Sure enough, that did the trick. I didn't die and I contributed significant DPS to the cause.
This last time I ran HoR -with Souldat as the tank- I put my knowledge to use and waited. Having run with him since the beginning, I knew Soul could handle the hits for a while. That wasn't a hell of a lot of comfort, as I sat and waited like a bump on a log for that last straggler to zero in on him. However, I knew my job was to a) keep myself upright so I could b) lay the smackdown on these undead. You can't do part B if you're a smudge on the floor, and if you've got a warrior tank instead of a DK or Pally, you need to give him/her that extra time to lock down the trash or the instance will turn into a threat-fest.
Each pull is different, and you can't assume that what works one time will work in another. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Anatomy of a Fail
I don't often leave an instance in progress.
Now, I do have limits, but I can tolerate quite a bit. Holding my nose while finishing the run is more like it, and if the offending party is on my server, they immediately go in my Ignore pile. I have been known to report real abuse -like racial epithets- as well.
Today's run in Ahna'khet, however, set a new standard for inanity. I port in and start doing the usual blessings. Also, as seems to be traditional, two people immediately drop. (What, The Old Kingdom not quick enough for you to get your Frost badges?) I, the tank and a DPS hung around waiting for the replacements to pop in, and we're immediately joined by a Holy Spec Pally and a Warlock.
Oho! Another Pally. The early morning runs have a plethora of Druids and Shamans, but few Priests or Pallys as healers. The Old Kingdom isn't a great instance for a Pally to heal, but it can be done. I ping the Pally to ask if he wanted Blessing of Kings or another one.
"KINGS IS GOOD"
Okay, fine.
"I'M HIGH"
Oh oh.
Well, I thought, as long as he actually pays attention, I'll be okay with that. About half the time such announcements are all BS anyway, so I decided to ignore ol' smokey.
So, everybody is squared away and we start the run. The first trash pull seems to be going okay.
"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY LIKE A RECORD"
Crapola.
"I LIKE BIG BUTTZ AND I CANNOT LIE"
The trash pull ends, and we're moving forward. Nobody took any significant damage, so we hit the next couple of pulls and the only thing out of the ordinary is....
"HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME"
"TELL ME DID WIND SWEEP U OFFA YR FEET"
This is starting to get really annoying. I'm beginning to think this guy really is high. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this for upwards of the next half hour.
We get down the stairs to the pulls before the first boss. The tank pulls one of the mobs to him; I wait, rush in, and start hitting things. The previous pull I came close to yanking threat away from the tank, so I'm watching threat closely.
"A FRIEND WITH WEED IS A FRIEND INDEED"
Yeah, whatever. Then I hear the telltale boom of someone acquiring threat. Sonofa... I was WATCHING my threat!
I look over at the meter and I discover that no, I hadn't pulled threat. Then what...
I start getting hit from behind by another trash mob with the magical "On You!" message suddenly appearing on my screen.
"U NO THAT U GOT WHAT I NEED"
The Pally goes running by me from behind.
The tank hollers "WTF!"
I immediately die, followed almost as immediately by the tank and the Lock.
From my vantage point, I can finally see what's going on. The Pally Healer is bopping around to his own weird internal beat, throwing an occasional heal, and in general wandering all over the room, picking up the threat from everything nearby.
I release and start running back, and the Pally Healer drops group.
That's it, I've had enough. I drop group too. "Steamed" was not how I'd describe myself at this moment; more like "a towering inferno of fury."
WoW may be a game, but getting high and running instances isn't going to let everyone else share the love.
Now, I do have limits, but I can tolerate quite a bit. Holding my nose while finishing the run is more like it, and if the offending party is on my server, they immediately go in my Ignore pile. I have been known to report real abuse -like racial epithets- as well.
Today's run in Ahna'khet, however, set a new standard for inanity. I port in and start doing the usual blessings. Also, as seems to be traditional, two people immediately drop. (What, The Old Kingdom not quick enough for you to get your Frost badges?) I, the tank and a DPS hung around waiting for the replacements to pop in, and we're immediately joined by a Holy Spec Pally and a Warlock.
Oho! Another Pally. The early morning runs have a plethora of Druids and Shamans, but few Priests or Pallys as healers. The Old Kingdom isn't a great instance for a Pally to heal, but it can be done. I ping the Pally to ask if he wanted Blessing of Kings or another one.
"KINGS IS GOOD"
Okay, fine.
"I'M HIGH"
Oh oh.
Well, I thought, as long as he actually pays attention, I'll be okay with that. About half the time such announcements are all BS anyway, so I decided to ignore ol' smokey.
So, everybody is squared away and we start the run. The first trash pull seems to be going okay.
"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY LIKE A RECORD"
Crapola.
"I LIKE BIG BUTTZ AND I CANNOT LIE"
The trash pull ends, and we're moving forward. Nobody took any significant damage, so we hit the next couple of pulls and the only thing out of the ordinary is....
"HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME"
"TELL ME DID WIND SWEEP U OFFA YR FEET"
This is starting to get really annoying. I'm beginning to think this guy really is high. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this for upwards of the next half hour.
We get down the stairs to the pulls before the first boss. The tank pulls one of the mobs to him; I wait, rush in, and start hitting things. The previous pull I came close to yanking threat away from the tank, so I'm watching threat closely.
"A FRIEND WITH WEED IS A FRIEND INDEED"
Yeah, whatever. Then I hear the telltale boom of someone acquiring threat. Sonofa... I was WATCHING my threat!
I look over at the meter and I discover that no, I hadn't pulled threat. Then what...
I start getting hit from behind by another trash mob with the magical "On You!" message suddenly appearing on my screen.
"U NO THAT U GOT WHAT I NEED"
The Pally goes running by me from behind.
The tank hollers "WTF!"
I immediately die, followed almost as immediately by the tank and the Lock.
From my vantage point, I can finally see what's going on. The Pally Healer is bopping around to his own weird internal beat, throwing an occasional heal, and in general wandering all over the room, picking up the threat from everything nearby.
I release and start running back, and the Pally Healer drops group.
That's it, I've had enough. I drop group too. "Steamed" was not how I'd describe myself at this moment; more like "a towering inferno of fury."
WoW may be a game, but getting high and running instances isn't going to let everyone else share the love.
Friday, April 16, 2010
On tanking, responsibility, and maturity
On Tanks:
Tanks are a funny breed of player. You have to be the one to charge in head first and thrust yourself between the bad guys and the rest of your group. You have to be on top of your game and pay attention to not only what the current group of mobs are doing, but to what COULD happen. It requires a pretty well developed sence of awareness to anticipate what will happen before it does, and propperly react. You can see that type of behavior pretty readily when doing dungeons. A veteran player will recognize "Ok, in the current set of mobs I'm fighting, the dragon has a knockback ability. The hunter's pet is on the dragon, and the dragon's back is facing towards another group of mobs. I need to reposition the dragon to avoid the possibilty of getting another group joining the fight" versus the oh shit, we got another pack... what do I do now blank stare some of the newer tanks get.
Tanking gets repetative. "hit me, hey you, your mamma's ugly, get back over here, leave the guy in the sissy robe alone." And tanks don't get to see all the fancy large numbers the DPS players get. In fact, you want to be focused on SMALL numbers. I want to see that boss hit me like he's wielding a wet noodle.
To sum it up, tanking is a RESPONSIBILITY.
On responsibility:
Tanks have a large responsiblity to shoulder most times. When is the most opportune time to blow your cooldowns to avoid the spike damage and stay alive? How long exactly can you stand in the fire before you become toast at the same time the boss is hitting you? How well can you coordiate properly executing your regular rotation of spells / abilities while watching for particular fight mechanics and helping to position the boss propperly for your raid?
It gets to be a bit much, and if you don't enjoy that role, the answer is simple. You won't last.
On maturity:
Say you've decided tanking is not your thing anymore, however the guild currenly relies on you to fulfill that role? What do you do?
And me, being the hard head I am, called him out on it in guild chat last night. Followed by a slew of emo behavior and threating to not tank again, ever. Zoh noes.... anything but that!
This culture of instant gratification and self-entitlement needs to die... In fact, I'll tank that fight for you.
Tanks are a funny breed of player. You have to be the one to charge in head first and thrust yourself between the bad guys and the rest of your group. You have to be on top of your game and pay attention to not only what the current group of mobs are doing, but to what COULD happen. It requires a pretty well developed sence of awareness to anticipate what will happen before it does, and propperly react. You can see that type of behavior pretty readily when doing dungeons. A veteran player will recognize "Ok, in the current set of mobs I'm fighting, the dragon has a knockback ability. The hunter's pet is on the dragon, and the dragon's back is facing towards another group of mobs. I need to reposition the dragon to avoid the possibilty of getting another group joining the fight" versus the oh shit, we got another pack... what do I do now blank stare some of the newer tanks get.
