Seems that during this week’s maintenance and tweaks, the “just go farm Ulduar derp derp” strategy (I use the term very loosely) has been nerfed and no longer works. You can no longer use vehicles in Ulduar, on bombing runs, or to trample Icecrown skeletons to get your charms.

In addition, healers are reporting that they are passively receiving Lovely Charms in instances, without doing any damage to the mobs. They are receiving charms for contributing to the group, but don’t have to deal any killing blows in order to be eligible. This is how it should have worked from the very start. No more Holy Nova spam for Mephitik.


Farming Ulduar wasn’t cheating – but it wasn’t right, either.

So now the healers are happy, and the Ulduar farmers are crying. Awww. It’s tragic when Big Bad Blizzard steps in and stops people from trivialising achievements. I shed a single glistening tear for all those people who can no longer “farm” charms in bulk.

(Not really.)

Cassandri over at HoTs and DoTs wrote a great article on exploits and how we define them. I don’t think the Ulduar trash farming was an exploit as such; I’m sure Blizzard would have jumped in much faster if it had been. But I do believe it went against the spirit of the event – mass farming charm bracelets in bulk and then listing them for 20g a pop on the AH.

Those bracelets are supposed to be special, people – not mass produced in some cheap dwarf sweatshop! Where’s the love?

I don’t think the developers intended people to jump into vehicles and blow up hundreds of mobs a minute to procure bagfuls of bracelets. The fact that it has been nerfed confirms this thinking – it wasn’t working as intended.

As an aside – what made me laugh was all the people whose counter to the healers was “onoez, you have to work for your achievements.. QQ”. Yet they were trivialising the achievement themselves by farming 50 bracelets in a siege engine, instead of working for them in the way it was intended….

It wasn’t against the rules. But it was a bit dirty. Call me a carebear or a goodie-two-shoes – I don’t like doing things that go against the spirit of the content, and yes, I do look down my nose at people who think it’s ok to do it. I believe that most reasonable people have an inkling that maybe something isn’t really the way it’s meant to be done. I just think that as grown-ups we can tell the difference between intended and unintended, and then make the choice not to take advantage of these temporary oversights by Blizzard. They didn’t intend us to be able to farm 500 charms in half an hour and then flood the auction house with them.

Was it cheating? No, of course not – the mechanic was there – kill high level mobs, get charms. People thought, “where can I kill as many mobs as I can, in as little time as possible?” It was pretty smart, in terms of efficiency.

It definitely wasn’t in the spirit of the event, though – and I wouldn’t participate in that, because it falls inside the boundaries of what I personally consider cheating.


Smug Keeva is oh so smug.

Obviously, some people aren’t too happy that Blizzard took away their ezmode bulk farming strat. Someone wrote in the WoW forum thread:

yeah you could have gotten 100x more charms from the ways you were told but atleast you ruined it for everyone else


Oh boy, I just couldn’t help myself… I HAD to respond:

In the spirit of the past 20 pages, there really is only one response to this.


Don’t worry, you can still get charms by grinding mobs or doing your dailies!

*smiles*


Oh man, if only they could have seen the enormous shit-eating grin that I had on my face when I posted it.


PS: The healers didn’t get the Ulduar strategy nerfed, and it’s pretty dumb to pin that on us. We were talking about a completely different issue – most didn’t even care that you could go into Ulduar. I don’t think I ever saw anyone asking for the Ulduar method to be shut down. We just wanted the imbalance in dungeons to be fixed. The healers said “we can’t get them in heroics, please change this” and the response was “go to Ulduar”. We weren’t the ones who brought it to Blizzard’s attention

Anyway – hooray for Blizzard listening to us and doing the right thing!

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I really have to say that I am unimpressed by yet another holiday achievement demonstrating a lack of foresight on the part of the developers.

I’m referring to “Charming” which requires you to acquire Lovely Charms and turn them into a Lovely Charm Bracelet (10 charms are then made into one bracelet). You can get the charms by killing any green+ mob. So you can collect them by grinding, doing quests, or doing dungeons – anything that will have you killing green+ mobs.

BUT – you need to land the killing blow to receive the charm.

