Don't Be THAT Pally

I've heard stories from various websites and people I've pugged with about a peculiar breed of Ret Spec Paladin, the Retardin.  Apparently this breed, like the Huntard and others of his ilk, has an overinflated sense of ego coupled with a lack of understanding of how to play the class.  When you throw in tendencies to tell everyone else how to play their class, you've got the makings of a real ass that can give Huntards and Boomkin a run for their money.

Having played WoW for less than a year, I've not found that many Retardins out there using the LFD tool.  Probably Cassandri's speculation over at Hots and Dots about how the tool matches people up is correct after all, since I rarely see another Paladin in the PUGs I've been in.

All that changed yesterday in Tomakan's run through Razorfen Kraul.  I've been in Kraul a couple of times, but that's only at L80 working on Loremaster.  Like I commented to Souldat while I was in the run, it's sure different when you're not steamrolling through here, and you've got competing egos to deal with.

The setting started with a Warrior tank, myself as healer, and Paladin, Hunter and Mage as the DPS.  Almost from the get-go the Ret Spec Pally started on the tank. 

"Use Challenging Shout!" 

"Tank, USE CHALLENGING SHOUT!"

"Let him go," the Hunter said.  "He's doing okay."

"He's L26!"

After the first boss, the tank had pretty much had enough.  "I'm leaving," he said.

"Oh, the poor baby didn't get the helm?"

"No, my friend is on and I get more XP with him."  And he dropped.

"That's okay," the Pally said.  "I can tank while we wait for a new one."

Normally, you'd think that a four man group would slow down a bit to recover some more in between pulls, but the Pally kept going.  I was doing okay, keeping my mana up by Judging Wisdom, until the pseudo-tank spoke up.  "You're interfering with my buff," he said.  "You Judge Light and I'll Judge Wisdom."

I bit back what I really wanted to say, and instead said "Just as long as you let me drink from time to time."

For the record, he did stop to let me and the Mage drink.  Once.

We kind of limped along until we got to the area where the mobs can use silence.  The first couple of mobs were okay, but the third mob was massive and nasty.  The first time I got silenced, I stepped back, getting out of their range, but the pseudo-tank was at the far end of the mob, so I couldn't heal him without going back into range.  And on that second round of silencing, the pseudo-tank bit it.

I then became the target of his ire.  "Way to go standing in melee with mobs that can silence you," he sniped.

I ignored him. 

"Why don't you learn to stand out of range?"

I ground my teeth and let him simmer.  With this guy, it was like mud wrestling with a pig, and I wanted to spend my energy on finishing off the mob --which we did.  Besides, with the profanity filter on, my barbs wouldn't have quite the same sting.

"Will you stop your whining?" the Hunter demanded.  "We survived."

"But I lost my buffs, and you don't know the cost of repairing Heirloom gear."

If the Retardin had actually paid attention and inspected everyone in the group, he'd have realized that we all had Heirloom gear on before sending that little zinger out.

"Oh be quiet," the Hunter said.  "We're almost at the end anyway."

We got to the last boss, and naturally I couldn't heal the Retardin because he ran inside and didn't pull the boss back out to where we all could reach her.  I ran inside and slapped Naaru on him before I could get silenced or stunned, and then we finished the boss off.

Instance finished, the Retardin vanished.

"Why am I not surprised?" I asked nobody in particular.

Moral of the Story:  Don't be an ass.  The instance went fine for the most part, but the antics of one guy didn't make for a fun time.

Yes, I could have done some more smack talk in the instance, but it would have done me no good.  Believe it or not, we were queued the entire run when we went 4-man, but no tank appeared.  If I'd harassed the Retardin enough to where he dropped, we'd have been waiting a looong time to finish that instance.

Also, a corollary:  silence does not indicate assent.  Sometimes it does, when people ask if we're ready before a boss fight, but other times people might actually be running the instance rather than talking smack.  When I'm DPS, I can talk smack all I want, but when I'm Healer or Tank my first responsibility is to the team.  And I'm least interested in responding to an overblown windbag trying to tell me what I can or can't do when he drove one pugger out already.  I've never stopped healing someone in an instance before, but don't tempt me into letting you be the first, buddy.

Something odd is happening...

Alliance actually won a wintergrasp this week... and in less than 5 minutes to boot! After which, I received my three marks from the battle, and turned them in (along with another 37) and got some fancy new pvp shoulders on my warrior.