Tanking gets repetative. "hit me, hey you, your mamma's ugly, get back over here, leave the guy in the sissy robe alone." And tanks don't get to see all the fancy large numbers the DPS players get. In fact, you want to be focused on SMALL numbers. I want to see that boss hit me like he's wielding a wet noodle.
To sum it up, tanking is a RESPONSIBILITY.
On responsibility:
Tanks have a large responsiblity to shoulder most times. When is the most opportune time to blow your cooldowns to avoid the spike damage and stay alive? How long exactly can you stand in the fire before you become toast at the same time the boss is hitting you? How well can you coordiate properly executing your regular rotation of spells / abilities while watching for particular fight mechanics and helping to position the boss propperly for your raid?
It gets to be a bit much, and if you don't enjoy that role, the answer is simple. You won't last.
On maturity:
Say you've decided tanking is not your thing anymore, however the guild currenly relies on you to fulfill that role? What do you do?
- Not show up entirely even though you've been online all day, only to log off after you find out you cannot bring your grass is greener over here shiny new character, then log back in after the rest if your raid group cannot do anything for the night? But hey, at least you didn't have to tank.
- Post up on the guild forums, realizing you have a responsibility to the group of players you choose to game with and let them know your predicament. Tell them you're willing to continue fulfilling that role until a suitable replacement can be found and express gratitude to the guild for all of the now wasted loot you received.
And me, being the hard head I am, called him out on it in guild chat last night. Followed by a slew of emo behavior and threating to not tank again, ever. Zoh noes.... anything but that!
This culture of instant gratification and self-entitlement needs to die... In fact, I'll tank that fight for you.
Quintalan the Veteran
I've been running instances on an almost daily basis for a couple of months now, and the long road of questing to get to 80 seems a distant memory. Yes, I'm still doing quests for the Loremaster achievement, but it's not the same. The imminent threat of character death lent a different feel to that questing, and since I did my trip to 80 on a PvP server, there was always the "look over your shoulder, someone might be waiting to gank you" aspect to it.
Even the time I've spent running instances and doing heroics has changed my perception a bit. While I'm not a wily veteran like the long time players or the raiders are, I know my way around enough to know what I need to do to survive the instance and not look like an idiot. Although it may sure seem otherwise at times, I'm not a noob anymore. I was reminded of that last night during a run in The Nexus, and the day before in the Pit of Saron.
When I ported into The Nexus and began blessing people with Kings and Wisdom, the first thing one of the characters said after introductions was "does anyone need food?" Then the healer said that he needed to drink after buffing everybody. It had been ages since anyone had even mentioned those two in a heroic instance that I paused and checked out everyone's gear scores. In a bizarre case of turnabout, I had by far the highest gear score of the group.
I made a few mental adjustments and made a point of dialing back my attacks to keep from pulling threat on the first few trash pulls. The pulls went well, if a bit slower than what I'm now used to. Then the tank posted that he had to split; he'd just gotten paged and had to go into work.
No sweat. Real Life comes ahead of a game, and since I'm on a pager rotation I know what that's like. We put in a request for a new tank, and while we waited we chatted about the Stoutbeard encounter just up ahead. At least one party member hadn't heard of him, so I mentioned he's only in the Heroic mode and has a nasty whirlwind attack. A new tank popped in, we took out Stoutbeard after a couple of minutes, and the mage and priest had to drink. We loitered for a minute, let them get back their mana, and we went on to the next trash pull.
Then the second tank dropped out of the party without a word.
"What did I do wrong?" the healer asked. "I did everything I was supposed to, and nobody died."
"You did fine," I told him, and the others agreed. "He was just being a jerk."
"Well, this is my second Heroic instance. Ever."
"You're doing great; I've only been playing since August myself. Believe me, compared to my experience trying to heal Trial of the Champion at the same gear level you are, you're doing fine." I then explained my disaster trying to heal that instance, when we couldn't even get past Palestra; Souldat as the tank was taking so much damage at a pop that even while spamming Holy Light I couldn't keep up.
The story engendered a bunch of laughs. "That's a helluva place to heal for your first 80 instance," the hunter said.
"Yeah, and believe me, you're doing much better than that, Heals."
A third tank ported in, and we resumed the run. We finished with only one character death -due to the spike damage the boss gives in the elemental area- and before I left I complimented the group on the job. Compared to the times I've been in runs where the entire point is to "gogogo!", this was a pleasant experience.
The Pit of Saron also featured a healer new to the instance, and he had severe misgivings about it. "You'll do fine," the tank assured him.
"This instance is built with AoE heals in mind," I added. "I couldn't do it well as a Holy Spec Pally, but you as a shaman should be okay."
We did well, up until after Ick and Crick, when we started having problems staying alive in the vyrkul trash pulls heading up to Tyrannus. A couple of people in the instance had to go repair their gear, and the warlock dropped and was replaced by a mage. "This is getting to be too much for me to heal," the Shaman said.
"Don't worry about it," I replied. "We'll get through this and you'll see it's not a big deal."
We had one more wipe where we pulled too much trash at once, but once we reached the end of the tunnel things went much better with Tyrannus.
"Good job," I told the healer before I left. "Now that you've gotten this under your belt, you'll be that much better at it."
Perhaps I'm seeing myself in these characters, realizing that not very long ago it was me who was in their shoes. I'm taking the encouragement that Soul, Millalyn, and others have given me and am paying it forward. That's one of the best things that I like about the game: the support and camraderie you get from people you may not even know, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.*
Sure, people can be real jerks -or worse- just like in real life, but that doesn't mean that you have to be. I've seen terrible behavior on numerous occasions, but I take that as a "how not to act" and run with it. It might not help the signal to noise ratio in the long run, but it will have an impact on those you interact with.
*One time, when Quint was questing in Desolace, an 80 Pally came riding by. He stopped, a trade window opened, and he started dumping stuff in it. "What do want for this?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"Nothing," he replied. "I'm going to be suspending my account soon, and I'm giving all my stuff away. Do you have any other characters?"
"I priest," I said.
A few more items appeared in the trade window.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Quite sure. Have fun!"
Even the time I've spent running instances and doing heroics has changed my perception a bit. While I'm not a wily veteran like the long time players or the raiders are, I know my way around enough to know what I need to do to survive the instance and not look like an idiot. Although it may sure seem otherwise at times, I'm not a noob anymore. I was reminded of that last night during a run in The Nexus, and the day before in the Pit of Saron.
When I ported into The Nexus and began blessing people with Kings and Wisdom, the first thing one of the characters said after introductions was "does anyone need food?" Then the healer said that he needed to drink after buffing everybody. It had been ages since anyone had even mentioned those two in a heroic instance that I paused and checked out everyone's gear scores. In a bizarre case of turnabout, I had by far the highest gear score of the group.
I made a few mental adjustments and made a point of dialing back my attacks to keep from pulling threat on the first few trash pulls. The pulls went well, if a bit slower than what I'm now used to. Then the tank posted that he had to split; he'd just gotten paged and had to go into work.
No sweat. Real Life comes ahead of a game, and since I'm on a pager rotation I know what that's like. We put in a request for a new tank, and while we waited we chatted about the Stoutbeard encounter just up ahead. At least one party member hadn't heard of him, so I mentioned he's only in the Heroic mode and has a nasty whirlwind attack. A new tank popped in, we took out Stoutbeard after a couple of minutes, and the mage and priest had to drink. We loitered for a minute, let them get back their mana, and we went on to the next trash pull.
Then the second tank dropped out of the party without a word.
"What did I do wrong?" the healer asked. "I did everything I was supposed to, and nobody died."
"You did fine," I told him, and the others agreed. "He was just being a jerk."
"Well, this is my second Heroic instance. Ever."
"You're doing great; I've only been playing since August myself. Believe me, compared to my experience trying to heal Trial of the Champion at the same gear level you are, you're doing fine." I then explained my disaster trying to heal that instance, when we couldn't even get past Palestra; Souldat as the tank was taking so much damage at a pop that even while spamming Holy Light I couldn't keep up.
The story engendered a bunch of laughs. "That's a helluva place to heal for your first 80 instance," the hunter said.
"Yeah, and believe me, you're doing much better than that, Heals."
A third tank ported in, and we resumed the run. We finished with only one character death -due to the spike damage the boss gives in the elemental area- and before I left I complimented the group on the job. Compared to the times I've been in runs where the entire point is to "gogogo!", this was a pleasant experience.
The Pit of Saron also featured a healer new to the instance, and he had severe misgivings about it. "You'll do fine," the tank assured him.
"This instance is built with AoE heals in mind," I added. "I couldn't do it well as a Holy Spec Pally, but you as a shaman should be okay."
We did well, up until after Ick and Crick, when we started having problems staying alive in the vyrkul trash pulls heading up to Tyrannus. A couple of people in the instance had to go repair their gear, and the warlock dropped and was replaced by a mage. "This is getting to be too much for me to heal," the Shaman said.
