Hello Tauren and Night Elf friends.

A quick disclaimer on this one: This post is about the lack of threat-reduction abilities for druids. Night Elves have an ability through their Racial, and boy is is nice – but Taurens do not. So this is mostly about how we moocows miss out on the ability to drop a bit of threat if we need to. Important: it’s not a complaint about Shadowmeld, or a request to have Shadowmeld. It’s about the gap that exists for Tauren druids, and whether that should be filled (without detracting from the NE racial).


Remember, I have Tauren and Night Elf druids, and I love both. I don’t want my NE friends to think I’m trying to steal their awesome racial.


—————-


Somebody started a thread on the healing forums to ask if resto druids had ever wished for a Fade-like ability. Something that allows us to drop a bit of aggro – if only for a short time. I really feel that a threat-dump is something that druids are sorely missing, and I’ve mentioned it a number of times in the past.



Aggro-reducing tools at our disposal


We have a few things to help reduce healing aggro:


Innate threat-reducing tools
– Subtlety talent (10/20/30%)
– Bracing Earthsiege Diamond
– Enchant Cloak – Subtlety


Most druids don’t max out Subtlety (the norm is 2/3 to progress to the next tier of talents) because it’s really just not needed, generally speaking. Honestly, I don’t think threat is something that is constantly an issue, enough to warrant putting that extra point in Subtlety – and certainly not enough of an issue to warrant enchanting your cloak (and losing haste, spellpower, or mana return options) or giving up your meta slot to use the reduced aggro gem.


It’s not a chronic problem; it’s not as though I spend most of my time fighting off adds – but there are absolutely times that I have thought, “if only I had Fade”. But I’ll go into those later.


It’s worth noting, too, that there are situations where druids don’t want a static and innate threat reduction, for times when we need to kite things. Some druids have had to put talents into other spots in order to deliberately drop their 2/3 Subtlety, in order to perform a kiting role – for example, for constellations on Algalon. So I don’t think that buffing Subtlety or giving us some kind of extremely strong innate threat reduction is the best idea. I’d rather it was an ability that I am able to use when I need to.


Proactive and reactive threat-reducing tools
– Cower


Yep, this is pretty much it, if you’re a Tauren. Cat form and cower.


You have to be in range of the mob to do this, and chances are that if someone has face-pulled extra mobs and they are heading your way, you’d be better off dropping to bear than trying to cat+cower, especially if you’ve pulled multiple mobs.


Last-ditch tools to survive when things go bad
– Barkskin (and Improved Barkskin)
– Nature’s Grasp
– Warstomp


Barkskin is my best friend; whenever I get aggro, my instinctive knee-jerk reaction is to hit Barkskin. Unfortunately it only reduces damage – and if you’ve aggroed a boss or a pack of mobs, Barkskin isn’t going to save you. It should buy the tank a little time to pick up, if you’ve only grabbed one stray mob, though.


Nature’s Grasp is handy for stepping away from single mobs (I like it on Faction Champs), but only lasts a few seconds, can only affect one target, and is often resisted or breaks quickly. It’s nice, but it’s not great.


Warstomp is a nice AOE stun to help buy you a few seconds, whether you’re being attacked by one or several mobs. It’s ok in PVE, but really it’s mostly used as a PVP racial. I find it helpful in some situations, but not amazing. It also only works at short-range – so if you blow it prematurely before the mobs get to you, or if the mobs are staggered, it won’t help much. They have to be right up close to you to be effective, and by that time, you may already be dead.



Is healer aggro just a tank problem?


A common theme running through the replies is “get better tanks.” If something is aggroing onto you, the tank must be awful.


Is that really the issue?


Are all our threat problems caused by bad tanks, or someone face pulling an extra pack of mobs?


I see people saying things along the lines of, “lol if u get aggro, ur tanks r bad – or ur a bad healer, L2P” and that the tank should save you faster. Their argument is basically that if a druid is aggroing something, then “something is very wrong” – usually with the tank.





Now – I can agree with this to a point. If a tank has something picked up, it’s VERY rare that I can strip it off. I have my moments (/flex) but generally speaking, my tree tanking flings are short and sweet. Once the tank has got the mob, he’s got it. If I am pulling mobs off a tank that is already being tanked, then something is probably wrong with the tank’s TPS. Usually.


But I’m not talking about situations where the tank can’t hold the mobs. Or where he won’t pick things up off the healers. I’m talking about situations where you have a second, perhaps two, to react and survive – because something went wrong. Evidently the people who have said it’s a bad tank issue have never been one-shot by a mob that was pulled by someone else but made a beeline for the healers in about 2 seconds flat.


All taunts down, 30 yards distance to close – sorry Mr or Mrs Healer, it’s dirtnap time for you. And down I go.


I just don’t buy the argument “the tank should have seen the aggro and saved you.” Sometimes it’s just not that cut and dried. It’s not always because someone did something stupid.


Consider:




• the tank is stunned, frozen, or otherwise incapacitated for a few moments

• the tank dies; another tank class needs to pick up the mobs in a hurry
• the tank has already used his aoe/ranged taunt/s, and needs a few more seconds to pick up
• the tank does not have instant snap-aggro on multiple mobs
• someone else pulls aggro and drops to full health; you NS+HT them to full, and pull off
• you have HoTs ticking from a previous phase of a fight, new mobs spawn


and so on.


I guess it’s easy to be short-sighted and simply blame things on other people, rather than considering whether our tools could be improved in some way. And in this case, I think it’s a tool that has missing from our toolbox the whole time.



DruidFade mileage in WotLK – a tally


To further demonstrate the fact that it’s not always about someone being dopey, or about your tank being Donald – here are some encounters that I think I could have used a Fade for:




• MC resist on Instructor, he runs for a priest, I save priest and get aggro, splat, bye bye Immortal.

• The eye-stalks in the gauntlet leading to Loatheb
• HoT aggro on Gothik’s summoned adds
• Gluth’s zombies (although I often helped to kite them, so it depends)
• KT’s giant bug adds – drop aggro so the tank can pick them up more easily

  


• Malygos P2 – buggy adds that aggro to you and one-shot you, yay my favourite

• Sartharion – how many times did I get destroyed by whelps? SO MANY. (Hint: sometimes AOE snap aggro isn’t so snap)

  


• Auriaya – initial heals on the pull – close your eyes and pray you don’t die

• Mimiron – P3 adds are simply a nuisance
• Vezax – the few seconds before the Animus is able to be picked up
• Yogg Saron – I absolutely cannot avoid pulling the faceless adds as they spawn
• Algalon – get the constellations out of my face, I’m trying to work here

  


• Faction Champions – speaks for itself

• Anub – avoiding the little bugs; helping the tank to pick up the big adds

  


• Not to mention the many, many times during trash pulls that someone does face-pull, or gets feared, or pulls aggro and needs a huge heal, or the tank is stunned etc, which often leads to me getting massive add-aggro, through no fault of my own.


The point is – aggro happens, and it’s not always the tank’s fault, my fault, or anyone’s fault.


“L2P” doesn’t hold up in these situations.


Consider the rogue mobs on the way to Vezax – I think of them as Shadow Lab Rogues v2.0. They come out of nowhere to test your reflexes. I love that, actually. They add a bit of excitement and chaos.


Now, the tank should be quick enough to pick them up – but wouldn’t it be good to be able to fade and help save yourself? Is it really reasonable to just use the tired old statement that the tank should L2P and save the healer faster – or should healers be able to have defensive mechanism to buy the tank a few seconds?


Do you think that is babying the tank? Or just giving healers a tool to help themselves survive?


If it’s unnecessary – why do others have aggro-dump abilities? Can’t they just learn to manage their threat – or learn to find better tanks?



Too much homogenisation?