This is obviously not an issue when you’re soloing, since you’ll be dealing all the killing blows*, but it means that healers either miss out while in groups, or they have to spam AOE to try to steal kills – because we don’t do the killing in dungeons.

(*Note: since it goes off killing blows and NOT who tagged the mob, if you are grinding mobs out in the world, someone else can steal your charms by finishing off your kill before you get a chance to. This is a double blow for healers who don’t have a DPS spec, since we can’t burst mobs down like a DPSer can, leaving us vulnerable to having our kill stolen. I had people steal several of my kills yesterday.)

Of course, when someone points out the inequality here, the typical responses are things like:



• “Just go to Ulduar and use the seige engines for 1000 charms a minute!”

• “QQ, just go do some daily quests, stop whining.”
• “It’s always going to be harder for a non-DPS class to DPS mobs, durr” (wow..)
• “You have an AOE spell, try using it.”
• “Don’t you have a dual spec? Go DPS and quit crying.”
• “onoez, you have to do some WORK to get an achievement? Boohoo” (whoooooooosh, there goes the issue at hand, sailing right over the top of your head…)


Yes – there are ways for you to go out there and use vehicles for 5 billion charms a minute – that’s so awesome! I’m so happy you enjoy doing it that way! But it doesn’t change the fact that during everyday, normal play, a DPS class will receive more charms than a healing class – without even trying. Charms will simply drop into their bags while they do anything – BGs, dungeons, raids, daily quests, grinding. But the healers don’t get any from BGs, dungeons or raids (unless they are DPSing at the same time).

The imbalance is obvious.

Quoting poster Proxima from the forums, who hit the issue right on the nose:

This argument is so stupid it’s mind boggling.

DPS: Do what you always do, get lots of holiday items.

Tank: Do what you always do, get some holiday items.

Healer: Do what you always do, get jack squat. Instead find some way to game the system and listen to idiots on the forums claim this is somehow logical and balanced, not to mention “Working as intended”.

Christ, it’s not like the imbalance isn’t ludicrously obvious.

(my emphasis)

And Carmelita:

If i were a DPS by the end of the two weeks I would have all i needed by doing what I normally do, but being a healer means I have to go out of my way to do dailies that are boring to me and grind mobs that take twice as long for me to kill as compared to a DPS. It truly is the principle of the matter for me.

Spot on.

It’s not that we can’t get charms. It’s that other people will get all the charms they need (and more) without deviating a single tiny bit from their normal daily routine – while healers have to go out and farm for them, either by grinding mobs, doing dailies in overpopulated areas, or by going into Ulduar and killing Flame Leviathan trash. DPSers can do this achievement passively, but healers (and to a lesser extent, tanks) will have to go out and spend extra time farming for the items for the achievement.

Is it a big deal? Not in the grand scheme of things. Does it cripple my ability to get an achievement? No (in fact I already had the achievement, retroactively). But even if I already had the achievement, that doesn’t stop me from feeling annoyed that Blizzard can’t seem to see achievements that are skewed. I don’t like it when things are unfair.

It’s a matter of principle.

YES, I could go quest. Or grind. Or zoom around in Ulduar vehicles, blowing up dwarves for great justice. I’m not unable to get charms. I’m not unable to do this achievement through my own means.

But DPS classes are getting charms fall into their bags as they go about their daily business (dungeons). When I do the same, I get nothing – UNLESS I spend the run doing whatever I can do AOE down mobs OR I go and do vehicle quests or lolfarm the Flame Leviathan trash.

If it’s still not clear that it is unfair – then here’s another example. Your guild does their usual clear of ICC. Trash galore. Charms drop, but ONLY go to the DPS classes – none of the healers get any. How is this fair?

A DPS friend runs a heroic with me. For running the heroic, he is rewarded with 2 Emblems of Frost and 13 Lovely Charms. I did the same heroic, but only get 2 Emblems of Frost. Fair?

Let’s go even further and put it into monetary terms. Bracelets (=10 charms) are selling for about 20g. So for every 10 charms you collect, you make a 19g profit. For running that heroic, my DPS friend received 2 Emblems of Frost and (the equivalent of) ~25g. I get 2 Emblems of Frost.