"Don't worry about it," I replied. "We'll get through this and you'll see it's not a big deal."
We had one more wipe where we pulled too much trash at once, but once we reached the end of the tunnel things went much better with Tyrannus.
"Good job," I told the healer before I left. "Now that you've gotten this under your belt, you'll be that much better at it."
Perhaps I'm seeing myself in these characters, realizing that not very long ago it was me who was in their shoes. I'm taking the encouragement that Soul, Millalyn, and others have given me and am paying it forward. That's one of the best things that I like about the game: the support and camraderie you get from people you may not even know, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.*
Sure, people can be real jerks -or worse- just like in real life, but that doesn't mean that you have to be. I've seen terrible behavior on numerous occasions, but I take that as a "how not to act" and run with it. It might not help the signal to noise ratio in the long run, but it will have an impact on those you interact with.
*One time, when Quint was questing in Desolace, an 80 Pally came riding by. He stopped, a trade window opened, and he started dumping stuff in it. "What do want for this?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"Nothing," he replied. "I'm going to be suspending my account soon, and I'm giving all my stuff away. Do you have any other characters?"
"I priest," I said.
A few more items appeared in the trade window.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Quite sure. Have fun!"
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Guardian of Ancient Kings
This little spell caught my eye in the new stuff in the works for Paladins:
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Do you know what this sounds to me? A Figurine of the Boar spell for Ret Pallys. Woo hoo!
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Do you know what this sounds to me? A Figurine of the Boar spell for Ret Pallys. Woo hoo!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
WTH
The pursuit of Frosties has hit a new low.
I logged in for my lunchtime run, and the LFD tool spat out Utgarde Pinnacle. This should work out, I thought. I'll end up with six Emblems of Triumph, and I'll be that much closer to getting another heirloom piece for my mage.
We did the entire Pinnacle in 10 minutes. Tops.
The tank ported in, began running, and didn't stop. He just skipped right on by the first two bosses and most of the trash, and would have probably avoided Skadi too if he could have managed it. He then hot footed it straight up to Ymrion and, with the rest of us following, we downed him in record time.
Frosties gained, people began splitting even before the loot was divvied up.
And not a word was said. Not a single word. Except for the facepalm that another party member got because he aggroed some extra trash going down the stairs.
Sheesh.
I logged in for my lunchtime run, and the LFD tool spat out Utgarde Pinnacle. This should work out, I thought. I'll end up with six Emblems of Triumph, and I'll be that much closer to getting another heirloom piece for my mage.
We did the entire Pinnacle in 10 minutes. Tops.
The tank ported in, began running, and didn't stop. He just skipped right on by the first two bosses and most of the trash, and would have probably avoided Skadi too if he could have managed it. He then hot footed it straight up to Ymrion and, with the rest of us following, we downed him in record time.
Frosties gained, people began splitting even before the loot was divvied up.
And not a word was said. Not a single word. Except for the facepalm that another party member got because he aggroed some extra trash going down the stairs.
Sheesh.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Tale of Two Pugs
For all of the pugfail I've seen lately (mainly driven by Spring Break, I believe), it's also nice to know that when some bad things happen, some people can step up to the plate and deliver.
Take a Gundrak run a week or so ago. The initial pull started off okay, but then for some unknown reason the Rogue ran ahead of the group and into the snake area and managed to aggro all of the rest of the trash not on the tank. The Rogue, of course, proceeded to die very quickly. The tank was able to get everything else to aggro on him and between he, the Mage and I we were able to take care of the rest of the trash.
The tank then turned on the body of the Rogue and pointed.
"You!" he said. "If you EVER do that again, we're kicking you out."
Properly chastised, the Rogue was rezzed and slunk back into the back of the pack, behaving himself for the rest of the run.
On another run -Halls of Stone, this time- we lost the healer to the second trash mob. One minute he was there, the next we're all saying "Heals? Where'd you go?" Turns out another mob had aggroed on him and he was trying to avoid it. In the process, he ended up aggroing a couple more trash mobs, and he had this pile of Dark Iron dwarves trailing him as he was running away.
Straight. Into. Us.
My, what an ass-kicking that was.
After we all released and ran back into the instance, the healer apologized and for the rest of the run he stuck his tail-end right next to the tank's.
In both cases, we could have easily kicked out the person who screwed up, but after calling him out and giving him another chance, they turned out to be a valuable member of the pug.
No, you can't assume this will happen all the time (or even part of the time, for that matter), but I thought them notable enough that I wanted to mention that yes, it can actually happen.
Take a Gundrak run a week or so ago. The initial pull started off okay, but then for some unknown reason the Rogue ran ahead of the group and into the snake area and managed to aggro all of the rest of the trash not on the tank. The Rogue, of course, proceeded to die very quickly. The tank was able to get everything else to aggro on him and between he, the Mage and I we were able to take care of the rest of the trash.
The tank then turned on the body of the Rogue and pointed.
"You!" he said. "If you EVER do that again, we're kicking you out."
Properly chastised, the Rogue was rezzed and slunk back into the back of the pack, behaving himself for the rest of the run.
On another run -Halls of Stone, this time- we lost the healer to the second trash mob. One minute he was there, the next we're all saying "Heals? Where'd you go?" Turns out another mob had aggroed on him and he was trying to avoid it. In the process, he ended up aggroing a couple more trash mobs, and he had this pile of Dark Iron dwarves trailing him as he was running away.
Straight. Into. Us.
My, what an ass-kicking that was.
After we all released and ran back into the instance, the healer apologized and for the rest of the run he stuck his tail-end right next to the tank's.
In both cases, we could have easily kicked out the person who screwed up, but after calling him out and giving him another chance, they turned out to be a valuable member of the pug.
No, you can't assume this will happen all the time (or even part of the time, for that matter), but I thought them notable enough that I wanted to mention that yes, it can actually happen.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Putting points in the IRL Subtlety tree
I enjoy playing pranks in real life, and especially at work. A good prank can really lighten things up once in a while.
For instance, a fellow co-worker and I have been having a mini prank war for about the last 4 months. He's done things such as steal my staples out of my stapler every day for a week straight, or completely tape up my office chair, or competley rearange my desk drawers.
I, on the other hand, have done things to him like stolen all of his pens every chance I get since the day he started here, applied superglue to a bar of staples every day for three days so a lump of solid glue was on the bottom and watch him get confused why the stapler wasn't working, to even applying glue boards (the kind you use to catch mice) to the underside of his desk and chair (it works GREAT if you put the board right about where you reach natrually to adjust your chair height... just put the glue board there, and lower the chair all the way).
Or adding a command in one of his imaging scripts to just echo a text line that states "dan is a douche." And also adding a line to his local hosts file that redirects his favorite guitar website (he runs a heavy metal guitar forum) to guitarhero.com (which he HATES). That one actually got him to call up his buddy and tell him they've been hacked, LOL!
And the more subtle you can get, the better. For instance, I'm standing in line today buying my lunch and the gentleman ahead of me is acting rather jittery. He's buying an energy drink, sugar, cigarettes, large bag of chips, and 5 hour energy pills. The cashier asks him "do those pills really work? They don't mess with you at all?" To which jittery guy goes "Yeah, they don't make you jittery at all because there's no sugar."
I coudln't help but actually LOL.
So how does this tie into gaming?
Heroics can be rather boring, and bringing some levity to them can really be a fun change of pace.
The setting: Halls of Reflection (Heroic)
The setup: My DK, A fellow guidee Pally tank, and a Fellow guildee on his DK Alt all que up as tank and dps for a random heroic. We then proceed to argue who's going to tank through out the whole first half of the dungeon, complete with taunts flying all over the place, Armies of the dead going nuts, and a boss who's too busy ping-ponging everywhere to actually do much of anything. We really put on a good show.
The truly funny thing though, that was the smoothest run I've ever had of that place.
So this week I'm challenging you to do something unique in a random dungeon.
**Edited in more co-worker pwnage.
For instance, a fellow co-worker and I have been having a mini prank war for about the last 4 months. He's done things such as steal my staples out of my stapler every day for a week straight, or completely tape up my office chair, or competley rearange my desk drawers.
I, on the other hand, have done things to him like stolen all of his pens every chance I get since the day he started here, applied superglue to a bar of staples every day for three days so a lump of solid glue was on the bottom and watch him get confused why the stapler wasn't working, to even applying glue boards (the kind you use to catch mice) to the underside of his desk and chair (it works GREAT if you put the board right about where you reach natrually to adjust your chair height... just put the glue board there, and lower the chair all the way).
Or adding a command in one of his imaging scripts to just echo a text line that states "dan is a douche." And also adding a line to his local hosts file that redirects his favorite guitar website (he runs a heavy metal guitar forum) to guitarhero.com (which he HATES). That one actually got him to call up his buddy and tell him they've been hacked, LOL!