Of course, some people have cried “grey blob”. The classes should be different, stop making them have the same abilities as each other, etc. But really – is giving us a Fade such a big deal? Would it be game-breaking? I’m not even being greedy here – I’m not asking for Shadowmeld (as much as I would love to have it back!), just a Fade, or some other similar and temporary drop in aggro.


Is it particularly unfair to everyone else, to allow us a way to drop aggro temporarily? Is it making the classes too much like each other?

If it was a healing spell that someone was asking for, or a major raid utility tool – something that would bring us closer to being a pally or a priest or a shaman and start stepping on their toes, then I would understand the opposition. And I would likely agree – I don’t want the classes to merge – I want us to maintain our niches. But in this case, it’s a trivial personal utility spell to temporarily drop aggro – which is something that (for some reason) we lack compared to everyone else. It won’t hurt any other class, nor will it detract from their unique abilities or roles.


Is there a genuine reason why druids don’t have a threat dump? Is it unreasonable to ask for one?



Perhaps a buff to Cower?


I don’t want to simply give Taurens a Shadowmeld type ability. I don’t want a combat-drop. I don’t want to detract from the NE racial, that’s not really fair on them. This isn’t about seeing that they have a cool new toy, and stamping my foot til I get exactly what they have. There has to be a unique benefit to that racial that isn’t available to the rest of us as an innate or trained ability. So I’m definitely not asking that Taurens get Shadowmeld too.


But a Fade-type tool would be extremely handy in a lot of situations.


Perhaps buffing Cower could be an option?

I don’t want Shadowmeld (well, yes I do.. but I’m not actually asking for it), I won’t even ask for anything brand new – buff Cower, I’d be happy with that. Let it work globally, not just on one target, and let it work at range, so that it is similar to a Fade ability. I would happily pop into kitty and cower for a second, and then back to tree. That even fits in with Blizzard’s philosophy of wanting druids to shift often in order to use different tools – and it would require us to weigh up the sacrifice of being unable to heal for a few seconds while we drop threat.


Give Cower the Shadowmeld treatment (although not quite as good as meld) – buff it to be useful for any spec of druid.


I’d love that, actually.


The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of simply taking our existing ability and making it more practical and useful. There’s not really a need for a new, standalone ability – just buff Cower to make it useful for every druid, not just the kitties at close range.

—————-


As healers, we can’t simply watch Omen and stop healing if our threat gets too high. Uh oh, I’m too high on threat, I’ll just stand here and not heal for a while.


I’m sure that will go down well.


We can certainly “go easy” on initial pulls, and try to give the tanks as much time as possible to pick up adds, but there will always be times when we have to spam heal, and generate high threat. With HoTs rolling across a lot of people at once, we are often the first person to be targeted by newly spawned adds. A tank’s taunt/s may be down, or he may die and someone else has to try to pick everything up. In those few seconds, our threat can be a big problem.


I want to stress again that this is not a chronic problem – we don’t have threat problems all the time – but an ability to drop threat temporarily would be valuable in a large number of situations.


We have high armor, barkskin, a stun, a reactive root and instant heals to try to save ourselves – which may seem like a lot – but we have no way to actually drop any of our high threat in certain situations – whether it be reactive (because we pulled), or simply to drop a little because we’re about to pull. I would definitely prefer a way to proactively drop aggro before a mob gets to me, rather than have to activate all of my reactive lifeline abilities to stay alive.


Elves have an amazing option to be able to drop some aggro, not only to save themselves, but to make their raids and groups run more smoothly – it’s a tool that doesn’t just make things easier for themselves, but for their entire group.





Being able to dump aggro just before you pull, or in the second when the mob turns, makes things so much easier on your tanks and raid, and I think it’s unfair to generalise and blame aggro on bad tanking. We could have a tool that makes life a lot easier on our tanks, by managing our threat, especially in chaotic situations.


Isn’t it time druids had a proper threat dump – or, at the very least, a temporary threat reduction?

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OK, not a huge deal I suppose – but I was pleased to notice that the Night Elf Mohawk “costume” that has been put into the game persists after you shift into a form and shift back out.

That is, you can be wearing the mask, shift into Tree form (no mask in forms, though, obviously), and when you shift out again – you still have the mask!

Why do we care? Because we never get to keep any of our other costumes! As soon as we shift, we lose the costume and the fun. But NOW – there’s a costume that doesn’t break when you shift!

Please Blizzard – make other holiday costumes and novelty items like the Iron Boot Flask, orbs, Deviate fish, Pygmy Oil etc last through our shapeshifting by making them a buff like the Mohawk. We’re not asking to be Night Elf Mohawk boomkins or anything crazy like that (as cool as that would be) – just don’t make shifting remove the buff and waste the costume.

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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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You guys know that I don’t dip into the math side of things, so I won’t… but I wanted to discuss my actual thoughts on the 4pc Tier10 bonus, and why I think it’s pretty crappy.



Blanketing and T10 4pc value

Blanketing was big in Ulduar, to the point where it was labelled OP and perhaps triggered the upcoming “bug fix” of removing the last tick of R15 Rejuv, and most certainly the nerf to our Tier 8 set bonus. Too much Rejuv healing.


TOC has been almost entirely the opposite; the Twins fight makes our priest cry foul at me, but other than that, the healing is a lot more bursty and rarely requires Rejuv blanketing. This is particularly true of 10 man size raids, since we are forced to do more direct healing, and there are less people to take damage and require blanketing anyway. Perhaps there’s more Rejuving going on in 25s, but in 10s TOC, not much.


So at the moment, I’m not doing much blanketing.


The 4pc Tier10 bonus pretty much requires you to blanket the raid with Rejuvs to get the most benefit from procs. Obviously, being percentage based, the fewer Rejuvs you’re throwing around, the less benefit you’re going to get. So logically, it will be most useful on 25man blanketing fights. How odd that they would encourage us to go back to this, after nerfing us.



On fights without blanketing


On 10 man fights without a blanketing requirement, the 4pc is going to be near worthless. Why would I need a Rejuv thrown on someone – if they need a Rejuv, they probably already have one already. So the bonus will either give me:


- a Rejuv on someone who doesn’t need it, or
- a Rejuv refresh on someone who already has my Rejuv on them


On fights with blanketing


As a 10 man raider, I can keep Rejuv up on the entire raid with a few seconds to spare (say, to refresh Regrowth on a tank, or throw a spot heal). If I am blanketing, what use is another Rejuv going out? I suppose it’s a free refresh.. but the problem with that is that if I am already cycling through every person to Rejuv them, a refreshed Rejuv in the middle of the raid is going to throw my rotation out.


I will then either keep going with my cycle and overwrite the free Rejuv (to keep everyone nicely in my rotation), or I will skip that person (since they already have Rejuv) for a cycle and come back to them later. The possibility then is that their freebie Rejuv drops off while I’m coming back around to them – so they miss a tick or so until I reapply. See where I’m going with this?


So, I either overwrite the free Rejuv and waste it, or I skip that person and they possibly end up with no Rejuv for a few seconds because the free one is out of sync and dropped off.


TLDR: It will mess with my SYSTEM.



Summary


4pc bonuses are meant to be relatively impressive due to the fact that you need to collect and coordinate 4 pieces of gear.


This bonus is weak at best. Without even going into the math of what it *could* contribute to your HPS and whatnot – I see it messing with my rotation at the best of times, and hardly showing up at the worst. The value drops considerably, in my mind, for 10 man raiders, who will either be covering all 10 people with ease and have little use for an extra Rejuv, or won’t need extra Rejuvs because they have things covered anyway.


Why would we strive to collect a 4pc set if it’s going to be mediocre at best, and at worst (particularly for 10 man raiders) almost useless?


Perhaps Icecrown will be full of heavy aura damage fights, and we’ll go back to blanketing. Even so, this bonus will contribute little for me. It will either throw Rejuvs when they’re not needed, or refresh them when I would prefer that they didn’t. A resounding “meh” on this set bonus.