The night after that, the Alliance were back to business as usual and I had a spectacular losing streak of battle grounds, but gained enough honor to purchase the wrathful cloak. So hooray for losing matches with the quickness. I did get the chance to get a bit of excitement, though. Tenacity x8 makes blaaaaaaade stoooooorm a LOT of fun. I had 76,000 health, and could drop an enemy player in 4 hits (a LOT less than that if they had no resilience).

I figured I'd try to get one battleground in tonight and WSG was what came up. Holy crap, was I astonished to see 5 other players pretty well outfitted in pvp gear, and not a single heirloom weapon to be seen anywhere! It was pretty much a steamroll in favor of the Alliance.

It's interesting to see the various battlegrounds now from two perspectives. The horde truly does seem intimidating, and the alliance has no flippin clue what they're doing. I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen half the team go straight for the flag in Eye of the Storm, or the entire team sans 1 person at the stables go to the mine in Arathi.

It's an odd feeling to just look at battlegrounds as a way to farm honor, instead of actually playing the game and trying to win. At points, when the team is just SO BAD I don't even feel like trying, because it would be a suicide mission to do so, I have to admit: I've given up and just stayed at a spawn point for a while until the match ends.

Come to think of it, I used to laugh about the crazy suicidal Allinace "I'm a hero - I'll kill you all with one fell swoop of my *gurgle - flop - overly dramatic death animation*" Who knew? They're not suicidal, they were just the only poor bastard on the team who actually was trying. And now it's me!?

I'm wondering if the attitudes of the players has changed a bit with all of the instant gratification we're seeing. "Oh, crap. The horde took three flags. Ok, that just means it'll be over quicker."

Honest to goodness, I have seen Alliance players justify their lack of effort as "the horde has 20 minute queues, and we can get in battlegrounds instantly." Which, coming from the Horde as I did, I know is completely untrue. It totally depends on the server / battlegroup.

And to further the topic, Blizzard is making regional cross battlegrounds, meaning all of North America will the thrust into the pool of players waiting to play matches. Which, should speed up the queue times for the Horde.

So all you Horde players rejoice! You'll be queuing up faster, and winning the same amount as always, because the Alliance just sucks at rational thought and organized fights; they'd much rather follow the safety of the herd and just defend one node.

Yep, we sure got stables here. No foul hordie is gonna take my flag! Yep, horses... Such a shame we can't give them any shoes or any work to do such as hauling ore, or even timber around because we'd rather just let the Horde have the mine, lumberyard and blacksmith. And we can't feed em either; no farm.

With treatment like that, I surprised the horses don't leave. Maybe that's what we're all there for? In fact, I think I'll start organizing an equestrian guard squad in the games from now on. Our battle cry will be "Hold your horses!"

Where the greener is grass

Wow.com did an article recently that talked about when your alt become your main.  I find myself in this boat.  My deathknight is pretty well geared, and has around 5600 achievement points.

However, I've been playing my warrior a LOT more than my deathknight recently.  And I've been wondering if I really just enjoy the warrior class more, or is it more enjoyable because it's new to me? 

Each class has it's advantages and disadvantages.  Such as the Sindgragosa fight we're working on in ICC (8% grrrrr).  The DK is at an obvious advantage here because of anti magic shell, ice bound fortitude, vampiric blood, blood tap... there's just so many tools to keep myself up and fighting, where as the warrior has a shield wall, last stand, and enraged regeneration which are nice abilites, but not excatcly great for this fight.  There are fights though, that it's the otherway around.

I am enjoying the charge / intercept / intervene skills versus the pull method of the deathgrip.  And I enjoy the DPS offspec of the warrior a lot more than I do the DK.  There's just something enjoyable about the brutality of the warrior, either my target dies, or I do, either way I can and will put up one hell of a fight.  I get those moments on the DK too, but it feels some what artificial.  Like I expect to win most fights, and with the warrior I really have to work at it.

And I also must admit, my 2v2 arena team as resto shaman / unholy death knight really suffers against teams with a healing limiting mechanic (mortal strike or poisons).  This may get fixed with one of the new spells coming in the expansion for DKs, though.

So while we're in the current expansion, I'm still raiding and keeping my main as my death knight.  I just don't know about the expansion yet.  We've gotten plenty of info on DK changes, but a lot of it seems to be RNGish... but it's too early to tell.

I suppose if the changes to the DK mechanics make the playstyle feel more warrior-like, and less rogue-like I'd be happier.  If the current systems of using an ability every GCD slowed down a little bit to allow for the proc-type abilites it would bring some variation and thought to the rotation, which would be nice.