And the more subtle you can get, the better. For instance, I'm standing in line today buying my lunch and the gentleman ahead of me is acting rather jittery. He's buying an energy drink, sugar, cigarettes, large bag of chips, and 5 hour energy pills. The cashier asks him "do those pills really work? They don't mess with you at all?" To which jittery guy goes "Yeah, they don't make you jittery at all because there's no sugar."
I coudln't help but actually LOL.
So how does this tie into gaming?
Heroics can be rather boring, and bringing some levity to them can really be a fun change of pace.
The setting: Halls of Reflection (Heroic)
The setup: My DK, A fellow guidee Pally tank, and a Fellow guildee on his DK Alt all que up as tank and dps for a random heroic. We then proceed to argue who's going to tank through out the whole first half of the dungeon, complete with taunts flying all over the place, Armies of the dead going nuts, and a boss who's too busy ping-ponging everywhere to actually do much of anything. We really put on a good show.
The truly funny thing though, that was the smoothest run I've ever had of that place.
So this week I'm challenging you to do something unique in a random dungeon.
**Edited in more co-worker pwnage.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tank Etiquette
Okay, this is a question to the tanks out there. (I guess that means Souldat, but you never know who else might be reading.)
When a monster drops an AoE on the floor -like the Reanimators in Drak or the Maiden of Grief in HoL- is it considered proper etiquette to pull the monster away from the middle of the floor? I've seen in several runs this past week where the tank just lets the monster or boss sit there while they wail away, but I have to split and then watch remotely after unloading my distance attacks.
I know Soul will pull them out of the center, and I've seen plenty of other tanks that do it too, but the batch I got this week either don't understand that melee DPS can't stand around in the black stuff on the floor or don't care. Or maybe they have tunnel vision and don't notice, which is something I've been guilty of when I've done healing.
Sloppy Sloppy
One drawback to improving my gear is that I've discovered an alarming tendency to get sloppy at the wrong times. The old mantra "gear is no substitute for skill" is still alive, and a Halls of Lightning run this morning (::checks clock:: okay, last morning) highlighted that.
Halls of Lightning = iron dwarves with whirlwind attack
I know it; I've sure lived it. But that didn't stop me from wiping on it.
For the first two or three pulls with the iron dwarves, our group obliterated them before they could whirlwind. So I got careless, thinking that we had these metal monstrosities down pat. The very next pull, we take a bit longer, and they whirlwind. No problem, I bubble and keep on wailing, and we take them out.
Then the next pull comes, and I don't have a bubble and the dwarves whirlwind. What do I do? Keep wailing just a bit too long.
I wipe.
::sigh::
I should have known that was coming.
The moral of the story is, you can't let your guard down. Internalize things. Don't be an uber-geek about them, but you have to be aware of your surroundings. Like not dying by standing in the green stuff.
And using the remote attacks like Exorcism while the Maiden of Grief is standing in the middle of the black stuff on the floor. Sure, you could go run and stand in it, but that's stupid and taxing to the Healer.
Halls of Lightning = iron dwarves with whirlwind attack
I know it; I've sure lived it. But that didn't stop me from wiping on it.
For the first two or three pulls with the iron dwarves, our group obliterated them before they could whirlwind. So I got careless, thinking that we had these metal monstrosities down pat. The very next pull, we take a bit longer, and they whirlwind. No problem, I bubble and keep on wailing, and we take them out.
Then the next pull comes, and I don't have a bubble and the dwarves whirlwind. What do I do? Keep wailing just a bit too long.
I wipe.
::sigh::
I should have known that was coming.
The moral of the story is, you can't let your guard down. Internalize things. Don't be an uber-geek about them, but you have to be aware of your surroundings. Like not dying by standing in the green stuff.
And using the remote attacks like Exorcism while the Maiden of Grief is standing in the middle of the black stuff on the floor. Sure, you could go run and stand in it, but that's stupid and taxing to the Healer.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Seems Like Old Times
Last night was the first night in a couple of weeks that I was able to hook up with Soul for a good batch of runs. Although Soul's wife was unavailable, it was good to get back into the swing of running some instances with the old Death Knight again.
The runs this past night were very enjoyable; I'd snuck in a Culling of Stratholme run just prior to hooking up with Soul, and I discovered that I was pulling threat from the tank. I knew I outgeared the tank -a Warrior- by a minimal amount, but I suspect it was the boost that Paladins get from attacking undead and demons that was causing the problem. Therefore, I was in an uncomfortable position of having to slow down my attacks a bit and keep a careful eye on the threat meter.
You know one good thing about running instances with Soul? He doesn't lose threat much -I can't say "at all", since I've seen it happen with Boomkin every so often- but I don't have to worry so much about losing threat and can pay more attention to important things. Like, say, that puddle of green goo I'm standing in.
Our first run, through The Old Kingdom, turned out great. The early morning runs for some reason avoid two of the bosses and head straight for Ye Olde Herald, so it was refreshing (not to mention nice for the achievement) to actually hit all of the bosses in the instance. The PuG was great and worked well together, and when this run was over four of us stuck around for Violet Hold and Drak'Tharon. The Warlock, Mikaya (sp?), did a great job without overloading on threat, and the Priest Cezz was great too. There was one point in Ahn'kahet where I thought that Soul might have pulled too much at once as I saw his health teeter below 10K and heading rapidly in the wrong direction, but Cezz pulled him back. Having been a healer, I was impressed.
Mik split after the Drak run, but we ran an instance of Forge of Souls afterward. By mistake it was a non-Heroic run, and I had to split for bed before they queued up for a Heroic version.
All in all, an enjoyable night. I didn't wipe -always a good thing- and I got to see some real skill in action. Mik didn't talk too much, so I didn't get to tell her what a good job I thought she did, but Cezz was very chatty and easy to work with. As I told Soul afterward, it's too bad that she is on The Underbog server, because you can never have enough good healers.
The runs this past night were very enjoyable; I'd snuck in a Culling of Stratholme run just prior to hooking up with Soul, and I discovered that I was pulling threat from the tank. I knew I outgeared the tank -a Warrior- by a minimal amount, but I suspect it was the boost that Paladins get from attacking undead and demons that was causing the problem. Therefore, I was in an uncomfortable position of having to slow down my attacks a bit and keep a careful eye on the threat meter.
You know one good thing about running instances with Soul? He doesn't lose threat much -I can't say "at all", since I've seen it happen with Boomkin every so often- but I don't have to worry so much about losing threat and can pay more attention to important things. Like, say, that puddle of green goo I'm standing in.
Our first run, through The Old Kingdom, turned out great. The early morning runs for some reason avoid two of the bosses and head straight for Ye Olde Herald, so it was refreshing (not to mention nice for the achievement) to actually hit all of the bosses in the instance. The PuG was great and worked well together, and when this run was over four of us stuck around for Violet Hold and Drak'Tharon. The Warlock, Mikaya (sp?), did a great job without overloading on threat, and the Priest Cezz was great too. There was one point in Ahn'kahet where I thought that Soul might have pulled too much at once as I saw his health teeter below 10K and heading rapidly in the wrong direction, but Cezz pulled him back. Having been a healer, I was impressed.
Mik split after the Drak run, but we ran an instance of Forge of Souls afterward. By mistake it was a non-Heroic run, and I had to split for bed before they queued up for a Heroic version.
All in all, an enjoyable night. I didn't wipe -always a good thing- and I got to see some real skill in action. Mik didn't talk too much, so I didn't get to tell her what a good job I thought she did, but Cezz was very chatty and easy to work with. As I told Soul afterward, it's too bad that she is on The Underbog server, because you can never have enough good healers.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
To do:
I've been accomplishing quite a few things on my "things to get done before Cataclysm" list.
Kill all of the Alliance faction leaders and obtain a black warbear
Become a grand master in fishing
Become a grand master in cooking
Raise unarmed weapon skill to 400
Get the classic raider achievement completed
Get the classic dungeon master
Get the outlands dungeon master
Get the outlands raider achievement completed - need a bunch still
Get the Orgrimmar tabbard
Kill the Lich King - Working on it though!
Find a guild to experience current raid content with
Get my exploration achievements done - so much stuff I missed out on exploring while leveing being a DK
So, what's on your to do list?
Kill all of the Alliance faction leaders and obtain a black warbear
Become a grand master in fishing
Become a grand master in cooking
Raise unarmed weapon skill to 400
Get the classic raider achievement completed
Get the classic dungeon master
Get the outlands dungeon master
Get the outlands raider achievement completed - need a bunch still
Get the Champion of the Frozen Wastes completed
Get the Glory of the Hero Completed
Do a successful OS 3D - had some very very close attemptsObtain any color Protodrake
Get the of Orgrimmar titleGet the Orgrimmar tabbard
Kill the Lich King - Working on it though!
