Know When to Hold 'Em

One of the major reasons why I like to play a Rogue* is the thrill of outsmarting the enemy. Not tactically, mind you, but being so clever that you can sneak around and bypass enemies to get where you need to go. It's that rush you get when you sneak through Timbermaw Hold and none of the Firbolg find you, or when you're sneaking around Orr in Guild Wars 2, trying to avoid having to fight your way through every five feet (or so it seems).

Being able to get all the way to Frostwolf Hold in Alterac Valley and drive the Horde nuts by moving back and forth and assaulting the two Frostwolf Towers --all without being seen-- is a huge rush.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered just how much of a gambler you have to be when you play a Fire Mage. 

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

One of the major reasons why I specced Frost all those years with Neve was because Frost is not only a great PvP spec but that it is the best spec for questing out in the field. All of the damage mitigation and defensive skills that Frost has means that a Frost Mage will typically not suffer much damage at all, or if she does she can quickly escape without much issue. And while speccing Frost is highly sought after for raiding in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, for the rest of WoW Classic it is not seen as a "raider's spec" per se.

That's Fire's domain.

When you see a max level Fire Mage out and about in Azeroth, odds are good that Mage is raiding AQ20 or AQ40. A lone Fire Mage out in Blackwing Lair or Molten Core is at a disadvantage, because the reason why Fire Mages are so powerful is that their buffs stack based on the number of Fire Mages in a raid. Put that same lonely Fire Mage in AQ40 with 4-5 other Fire Mages, they can wreak havoc on enemies. 

Scratch one Anubisath.

A lone Fire Mage in a 5-man instance? Not a problem; only Blackrock Depths has bosses that resist fire spells. 

A lone Fire Mage questing in the field? Well... That's a completely different kettle of fish.

The reason why I say a Fire Mage is a Gambler's Spec is because a Fire Mage has no damage mitigation outside of the Fire Ward, Frost Ward, and Mana Shield spells. And let's be honest: the Mana Shield isn't used much because it sucks your Mage's mana dry to shield them, so it's typically looked on as a spell of last resort.

Add to that, a Fire Mage doesn't get the slowdown or freezes that a Frost Mage gets when utilizing Frost Spells, so dumping Blizzard or a Frostbolt on an enemy doesn't give you the slow debuff that a Frost Mage gets, which is a huge advantage when you want to escape from (or DPS down) an enemy.

No, the Fire Mage says "I bet I can throw more damage at you before you kill me" every single pull. 

I believe a Fire Mage's mantra is "Go Big or Go Home".

Bring it, you blowhard!

Am I comfortable with Card rolling the dice like this? After a month of speccing Fire, I'm still not really comfortable yet. Oh, I understand the rotation, and I don't die if I space out my pulls in the wild, but Card's survivability pulling a pack of 3 or more at level enemies has taken a bit of a hit. 

I guess I have to embrace my inner gambler a bit more.

*Or a class similar to one, such as a Shadowblade in Elder Scrolls Online. Guild Wars 2 has a Thief profession, and if you guessed I play that class in GW2 you'd be right. In Star Wars: The Old Republic my favorite class --and class story-- is the Smuggler; I've played both the Scoundrel (Healer) and Gunslinger (DPS) subclasses, and I've found both of them to be a blast. (Literally, at times.) Hmm... I've never played a Burglar in LOTRO, because I can't get into playing a Hobbit, but maybe I should try one out.

Getting Rid of the Blur

The past 3-4 weeks have been a bit of a blur.

Learning to play a Fire Mage, running raids I've never (or almost never) seen before, and trying to get geared enough to be useful have been akin to my head spinning around on a turntable like a Dee-lite video.

Groove is in the Heart,
featuring homeboy Bootsy Collins.

However, the longer my raiding has gone on, the more I've wondered just how much of my output is decided by gear and how much by skill. 