Post script: On the possibility of “jump” actually meaning “jump”


I’m still 99% certain that Blizzard couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to create a 4pc bonus that is not just seen as perhaps a little lacking, but something that the majority of people would actually avoid picking up at all costs.


Surely.


I have to admit though, while we (as players/bloggers) all know it is the most stupid idea ever conceived.. I have to concede that maybe, just maybe, Blizzard haven’t spotted the problem. Maybe.


It’s so blatantly obvious though – surely they realise how bad it would be for our Rejuvs to randomly drop from our intended target and pop up on someone else? Particularly if you are keeping a Rejuv on your tank, for example – it would be horrible if your Rejuv randomly moved to someone else, just as you were about to Swiftmend the tank. Or to be keeping Rejuvs on the melee, and for one of those melee to suddenly drop their Rejuv, in favour of it landing on someone’s pet cat.


That’d be really, really bad.


Yes, the wording says “jump”. If we take it literally, it would jump. Off.


But they MUST realise that would be awful. You’d have to be utterly BLIND not to realise how terrible it would be.


So surely they don’t intend it to work that way. It must be yet another ambiguous tooltip.


Surely.



I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic, just reasonable. LOGICAL. Which is why I posted to say, “Everyone calm down, it can’t POSSIBLY mean what you guys are reading it as!” To me, it was a simple case of misunderstanding the tooltip and overreacting.

But – and I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me here – it’s Blizzard, and they have been known to make some kind dumb changes… hmm.



Hat plated and at the ready, just in case..



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Something very sad and disappointing happened in the guild last night, and resulted in someone being removed. I’m still pretty upset that it happened the way it did, after I took steps to prevent it, and thought everything was fine.


We’ve been working on Mimiron, but haven’t killed him for a couple of weeks because we’ve been trying Firefighter. Unfortunately we’ve been held back by random problems, mostly we ve been plagued by the disconnect boss, or we’ve been missing key people. After another week of near misses, last night we were a man down and figured we would just kill it on normal mode.


After he was dead, an engineer in the raid skinned the boss (well, you know what I mean, it’s just that “skinned” is easiest to say). The raid reminded him that the materials from the boss should be deposited in the guild bank to help fund repairs etc. He refused, and got very angry and spiteful about it, which was both surprising and pretty upsetting.


His arguments for refusing to share the items were:




• I spent lots of gold levelling engineering, if you want to be able to get the mats, go level engineering yourself.

• I don’t farm, I need this to make my money.
• I don’t get any money from raiding, if you want to pay me to come raid, then I’ll share these materials.


The first point is a pretty common one, I’ve heard it used plenty of times when people want sole claim to items from instances. And generally, I would agree with it – if you’re a miner, you shouldn’t be expected to hand out the ore you find in a dungeon (although things are slightly fuzzier with enchanting..) In a raid though, we’re all on the same team – this is no PuG of random people – we’re all friends, working together to kill a boss – and tomorrow we’ll be back in here doing it again. So income should be shared, just as costs are shared.


I have to say, though – wow @ the last two, I basically read them as “I’m too lazy to make money, I’ll just wait til I can raid” and “You owe me for being here – I’m helping you out and this is my payment.”



The guild bank giveth..


Our bank repairs are turned on 24/7, even for alts (as we have a large number of alts who help us to fill raiding gaps). People can use this at their discretion.


So, every day, the bank’s reserve of cash goes down, with very little to plump it back up again, other than through donations and anything we can sell. Being a small guild now, we’re not getting the 25man BOEs to sell, and we basically have a very small income. 10 man BOEs sell for very little, 1000g if we’re very lucky, but mostly people don’t want them anymore because there’s better “ezmode” TOC 5/10/25 loot to be had in PuGs. So there’s very little cash trickling in, with a steady amount flowing out.


Some of us have continuously donated consumables, and I personally have donated around 6000g just in transmutes since 3.2, I worked out. A couple of us have basically kept the bank in epic gems which were then given free to the guild whenever someone needed to gem their gear. Other than Onyxia’s single gem reward, there’s no other way that the guild can get epic gems other than through donations or if we use guild funds to go buy them. I don’t think people stop to think about where all the gems are coming from. I have two alchemists and I’m levelling a third, so that I can use one transmute every day purely for the guild bank.


I’m not trying to pin a medal on myself, just demonstrating the (general) attitude of many of the guildies – it’s worthwhile sacrificing a little of your own income in order to always be able to put all repairs on the guild tab. Wiping over and over doesn’t feel so bad if you’re not the one paying for it!


Unfortunately we can’t sustain repairs forever without a steady income of some kind, so I had to post an announcement recently that basically said that items would have to be purchased for half AH price, which gave us the small income we needed to sustain guild repairs, while still giving heavily discounted mats to guildies. It’s win-win. We get a small amount of cash each week, and the members still get cheap enchants and gems.


The other part of the announcement was a statement that any gathered materials from our main raids would go to the guild bank:

Gathered materials from raids need to go into the bank, not into personal pockets.


This includes:


- herbs
- ore/gems
- engineering mats taken from mechanical bosses
- Freya’s alchemist cache


These items are not FFA and free income for whoever is quick enough to grab them. Raiding facilitates the gathering of those materials, and in turn the materials help to facilitate our raiding. It’s not fair to gather these items and then use them for your own income.


We all get gold, cloth, greys and green items from raiding, and your repairs are paid for. Aside from flasks and pots, you should be making a pretty decent income from raiding without having to take those tradeskill materials. The bank, on the other hand, has almost zero income. Please put help the guild by banking them. The guild supplies you with cheap mats, it is not unreasonable to ask that you deposit these items to help us pay for raiding.


Note: I’m not pointing fingers, or bitching at anyone in particular, I just want to get this down in black and white so it is understood by everyone, before it causes bitterness and fights. I don’t think anyone in this guild would deliberately rip off the others. If we all do the same thing, then nobody can look like they’re being greedy.


All of these mats would then be fed back through the bank either as materials to use directly for raids (herbs and flasks), or to generate a small income. I did this not only to ensure that guild repairs could continue for everyone, but also so that everyone understood what would happen with these materials, and nobody would think they were entitled to them and then have the rest of the guild get angry. Every week we have been dutifully feeding the herbs and items from Freya’s room and cache back into the bank, but I was concerned that some people didn’t understand that raid-gathered mats belonged to the raid, not to the gatherer, so by announcing/reminding everyone, there would be no fights or misunderstandings.



… and the guildies taketh away


So, in our guild, everyone’s repairs are paid for (even alts and trials), for everything, if you choose. Food is provided, in the form of feasts. Pots are often provided (eg Indestructible, resist potions). Enchanting mats, flasks, blue and epic gems, orbs, epic BOEs, and basically anything else we have is half the price you would pay from the AH. Realistically, we make raiding VERY cheap – you just have to supply flasks, health/mana potions, and perhaps speed pots, etc. Everything else is paid for. And on top of that, you receive gold from boss kills, plus greys, cloth, and greens as well.


So to hear a guildie, who I actually think is a great person, turn around with great venom and tell us he would not hand the mats from Mimiron over, and that we should all level enchanting and try to skin the boss faster than him (!) if we really wanted the mats, and that we should “stop crying”.. I was just floored. I couldn’t believe it.


If you don’t like it, kick me from the guild, he said. And we did.


I don’t care what your tradeskills are or if they cost you 10,000g to level. In this guild, you’re either a team player, or you’re not welcome.



And that was that.


Perhaps some would see it as a stupid move, to kick a good DPSer because he wouldn’t share 300g in mats. It’s only pocket money, after all. Oh, and if we don’t have an engineer in the raid anymore, we miss out on those mats regardless.


But it’s not about 300g. It’s the principle. Repairs are provided all day every day, even for your alts, and with the gold you get from bosses and random items, that should mean you are basically making a profit from raiding, even after buying flasks and potions for the week. Plus you get the added perk of bargain basement epics, gems and enchanting materials from the bank (and for a long time, they were completely free).