Find a guild to experience current raid content with
Get my exploration achievements done - so much stuff I missed out on exploring while leveing being a DK
So, what's on your to do list?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Brain... Hurts...
Today, Quintalan has met the enemy, and it is us.*
I had a bunch of good 5-man runs this morning, so when I took a late lunch I figured I'd squeeze in an extra 5-man PuG. Out pops Halls of Lightning, and I figure that'd work; it typically takes 1/2 hour to get the run in, and that'll fit perfectly into my lunchtime.
What I failed to accommodate for was a tank running absolutely wild. You know those entrance passages that have the General wandering around in them? He pulled. And pulled. And pulled. He almost literally pulled everything in that area -including the General- together at once.
I died. The mage died. We both ran back in to help finish the job before everyone else wiped.
We get to the second boss, and we lose the mage again. Because the tank keeps pushing forward, the healer and I can't rez the mage until there's a slight gap in the trash. We then proceed to have a full party wipe twice on said trash.
Somehow we survive the third boss, but then the mage, DK and I wipe twice on trash again. By this time, the mage had had it, and split. The replacement pops on in the middle of the fight and dies. He leaves. We get another replacement, who's spending the entire last part of the run saying stuff like "OMG!" in the party chat.
By this time I'm cursing heavily under my breath, but I want to finish this; we're so close. Then I get a glimpse of who the tank is: he starts talking about his World Cultures teacher, which means he's in high school, and he's probably on spring break.
/FACEPALM
We zap Loken, and I get the hell out of Dodge.
As I got up to get some ibuprofen, I kept thinking to myself, "Six Emblems of Triumph weren't worth this.**"
*Yes, I paraphrased the old Pogo comic strip.
**Four Badges from the run itself and two from the FLG tool.
I had a bunch of good 5-man runs this morning, so when I took a late lunch I figured I'd squeeze in an extra 5-man PuG. Out pops Halls of Lightning, and I figure that'd work; it typically takes 1/2 hour to get the run in, and that'll fit perfectly into my lunchtime.
What I failed to accommodate for was a tank running absolutely wild. You know those entrance passages that have the General wandering around in them? He pulled. And pulled. And pulled. He almost literally pulled everything in that area -including the General- together at once.
I died. The mage died. We both ran back in to help finish the job before everyone else wiped.
We get to the second boss, and we lose the mage again. Because the tank keeps pushing forward, the healer and I can't rez the mage until there's a slight gap in the trash. We then proceed to have a full party wipe twice on said trash.
Somehow we survive the third boss, but then the mage, DK and I wipe twice on trash again. By this time, the mage had had it, and split. The replacement pops on in the middle of the fight and dies. He leaves. We get another replacement, who's spending the entire last part of the run saying stuff like "OMG!" in the party chat.
By this time I'm cursing heavily under my breath, but I want to finish this; we're so close. Then I get a glimpse of who the tank is: he starts talking about his World Cultures teacher, which means he's in high school, and he's probably on spring break.
/FACEPALM
We zap Loken, and I get the hell out of Dodge.
As I got up to get some ibuprofen, I kept thinking to myself, "Six Emblems of Triumph weren't worth this.**"
*Yes, I paraphrased the old Pogo comic strip.
**Four Badges from the run itself and two from the FLG tool.
Monday, March 29, 2010
News Flash
Quintalan learns to switch auras! Film at eleven!
Seriously, I never gave much thought to the aura I'm on when I was running an instance. Just turn on Retribution Aura and have at it. Okay, I've also been known to ignore the Crusader Aura that's been left on while flying around when the summons comes. And yeah, I occasionally forget to turn Crusader Aura on when flying.* (Stop laughing, Soul!)
But intentionally switching auras during an instance? Not on your life.
There were three pivotal moments for that in my aura education: taking out the Sons of Gruul; a forgettable Pit of Saron run; and perusing the details in the recount stats.
The sons of Gruul weren't an instance run. For those of you who quest, you already know that they're 5-man quests found in Blade's Edge in Outland, so why is this doing here? Because when I soloed those quests, I decided I needed more armor than what I was getting with all the buffs I was using, so I switched to Devotion Aura just prior to launching my attacks. Okay, my decision was also made in hindsight, because I felt that the first time I tried and failed to kill the first of the Sons of Gruul it was due to my taking too much damage. Since I wasn't about to simply replace my trusty old Sword of Justice (aka the tuning fork) that easily, I switched auras instead. That little boost seemed to do the trick as I was able to survive all of the encounters with the Sons of Gruul. Translation: even a Ret Pally can use Devotion Aura from time to time.
My second big learning came from a Pit of Saron run that didn't go quite so well. In that run we had one well geared tank who was taking a bunch of people new to the instance, and I was only on my second run at that. Well, we met Garfrost, and he had us for lunch. Twice. After that second wipe, I got tired of watching the frost stacks add up and switched on Frost Resistance Aura to help mitigate the frost damage. Between that and not having to run halfway across the area to find a boulder to break the contact for the frost debuff, we managed to survive that third time. (I believe the tank said "We have to find a boulder to break contact, don't scatter so broadly!" Hey, I was following the tank around. Me no dummy.)
That success with Garfrost gave me the insight that maybe it was better to switch auras more often, like when running up toward the final fight with Tyrannus. Or when the proto-drakes in Utgarde Keep start blasting fire.
My tweaking of the auras still bothered me, because I thought I was losing significant DPS just so I could mitigate the damage. On some of these high end instances my DPS count doesn't look very flattering, so I was wondering if I was hurting myself further in that area by switching out of Retribution Aura. Well, perusal of the recount data proved to me that I need not worry. Damage from Ret Aura was down in the pack after the Seals, Melee, and Divine Storm. With that knowledge in front of me, I felt better making smarter use of my Auras to help the team.
And besides, anything to help the healer works well with me.
*I have my excuses when farming for ore; Crusader Aura plus an epic mount mean that I zip by ore so fast it will occasionally not register in the searching. I've learned to leave Crusader Aura off when farming for Titanium.
Seriously, I never gave much thought to the aura I'm on when I was running an instance. Just turn on Retribution Aura and have at it. Okay, I've also been known to ignore the Crusader Aura that's been left on while flying around when the summons comes. And yeah, I occasionally forget to turn Crusader Aura on when flying.* (Stop laughing, Soul!)
But intentionally switching auras during an instance? Not on your life.
There were three pivotal moments for that in my aura education: taking out the Sons of Gruul; a forgettable Pit of Saron run; and perusing the details in the recount stats.
The sons of Gruul weren't an instance run. For those of you who quest, you already know that they're 5-man quests found in Blade's Edge in Outland, so why is this doing here? Because when I soloed those quests, I decided I needed more armor than what I was getting with all the buffs I was using, so I switched to Devotion Aura just prior to launching my attacks. Okay, my decision was also made in hindsight, because I felt that the first time I tried and failed to kill the first of the Sons of Gruul it was due to my taking too much damage. Since I wasn't about to simply replace my trusty old Sword of Justice (aka the tuning fork) that easily, I switched auras instead. That little boost seemed to do the trick as I was able to survive all of the encounters with the Sons of Gruul. Translation: even a Ret Pally can use Devotion Aura from time to time.
My second big learning came from a Pit of Saron run that didn't go quite so well. In that run we had one well geared tank who was taking a bunch of people new to the instance, and I was only on my second run at that. Well, we met Garfrost, and he had us for lunch. Twice. After that second wipe, I got tired of watching the frost stacks add up and switched on Frost Resistance Aura to help mitigate the frost damage. Between that and not having to run halfway across the area to find a boulder to break the contact for the frost debuff, we managed to survive that third time. (I believe the tank said "We have to find a boulder to break contact, don't scatter so broadly!" Hey, I was following the tank around. Me no dummy.)
That success with Garfrost gave me the insight that maybe it was better to switch auras more often, like when running up toward the final fight with Tyrannus. Or when the proto-drakes in Utgarde Keep start blasting fire.
My tweaking of the auras still bothered me, because I thought I was losing significant DPS just so I could mitigate the damage. On some of these high end instances my DPS count doesn't look very flattering, so I was wondering if I was hurting myself further in that area by switching out of Retribution Aura. Well, perusal of the recount data proved to me that I need not worry. Damage from Ret Aura was down in the pack after the Seals, Melee, and Divine Storm. With that knowledge in front of me, I felt better making smarter use of my Auras to help the team.
And besides, anything to help the healer works well with me.
*I have my excuses when farming for ore; Crusader Aura plus an epic mount mean that I zip by ore so fast it will occasionally not register in the searching. I've learned to leave Crusader Aura off when farming for Titanium.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Getting your money's worth
This is an interesting thing to think about (for me at least).
What qualifications must be me in order for you, as a player, to feel satisfied that your monthly subscription fee is justified.
I've looked at this a number of ways over the last few years of playing MMOs.