Okay, let's be real for a second: you have to know what the hell you're doing if you want to be useful in any group format in WoW. I don't mean that you have to know the entire rotation like the back of your hand, but you have to realize that --for instance-- if you're attacking a mob that has fairly low health, spamming Fireball isn't your best option. For one, it takes forever (3.5 seconds) to cast, and 3.5 seconds is a looong time for a cast on a trash mob. At that point, you're much better off spamming Scorch (1.5 second cast) to at least get some damage on a mob before they're cut down. So, that's the sort of basic understanding about your class that I'm aiming for here: once you get these basics down, you're 75% of the way there to maximizing your DPS output from skill. 

Yes, you can practice and improve your output from there, but I think at this point you get more bang for the buck by improving your gear. 

And using Cardwyn as an example, boy did my gear need improvement.

***

In order to understand the impact on gear, let me show you where Card stood when she was convinced to join the AQ40 raid:

From sixtyupgrades.com.
I can thank the Mage Lead for showing me the site.

Um, yeah. I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't ready for Blackwing Lair, much less AQ40.

The nice thing about Sixty Upgrades is that with a click you can see the impact of an upgrade on your gear. For example, clicking on the Star of Mystara (which I held onto because of the plus to hit) gives you this:

Yikes. The Star of Mystara doesn't
even the Top 6.

The table is easy to understand. The left column is the name of the piece, the middle is the impact the gear on the Fire Spec, and the right column is where the gear can be found. If you hover over the middle column, it gives you the details in the bonuses (Spell Power, Int, Hit, etc.) 

What I did was target gear that were (relatively) quick upgrades that had a big impact. Like that silly looking turban from Upper Blackrock Spire, that you'll never ever ever see Card wearing with "Show Helm" active. Or that Robe of the Archmage that I had in my bank, which (ironically enough) has better spell power than even the T2 Netherwind Robe. Or the Fire Wand I had (also in my bank) that gives a better boost than the wand I'd been using. 

Combine all this with a few lucky rolls and drops in MC and BWL and my gear looked a bit more, well, raid worthy.

The net result was that my output went up by a decent amount over the next few weeks, something like 18-20% per week.

That was just gear, mind you, because I don't think I've gotten that much better at handling "Fiery Cardwyn" over the past few weeks than my first week or so running with the spec.

***

I suppose you could say that both gear and skill have their upper limitations; gear has a hard upper limit while skill doesn't. But skill produces diminishing returns the higher up in skill you go. The effort it takes to go from 0 - 75% is less time than to go from 75% to 90%, because you have to work longer and harder to raise your skill to that sort of level. 

Gear is just a time grind without any performance pressure: you put in the time and the drops will come. Skill is a time grind as well, but one with no set ending: you're kind of limited by your physical skillset, and the older you get the greater the limitations.

But for me, gear had the biggest impact on my performance in raids. I'm still bringing up the rear in the Mage Crew, but the gap has lessened considerably. I can now focus on skill without worrying about being such a liability compared to before, and because I've gotten a bunch of easy upgrades I can now focus on specific ones that I can target in Molten Core that have a big bang-for-the-buck to them. 

Overall, things are much less chaotic and overwhelming. For which I'm eternally grateful.

A Not-So-Brief Toast

This is the 11th anniversary of Parallel Context, and for this year, I'm going to do something different.

I'm going to use this space as a huge thank you to people who, over the years, have made my time spent gaming --and writing about gaming-- so enjoyable.

Oh, I've said thanks before --hell, I even said thanks to some friends who never read the blog a few days ago-- but this is different. 

I'm going to be all inclusive, and as much as possible, name names. (Hopefully in Alphabetical order.)

There's plenty of people over the past 11 years who shaped me as the gamer --and gamer Dad-- that I am. If I miss a name, it's not that I deliberately ignored you, it's likely that I forgot to include you. So this is my catch all "I love you, man!" moment.

First of all, I'd like to thank my wife, Laura, for tolerating my gaming habit. Given that she outplays me in Mario Kart and Scrabble I'd say she's got the gamer bug too.

The mini-Reds, Kathryn, David, and Stephanie: Sorry for outing you like this, but you know, it's a Dad thing. And besides, you're not exactly "mini" any more.

Sam (Souldat) and Missy, who got me started on WoW back in 2009. Soul and I started up the blog a month later. Their own kids will be gamers too, I just know it.