So I'm looking at either going with the pretty same as always warrior (with a small change to the rage system), or the DK who's getting mostly a complete mechanic overhual, talent tree overhaul, and more than likely months of rebalancing while they fine tune (aka nerf the shit out of) the changes they did.

How about everyone else?  Are any of the class mechanic changes making you leery about your current main?  How many of you are changing main characters in the coming expansion?

I Now Know Where the Wailing Comes From

Last Friday I pulled out Tomakan and dialed up Wailing Caverns.  I knew I wanted to take care of it before it disappeared from my radar, and I didn’t feel like trooping through The Barrens to get to the entrance when I was a much higher level.

I’ve been in Wailing Caverns exactly twice; like most Old World instances, I get lost pretty darned easily in it.*  I know what we have to do, but I don’t know where all the bosses are.

That’s what the tank is for, right?

Well, as soon as we got going, the tank admitted he wasn’t sure where everything was, but he was determined to wander around to find everything.  I had time to kill and I wanted the achievement, so I was fine with that.

We managed to find the first boss and downed him just in time to discover that our Gnome Warlock was rolling Need on all items.  “What are you doing?” the priest asked.  “You can’t use that axe at all.”

“I have a friend who will pay good gold,” he replied.

“You noob,” the tank said.  “You can’t trade a ‘Bind on Pickup’ item.”

On the next item that dropped, the Lock rolled Need again.  The Priest protested, and the Lock replied with a weak “but I could use that!”

“Okay,” the tank said, “everybody rolls Need from now on, then it’s the same as Greed.”

The Lock didn’t like that, and began to forge ahead of the group.

Shortly afterward, the tank had to drop and he was replaced by another tank, this one a Gnome Warrior.  He ported in, and immediately ran to the next trash mob and pulled.  At the same time, another mob swarmed over the Lock and the Hunter.

“Holy crap!” cried the Priest.

I’d have said something, but I was kind of busy spamming heals all over the place.  I was literally running back and forth between two sets of mobs trying to keep everyone upright.  I’m still not sure how I managed that one.

That finished, the Priest and Lock were out of mana.  The tank, oblivious to it all, bounded forward to the next trash mob.  “Wait!” I shouted.

Too late.  The tank had already pulled.

I ended up having to do a bit of DPS to cover for the lack of caster support, but the mob eventually went down.

“Yes?” the tank asked.

“The casters need to drink.”

“Oh,” he said, bounding around the entire area.

“What the hell happened back there?” I whispered to the Priest.

“The idiot Lock pulled at the same time as the tank,” she whispered back.  “He needs to stop doing that.”

“If he does that again he’s gone.”

Sure enough, the Lock ran ahead of the group and pulled the next trash.  “Dammit!” the tank cried.

I began mashing the “Vote to Kick” option, but the Lock was moving so quickly there wasn’t enough time between the next couple of mobs for us to officially hold a vote.  When it finally stuck, the Lock immediately dropped group.

A huge sigh of relief went up from the group when a well behaved Gnome Mage ported in and we continued our run.

There was one final misstep where we had to double back and get one final boss, but compared to the first twenty minutes, the last half an hour was a walk in the park.

When I was relating the tale to Souldat, who was on with his Warrior at the time, he replied, “A lot of people seem to think they can act exactly the same way as if they’re an 80 running an instance.”

I couldn’t agree more.


*Shadowfang Keep, by contrast, is a straight shot.  After having gone through there for the first time as a Draenei on Sunday, I wonder why on earth the Alliance would even want these Worgen in the first place.  Maybe the Horde could trade the Goblins for the Worgen.

Supply, Demand, and the Auction House

DISCLAIMER:  If you're looking for a detailed discussion on how to make gold using the AH, this isn't it.  There are plenty of great blogs that describe how to work the AH, and I recommend perusing a lot of them.

The other day, when a guildie and I were steamrolling our way through Arcatraz --gotta love Druid tanks-- talk turned to Greed vs. Disenchant.  "Have you seen what Dream Shards are going for these days?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied.  "I pretty much stopped DCing blues, because I get more money from vendoring them than selling the shards."

After a short pause, I realized he was right.  A quick scan of the BC blues I was acquiring in Arcatraz revealed that I would be selling them for more than I'd get for a Dream Shard from the AH.  This morning, I paid close attention to the blues that I got from the Northrend 5-man instances, and I discovered I'd be getting around twice what a Dream Shard was going for.

I also spent some time farming for Saronite and Titanium to replenish my metal and gem stocks, and I discovered that Titansteel is going for 75G on the AH, half of the price it was two months ago.

How did prices get this depressed?