First is the the money to time ratio. For $15 you could go to the theaters and enjoy a new release and get entertainment for the next two hours (or less, you cheap Hollywood bastards). Or, for the same $15, you could go out to lunch twice.
For the same $15 though, you could enjoy as much time as you want in your favorite MMO. It's a flat rate. The only expense beyond the monthly fee is time. As with most things, you get better results when you invest more time towards it.
However, a subscription based MMO is a hobby, and a somewhat cheap one when you compare costs of other hobbies.
For instance, I recently stopped playing MMOs and thought it would be great to get into one of my childhood hobbies of building model airplanes. That hobby has come a long way in the last few years with the implementation of airbrush kits and thousands of paint colors and the sheer sophisticaion of the actual kits now days. When I was kid, I was lucky if the out come generally LOOKED like a plane. Now, however, the kits are engineered exactly to scale and whole websites are devoted to listing what is incorrect in each different release from manufacturers.
The point is, the expense of this hobby, if you feel the need to do things the "right" way, is rather costly. I probably invensted a good four or five hundred dollars in paints, materials, tools, and kits. I'm very glad I did though, becuase now I have another hobby that I actually find quite relaxing (or maybe it's just the glue). Do I feel my amateur attempts at building models is worth the money invested? Yep. Becuase I accomplished what I wanted to. I built a few models, got the tools I needed to do things properly, and enjoyed my time doing so. And I will continue to enjoy my time in the future, because I'm set up propperly to do so.
Now lets apply this to my MMO of choice. I got my model (character) built (leveled), I got my tools (gear), and I got all my painting done (properly specc'd and geared for content), and now I want to put that final coating of polish on (ZOMG, icc25 purples) before I slap it up on my display shelf (dalaran).
The problem, currently, is the shelf is falling apart(can't get enough people for 10 man runs), and the polish is wearing off (frustration).
So what do you do? Get some duct tape and get prop the shelf up on the wall and hope it doesn't fall over again and smash your models? Or, get a new shelf on a new wall and hope you picked a better spot this time...
What qualifications must be me in order for you, as a player, to feel satisfied that your monthly subscription fee is justified.
I've looked at this a number of ways over the last few years of playing MMOs.
First is the the money to time ratio. For $15 you could go to the theaters and enjoy a new release and get entertainment for the next two hours (or less, you cheap Hollywood bastards). Or, for the same $15, you could go out to lunch twice.
For the same $15 though, you could enjoy as much time as you want in your favorite MMO. It's a flat rate. The only expense beyond the monthly fee is time. As with most things, you get better results when you invest more time towards it.
However, a subscription based MMO is a hobby, and a somewhat cheap one when you compare costs of other hobbies.
For instance, I recently stopped playing MMOs and thought it would be great to get into one of my childhood hobbies of building model airplanes. That hobby has come a long way in the last few years with the implementation of airbrush kits and thousands of paint colors and the sheer sophisticaion of the actual kits now days. When I was kid, I was lucky if the out come generally LOOKED like a plane. Now, however, the kits are engineered exactly to scale and whole websites are devoted to listing what is incorrect in each different release from manufacturers.
The point is, the expense of this hobby, if you feel the need to do things the "right" way, is rather costly. I probably invensted a good four or five hundred dollars in paints, materials, tools, and kits. I'm very glad I did though, becuase now I have another hobby that I actually find quite relaxing (or maybe it's just the glue). Do I feel my amateur attempts at building models is worth the money invested? Yep. Becuase I accomplished what I wanted to. I built a few models, got the tools I needed to do things properly, and enjoyed my time doing so. And I will continue to enjoy my time in the future, because I'm set up propperly to do so.
Now lets apply this to my MMO of choice. I got my model (character) built (leveled), I got my tools (gear), and I got all my painting done (properly specc'd and geared for content), and now I want to put that final coating of polish on (ZOMG, icc25 purples) before I slap it up on my display shelf (dalaran).
The problem, currently, is the shelf is falling apart(can't get enough people for 10 man runs), and the polish is wearing off (frustration).
So what do you do? Get some duct tape and get prop the shelf up on the wall and hope it doesn't fall over again and smash your models? Or, get a new shelf on a new wall and hope you picked a better spot this time...
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Nothing to See Here
There's commercial during football season where a guy dressed as a ref compares the distance to first down. If the distance is a couple of inches away, it's "drama". A couple of feet away, and it's "change the channel."
"Drama."
"Change the channel."
I was thinking about that when I was reading Righteous Orbs today about Guild drama. When you join a group organized around a common goal, human nature will eventually cause some conflicts. In Tamarind's case, I'd followed the drama from his previous guild through his posts until his own entries came back to haunt him.
Tam's posts brought home the issues of blogging about guilds. Blogs are by nature public endeavors, and even though we very rarely get a comment from someone other than ourselves, you can't assume that nobody is watching. (On my personal blog, I've been constantly surprised by who stops by.)
Why bring this up? Well, my old guild consisted of myself, Soul, Soul's wife, one of Soul's coworkers, and one other guy who was on maybe once or twice. If that guild was Mayberry, my current guild is more like Chicago; the 180+ members listing is inflated by alts, but even if there were three alts per person the guild would have roughly 60 members. Sure, it isn't the size of some of the huge guilds out there, but it's far larger than what I'm used to seeing. When you're walking through Dalaran on an evening, the crowd size actually helps you become anonymous; Quintalan is just another Blood Elf out for an evening stroll between the JC house and the Sunreavers pavilion. Nothing to see here, move along. In a moderately sized guild, however, there you are. You might as well be Norm walking into Cheers.
Even if the guildies don't know about this blog, you can't assume that will stay that way in the future. Guild business (and any guild drama) ought to remain in the guild, and airing dirty laundry in public like this does no good. What's good for Tamarind is good for him, and that's fine as far as it goes, but I'm not Tam. I try to keep my observations about WoW based on things that happened out there in the public realm, so if you're looking for guild drama, you won't find it here.
That said, I will post one item that happened shortly after I joined the guild. I was on early in the morning and I had just finished my Jewelcrafting Daily. Even that early in the morning, Dalaran was busy and Gen Chat was crazy. I was just hitting the logoff button to switch to my bank alt when I saw a "do a /who Grey Death Legion" scroll by in the chat.
Wait.... what?
Before the screen could disappear on me, I saw the following exchange:
"what's a grey death legion?"
"a guild that won't let you cuss in gchat"
My first thought was to log back in as Quint and say something, but the sleepy logical part of my brain caught up with me and overruled that idea. There's no sense in wrestling with a pig in Gen Chat, and people believe what they want to believe. Besides, if that's the worst thing that someone can say about my guild, then things are in fairly good shape.
(Hell, I can rip loose a good stream of profanity quite easily, but I have no problems whatsoever working with a group that frowns on that.)
"Drama."
"Change the channel."
I was thinking about that when I was reading Righteous Orbs today about Guild drama. When you join a group organized around a common goal, human nature will eventually cause some conflicts. In Tamarind's case, I'd followed the drama from his previous guild through his posts until his own entries came back to haunt him.
Tam's posts brought home the issues of blogging about guilds. Blogs are by nature public endeavors, and even though we very rarely get a comment from someone other than ourselves, you can't assume that nobody is watching. (On my personal blog, I've been constantly surprised by who stops by.)
Why bring this up? Well, my old guild consisted of myself, Soul, Soul's wife, one of Soul's coworkers, and one other guy who was on maybe once or twice. If that guild was Mayberry, my current guild is more like Chicago; the 180+ members listing is inflated by alts, but even if there were three alts per person the guild would have roughly 60 members. Sure, it isn't the size of some of the huge guilds out there, but it's far larger than what I'm used to seeing. When you're walking through Dalaran on an evening, the crowd size actually helps you become anonymous; Quintalan is just another Blood Elf out for an evening stroll between the JC house and the Sunreavers pavilion. Nothing to see here, move along. In a moderately sized guild, however, there you are. You might as well be Norm walking into Cheers.
Even if the guildies don't know about this blog, you can't assume that will stay that way in the future. Guild business (and any guild drama) ought to remain in the guild, and airing dirty laundry in public like this does no good. What's good for Tamarind is good for him, and that's fine as far as it goes, but I'm not Tam. I try to keep my observations about WoW based on things that happened out there in the public realm, so if you're looking for guild drama, you won't find it here.
That said, I will post one item that happened shortly after I joined the guild. I was on early in the morning and I had just finished my Jewelcrafting Daily. Even that early in the morning, Dalaran was busy and Gen Chat was crazy. I was just hitting the logoff button to switch to my bank alt when I saw a "do a /who Grey Death Legion" scroll by in the chat.
Wait.... what?
Before the screen could disappear on me, I saw the following exchange:
"what's a grey death legion?"