See?


Once again – yes, I could go do dailies, or grind, or farm Ulduar for my charms. But that is not the issue. The issue is that DPS classes will have the charms fall in their bags during normal, everyday instances that they would have done anyway – while healers have to go out of their way to go get them. The ease of acquiring them is NOT the issue – it’s not hard to go “farm” them – the issue is that it is blatantly unfair that some people are awarded these items almost passively, while others don’t – despite having contributed equally to the kill.

I really truly do not understand how Blizzard can’t see that this is unfair and unbalanced. This is not a “wah wah, life is so unfair, why do you hate healers so much” post. It’s just a simple statement of fact – this achievement is skewed, and it is unfair to healers.

Attaching a quest item to a killing blow shows incredible lack of foresight on Blizzard’s part. And when it’s brought to their attention, frustratingly, they tell us it’s working as intended.


Big deal? No. Disappointing? Very.

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I’m not sure why I subscribe to Gevlon’s blog anymore. Lately it provides fewer and fewer insightful posts on making money in WoW, and instead just seems to be post after post about how he considers a lot of players to be morons for having a different definition of the word “fun”. There are actually a few blogs on my blogroll that annoy the heck out of me because I read the posts and think “wow, I can’t believe you’re so far off the mark”, but I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe. I’m going to put it down to morbid curiosity.

Gevlon has snatched hold of the $10 vanity pet concept and decided that only morons would spend tangible cash on intangible in-game rewards. He now seeks to understand why people want to own them (although I suspect he has no real desire to understand, he just wants to reiterate that it is folly.)

He refuses to accept that some people want these pets purely because they are “fun” or “cute”. To him, there is one main reason why people purchase these pets: to show off, to have a status symbol, to keep up with everyone else who buys a pet. Fun/cute is an unacceptable explanation. There must be more to it.

Do we really have to question why people enjoy things, why they consider something to be fun? Is “because I like it” not good enough? Is it really necessary to delve deeper?

I like things that make me happy. Do we really need to psychoanalyse that?

It’s his blog, of course, and if he WANTS to psychoanalyse – that’s his project. But what really annoys me is when he simply slaps labels on people because they do not conform to his idea of what is productive and what is wasteful or pointless. People are not automatically morons because they choose to do activities that they consider to be FUN.


Digital items are worth less because you can’t hold them in your hands

I think people are getting too hung up on the idea that it’s bad to use real cash for digital items. That somehow, you’re a moron if you pay good money for something that you can’t hold in your hands and “own”.

Do you ever buy songs from iTunes or similar? I do. That’s a digital download. Whatever you buy digitally, you do it because you like the product, and it brings you enjoyment. The only difference between an iTunes song and a Pandaren Monk is that we know that after a number of years, WoW will close down, and your panda will cease to exist (whereas your iTunes song should endure). So the pets are more like a rental than a purchase – one day you’ll no longer own them.

So why are these two minipets such an enormous waste of money? $10 for some giggles and fun, why not?

Have you ever bought someone a surprise gift, just to make them smile? What about a bunch of flowers? Flowers die after a few days, they serve absolutely no purpose other than to make someone smile and feel nice. Pandaren Monks have been popular pets for people in the last few days – to make people smile and laugh.

A few pots of beer or a bunch of flowers will cost you $10 and can make you feel good for a short time, then they are gone. A pandaren monk will cost you $10 and makes you feel good for a short time, then he’ll be gone (when you get sick of him, or when WoW shuts down).

$10=$10.

But a $10 bunch of flowers or a few drinks with friends is “normal”, while a digital minipet is for morons.


I don’t subscribe to the idea that pointless = moronic

I spent hours one day grinding Gelkis Centaur rep. Remember those two centaur clans in Desolace – that you have to collect their ears and whatnot to become friendly with one clan and hated with the other? I wanted exalted with one of them. Why? Something to do – something silly. So I could laugh and say “haha, I’m exalted with a pointless faction.” Hardly an achievement or anything to show off, but a bit of harmless fun. Doing something incredibly tedious and long-winded, purely to say I’d done it, and laugh.