If anything, people make money from raiding with us.


So why would you turn around and bite the hand that feeds you, by selfishly refusing to share materials that came from a boss that 10 people all worked together to kill? Why would you throw it all in for less than the money you would get from one day’s worth of daily quests?


In the wise words of my mum – he sh%t in his own nest.


The whole thing just made me really, really sad. We lost a good player over what amounted to pocket change. But this round, we won’t tolerate people who are wholly wrapped up in themselves and don’t care about the team. I thought we were free of that now, being smaller, and screening applications carefully. To have a good guild member and friend turn nasty at us – over just a titansteel bar and a few eternals – it was just gutting.



*sighs sadly*

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Personal soapbox time!


Ok, so I may have inadvertantly stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest on the Caelestrasz forums by making an innocent suggestion that our realm should have a separate progression ladder that only included self-proclaimed 10 man guilds.


Someone created a thread to discuss the phenomenon of 25man raiders bragging about 10mans being so easy that you can do them while drunk, etc. Going slightly off-topic, I said that it was a bit unfair for the 10man list to be full of 25man guilds, and that 10 man guilds should have a more meaningful progression list, because that is their sole channel of progression.


I originally stated that I thought it was a little unfair for the 10 man “progression” list to be full of 25man guilds, but the valid point was made that kills are kills and some of the 10 hardmodes are.. hard, so 25man guilds should still get credit. And I do agree with that – I don’t want to stop the larger guilds from displaying all of their trophies, be they 25man bosses, 10 man bosses, or various achievements.


But I still think that a “pure” ten man list would be good to have, so that the smaller guilds can gauge their progress against like guilds.



But what’s a “pure” 10 man guild?


This is where it started to get a bit dumb, in my opinion.


People started quoting GuildOx and saying that if we wanted a 10 man ladder, we’d have to stick to these “rules”. Have you ever seen their “strict” 10 man rules? These are the kind of things that people on my realm want to enforce for anyone to be included on the ten man ladder:




What are the 10-man ’strict’ rankings?


We recognize that 25-man guilds or guilds that regularly participate in 25m pug runs have a distinct advantage since they run 10-man content with higher iLevel gear. Consequently, our 10-man strict rankings aim to exclude guilds that access any 25-man content that offers higher ilvl gear than what the current 10-man normal content provides. If your guild members regularly run 25man pugs then you are not considered a 10-man strict guild.

Translation: nobody in the guild is allow to have fun on weekends and run PuGs. Y’know, like the majority of people like to do.

What is the 10-man ’strict’ criteria?


Guilds will be required to not earn any Coliseum 25 normal kills or any Ulduar 25 hard-mode kills.


Normally guilds will earn these 25m kill achievements when either 10 players complete a kill in the same raid or when 15 players complete the kill over time. We have added a special trigger for the Coliseum that will exclude a guild from strict rankings when 5 players achieve any boss kill in the same raid or a total of 10 players achieve it over time.
…
Please ensure you discourage your guild members from participating in any Coliseum 25 and Ulduar 25 hard-mode runs if you wish to remain on the strict rankings. Also be sure minimize the recruitment of players that have previously achieved these kills since they will contribute to the guild total, regardless of when they achieved it.

Last weekend, about 5 or 6 of us did a TOC PuG. We didn’t finish the instance in the end, but if we had, our realm would no longer allow us to be on the 10 man progression ladder.


I can definitely agree with the hard modes – people don’t usually PuG hard modes (nor would I want to attempt them in a PuG). If people in your 10 man guild start getting 25man hard modes.. I would smell a rat. But 25man TOC normal? Come on – so many people PuG that for fun. Now we’re not allowed to if we want to be included on the ladder?


No weekend PuGs ever, and don’t even think about inviting friends who have retired from hardmode raiding and want to chill with you and do tens, because their raiding history could end up costing you your place on the ladder.


Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with GuildOx having these strict rules – some people do want to see a strict listing of the guilds who are actually killing bosses using only the gear available to them in 10 mans.


But the players on my realm (mostly 25man raiders, interestingly..) are basically saying, “It’s not worth having a list – just go check GuildOx if you want to know the ladder.” I’ve half a mind to say exactly the same to them – why do YOU have a listing on the realm forum? Why don’t YOU just go check GuildOx to see your ranking?


Is it such a massive stretch of the imagination that 10 man guilds would like to compare themselves to other 10 man guilds?



My crazy definition of a 10 man guild is..


a guild that:



1. advertises and recruits as a 10 man guild;

2. runs 10 man raids in sanctioned raid times;
3. does NOT run 25man raids in-guild (pugs excepted).

I know, it’s pretty revolutionary – try to wrap your head around it for a few minutes. A 10 man guild is a guild that says, “We’re a 10 man raiding guild!”


But evidently, it seems that you are not allowed to claim 10 man kills if you do PuGs, have retired hardcore members with achievements, or even if you wear badge gear.



Why the huge opposition?


I don’t understand why people are so opposed to allowing the 10 man guilds to have their own listing, so that if someone comes to the server looking for a small guild or wondering what our 10 man guilds are currently up to, they can look at a list that isn’t basically a duplication of the 25man list. It’s not even about “winning” on the ladder, I would just like to see a list of 10 man guilds and what they are progressing through.


I’ve no doubt in my mind that many of the 25man raiders think I’m just wailing because I’m no longer a 25man raider and I want some glory – but honestly, I’m not about “winning” anymore. I genuinely think this would be a good thing to have – for all of the 10 mans.


Sometimes I feel like I’m speaking in another tongue or something though.


So few people understand what I am actually getting at, it seems. Some do, saying things like “10man guilds highly value 10man kills as real progression, maybe because they dont want to venture into 25mans or dont have the numbers to do so, however with the way this expansion has been moving both guild types have been able to successfully move onto each tier dungeon raid whilst maintaining their goal.” and “It’s like having a heavyweight come into my (bantamweight) division and clearing house and claiming dominance. You have your own weight class for a reason, your record is reflective of that weight class.”


It’s a relief to know that a couple of people can interpret my psycho-babble. But so many people are vehemently opposed to a 10 man list (mostly 25 man raiders) and I find it so disheartening. It’s not about ilvls, it’s about your guild philosophy, size, and what raids you run! It’s so simple – yet it seems like such a huge deal.


The arguments, in my mind, are so weak.


You can’t claim legit kills if you’re wearing the same gear as 25mans have access to (badges, PuG gear). If you PuG TOC25, you’ll be wearing the same gear as a 25man guild.
How on earth can anyone think that running a PuG on a weekend and MAYBE being lucky enough to pick up a piece of loot each week (most PuGs have a one-per-run rule), that puts you A) anywhere near the 25man guilds, and B) at a distinct advantage over someone who doesn’t?


Hardmodes, maybe – but I’m going to replace this chestpiece I got in a PuG with badges from 5 man dungeons. Everyone can gear themseves with Conquest and Triumph loot over time. The only “distinct advantage”, as I see it, would be from doing 25 hardmodes and collecting *that* gear.


If all you do is 10 mans, you should be high on the list anyway, we only do this in our spare time.
Skill, as always, trumps gear, but if anyone tells you that a 25man guild kitted out in 25man hardmode gear won’t generally have an easier time and go faster than a 10 man guild in 10man gear and a smattering of badge/PuG gear, then I want some of whatever they’re smoking.


Sure, you would expect a guild doing 20hrs a week to progress further than another guild doing 2hrs a week, despite being in lower gear – but this happens in ALL tier ladders, and you can’t really try to make meaningful comparisons. Just as we can now breeze through heroics barely trying (where back as fresh 80s they were difficult and took much longer), I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a 25man, hardmode-geared guild is going to have an easier time in 10mans and therefore not require as much time to chip away at them.


There’s already a list of 10 man guild contacts, why do we need another one?
We already have a list of 25 man guild contacts, why do we need another one with progress listed? See what I did there?