"a guild that won't let you cuss in gchat"
My first thought was to log back in as Quint and say something, but the sleepy logical part of my brain caught up with me and overruled that idea. There's no sense in wrestling with a pig in Gen Chat, and people believe what they want to believe. Besides, if that's the worst thing that someone can say about my guild, then things are in fairly good shape.
(Hell, I can rip loose a good stream of profanity quite easily, but I have no problems whatsoever working with a group that frowns on that.)
My UI
I haven't posted this yet, so I thought I would mention my user interface.
Addons I use:
Basic layout
UI in action:
Addons I use:
- AtlasLoot - Lets me see who drops what gear as well as crafted gear and the materials to make them
- Chatter - Chat window mods that make it much smoother and look better
- Dominos - Get rid of the ugly standard wow hotbars and lets you gain more screen real estate
- MikScrollingBattleText - I like this one better than the build in version of this
- Omen
- PitBull Unit frames - clean looking and very customizable.
- Recount
- SexyCooldown - seen just above my hot bars, it gives a nice indication how long until skills are usable again
- Threat Plates - turns name plates green, and shrinks the size of them when I have aggro, and when I don't have aggro, it makes them large and red. Great mod for a tank to yank back a runner (this is an option for Tidy Plates)
- Tidy Plates - Cleaner looking name plates
Basic layout
UI in action:
Monday, March 22, 2010
Fun and Excitement with Questing
I was catching up on Darth Solo's posts on WoW Alone when he commented in this post about how he couldn't stand questing in the Old World (Classic WoW's locations), and how much better Outland and Northrend are by comparison. That got me to thinking about my own questing experiences; while I can see Darth's point, there are plenty of quirks out there that balance out the questing throughout the WoW environment.
It's no secret that I'm a bit of a quest whore -as Souldat calls me- and I've an ultimate goal of having Quintalan reach that Seeker achievement. I'm roughly 600-650 quests away from Loremaster, and from there only about 100 or so to reach 3000 and the Seeker. For my alts, I'm not planning on being so thorough; there's no need, really, with the exception of the class specific quests. (By comparison, an achievement such as Explorer on a PvE server isn't nearly as impressive as on a PvP server; there aren't many Alliance gankers you have to worry about when exploring on a PvE server.) Nevertheless, there are some major differences in how the quests were designed to push a character along in Classic WoW vs. the two expansions.
Blizzard designed the quests in Classic WoW to push a player from region to region when the appropriate quests opened up. This is still used in BC and Northrend, but instead of viewing each expansion continent as a whole, Blizzard focused more on individual regions. You can see that in the quest achievements themselves; in the Old World, the quest achievements are for each continent, not for completing quests in a given region. BC and WotLK have achievements for clearing each region which add up to the Loremaster meta-achievement.
It seems that in the Old World there were more options for leveling in a specific range, say for the 20s: you could go to Hillsbrad, Thousand Needles, Ashenvale, Duskwood, Stonetalon, Wetlands or even Stranglethorn if you're feeling brave. The breadth of locations to work with means that you can work on your questing as, say, a Tauren and never have to visit the Eastern Kingdoms at all. Blizzard seems to have compensated for this by putting in these oddball quests that have you traipsing back and forth between two continents just to talk to different specific people, who then tell you to go hunt for stuff in an instance. For example, you're in Arathi and you stumble on the quest chain that leads you to Tarren Mill, the Undercity, Senjin Village, Zul'Farrak, and lord knows where else. It's clever on the face of it, but without flying mounts you have to make more connections than trying to get from Atlanta to Anchorage on Jet Blue. The travel time gets to be tedious, and you often start to wonder whether the quest chain is worth it.
Outlands quests narrowed the scope to a more manageable level -and the addition of flying mounts helped tremendously- but there still is a maddening tendency to insert cross region dependencies on some quest chains. This wouldn't be that big of an issue unless you're trying to reach the Loremaster of Outland achievement, where you find you're perpetually short of quests in a region (Nagrand and Hellfire Peninsula are two big offenders) until you come across a quest in Shadowmoon Valley that sends you to those regions.
With Wrath of the Lich King, the quests evolved further. The maturing ability of Blizzard to mix in an overarcing quest chain with the more narrowly focused ones really kept the pace brisk. That was most felt in Dragonblight (Wrathgate), The Storm Peaks (Thorim and Brann Bronzebeard), and Icecrown (Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade). Blizzard's fancy phasing tech has a tremendous impact here as well; no more equivalents of killing Dar'khon and then finding him respawn a few minutes later. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Necromancer?" (Apologies to King Henry II for that little quip.)
I must admit that the phasing technology has me biased toward the Northrend quests; I found them much more interesting than some of the grinding you feel like you're doing on the other regions. Ironically enough, I like the Outland quests the least. Perhaps it's because the changes were half baked, but I often felt like I spent hours hunting around Outland for an individual quest that would put me over the top for an achievement, and I would spend an equal amount of time perusing thottbot and wowwiki as well.
Classic WoW has a bizarre sort of appeal to me. It was by design big and broad, and the concept of trying to check out everything is a daunting task. The things that Blizzard put in place for Classic WoW may have made sense when they designed it, but the creakiness of the Old World is pretty apparent these days. Yes, I hope that Cataclysm will bring a Northrend style focus to old Azeroth, but I've a certain amount of fondness for the meandering (and maddening) nature of some of the Old World questing.
It's no secret that I'm a bit of a quest whore -as Souldat calls me- and I've an ultimate goal of having Quintalan reach that Seeker achievement. I'm roughly 600-650 quests away from Loremaster, and from there only about 100 or so to reach 3000 and the Seeker. For my alts, I'm not planning on being so thorough; there's no need, really, with the exception of the class specific quests. (By comparison, an achievement such as Explorer on a PvE server isn't nearly as impressive as on a PvP server; there aren't many Alliance gankers you have to worry about when exploring on a PvE server.) Nevertheless, there are some major differences in how the quests were designed to push a character along in Classic WoW vs. the two expansions.
Blizzard designed the quests in Classic WoW to push a player from region to region when the appropriate quests opened up. This is still used in BC and Northrend, but instead of viewing each expansion continent as a whole, Blizzard focused more on individual regions. You can see that in the quest achievements themselves; in the Old World, the quest achievements are for each continent, not for completing quests in a given region. BC and WotLK have achievements for clearing each region which add up to the Loremaster meta-achievement.
It seems that in the Old World there were more options for leveling in a specific range, say for the 20s: you could go to Hillsbrad, Thousand Needles, Ashenvale, Duskwood, Stonetalon, Wetlands or even Stranglethorn if you're feeling brave. The breadth of locations to work with means that you can work on your questing as, say, a Tauren and never have to visit the Eastern Kingdoms at all. Blizzard seems to have compensated for this by putting in these oddball quests that have you traipsing back and forth between two continents just to talk to different specific people, who then tell you to go hunt for stuff in an instance. For example, you're in Arathi and you stumble on the quest chain that leads you to Tarren Mill, the Undercity, Senjin Village, Zul'Farrak, and lord knows where else. It's clever on the face of it, but without flying mounts you have to make more connections than trying to get from Atlanta to Anchorage on Jet Blue. The travel time gets to be tedious, and you often start to wonder whether the quest chain is worth it.
Outlands quests narrowed the scope to a more manageable level -and the addition of flying mounts helped tremendously- but there still is a maddening tendency to insert cross region dependencies on some quest chains. This wouldn't be that big of an issue unless you're trying to reach the Loremaster of Outland achievement, where you find you're perpetually short of quests in a region (Nagrand and Hellfire Peninsula are two big offenders) until you come across a quest in Shadowmoon Valley that sends you to those regions.
With Wrath of the Lich King, the quests evolved further. The maturing ability of Blizzard to mix in an overarcing quest chain with the more narrowly focused ones really kept the pace brisk. That was most felt in Dragonblight (Wrathgate), The Storm Peaks (Thorim and Brann Bronzebeard), and Icecrown (Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade). Blizzard's fancy phasing tech has a tremendous impact here as well; no more equivalents of killing Dar'khon and then finding him respawn a few minutes later. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Necromancer?" (Apologies to King Henry II for that little quip.)
I must admit that the phasing technology has me biased toward the Northrend quests; I found them much more interesting than some of the grinding you feel like you're doing on the other regions. Ironically enough, I like the Outland quests the least. Perhaps it's because the changes were half baked, but I often felt like I spent hours hunting around Outland for an individual quest that would put me over the top for an achievement, and I would spend an equal amount of time perusing thottbot and wowwiki as well.
Classic WoW has a bizarre sort of appeal to me. It was by design big and broad, and the concept of trying to check out everything is a daunting task. The things that Blizzard put in place for Classic WoW may have made sense when they designed it, but the creakiness of the Old World is pretty apparent these days. Yes, I hope that Cataclysm will bring a Northrend style focus to old Azeroth, but I've a certain amount of fondness for the meandering (and maddening) nature of some of the Old World questing.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Interesting
This morning I had something happen to me that I wasn't expecting.