(by the way, you can’t get exalted with them – it caps at 11999/12000 Honored – but I didn’t find that out until I actually got capped. Heartbreaking!)

By Gevlon’s standards, I’m a total moron. I spend hours of my time doing achievements, farming, grinding, fishing (for fun, not for money), and all of those other dumb things that non-goblins like to waste their lives on. But I enjoy it. Call me crazy (but not a moron, thanks), but I love doing laps of the basin, mining and herbing. I love fishing for hours and hours. I enjoy mindless grinding.

Am I a moron?

No. I “simply like” grinding.

Why is it fun? Why do I like it? Because it makes me happy. I enjoy it. Why do I enjoy it? WHO CARES, I JUST DO. You’re just gonna have to take my word for it when I say “because I like it”.

Evidently the very subjective idea of what various people find to be “fun” is just really hard for some people to grasp.

Gevlon spends his time making money for the sole purpose of making money. He never EVER buys anything that isn’t absolutely necessary – no mounts, no pets, nothing frivolous, ever. So apart from a time when he was paying for a spot in raids, he pretty much does nothing with his money except pile it up in a corner. Pointless, right?





Is he a moron for collecting gold? No. He “simply likes” making money for the sake of it.

Why is it fun? Why does he like it? Because he enjoys it.**

If someone with 100 vanity pets is a moron, then Gevlon himself is just as much of a moron for collecting gold for the sake of it (it would be entirely different if he had a specific purpose for the gold – but generally he just stockpiles it).

I don’t understand how people can be so judgmental and short-sighted, labelling other people as idiots for displaying a particular behaviour, but almost duplicating it themselves without even realising that it is exactly the same kind of thing. Collecting for no particular reason. Collecting because it’s just “fun”. Something to do. A milestone to strive for. 214k gold, 100 mounts, 100 vanity pets, 40 exalted reputations – they’re all “pointless” goals. But why is the vanity pet collector a moron compared to the gold stockpiler?





One of us

Honestly, I feel sorry for people like Gevlon, who are so hung up on judging everyone else’s idea of fun, constantly feeling the need to label and judge. The saddest thing is that he is exactly the same as any other collector who collects something for the sake of having a collection, but either doesn’t see it, or decides to rationalise his behaviour as “better”.

I collect vanity pets, Bob collects bottletops, Gevlon collects gold. He spends his time and his subscription money on his minigame of hitting the gold cap. I spend my time and subscription seeing how many pets I can jam into my knapsack. Sorry Gevlon, but there is no difference. We’re all wasting our time here, if you think about it – everything you do in the game is “pointless” except for two main things: a certain sense of accomplishment (however warped it may be), and whatever enjoyment you get out of what you do – whether it be raiding, RPing, grinding, playing the AH, collecting pets, fishing, racking up achievement points, PvPing, or dancing on the Ironforge mailbox in a Lovely Black Dress.

As long as someone else’s idea of “fun” doesn’t interfere with my idea of “fun” then frankly they can spend their subscription any way they like, who the hell am I to dictate to them what’s fun? Who am I to tell them they’re a moron for buying a minipet, or spending weeks grinding for The Insane, or spending 5 nights a week raiding for server firsts? Where do I get off making those calls?

In the end, when they switch off the servers, we’ll each of us have nothing to show for our time – so the only thing that matters is the enjoyment that we get out of our monthly subscription (and, if you consider it worth the purchase, any add-on products that you might like to buy). That enjoyment and “value” is entirely subjective, and does not have to have any kind of in-depth analysis to discover the “truth”.

Sometimes, “I did it for fun” is exactly the explanation. It does not need to be investigated or extrapolated. There is not always a shady hidden agenda. Not everyone buys shiny things to show off on the Dalaran steps. Sometimes, useless vanity items are just fun to look at or play with – even if nobody is around. Just for fun.

Pandaren Monks are fun and they make me smile and laugh. And in my case, it not only made me happy, but it made my friend (who gifted it to me) happy as well.

All for the low, low price of a few beers, a couple of coffees, or a box of widgets.


That’s 10 bucks well-spent, right there.