If someone wants to know who the most progressed 25man guilds are on the server, they look to the 25man progression post. If they want to know who the most progressed 10 man guilds are, they have to wade through about 15-20 of the same 25man guilds to try to find the 10s.

Is it really that hard to understand that a proper 10 man list would be more meaningful? Not to mention make the 10 man guilds feel like they don’t always have to compete against the 25mans?


Nobody ever complained before/There’s not enough interest.
I like this one. Nobody ever thought to improve the system, so why improve it now? Of course, makes sense. Truth is, few people probably thought to speak up. A few 10 man raiders have already said that they didn’t think of it or that they had thought about it but hadn’t said anything. They aren’t vocal like me Plus I also think that some guilds may look at the 10 man list, see it full of about 15-20 large guilds, and think, “why bother”. Maybe if there was a “real” 10 man list, they would be more keen to have their kills listed.


It would be complicated and extra work.
If there’s not many guilds, as everyone keeps saying, then how could it be very much work? I counted about a dozen 10 man guilds at a glance that would be on the list – how much work can it be to maintain a list of 12 guilds? Plus, I offered to help out and do it myself if it was too much. That didn’t go down so well.


You’ve only been a 10 man raider for a week, now suddenly it’s a big issue?
This is something I’ve been thinking about since back when I did my post on linear progression and people commented about 10man guilds getting screwed over. But becoming a 10 man raider did bring it back to the fore. Even so – what should it matter how long we’ve been around? We’re a 10 man guild, we’re raiding – how is it that we are less deserving to display our prograss than anyone else?


Hey, I’m not going to lie – going back to being a 10 man guild (I was in a 10 man guild at the start of TBC) does open your eyes up to how it feels to be in the tier of raiding that struggles to be accepted as “real raiding”.


25s are the professional sporting teams, and we’re kicking a ball around in the backyard, daydreaming about one day growing up and being just like them. Well, I suspect that’s probably what a lot of raiders think – that we’re only doing 10s because we can’t do 25s for some reason. In truth, I have zero interest in running 25s now (other than the occasional PuG). I’m loving 10s.


I just wish more people could see that this is real raiding to us – and why can’t we have a ladder that ranks us against others in our bracket?



Take it off. Take it alllllll off!


I’m just so frustrated, disappointed. Why do the 25man raiders find it so hard to understand that we want to bump up against other 10s, and that gear does not dictate whether you are a 10 man guild or not?


Nobody ever says to the 25man raiders that they can’t claim those 10 man kills because they were decked out in Uld25 hardmode gear. But if a 10man raider pipes up and says “I’d like to be able to see 10 mans against 10 mans on a ladder”, apparently we have to strip off all of our badge gear and PuG epics before we’re allowed to stake a claim to any kills. Huh?


Excuse the hyperbole, but everyone’s quick to point out the enormous injustice of a 10 man guild doing 25man PuGs and trying to claim progression against 10s that don’t PuG. But in the same breath people will also say that those puggers are now in the same gear bracket as the 25man guilds, many of which are running hardmodes in Ulduar and TOC, every week – and that’s fair.


My brain hurts.


If 10 man raiders want to be counted on a separate list, they have to take off 25man gear, because the only reason you would be on a separate list is if you’re super hardcore dedicated and you do everything in 10man ilvl gear, because that’s how nature intended. Nothing to do wtih the fact that you run a TEN MAN GUILD and would like to be on a ladder with other ten man guilds. Evidently it’s all about the ilvls and achievements, and that is what defines us.


I feel like back when I was vegetarian and people would challenge me at every corner to try to “disprove’ it, so they could say AHA! You’re not really a vegetarian after all! You’re cheating! OK, yes, I’m wearing leather shoes right now, but I’ve had them for 2 years and I’m not actually planning to eat them anytime soon, so could you please let me go about my business and stop trying to “expose” my web of lies?



Another ladder takes nothing from 25s, but helps 10s. Everyone wins, right?


I’m trying REAL hard to not sink to thinking that the 25s just wanna keep the 10s down, y’know? Because that’s silly and unnecessary. But it sure feels a bit that way, with the above “reasons” for why we shouldn’t have another ladder. It’s the 25mans that are complaining and trying to stomp on the idea – even though it affects them in no way. Trying to say there aren’t enough 10man guilds (which I think is the opposite of the truth, 10 mans are on the rise), and there’s not enough interest.


It’s hard to hold back and not say “this doesn’t even affect you, so why are you so determined to stop it?”


You can’t tell us what to do, 25mans. You’re not our real dad.


My suggestion takes nothing from the 25man raiders – they still get to list themselves in the 10man progression list. This dulls none of their glory, it hurts them in no way. But my list would be additional, purely for the people only interested in being 10 man guilds (and for people only interested in finding a 10 man guild). It’s an “everyone wins” deal.


But it seems like people are trying as hard as they can to find any possible reason to squash the idea. It’s too hard. It’s too hard to track. There are hardly any 10 man guilds.




Evidently, though: it seems to come down to one core argument: if you ever run a PuG on a weekend, you’re not really a 10 man guild. You’re a 25man guild with fewer members, trying to claim glory on the 10 man listing. Stop pretending to be a “real” 10 man guild, and deal with having to be in the 25man list with everyone else.

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I’ve been spending most of my spare moments working on the new blog (and it’s coming along very nicely), but I had to take five to expand on the speculation about the coming expansion. We’re only a few days away from Blizzcon now, so we’ll find out very soon if it’s true or not.. and I’m quite excited.

If you read this blog, and hate spoilers, I’ve probably already spoiled stuff for you earlier, so uh.. sorry about that. But just in case –


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS



What amuses me is the number of people getting REALLY upset about the possibility of changes that go against the lore of Warcraft.

I certainly respect their opinions and their passion for the story, but what people need to understand is that lore is a history, it’s not a set of rules. The past can’t be changed (well, unless we head over to CoT and mess around!), but the future is an open book. Just because something has been a certain way for thousand years does not mean that it can’t ever happen.



Night Elf mages: WRONG WRONG WRONG.. right?

The possibility Night Elf mages seem to be causing the biggest uproar. Evidently Night Elves can’t be mages because:

(From http://www.wowwiki.com/Night_Elves)

Their powerful magic was recklessly unleashed by the quel’dorei,[2] who believed they were superior to other Kaldorei and practiced magics far beyond the considered norm.[citation needed] This careless use of magic may have allowed the Burning Legion to invade the world, and finally led to a catastrophic battle known as the War of the Ancients. This battle changed the face of Azeroth for all time, and resulted in the creation of the continents of the world, tearing the land apart and forming the vast nexus of energy at the center of the ocean known as the Maelstrom.

…the Well of Eternity imploded in a magical cataclysm, sending untold numbers to their doom. Many Kaldorei were dragged to the bottom of the sea, only to be twisted and transformed into the sea serpents now known as the vile naga. The catastrophe tore the continent apart into three sections, and left a permanent storm known as the Maelstrom where the well once stood. With the majority of the Highborne dead, the kaldorei turned away from their arcane legacy and began a new culture focusing on attunement with nature and their surroundings.

The TLDR version is that the Highborne dabbled in magic that they shouldn’t have, which led to the destruction of the Well of Eternity, which in turn turned many of the Night Elves into Naga, tore the world into several chunks, and created the Maelstrom.

Basically: bad things happen when you play with magic.

So the Night Elves are a little shy (to say the least) when it comes to dabbling in the arcane.

But does that mean they’ll never do it?

What if something REALLY big went down, and they were forced to reconsider? They are, after all, avoiding magic mostly by choice – they’re not incapable of it, right? They can just change their minds, no sweat.

Oh, wait:

From http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/encyclopedia/508.xml

Afterwards, arcane magic was outlawed on pain of death, but the Highborne arrogantly continued their dangerous sorcery.