I pulled aggro in the Pit of Saron.
On a DK tank that was well over 5000 in the gear score, with over 40k health.
Yes, Quint and his half epic/half blue gear managed to pull aggro. I was the most undergeared of the bunch -I checked- but I somehow managed to perform that feat.
I did apologize afterward and kept a closer eye on the threat meter, but I still shook my head about it later. I figured that with the Hunter and the DK similarly geared the Hunter had a better chance of pulling aggro -and he did, I might add- but I was still shocked when I managed it.
I pulled aggro in the Pit of Saron.
On a DK tank that was well over 5000 in the gear score, with over 40k health.
Yes, Quint and his half epic/half blue gear managed to pull aggro. I was the most undergeared of the bunch -I checked- but I somehow managed to perform that feat.
I did apologize afterward and kept a closer eye on the threat meter, but I still shook my head about it later. I figured that with the Hunter and the DK similarly geared the Hunter had a better chance of pulling aggro -and he did, I might add- but I was still shocked when I managed it.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Dear NCAA
Thanks for putting most of the local teams on television today. Because of that, I was able to take a half day off and make up for the time I wasted waiting for a tank and a healer who actually wanted to run Ahn'kahet this morning. I was talking with another Guildie today who also gets up early, and we both agreed the tanks haven't been that great in the random PuGs this past week.
I don't suppose ol' Soul would mind waking up at 5 AM? ;-)
I don't suppose ol' Soul would mind waking up at 5 AM? ;-)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tanks for the Memories
Everytime I play WoW, I learn something new. Sometimes my enlightenment is simple, like finding a new location where Titanium Ore could spawn. Other times, it's an admonishment that you're not quite there yet, like the spanking I got when I tried to solo the Rider of Frost in Northrend. I personally prefer the last variety, where I surprised myself by being able to do something -like the time I buzzed Teldrassil collecting the coins of Ancestry with four 80's on my tail and roughly 1k of health left. (Have I mentioned lately that I love Crusader Aura?)
Today's last early morning run through the Halls of Stone produced one of that third variety.
The run didn't start out that interesting; three of us had just finished a Culling of Stratholme run, and I had about 45-50 minutes available. That CoT run was unremarkable, which is always a good thing. (Well, the Druid healer had an annoying tendency to run ahead of everyone else, but I guess he figured I'd rez him if he wiped.) After CoT finished the tank suggested a last run, and both the Mage and I were fine with that.
Our group for the HoS run consisted of: Warrior (Tank), Priest (Healer), Mage (DPS), Warlock (DPS), and Quintalan (DPS).
The first trash mob went okay, but during the second and third a few problems became apparent:
Today's last early morning run through the Halls of Stone produced one of that third variety.
The run didn't start out that interesting; three of us had just finished a Culling of Stratholme run, and I had about 45-50 minutes available. That CoT run was unremarkable, which is always a good thing. (Well, the Druid healer had an annoying tendency to run ahead of everyone else, but I guess he figured I'd rez him if he wiped.) After CoT finished the tank suggested a last run, and both the Mage and I were fine with that.
Our group for the HoS run consisted of: Warrior (Tank), Priest (Healer), Mage (DPS), Warlock (DPS), and Quintalan (DPS).
The first trash mob went okay, but during the second and third a few problems became apparent:
- The tank had issues keeping threat. The Dark Iron dwarves stuck with him, but the Stormforged had an annoying tendency to overshoot him and go after either me or one of the others, which meant I had to lay off of some of my attacks, drawing out the fight a bit further.
- The lock was a Boomkin. The tank had enough problems, but everytime that Boomkin laid an attack in, about a third of the trash would peel off after him.
- The Priest was struggling under the strain. I didn't get the time to inspect him, but I think he had some other issues in addition to constantly running out of mana. The tank told him to let him know if he needed to drink, and then he would only drink just enough to get to 40% before the tank would take off again.
On the fourth trash mob everything hit the fan. The Boomkin had the Stormforged aggro on him, the Warrior tank peeled away from the trash to go chase the Stormforged. The trash didn't follow the tank and aggroed on me instead. The Priest ran out of mana, my bubble expired, and both the Boomkin and I wiped. Everyone else followed suit.
When we all ran back inside, a big fight broke out. The Priest accused the Warrior of being a terrible tank, and the Warrior shot back about the Priest's poor healing. The Boomkin kind of kept quiet, which was smart for him given that he was pulling aggro so much. And me? I filled up my coffee mug, settled in, and watched the show. I had a little over a half an hour left, so I knew that if I dropped I might not squeeze in another run. Besides, it was nice to not be in the middle of a Tank/Healer spat.
Eventually the Warrior had it, and floated a resolution to kick the Priest out. The Priest split before everyone could vote, so we queued up for a replacement. Thankfully, this one was seriously overgeared (I checked), so at least one of three problems was solved.
We survived the rest of the dungeon until we got to Sjonnir. If I had a dollar every time the Boomkin pulled aggro on that boss, I'd have enough for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Even the overgeared Priest couldn't keep up, and the tank and Boomkin both wiped.
That's when I became the tank.
Sjonnir started chasing the Mage and Priest back down the entrance, and I overtook him from behind, pulling aggro back on me. All we had to do was last about 10% of the boss' health, and I turned on Righteous Fury and just started wailing away, using Lay on Hands to bring myself back to full health. The Mage turned back and zapped Sjonnir a few times and I just kept going with as many Holy spells as possible until he fell over.
Considering that I was the only melee person left, it made sense that I'd pretend to be a tank for a few desperate minutes. If Sjonnir had more health we'd all probably have wiped, but he didn't. If I had to hunt for Righteous Fury instead of having it on one of my bars, it could have gone bad as well. (Don't ask why I stuck it at the bottom of one of the bars, I had it in the "just in case" corner I usually stick the "summon drake" from The Oculus.)
I once mentioned in a previous post that if you're the only melee in the group left, you become the tank by default. I'd written that when I was doing PvP in Warsong Gulch, but I didn't really internalize that with 5-man instances. I've been in enough groups where the tank wipes and the rest of us follow suit, so having a group survive a tank death in a boss fight is kind of a surprise. By comparison, Quint has less than half of the Health that Souldat has, and even if Quint had similar gear levels but for Ret Spec he'd still be well under Soul's health level. Such a disparity is not good for the fill-in tank, but it doesn't need to be for emergencies. All you have to do is survive.
That is about as much exposure to being a tank as I want. The amount of trust a tank must have in the healer makes me nervous in a PuG. You're much better off being overgeared than relying heavily on an unknown element. However, the point of the group is trust; you trust everyone to do their job so that the team can survive. And you have to trust that if someone fails, they learn and get better for the next run.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Random Musings
None of these rise to the level of needing a separate post, so here they are.
- I've discovered the Joy of Kiting. Paladins aren't really made for kiting, since you preferably want a ranged attack that you can slow your opponent with. My current spell list for a Shadow Priest isn't the greatest for kiting either, since the spells that I've got with a speed reduction (Mind Flay) end once the spell ends. A mage -more specifically a frost mage- is much better suited for this fun little pasttime with Blink, Frostbolt, Ice Nova, Ice Barrier, and Frostbite to play with. I spent a half an hour yesterday kiting bears and whatnot into the range of the Tarren Mill Deathguards while I was in between coats of paint, and although I don't have it quite down yet, it's rather fun watching the Deathguards hack the spiders to bits. (Yes, I was doing this instead of watching paint dry on the front door.) I've read stories about groups kiting bosses all the way to major cities, and I can definitely see the appeal.
- Shadow Priests are more mana efficient than Fire and Frost Mages. I expected a Shadow Priest to be more mana efficient than a Fire Mage, but the Frost Mage surprised me. That Spirit Tap comes in handy more than I care to admit. I haven't tinkered with an Arcane Mage, but I suspect that at this level (low 20's) it doesn't really matter.
- A Mage -particularly one with Ice Barrier active- handles damage better than a Priest. Yes, I know that Priests have the healing spells, but in a PvE questing environment that Ice Barrier spell keeps a Mage's cloth armor (or a sissy robe, as Tamarind on Righteous Orbs puts it) nice and clean.
- Running a Paladin is easier than either a Priest or a Mage. A Paladin -particularly a Ret Spec or a low level Holy Spec version- is a "run up and hit something" type. There's not a lot of variety to the Pally's attacks in the 20's. A Shadow Priest or a Mage, however, has a wider arsenal to work with. Keeping track of those extra spells can be quite a challenge if you're not ready.
- That little Emerald Boar trinket comes in awfully handy soloing 5 man elites in Outland. It's rather nice getting a virtual tank for 30 seconds, allowing Quint a short breather from the steady flow of damage. Too bad the sucker isn't an epic level trinket.
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