**Edit: Gevlon has clarified that he in fact does NOT enjoy making money, he does it only to prove that his methods work:

“PS: I don’t know how many times I explained why did I gained goldcap but people still keep asking. I’m fully aware that anything over 10K is useless. No, it wasn’t fun at all to grind that money. I did it as a proof that my goldmaking tricks work. Imagine that I’d say “this and this would work, though I never tried it as I don’t need more gold”. Yes, by saying this I also mean that others who gained lot of gold without any plan how to use it did something irrational.”

My brain just might explode. It’s NOT ok to do pointless things that you enjoy, but it is fine to do something that you DON’T enjoy and (by your own admission) is utterly pointless – except to be able to say “and here’s how I did it.”

How can anyone scoff at another person’s 100 minipets – that they enjoyed collecting – while they themselves are mindlessly grinding for 214k gold that they neither want, nor need, and even DISLIKE doing? At least I’m enjoying my time-wasting – you don’t like what you’re doing at all. /boggle. I especially liked the last part – which I take to mean “If you copy what I did, but you don’t have a purpose for your money, then you’re an idiot.” (but remember – don’t buy vanity items – because that’s dumb.)

Yet we’re the morons…

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Despite trying very hard to take a break from raiding, I felt too bad stepping away while we were trying to get Algalon.

We got him tonight after about 2.5hrs total tries.




Feels good. It’s still a shame we couldn’t keep going on 25man; I’m confident that we would have killed him on 25man a long time ago.

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Pointer the first

Now that you can trade mislooted items to people in your dungeon or raid group, you can fast-track your Needy achievement (if you haven’t got it already).

To get Needy, you have to win an item with an ilvl of 185 or higher, with a roll of 100. Previously this was pretty hard – how often do you roll need on items – especially now with all the badge gear available? And within those small amount of need rolls, how often would you roll 100?

I had pretty much resolved myself to not getting this quest until questing in Cataclysm – my plan was to dual box with one of my other characters so that it would force me to roll on random greens and blues (which will be higher than 185 by then), and eventually I would get it. Stellar plan.

But, now there’s a better way. Simply arrange with your group to roll Need on absolutely EVERYTHING in your heroic/raid. If someone actually wants the item, you can just hand it over to them. If more than one person wants the item, they can /roll for it. Otherwise, Need is the new Greed. Unwanted items can also be passed to an enchanter to disenchant as usual.



• Everyone rolls Need on all greens, blues, and epics.

• If something is actually an upgrade for someone, trade it to them – no problem!
• If more than one person wants it, /roll, and trade it to the winner – no problem!
• Unwanted/bound items can be traded to an enchanter to DE.
• Cross your fingers and hope for a lucky roll!


Using this method, between a 10 man Naxx and a heroic afterwards, six of us got our Needy achievement in the same night. How awesome is that?




Well, I guess it’s only awesome if you care about tiny random achievements – but I thought it was pretty great.

WARNING: I would only do this inside a guild – not really recommended for PuGs, they might get confused and think you’re trying to steal everything. Also, don’t get into the habit of rolling Need and then go PuG and do it again by accident!

One of my guildies did a PuG and forgot, and rolled Need – and promptly told them, “Keeva told me to!” :/



---


Pointer the second

DON’T try to grind Gelkis (or Magram) centaur rep to Exalted.

You will only encounter utter heartbreak at 11999/12000 Honored, when you discover that for some reason, Blizzard has capped this rep and you can NEVER EVER REACH EXALTED.

*sulks in the corner*

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(Standard disclaimer: we don’t know exactly what is coming in Ulduar or how challenging the content will be, things may change, etc etc)

Soapbox time again guys!

I am a very competitive person. I’m very proud of our guild’s #1 spot on our server, and excited to see what happens come Ulduar, and how strong the competition against us will be. While I am very confident in our ability to hold that position, I try not to become complacent; Naxx wasn’t exactly a challenge and things may be different when we all take off from the same starting line, rather than level 80s slowly trickling in and guilds beginning to raid at different times. I’m looking forward to a race.