My fellow bloggers --some still here, others who have moved on-- who over the years provided encouragement, criticism, and friendship: Ancient, Arcturus Wilhelm, Atherne, Bhagpuss, Chas, Cymre, Cynwise, Dacheng, Darth Solo, Ehna, Gevlon, Gypsy Syl, Jaye, Joseph Skyrim, Kamalia, Krikket, Kurn, Larisa, Linedan, Lyrestra, Miss Medicina, Navimie, Nogamara, Njessi, Oakstout, Ophelie, Rades, Ratshag, Ravanel Griffon, Rohan, Sayville, Shayalyn, Shintar, SilkRX, Spinks, Syp, Tam, The Duke of O, The Jazz Panda, The Red Cow, Tobold, Vidyala, Voss, Zeirah, and Zinn.

My fellow pencil-and-paper RPG and boardgame players, who have provided hours of amusement and bad jokes, frequently at my expense: Bill, Cara, Craig, Dave, Emily, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Ed, Eric, James, Jeem, Kathleen, Larry, Michael, Richard, Roy, Todd, Tom, Tom, and Vincent.

My fellow MMO players whom I've interacted with and become friends/acquaintances, without whom the online world we inhabit would feel so empty. Some of these people I've not seen in-game in a while or maybe even met once or twice, but their online personas had a lasting impact on me. I'm also going to have to apologize about the lack of memory from my previous years playing WoW and the heyday of SWTOR. So naturally, this is gonna skew heavily in the direction of WoW Classic and Myzrael-US, so forgive me the bias*: Agarramesta, Akumabby, Alendor, Amorilla, Amyspaladin, Anarya, Andahar, Andrisa, Angelarenee/Ashablake, Angrymom, Angryslash, Annimagus, Aquilaen, Archimond, Artey, Arthur, Aryasmercy, Astrologic, Athenaheals, Auggustus, Azsharianna, Babushkae, Badsectorz, Ballowman, Beatocarlos, Beerly, Blackcadence, Bobknight, Brawhalla, Brandir, Brisse, Briteyez, Brohlm, Cambry, Camie, Candrilynn, Cathoran, Cerilya, Chantsy, Chowmeinz, ClickyMcHope, Clorinda, Coolbeanz, Corcair, Cormar, Crammarius, Crenshawe, Criminy, Dagalor, Daile, Dalazar, Danzandrin, Darlon, Dealtfate, Deeps, Deonysia, Diadema, Dilutes, DJDoug, Dnara, Draggonbite, Dreadxoom, Druldin, Elanda, Elavear, Eowin, Epa, Epyk/Naytiri, Etnwhvac, Eucaly, Exileriven, Faebissa, Fatality, Fermiumvolt, Feytor, Frozenchosen, Galaxyx, Galea, GeeGee, Gerran, Gerardian, Giblin, Gigglemug, Gohealurself, Gohmorr, Gorome, Grapenut, Grayhair, Gruber, Gwenthe, Haldol, Hallowman, Haylnn, Heathcliff, Henneli, Iamzlaw, Ita, Jaeger, Jalen, Jashal, Jasperin, Jeras, Jesup, Jukes, Jhaydis, Juliette, Jyhaero, Kaben, Kagatoe, Kale, Kaitie, Kellevi, Kendogg, Kerlin, Keren, Kiltpeeper, Kobuk/Sitka, Kokolo, Kuzon, Kyrisa, Lashuenta, Levilla, Lg, Lilboo, Lionusdrake, Lipwig, Lojze, Lolcats, Lollipop, Looksa, Lottarage, Lottathreat, Lottaheals, Ludovika, Lynestrex, Macfarquar, Malaia, Mathibarad, McLoughlin, Meatballsoup, Missguided, Mithridates, Mirshana, Mojack, Mool, Moonraye, Mysteria, Necrosis, Nehi, Neristranna, Neshama, Nikkifrost, Niplsauce, Nokt, Nubisa, Nugsy, Nysarra, Oakshanna, Oceani, Oldmanvekk, Ontherocks, Oom, Ophelia, Orcsquasher, Otaylig, Qanya, Paulgladdin, Payorth, Pelham, Penryn, Phaela, Phylox, Potatoetot, Primera, Prone, Quidz, Quintessence, Raike, Rashelle, Raziael, Realnoice, Reapicheep, Redlough, Rehni, Remedy, Remiel, Retrokitty, Reuro, Rhognald, Rhustto, Ritavrataski, Roddrigo, Rodeo, Rubmybelly, Sabreena, Sandella, Saylorjerry, Scro, Semiretart, Serah, Seri, Serona, Shag, Silkenblade, Sinean, Sitka/Kobuk, Smashpee, Smokywood, Sorla, Spoken, Stegg, Stumpymcaxe, Swearengine, Swifts, Swiftlist, Swimbish, Tanyquil, Thalor, Thedarkelf, Thelasmag, Thorry, Thrall, Thyrrien, Timmywayne, Travieso, Valarie, Valerianna, Verminyard, Verushe, Wexit, Wheelofzaps, Whitemage, Wip, Wiseman, Wraps, Wtfmate, Wulfgar, Xaya, Yaroslav, Yrenja, Yutenat, Zanzabahr, Zarae, and Zwak.