Rather than execute their defiant kindred, Tyrande and Malfurion sentenced the Highborne to exile. The exiles journeyed over the sea to Lordaeron, where they founded the kingdom of Quel’Thalas and began calling themselves high elves.

Okay, so, it’s outlawed. Fair call. But if the Highborne can break the rules, is the idea of the Night Elves changing their minds really so inconceivable? Sure, it’s been quite a while, they’re creatures of habit now.. but is it such a massive leap that a cataclysmic event might drive them to change their ways?


Forever changed (again)

This already happened. We just weren’t around to see it. Something really big DID go down, we just didn’t log on until the dust had settled.

Is it time for round two?

I LOVE the idea of the world going through a massive, cataclysmic event that changes zones dramatically – destroys some, sinks some, tears some in half. That something so massive, dramatic and violent tears up the world as we know it, and the people have to rise up and find new alliances and new ways to fight back. I got goosebumps just now as I was writing that.

Posted by Irem on wow.com Aug 15th 2009

This is why I want for this to be true. As players, we’ve often only got Blizzard’s word to go on that we’ve lost something. “The Scourge has killed thousands of people!” That’s not our loss. Those thousands are just words on a screen. “Bolvar and Saurfang the Younger are dead!” Suddenly that’s our loss because they’re characters we knew and liked and will never see again.

If they really want to make us feel something powerful while changing the old world, they have to actually -change- it. Make us feel that punch in the gut when we log in and the places we leveled and played in are altered permanently, and when we realize that things we took for granted seeing every day are gone. Force us to own our place in the world by actually taking something away from us. That’s the kind of immersion a time-frozen-from-character-creation game world can’t provide, and I applaud Blizzard for not playing it safe, if this is all in fact true.

This. This, this, THIS.

This is exactly how I feel, and I couldn’t possibly have said it any better.


Caving to the whiners, or building on the story?

Most people seem to be in one or the other camp.

Is Blizzard relenting to the whiners who want gnome healers and to fly in Azeroth, or are they putting the boot up this game and shaking it up?

Is it a lazy plot device to accommodate player wishlists, or the next step in an ever-evolving tapestry?

Is it lore-breaking, or lore-expanding?

If the speculation is true, they’re going to have to spin some really fantastic stories to explain it all and make it believable. As long as it’s done properly and not someone waving a wand and saying, “BOOM! Garrosh is the boss of you guys now, trolls can be druids if you want, and Night Elves got over their silly aversion to arcane magic. As you were.”

As I said above though, I don’t consider lore to be “the rules”. I consider it to be a history book of what happened once before. Who’s to say it can’t change?


Phasing – oh please let it be phased

If this is all true, I have every finger and toe crossed that they use phasing. I have to say I would be very sad if the geographical changes were brought in and simply made permanent for every player, old and new. I would be sad to lose the ability to go see the old barrens, and i would miss Orgrimmar so, so much.

I hope that they leave the old world how it is for new players (and new alts), but perhaps once you hit a certain level (maybe trigged by a questline), the world changes to post-cataclysm. If it’s true, I hope they put in a device like speaking to Alexstrasza at the Wrathgate – something that allows you to go up to old Orgrimmar and say “show me what happened here”. This game needs more Wrathgates. That will never, ever get old, and I get goosebumps every time I watch it.

I’d love to be able to roll an alt and go see “old Orgrimmar”, and take a picture and preserve it Postcards from Azeroth style.

A small, worn and neatly folded card, tucked carefully into my Orc’s armor; that she might glance at it occasionally while looking over what is now left of Durotar – remembering what once was.

Oopsie, slipped into lorenerd mode for a sec..

Please Blizzard – if you’re going to change the world – use your magic phasing powers for good. Make us another Wrathgate-type video to make all the little hairs on my arms stand on end.






PS – I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I jumped on the possible-Tauren-paladin bandwagon and reserved “Holycao” (which is a play on the name of my first druid, Caoimhe). I couldn’t resist!

Bring on Blizzcon, and the truth!



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Warning – this has nothing to do with item mechanics, healing, theorycrafting, or anything remotely informative. This is purely a personal post about things near and dear to me as a player, and will probably just end up as a silly ramble more than anything. Feel free to skip over it if you’re not a big fan of that kind of thing.


I wish we could put items on ignore. Once upon a time, it might have been Foror’s Compendium of Dragonslaying.

These days, it’s Val’anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings.

I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to see it linked, I don’t want to see screenshots, I don’t want to read about buffs or nerfs or anything else that has anything to do with it.

I want it to go away.


It’s not sour grapes

You’re probably already thinking I’m sulking because I don’t have one. Classic sour grapes, right? I suppose it looks that way to most people. Straight-up jealously probably forms a small part of my feelings, I’m sure.. I think it would be silly to try to claim that it has nothing to do with it. But the jealousy over not getting a shiny weapon is a tiny, tiny part of why I feel so bitter when I see it. Few people would believe that, though, I suspect.

The truth is, only a few people close to me would probably appreciate how I really feel about that weapon, what it really means to me, and that I’m not just pouting because I’m not sporting one (and I probably never will).


I never set out to earn it, but I believe I did

I did a lot for my guild. A lot. I didn’t do it to be rewarded, or thanked, or celebrated. I loved helping, and teaching, and serving. I enjoyed researching fights, spending hours creating diagrams and plans, stocking the guild bank, and helping people with quests. I helped to keep the forums running, and over time seemed to fill the role of “guild PR”.

I helped the newbies, I ran some guild events, dealt with problems in whispers (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much), ran the recruiting threads, and spent time being a “good influence” on the forums and in dealing with other guilds. I farmed for potions and fish, I brought spare consumables for the healers, I sat out or passed on gear to new people, and I always carried candles, symbols, pet food, bullets, and campfire materials, so that nobody ever got stuck mid-raid without something.

I’ll never forget the day in Black Temple when the tank ran out of bullets for pulling, asked if anyone had any, and I put some in a trade window. Better, though, the confusion from the tank and half the raid – wondering why on earth I was carrying bullets around with me. But it was precisely for moments like that – I loved saving the day, making things smoother.

I gave away large amounts of my own bank supplies to help guildies level professions or buy mounts, always loving it when someone asked ‘has anyone got a ……’ and being able to say, “I have it on an alt, I’ll go get it for you”. I kept the guild bank tidy, and helped to sell BOEs and other materials to keep our gold supplies up. I ran instances that I didn’t want to do and had no need for, purely because someone needed my help.

Everything I had, I gave freely to the guild.

I loved helping, teaching, being a shoulder to cry on or a spare ear to listen, saving the day, coming prepared, supplying what we needed, greasing the guild’s wheels, being someone to look up to, and keeping things running.

And while I never, ever did any of that because I wanted recognition, a trophy, a pat on the back or a medal… I believe I deserved that mace the most, and I defy anyone to say that I didn’t.


I nearly lost it to a /random

I envy the guilds who are able to unanimously agree that Bob the priest has been around for 3 years, never missed a raid, is a tremendous healer, and he just deserves it hands down, no question. I had to campaign for it. I had to stand up and say no, I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with a /roll between all healers, or even a /roll between the “finalists”.

There were three of us. All long-standing members of the guild. All with excellent attendance. All good healers, in our different classes and styles. So the majority of the healers said that we were equal and should just /roll.

At the risk of sounding like a brat who wanted the shiny for herself, I put my foot down. All things were NOT equal. If our attendance, dedication, and skill were too difficult to separate, then why wouldn’t it come down to the person who had done far and away more for the guild?

Wasn’t it obvious?


Val’anyr is more than just a shiny weapon

Even worse was that – even after it was finally agreed by the officers that I would receive the first mace, Blizzard released the patch a week earlier than we expected and I could not get time off to raid on the Wednesday, or I would risk losing my job. The inevitable happened, as I knew it would – a shard dropped, while I was stuck at work, so it defaulted to the only finalist who was able to raid that day, because he didn’t work during the day.