Anyway.. I’ll just come right out and say it. I may need to duck the flying tomatoes for saying this, but here goes.

25 man raids should be harder, more rewarding, and seen as more of an achievement than 10 man raids.

*ducks*

Wait, let me explain..

10 man raiders are people too

First, let me say that I agree that 10 mans should be challenging – I do not consider 10-man guilds to be less skilled in any way. Those raids should provide a challenge to people who can’t run 25 man raids (or simply prefer 10s). And 10 man progression should be recognised as such; I have been in 10 man guilds and those boss kills were just as important to us as any hardcore guild’s kills. I just want to be super clear that I’m not saying 10 mans are bad in any way, or that people who choose to run them are not as skilled as 25 man raiders.

But what really bugs me is when 10 man content is considered harder and therefore more of an achievement. That a 10 man fight should be tacked onto the end of all of the 25 man boss kills in order to say that you have actually “finished all endgame content.”

I’m talking about 10 man Sartharion, of course.


I just.. don’t want to do 10 man raids.

I’ve definitely enjoyed the challenge of Sarth10 these few weeks.. but aside from being something interesting to do, I don’t really care about getting it done. 10 man raids, to me, are for fun, badges, something to do, and perhaps a gear stepping stone. They are a means to an end. Obviously to other people they are their “end game” and I’m not knocking that, definitely not. But as a hardcore 25man raider, 10 mans are not end game for me.

People have knocked me for not having Undying yet. But if they actually asked (or if they checked the Armory), they would find that I’ve done Naxx10 five whole times (plus two times I subbed in to help out for a few bosses). I do it specifically to help guildies out, but I always prefer not to do it. I’ve picked up a few 10 man achievements here and there, but I have no drive to go in and finish them off anytime soon.

I just don’t care about 10 mans. To me, they are a side endeavour, a hobby, something to do casually – whereas 25 man raids are what I’m really here for.

So it really annoys me that I should feel obliged (yes, obliged) to take a step backwards into 10 mans to complete a fight that is seen as the hardest fight in the game. I feel that if I don’t have this notch on my belt, I am in some way inferior to other 25 man guilds who have killed the same 25 man content but also added this 10 man fight to their resume. Basically, you can’t claim that you A) have finished the game and B) you’re a top raiding guild unless you step out of your 25 man raiding and go do this 10 man. And to a lesser extent, you need to go do 6min Malygos(5min pre-patch) and the Immortal, too. Then you’re really finished. Properly.

It doesn’t matter if you have zero interest in 10 mans (as I do). If you haven’t done this fight, you’re not such a great raiding guild after all. You can’t claim to have finished everything, so don’t even try to say you have!

A smaller margin of error, a more challenging fight

There are plenty of arguments out there that 10 man should be just as hard (and just as rewarding, gear-wise) as 25 mans. It seems a popular view (and it makes sense) that 10 mans leave less room for error, as well as giving far less flexibility in terms of group makeup and buffs, meaning that things can be more challenging. You can’t afford to have slackers because everyone has to perform. There’s probably room for underachievers more in a 25 man because a couple of people dragging their feet in a large group will have little effect compared to in a 10 man.

10man Sartharion with drakes is definitely much, much harder than the 25man version – because everyone has to perform at 300% capacity for nearly 15 minutes straight, and the slightest slip will cost you the attempt. It’s crazy stuff (and definitely very rewarding).

But I just can’t help feeling that it is really wrong for smaller raids to be seen as a bigger achievement than 25 mans.

Worse though, that I should feel obliged to do these 10 man fights and achievements to prove myself and my guild, even if I have absolutely no interest in 10 man raiding, because if I don’t, I can’t claim to be as progressed as I’m supposed to be. Finishing 10 man content to prove myself as a 25 man raider. lolwut?

QQ, my beautiful linear progression

Server progression used to be black and white. Here’s a list of bosses, and here’s a list of who has killed them – done. The top guild is the one who has killed the newest boss first. Recognition goes to the guilds who kill the bosses generally seen as the big milestones; the Ragnaroses, C’thuns, Vashjes, Archimondes, Illidans and Kil’Jaedens of the world. And now, Sartharion with drakes. It’s pretty simple. You kill a boss before anyone else, you’re the new leader (until someone beats you to another boss sometime).