So to all, a big thank you. I'd say that most of the people listed will never know their name is here, and that's fine. It's just my way of getting this together and thanking people for 11 years of Parallel Context.

*I went with a person's definable main, or if they split time both toons.

In Soviet Russia, Tentacles Kill You

Yesterday was one of those days where you kind of wish would keep going on and on.

And then you realize that it did.

Setting aside work for a moment, the evening began with this:

Yeah, and on AV Weekend, no less.

And ended with this:

Yes, Card is in there somewhere.

In between there were a lot of deaths.

A LOT of deaths.

The last one, by one of the Eye Tentacles, came right before C'Thun was weakened for the second time and those still alive were able to DPS it down.

And somewhere about an hour before first pull, I got pulled into a work call that lasted longer than the entire AQ40 raid.

So yeah, that made for an entertaining evening. 

But C'Thun is dead, and we proved we could kill it while trying AQ40 once a week.

Off Topic: Take This Seriously Part 2

Tonight I lost another member of my extended family to Covid-19.

Who's next? I don't know. But I do know we have it within ourselves to halt the spread of this virus. And we have to be all in on this.

The Cards Maketh the Man

It wasn't too long ago that I posted about the requirements to be an AQ40 raider, and my thinking that it would be a second job to simply keep up with the raiding requirements.

Well, I can confirm that yes, it does take a big chunk of your time to keep up with raid requirements.

At least the guild I raid with (or tolerates me, there are times I can't decide which) doesn't require flasks, but the requirements certainly cost a ton on the auction house. And to be fair, were it not for flasks --and their components-- costing so much* I'd not have been able to generate the gold to cover all the items needed for the other day's AQ40 raid.

It kind of left me hoping that I'd not be called off the bench for Monday's raid so I could preserve the pots and whatnot for another week.

After all, I was second off the bench that night. I figured that I'd sit around, play some solitaire, and once I was released I could go do some fishing for a while and collect mats for the Elixir of Greater Firepower.

About 10 minutes before invites were to be sent out, however, I got a ping from the raid leader that I'm #1 on the depth chart and I had a good chance at being called up. 

Oh.

I finished the farming I was doing, switched over to Card, collected the mats I'd bought, and headed off to Ahn'Qiraq.

***

I wasn't kidding about playing Solitaire.**

Yes, I know I need to clean the carpet.
(And no, the stain wasn't caused by me.)
However, I couldn't rent a cleaner throughout
the Summer due to that Covid-19 thing.

And yes, I suck at Solitaire. To be fair, most random Solitaire deals from a real deck of cards aren't solvable, so it's more of a method to keep yourself grounded and the mind occupied while waiting.

I kept checking to see if I was invited, but so far nothing. And then I got a whisper that one of the raiders hadn't showed up yet, so be ready.

And in a couple of minutes I got the invite. I put away the cards, saluted the raid leader (who was outside), and ran on in.