I had to fight to convince one officer in particular that it was unfair to then change things and give the entire set of shards to that person purely because he was lucky enough to be there on the day – during a raid time that was not the norm. If I had missed a normal scheduled raid, that would have been my fault – but I could NOT get time off work (and having a sick day would risk my job), and he wouldn’t accept that.

The main arguments were “If you really wanted it, you would have found a way to get time off,” and “Why is it such a big deal that you get the first one? What does it matter?”

I think that was what drove me crazy, really. Well, two things.

• that people couldn’t recognise the MASSIVE effort I had put into the guild, which in my mind would mean I was the obvious choice, all other things being equal; and




• that you’re DAMN RIGHT the first one is important, how can anyone say that?


It’s not just a cool weapon – and I suspect the above argument is typical of people who are more concerned with loot than other issues. That weapon was not important to me because it was orange, or cool looking, or because I’d have lots of people /inspecting me on the Dalaran steps.

It was a testament to just how much I had poured into that guild.

And it hurt so much that I wasn’t the obvious choice.


25 fragments short of a guild

But the guild split up. We never killed Yogg without a watcher. We didn’t even get to kill him with all of the watchers.

Everyone went their separate ways. Some to hardcore guilds more progressed, others to play with friends. Some quit entirely.

So I will never get my mace. I will never get my trophy.

Instead, I have five fragments sitting in my bag. Five fragments to remind me of the fantastic team I was once part of, that I poured my heart into, but will never get back.




To some people.. it’s just a silly weapon in a fleeting game. It doesn’t matter. But to me, it symbolises friendships, hardships, hard work, good times, bad times, triumphs.. and everything I gave to my team. It was a small token to say “thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

You may think it’s silly to put so much emphasis on a trivial pile of pixels.. but to me it means so much more than just another item in the game.


And that’s the story of Christmas

So, ex-guildmates, friends, rivals, strangers… that is why I get sad when I see those fragments, or see other people with their new maces. It’s nothing personal – but I can’t help but feel a little bitter, because they have two things that I had, but lost:-

a shiny, orange “we couldn’t have done all of this without you”..

..and, more importantly, a family to belong to.



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Dear Blizzard,

The Threat From Above quest is very poorly designed.

I am tired of rocking up to the little snowy plateau to find 20-30 people all “waiting” for their “turn” (and I use these terms VERY loosely) to tag Chillmaw.

Now, waiting I can handle. That’s fine.

What I can’t stand is a bunch of random people standing around, racing each other to tag him, then a mess of people tagging the cultist NPCs (either on purpose or by accident with AOE), meaning that the group who tagged Chillmaw has missed out on one or all of their adds, and will now either have to steal from another group (thus perpetuating the problem), or wait until the end and do the quest all over again. The “cycle of hate continues,” as one forum poster put it.

If that doesn’t draw out the process long enough, invariably some group will have 5 members but one is still dawdling at the Crusade area, so they’ll do the quest, then the 5th turns up and they decide do it all over again for that slow member, while everyone else has to wait (again).

The other day I was invited with a friend to join a group – we were told “we have two spots left”, so we dropped group and asked for an invite. “Sorry, 1 spot now :(”. So we didn’t bother to join, and chose to wait and do it ourselves after that group had finished. But when they ENGAGED Chillmaw, there were only 3 people there. Not a full group of five. Halfway through, another DK turns up, and the group has to do the quest over again because he didn’t get full credit.

Friendly players will also try to help, but inadvertently tag the adds with AOE or otherwise. I am guilty of this – I hit kitty swipe and then realised my folly. It was an accident, but caused the group to have to start over. This kind of thing happens a lot.

Then there’s the completely innocent, random stealing of adds: yesterday I was standing off at a distance, minding my own business (waiting) and one of the cultists ran all the way over to me and started belting me. Not wanting to “steal” the mob from the group, I shadowmelded, and luckily after a few hits from someone else, it was re-tagged to them. I must have looked at that one funny.


Why this quest just plain sucks

One mob for 20-30 people who want to kill him at any given time.
Deliberate and accidental tagging of the adds.
No “queue”, just people jostling to have their turn.

Add in the warlock standing on the hill deliberately griefing by tagging over and over, and this really has to rank as one of the worst designed quests I’ve ever known.

Please make it a SUMMON quest, so that you don’t have to wait around for it to respawn and then miss out because some jerk ninja-tagged it for the 5th time. And make the adds automatically link to tagging the dragon, so people can’t rob you of credit and force you to do the whole thing over again, or incourage people to steal from the next group in line.

Please think really hard before ever making a quest like this again.

Love, Keeva





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Jacemora wrote a piece on being tired of the term “casual”, and on being tired of hearing hardcore raiders complain that the current content is too easy.



Personally, I am tired of people lumping all of the “hardcore raiders” into a group that is apparently a bunch of egotistical jerks who care only about themselves – and, according to commenter ARA – are uneducated cretins who speak only “pigswill”. Sweeping generalisations work both ways.

When I state that I think the game is getting too easy, it is not because I am an egotistical hardcore raider rambling incoherently about big bad Blizzard taking away the hard stuff of the “good old days” and handing out boss kills like candy. It is because I genuinely believe that some changes are unwarranted and make the game feel less and less engaging.

I don’t take it to the extreme of the beta players complaining that mounts at level 20 “cheapen” what they worked so hard for in vanilla WoW. I earned the gold for my first epic mount by selling a few crafted items per week for 2 or 3 gold. I worked for it. But I don’t cry that giving mounts to level 20 players for 5 gold is a horrible change. I think it will help make the game a lot more enjoyable for many people, and it doesn’t take away from my game experience.

But the current raiding content leaves a lot to be desired for the serious raider, and I’m sorry, but having that opinion that does not make me an egotistical, swill-spouting, burger-flipping retard.


New Naxx and entry level content

Naxx was far, far too easy. Anyone who says it wasn’t is a fool. It was made easy because very few people got to experience it originally; so it was toned down (a little too much) and branded as “entry level raiding” so that everyone had a chance to experience raiding if they wanted.

The problem is that for the serious raiders, Naxx was ridiculously easy and horribly boring. It was cleared in the first night or two, and very quickly became a 3hr or less instance. My guild started doing 3 hour clears the second raid reset. In greens. lolwut? And this is not me blowing my guild’s trumpet – before people start up with the egotistical crap – it is a fact that guilds could go in wearing Northrend greens and blues and leftover T6 and clear the entire raid in a single night. The alarm bells went off immediately. We were concerned for the future of competitive raiding.

BUT, remember, it was meant to be entry level raiding – and Blizzard assured us that Ulduar would be much harder. Phew.

But it isn’t. It’s harder than Naxx, but it’s not hard. Sure you probably can’t grab 24 random people and go clear it, but there are plenty of casual guilds progressing through quite quickly. I see guilds that would probably never have cleared BT clearing up to Vezax and working on Yogg. That’s great for those guilds, but for the serious raiders, it really cheapens the game because there’s no longer that true feeling of accomplishment if people can go in and zerg it.

And despite it being quite easy, they continue to nerf it because they want everyone to be able to “experience” the content. That’s a noble cause, and I know that if I could only raid once a week (as I used to) I would want to be able to see all of those bosses (over time). I don’t want to take that away from people who have tight schedules and can’t raid 5 nights a week. But when you can walk into an instance and clear all but the last couple of bosses in one reset, something is wrong.

Of course, Blizzard’s counter to this complaint is the various hard modes – set in place to keep the “hardcore” raiders happy. Normal modes allow everyone to experience the content, hard modes give more of a challenge to the “serious” raiders. This is another noble cause, and I really can’t fault them on that. They’re trying to keep both sides of the player base happy.

As a hardcore raider though, I have lost most of my interest in hard mode fights because I do see them as the same old content with an extra gimmick or two thrown in to keep us occupied for a little longer. Of course they’re challenging (in before “but you haven’t done hardmodes so you can’t talk!”), but it’s still the same boss, just made more annoying.