But if 10 man bosses are seen as harder than some of the 25 mans, where does that leave progression ratings? Do we make up our own rankings based on subjectivity and whatever people generally consider to be the harder content, regardless of group size or Tier number?

We saw a little of this kind of problem after changes were made to allow guilds to progress to BT without having to kill Vashj and Kael. The progression lists were suddenly thrown into turmoil as their caretakers tried to work out how to rate guilds who had killed the first couple of (easy) bosses in BT (a Tier 6 instance), but never killed Vashj or Kael (Tier 5 bosses), who were considered the most challenging bosses at the time. People could choose to skip the hardest encounters of lower tiers and go straight into the easier encounters of higher tiers…. and nobody knew how to rate them easily. They had to make up some kind of arbitrary scale of which bosses they considered harder, ignoring where they were “supposed to be” in progression ladders.




But my beef isn’t so much with skipping content – it’s about having to step outside of 25 man raiding for “progression” because a 10 man fight is perceived (in this case, correctly) to be harder and thus a step ahead of the 25 man version.

I won’t go so far as to call it a “trend” yet, but if 10 mans do continue to give as much or more of a challenge and a greater victory than 25 man raiding, how will we rank guilds in the future?





Hard modes – here to stay

Preliminary Ulduar info is out. 14 bosses, 11 hard modes. Hard modes are things like Sartharion with X drakes up; the example they’ve given so far is the Flame Leviathan, which has defense towers that you can either kill to make things easier, or leave them up. The concept is very similar to Sartharion with drakes – depending on the number of drakes/towers you have up, the fight changes in difficulty and rewards different loot.

So it would seem that we will now have 11 more Sartharion with drake/s fights (basically). That’s pretty exciting – so far it has been a case of “clear Naxx, work on killing Sarth with 1/2/3 drakes……. now um…. farm until Ulduar.” On the other hand, it sounds like Ulduar will keep us busy for a long, long time because almost all of the bosses are Sarth-style encounters with optional challenges.

But the question is: will the 10 man “hard mode” fights be harder than 25 man?

Sarth3D on 10 man is the hardest fight in the game at the moment because it requires precise raid stacking, huge dps, and every single person to perform perfectly. On 25 man it’s still a huge challenge, but when you switch to the 10 man version, 25 man seems like you could watch TV or eat a sandwich while you do it. I don’t think Blizzard is trying to make 10 man the bigger challenge, but since you’re really limited in how much you can “stack” your raid, not to mention the dps requirements, that’s just how it’s turned out.

Will Ulduar 10 man hard modes be the same?

I’m going to guess that they will. Not deliberately; not because Blizzard necessarily wants them to be the better challenge, but because they just require a much tighter raid than 25man, and are therefore more of a challenge by default. And that puts them higher on the subjective progression chart.





Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah (amirite?)

I’m sure to a lot of people, this is a very trivial thing. But to hardcore, competitive raiders such as myself, we need to be able to see where we sit. Who the competition is. How close the race is and how hot the other guilds’ breath is on our necks. It was hard enough in Tier 6 content when early Hyjal and early BT were basically parallel and it was difficult to say who was leading when one guild chose to start in BT and the other chose to work on Hyjal. Why can’t things move in a straight line…

I like to know where we stand. Exactly where. It’s a big deal. And having extra stuff like hard modes, 10 man fights and achievements (while fun and challenging) makes it much harder to know where you sit on that ladder.

I had hoped that 10 man Sartharion was a blip; that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen again, but more and more I am thinking that perhaps this is the way things are going to be from now on – that Blizzard will make 10 mans as challenging, if not more, than 25 mans (whether deliberately or not). 10 mans are easier to fill, and are accessible for more people. Obviously it is a good business decision for Blizzard to allow more people to raid and have this challenge. Hardcore raiders are far outnumbered by the more casual raiders who want to see the raids, and it would be dumb for Blizzard to cater more for 25 man raiders rather than their larger casual customer base.