How'd it go? I thought the raid went pretty well. We got to Phase 3 on C'Thun, and I'm sure we'll take it down next week.

I got teased a bit by some of my friends in the raid, with one of them whispering "You are becoming one of us" repeatedly, which made me laugh. 

There were a couple of items that dropped that I was interested in bidding on, but I decided against it because a) I'm not a regular member of the raiding team yet, so I'd rather the item go to someone who is, and b) I had issues getting the Weakauras widget that was created for handling loot on this specific raid to work. So while I could see the loot, I didn't want to take up any more time in raid to fuss around with my inability to use the widget when we could be out there slaying internet dragons. Or Old Gods; your choice.

It was the same belief that I took into the raid last week, when I had friends kicking me in the ass to roll on a mount. I'm the guest, and until I become a regular raider I'll wait until others get theirs first. I'm not going to be known as "that guy" who showed up, got a mount or some gear, and split. I've too much self respect for that.

***

Compare and contrast with the Molten Core run on Az last night.

I've been coming to that raid for a couple of months now, and Az has gotten pretty far in collecting T1 gear. However, I still need to upgrade my other stuff, such as rings and weapons. And tonight should have been a bonanza, as I was the only Rogue in the raid for the first half of the run and the Rogue who showed up in the second half of the run was already BWL level geared. 

But naturally the WoW gods had other ideas.

With the exception of the shoulders, every drop up until Ragnaros was something I'd already looted before, and I'd seen numerous times already. But the shoulders' drop was worth the wait, as I'd lost a roll on those twice now.

Still, when Perdition's Blade and the Band of Accuria both dropped on Ragnaros, I pinched myself.

So, the Perdition's Blade came up for a roll, I rolled and waited for the timer to end. As the other Rogue there had one already, I was confident that I was going to walk away with this one at least.

Then another person outrolled me.

That's when all hell broke loose.

On one side there were people arguing for the Warrior who rolled for the dagger. He was a fairly fresh L60, and for him the Perdition's Blade would be a huge upgrade.  On the other side were people saying that the Perdition's Blade was a BiS Rogue dagger that's useful up until it can get replaced in AQ40. 

The chaos went on for close to a good 5 minutes, until the raid leader reasserted control and said she'd let me decide if I wanted it or not. 

For me, it was a no-brainer. I'd already won an item, the Warrior rolled and won, so it belonged to him. Whether or not he should have rolled is beside the point; he rolled, didn't have any other wins, and he won the roll.

Almost immediately afterward I got whispers from people basically saying "How could you pass that up? It's BiS!!"

Because I'd rather have a clean conscience than a BiS item, that's why. 

***

I play the game to have fun, not to Win All The Things. When it stops being fun, then I have to consider either changing my in game behavior or move on. 

And I guess that's what I don't get: when you quantify "winning" as in "winning all that phat loot", then you can deviate into ethically questionable territory. 

Like the time that two friends of mine back in college decided to cheat at cards so that they could win at Euchre.

Oh yes, that did happen.

And it went on for at least a month or two before another friend noticed their signals between each other while my roommate and I were buried in our cards, looking them over for possible moves. That other friend started laughing, and then after the hand was played he pointed out the cheating. My roommate was hurt, but I was infuriated.

We didn't play for money, and we didn't play for booze or anything either. We just played to have fun. But winning was so important to them that they felt they had to have that extra edge, and that's what hurt. And here I was thinking that my roommate and I were just having some long droughts of bad luck, but no, the reality was a lot different.

I've never forgotten that feeling of humiliation, betrayal, and anger. That's why I play games the way I play, so that others know that when they win, they've won fair and square. That there's no recourse for accusations afterward. And so that everybody knows that any winnings are rightfully gotten on both sides. You could argue that I've taken that to extremes and that I should assert myself more, but in the end I have to live with myself. And in the dead of night, when you're trying to sleep, your conscience can be pretty damn loud.

*Thank you, Dreamfoil, for costing so much.

**When I say "Solitaire", I mean "Klondike". That's the game that was known as Solitaire when I was growing up, and whenever I pull out a deck of cards to play, that's what I play.