“This is too easy for us” is not the same as “Your casual 10 man guild sucks ass.”

I know that sometimes it can sting when you see hardcore raiders whine that the content is too easy and that Blizzard is catering to casuals. I know this because I have gone from casual raider to hardcore raider and then back to casual again (well, I’m not hardcore at the moment). And you’d better believe it makes me feel like a second class citizen at times, when I see people knocking others down because their armory doesn’t show any hard mode achievements. I hate it.

In terms of my blogging, it often makes me feel like some kind of imposter, trying to be some kind of authority on my class when I haven’t even done any hard modes.. for shame. I know some people will know the feeling I am talking about.

I have the advantage of knowing how it feels to be casual AND hardcore. I have played in guilds where I knew the frustration of only being able to raid once a week, but still wanting to progress. And I’ve been in hardcore guilds raiding 20+ hours per week. It’s difficult because I’m not one of the people who think raids should ONLYbe for serious raiders. I’m NOT saying that “casual” players shouldn’t get to do these bosses. We all want to enjoy the game. But the fact is, for serious, vanilla-bred raiders, this stuff IS too easy, and hardmodes are just gimmicks. We want something that we can really sink our teeth into.

That’s not “a load”. It’s a fact. The current content is too easy for hardcore raiders. The hard modes (from what I understand) are meant to fill the void, but for me, personally, I see them as a stop-gap measure to keep the serious raiders happy until the next content patch.

This is really driven home when Blizzard keeps nerfing the base content in ways that are totally unnecessary. Why nerf Hodir’s flash freeze on Yogg? Cancelaura macros are NOT HARD. If you were standing that close to a cloud in the first place, then you fail. Hardcore or casual, organised or PUG, learn to not stand near Bad Stuff(TM). Blizzard shouldn’t need to nerf something so fundamental. Make it more obvious (like the colour change to voids on Sartharion) but don’t give everyone training wheels.

It is this type of nerf that makes the hardcore raiders angry – the unnecessary nerfs to fundamental aspects of fights that simply do not need to be changed. It trivialises the fight even further.


Trivial base content is disheartening for serious raiders.

This is the crux.

If they continue to nerf the encounters such that every man and his dog can clear Ulduar, especially with silly, wholly unnecessary nerfs that even the puggiest pug should not have issues with, then more and more raiders will continue to bleed from the game because they see the content as trivial. Many casual raiders will probably say “good riddance”, but the fact is that hardcore raiders enjoy this game too, and are disheartened by what they see as “dumbing down” of the raiding that they have enjoyed over time.

For a lot of people, this is not about whining, or a holier-than-thou attitude. It’s about perceived loss of a challenge that they have enjoyed over the course of years. I think that many hardcore raiders have extrapolated what they’ve seen so far in WotLK and it’s not looking good. To them, their game – raiding – is becoming trivial and disappointing. That’s not whining. It’s not insulting casuals. That’s how it feels. The challenge is no longer there if everyone can do the instances and there’s no longer any exclusivity, no longer any feelings of awe when you look up to the guilds clearing the top content.

When Ensidia cleared Naxx in the first night, I wasn’t impressed. I was disappointed. In fact, I kinda pitied them. They had finished the game with months to wait for new content. Yuck.

And that’s pretty much how I feel now. Guilds that I used to really look up to.. they don’t impress me anymore. They’re still skilled players – that hasn’t changed – but there’s nothing to set them apart.

I have to be honest, not even the Algalon kills impressed me :/ No, I haven’t seen him, obviously – and I’m positive he would kick my butt – but after a mostly underwhelming boss experience in Ulduar, there’s just no sense of achievement. Not because I think I’m amazing or my guild was amazing, but that it just wasn’t that hard. No Kael, no Archimonde.

Hard modes to the rescue, rite? Although I haven’t experienced them myself, I can see how quickly the raiding guilds are clearing the hard modes and that in itself is quite disappointing. It won’t keep them busy for long.

Giving everyone a chance to see the content is great. I don’t want to take that away from casual players, because I have personal experience with the frustration of not being able to raid “hardcore”. But making the encounters more like expanded 5 mans is a real drag. Sunwell was something to aspire to. Ulduar, while a gorgeous instance that I do love, seems like another round of Naxx – just going through the motions with everyone else, and no real sense of achievement when you come out the other side – because everyone else is there with you.


Hardcore raiders want something they can’t really have.

Well, they could have it, but it would be very unfair to a lot of people, so it probably won’t happen.

The hard modes are great in theory. 3 drakes, time trials, Ulduar hard modes. But aside from Algalon, all of these are the same bosses, just with extra things to deal with. Zzz. I am going to go out on a limb and say that most hardcore raiders don’t want hard modes of existing content – they want content that only they will get to see, being truly skilled and dedicated players – a la old Naxx and Sunwell. Unfortunately:

A) way too many people missed out on experiencing Naxx and Sunwell so that will probably never happen again; and
B) oftentimes skill is not the barrier – rather, time available to raid.

The problem for casual players in TBC was that you had to spend months farming BT in order to get anywhere in Sunwell. Casual players simply didn’t have the time to be able to clear BT for gear, AND get any time in Sunwell. They might have been the most skilled players on the planet, but working nights or having 3 kids meant never getting to set foot inside Sunwell.

Sunwell (and old Naxx etc) definitely gave hardcore raiders a trophy instance. We could brag about being “a Naxx guild” or “a Sunwell guild”. I remember going into BGs and having random people comment on my gear. It really gave you that sense of achieving something above and beyond what everyone else could do.

But giving the minority a special instance (which is in essence what happened with Naxx and Sunwell because so few guilds were able to experience them) makes a LOT of people unhappy, and that makes very obvious bad business sense.


If there’s a solution, I ain’t got it.

Frankly, I don’t think you can give the hardcore raiders a trophy AND keep the casual raiders happy. I simply don’t think it can be done. If you gave the serious raiders an instance with all hardmode fights (much like Sunwell was), the people who raid more casually will be upset because they aren’t getting a fair chance to do the content. And hard modes, while good in theory, are really just the same old stuff but made to have you bash your head against the wall for an extra week or two.

I feel that they were on the right track with hardmodes.. but didn’t quite hit the mark.

Maybe more Algalon type bosses that open up once you’ve achieved certain things? I’m not sure. I’m just not a big fan (you may have noticed) of tacking on extra “challenges” onto the same boss fights. It might be challenging, but to me.. not terribly interesting in the long term.

I don’t know what can be done to keep both sides happy.


TLDR: Not all “hardcore” raiders think “casual” raiders are scrubs.

I am not raiding hardcore at the moment. I may return to it; I’m not sure. But for the time being I won’t be on the pointy end of progression, where I like to be.

I know how it feels when you’re not a hardcore raider, when you feel like everyone is looking down their noses at you. Especially with the advent of the Armory, so people can bring up your page and then scoff at you for trying to comment on hard mode encounters that you don’t have experience in, like you don’t have the right to comment on matters that you have no place speaking about.

It sucks!

There are definitely people out there who think their raiding achievements make them a better person than you. But a lot of us just want more of a challenge (and not rehashed content!). Saying that the current content is easy and asking for something more challenging is not an insult directed at you because you haven’t been able to kill Boss X yet, for whatever reason. Progressing at a different rate does not make you bad. When I say current content is too easy, I’m not saying “anyone who can’t clear Boss X r bads lol”. I’m simply stating a fact – that the current raid content is easily cleared by the hardcore (read: usually people with more raiding hours per week) players, and we would like something more challenging to sustain us.

But it is wholly unfair and insulting to lump all hardcore raiders into a giant bucket of no-life, self-righteous morons who think casual players are unskilled peasants and don’t deserve to share the same content as they do.

We just want to enjoy the game as you do – at our own pace.





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