I love large raids. It makes me sad though, to think that large raids might no longer by the pinnacle of raiding, that 25 man bosses might no longer be the real barometer for server progression, and that 10 mans and achievements will become a necessary part of the 25 man progression ladder.



Dammit, I want my linear progression back.

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This was our first real night of attempts – we gave it a couple of tries a little while ago but without a real strat, just testing the water.

Tonight we went with this strat, which I highly recommend. The most important point is not to try to stack a million sparks – just four – and that is all you need to get him down. In fact, it was surprisingly easy – I thought it would take us several nights of attempts.

Still working on Sarth10+3 though, that one is a real challenge. Hopefully Sunday or Monday!

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… especially if you’re a rerolled character.

But, it’s finally done, I have the achievement and I’m so glad. I’m far too stubborn to let something like that go; I couldn’t leave it with 50 quests left – I had to finish it. Along the way I finally got attuned for Onyxia, got my UBRS key, Keymaster achievement, and my Maraudon scepter. I got the achievement for 3000 quests, too.

Kalimdor is HARD. Especially hard, as mentioned, if you’re a rerolled character. I had none of my Brood or Hydraxian rep to help me, none of my old quest chains completed. At least, I suppose, I knew the quests and could remember where to go for each.. but after levelling 6 or so characters through Azeroth it can become difficult to remember whether I picked up that yeti fur that starts a quest, and how many of the suicidal metal chickens I escorted through Feralas, Tanaris and the Hinterlands.

Still, I got there in the end.. and I never want to do that ever ever again!



For those of you who do, though, here are some tips.

1. This thread is extremely valuable. It will prompt and prod you to recall all of the tiny, out of the way, obscure quests that you may have missed, or ones you were never aware of. When you get down to your last 50 or so, and you’re starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel, this will be a life saver.

2. Do Eastern Kingdoms first. EK is much easier than Kalimdor, and many of the EK quest chains lead to Kalimdor. If you do EK first, you’re more likely to pick up extra Kalimdor quests.

3. You may need to do multiple sweeps – sometimes completing quests will open up quests elsewhere.

4. Don’t forget to turn your low-level quest tracking on!

5. Use your Wowhead filters to check all available quests per zone. For example, here’s Azuremyst Isle. Then for each zone you can sort by faction to see if you have missed any quests.

6. Don’t forget new hubs – have you visited Mudsprocket yet? Turns out I had missed these quests (Keeva was past them when they were released) but I thought I had done them because I remember them – must have been on my hunter/mage/other druid, though. Don’t trust your memory, go back and check.

7. Wowhead is your friend. Many quests don’t seem to count – comments will tell you if they definitely don’t. These comments can save you a lot of time, travelling and disappointment. Some dungeon quests count and some don’t – for example, in Dire Maul, the Broken Trap quest doesn’t count, but the Ogre Suit one does (and they are almost identical), and this is where Wowhead can really save you a lot of frustration and wasted time.

8. Also, long quest chains may count for one continent and then swap to another. The heading in your quest log will tell you what the quest should count towards. Eg a quest might start in Orgrimmar, but be listed as “Eastern Plaguelands” in your log. In this case, it will count towards EK because it is listed as EPL, not Orgrimmar.

9. The Tier 0.5 quest line is worth about 8 quests, and begins with the blue bracers appropriate to your class (eg Wildheart Bracers). The quests start in the king’s room in Ironforge or Thrall’s chambers in Orgrimmar, and in total you will need the bracers, gloves and belt – which are all BOE. Try searching on your auction house. A lot of travelling is involved in this line, but 8 credits is a lot when you’re getting to the end of Kalimdor. Once it gets to the Stratholme part, though, it no longer counts for Kalimdor – just a heads up.

Also, remember that in patch 3.0.8 the number of quests for the Kalimdor achievement is being lowered by 30, and some adjustments will be made, so your number may change slightly (I gained 1 extra quest on the PTR).

Good luck!

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So I was Keeva, Conqueror of Naxxramas for a day; now I’m Keeva the Magic Seeker.

Now to gear my character, level my fishing, do some heroics, level my hunter to farm for me, grind some reps, and work on some achievements until Ulduar!

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