FOMO -- Discord Style

Discord has been a godsend to the MMO community, and the gaming community in general. It's far more than the old Ventrilo system, or even a Skype or Teams system, as it also replaces many of the functions that guild websites would have been utilized: keeping track of sign-ups, forum discussions, and managing various in-guild activities by the guild leadership.* Add-ons such as Rythm ensure that guildies can be their own DJ, and there are all sorts of other add-ons that come in handy.

So I wanted to listen to ELO. Don't judge me.

To be fair, I don't consider Discord "user friendly" as some people do. I consider it closer to UNIX in that it is extremely powerful, but you can accidentally cause problems without intending to because you're not always sure how to do things without going back to the online manual. Which can suck if you're on the tablet or phone app.** And, given how space works in something such as Google, you're never quite sure --as an end user-- just how much space you're allowed when you're looking at a video you took and whether you should upload it to your guild's Discord server to share with your friends. 

Do you know how long it took me to find
the Disconnect button? Usually I'm in a
hurry to get to wherever I need to go for the raid,
so taking the time to look at the "fine print"
of Discord is just not there.

But another thing that I've had to get used to is that when you pug, you join another guild's Discord server in order to join the audio connection. Yes, it's very simple to do that, but if you leave the server after that event you joined for --a raid or grouping or just to be social-- you have to get an invite to get back in. That can be annoying if you pug a lot, and the sign-ups for those pugs are on the same Discord server you just left. My first forays into raiding were like that, and after the first time you realized you should have hung onto that server you learn to never get rid of them. Just in case.

Oh, and if your MMO's Discord server is anything like WoW Classic's Myzrael-US server, the "Guild Recruitment" page entries all seem to end with an invitation to check out the guild's Discord server.

So, if you're like me, you collect what feels like a ton of these Discord server connections. 

Again, just in case.

***

As those connections have piled up, I've found that I've had to be more aggressive in muting alerts from these servers. I don't want to be a snoop, yet at the same time I seem to regularly get alerts when someone posts in a Discord server to "@everyone". 

And then there's the constant stream of people in raid chats that --despite my best efforts-- make me wonder what I'm missing out on.

I hate that FOMO feeling. Not because I really think I'm missing out on everything --to be fair, you're always gonna miss out on something if you're in an MMO, because you can't be on all the raids/instances/whatever for every guild-- but because that feeling is usually associated with being in the in-crowd.

That's the crux of the problem: you physically can't be doing all the things all the time. My regular raid schedule went from one night a week, to two nights a week, and now four nights a week across two toons. Trying to do more than that on a regular basis isn't sustainable, even with two kids in college and not at home. Spur of the moment raids such as Onyxia, Z'G, or AQ20 are doable, but even then I have to think hard on what I might be giving up both in-game and out-of-game. 

Just like last night.

I could have signed up for an AQ20 run, but decided it wasn't necessary so I was fine with working on some other things in-game for a while. In the end, a friend whispered me for an assist with her guild group, as one of her guildies was working on farming for a wand in Stratholme and needed a fifth. Because I was free, I got to help out and catch up with my friend on how she's been doing. Or, like on Saturday, I got to spend about an hour or more chatting with a friend on cooking, family, jobs, and all sorts of topics while I farmed herbs. There was no pressure to do anything else, despite all of the requests in the LFG channel, and it was a relaxing afternoon.

***

FOMO is always going to be there, no matter what you do, and apps like Discord can exacerbate that feeling. But the trick is to understand that it is an internal pressure, something you place on yourself, and you have to learn to manage it. And if you have issues, talk to people about it. No sense in burning yourself out on a game you love because you feel that you have to be doing all the things all the time.

*One thing I'm eternally grateful is that some people are called to step into guild leadership positions. When I get done with work I want to take off my "team lead" or "[whatever] lead" or "manager" or whatever hat and just relax, but some people have that urge to go out and be the organizer. Occasionally I get the urge to do something like that, but then I remember that I herd cats all day, so why do it at night?

**Don't ask why, just trust me on this one. I'd rather save the embarrassment.