Yes, the simple answer is supply and demand, but I wonder about the underlying causes.  Is it that the gold farmers are trying to manipulate the price by flooding the market?  Is it that enough people are grinding for Frost Emblems alone that there's an excess of disenchanting materials?  Or that enough people per server are in ICC and don't need Titanium or Titansteel crafted items?

I suspect that there's a bit of everything --yes, even the supposed pre-expansion blues-- to blame for the current state of the market.  When ICC has been out long enough that even altaholics are able to get a good T9 set from Emblems alone for all of their toons, then the need for Titanium and Titansteel are depressed.  Add to that the availability of Primordial Saronite, and you've got the current state of the metals.  When Cataclysm comes out, this will be replayed again:  after all, have you seen the prices for Eternium and Khorium these days?  I can sell Mithril for higher prices than what Eternium is going for.

The gem prices in general drive me nuts.  The basic Epic gems are running only about 15G less than their JC'ed counterparts, and some days they can actually sell for higher.  Sure, it's 15G, but you have to ask yourself if your time is better spent doing an extra daily or two to get the same amount of profit.  Considering how little the Epics drop when you prospect Titanium, I guess the Alchemists are the ones making a mint on the market by crafting the Epic gems.  But right now, regular Jade and other low end gems are looking better than Dream Shards.  Nobody seems to be farming those gems, yet there's still enough of a need that I can beat the Dream Shard price easily on some of these low end gems.

What about your server?  Are you seeing the same trends?

Waaaay too Short and Sweet

I was on this morning to get my daily PuG run in, and only a few minutes after throwing my name into the hat I was able to port in.

The Old Kingdom was the destination.

The port finished, and...  I died.

What?

"Well, that was a fine how-do-you-do," I said in party chat.

The healer, warlock and I began running back.  "Are you guys coming?" the tank asked.  "We're up to the Prince."

We got back to the area before the Blood Prince and surveyed all of the trash mobs walking around.  "We can't," I said.

"How come?"

"There's Geists in the way."

"Wait a second," the healer said.  "How did you get there?"

"We were sneaky."

"But you can't get to Taladram without taking care of the orbs first.  The barrier is still in place."

I should probably have dropped group then, but I decided to stick around.  Silly me.

The warlock summoned his void walker, and it kind of weakly tanked us through most of the trash on the main floor.  After the third set of mobs, the tank tried going back to us and died.  We waited about halfway up the ramp to the first orb while the tank ran back.  At least there were four of us now.  While we were in this holding pattern, I watched the last pack of Geists roaming around.  They hadn't made it to us yet, but I was still uneasy.  I could probably take the pack of them by myself, but I preferred having a bona-fide tank around.

The tank arrived, ran up the ramp to the trash awaiting us, and before I could finish switching to Frost Aura he began pulling them back down the ramp.

"Huh?" said the warlock.

I began to type something, but abandoned that as the tank pulled the trash down the ramp and was met partway up by the Geists.

Oh.  Crap.

At least I could say that I lasted the longest.  The healer was caught from behind and died almost instantly, the lock close behind him.  I tried taking out the Frostbringers, reasoning that they'd kill the tank and me quickest, but I couldn't pour the DPS on fast enough.

Before I could even release, the healer and lock dropped group.  I waited until I got back into the instance before doing the same.

For all I know, the tank and the mysterious other DPS are still there, hoping that someone ridiculously overpowered will come along and save them.  Who was it that said "you can't heal stupid?"  Well, this scenario definitely qualified as stupid.

Choosing the type of engineer to be

So, I'm leveling engineering on my warrior, and I was curious about the differences between the two types: goblin and gnome.

I happened upon an awesome post on the official forums and I wanted to share it with you all:

Courtesy of Mcnostril, of the guild Raging Hordeon on the Illidan server

"Pffft.

Everyone knows the doo-dads gnomes make are far inferior to things that go KA-BOOM.

In a real life adventure, would you like a pocket knife that includes an hammer, wrench, and skinning blade... or a mini nuke?

The Death Star was goblin engineering at its finest.

Gnomes built the Frodo's Shire.

Death Star attacks with world shattering boom
Shire retaliates with a well made wind chime
Death Star adds 200% pewpew
Shire thinks a firm scolding is in place
Death Star lures you with waffles
Shire can only offer weak pancakes

Goblin engin or gtfo

XD"

 I also got a chuckle out of his signature line:

"How many Gnomes does it take to paint StormWind: Depends on how hard you throw them"

With logic like that, it looks as if I'm going to be a goblin engineer.