Wednesday, May 19, 2010

May 19, 2010

Yikes! Over a month with no post. Lots of Real Life stuff keeping me busy, as well as lots of stuff going on at work (which is when I usually post). Vacation out west for a week, etc. Blah blah blah. End result...no blogging.

And very little today.

Brief synopsis:

Still doing Hard Modes in ICC 25. The AVR (or is it AVE?) addon has helped a lot for avoiding bad stuff. I've gotten some nice pieces of gear -- still the best geared priest on the server.

My priest's 10 man group has been falling apart slowly. Spotty attendance has made it a revolving door. And some of the new more consistent players are egomaniacs who rub me the wrong way. So, I'm considering dropping from the group all together. It has lost its fun factor.

My mage's 10 man group is progressing at a slow pace. But it's a much more relaxed and fun group.

I've played my hunter a bit lately. She was my Kara main. I'm finding it hard to replace her Kara gear with quest blues. I'll probably never discard the Kara stuff. It has too many memories attached to it.

That's about it for now....

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

April 14, 2010

You Can Call Me "Kingslayer"!!!!!

I've been meaning to post this -- the most exciting news in ages. This past Sunday night we finally beat the Lich King on 25-man. I am now a Kingslayer! Woo hoo! It was only luck that got me into the group that night. A couple of our regular healers who would have been invited over me were unable to make it. So, I got a spot...and a few hours later the king was slain! Woot!

We're starting Heroic modes now and last night got down Marrowgar, Gunship Battle and Rotface. (Deathwhisper and Saurfang were done on normal mode.) I'm not too concerned about getting invites to the heroic modes. I'm perfectly content with my title and achievement. Of course, I'd like to do heroic modes, but I'm not driven to do so. So, if those other healers get in before me, I won't be upset.

Profession Change
I dropped Mining and have taken up Enchanting on my priest. Even though my mage is already an Enchanter, I've realized that the ring enchants that come with enchanting are much more useful to me than the stamina I got from mining. I've only spent a few hours leveling it and am already at 335. I had lots of mats in my guild bank, which has been very helpful. I did get stuck at one point when I couldn't find the mats on the AH for the one enchant that would earn me points. But, the next day I checked the AH again and found them. So far I think I've only spent about 300 gold on mats. Though I suspect I'm going to spend more once I reach Northrend recipes. But, heck, what else am I going to do with all my gold? :)

Ding dong, the King is dead!!!!!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Level and Goal Check

Death Knight
Unholy
72
Druid
Balance/Feral
80
Hunter
BM
71
Mage
Arcane
80
Paladin
Ret 73 (+13)
Priest
Holy/Disc
80
Rogue
(no talents)
29
Shaman
Enhance / Resto
80 (+8)
Warlock
Affliction PvP
80
Warrior
(no talents)
34

I got my Shammy to 80 this month and have geared her pretty well in a short period of time, thanks to guildies and friends. I changed her to Enhancement to level faster and I've stayed with it now that I'm 80. I'm enjoying melee more than I expected. Though I still find myself occasionally not really attacking because I'm either faced the wrong way or just slightly too far from the mob. Oh well, it's all good and fun.

My Pally gained 13 levels this past month, though I pretty much stopped leveling her once she learned how to make Belt Buckles and my Shammy reached 80 and I started focusing on gearing her. Not sure how long it will take to get the Pally to 80, but I'm not in a hurry.

Oh...and on my priest I dropped Shadow and replaced it with Disc as off-spec.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter

Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 628.45.

Shaman
XXGo full resto at 80. -- Decided to stick to Enahancement.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

Monday, March 29, 2010

March 29, 2010

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
We put in several more attempts on the Lich King last night. I think we were encouraged by the fact that our officers' 10-man team got the Kingslayer title during the week. Our first attempt last night was the best of any so far. We got through 3 or 4 defiles before we started losing people.

It was down hill from there. Roughly three hours of banging our heads against the wall due to one mistake after another. I think I was the cause of our final wipe of the evening. I got the defile, ran left, like our plan, then defile got too big and wipe. I did notice a boomkin move with me, instead of to the right like he was supposed to, so I'm sure he contributed to the problem. But, I suspect I shouldn't have stopped after moving left. In fact, I'm positive. Ah well. This week we'll get more attempts in.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Nothing.

Gems/Shards/Honor
Who knew you could use Stone Keeper's Shards to buy uncut gems? I sure didn't! This is another example of me not paying attention to things. You can't but the gems directly. You first have to go to Wintergrasp and exchange 30 shards for a Wintergrasp Commendation, which gives you 2000 honor. Then, you go to Stormwind and use 10,000 honor to buy a gem. So each gem is worth 150 shards. I have a couple thousand shards! This is a great find, since I'm using so many gems in my Shammy's equipment lately.

New Perspective on Things
Over the weekend I bought a new graphics card and a new monitor. Woo hoo! No lag at all last night. My FPS stayed high the entire time. Yippee! And, with the extra monitor width, I was able to see more and even rearrange my bars to free up more space. I love both of them.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

March 25, 2010

Not a lot of major stuff has happened in the past week. Though there were a few notable things.

Shaman
My Shaman has been 80 for only 10 days and yet she already has several 232 to 245 ilvl items. Thanks to friends who have crafted things for me, patient PuGs who have helped me get triumph emblems, and patient guildies who have held alt runs through ToC.

Despite the gear, my DPS in raids is still quite low, compared to that of others. It's lower on raid bosses than it is on Heroic bosses. I think much of the problem is my unfamiliarity with how to melee properly. I know the DPS rotation/priority for enhancement shamans, it's just a matter of getting myself into the right position -- and most importantly, noticing when I'm not actually hitting anything. Honestly, that's one of my biggest problems. With all the flashes of spells going on around me, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that my UI is telling me that I'm too far away or that I'm faced the wrong way. I checked Skada (the replacement to Recount) and my miss rate on attacks is very low. So, it's definitely not that my hit rating is not high enough. It really is that I'm just not attacking because of positioning.

Oh and...sheesh! I never realized how many mobs do a push back effect. Jeezo! I think it's an overused mechanic. It's definitely worth having in the game. But, I can't tell you how much time I wasted running back to bosses after being knocked back. Now I understand why ranged DPS always rock the damage charts. On my mage and my priest, I just have to stand at max range and cast. Melee are constantly having to move.

Anyway...I'm having a blast, despite being disappointed with my DPS.

Paladin Leveling
My pally is lvl 72 now. But, more importantly, she's at 442 Blacksmithing. I've been gathering ore for her while sitting out on raids on my priest lately. This past Tuesday I sat out nearly the entire raid, so that was almost 3 hours of circling Icecrown, mining ore. Anyway...back to the pally. So, I'm pretty much going to stop there with Blacksmithing. My goal had been to get her to be the Eternal Belt Buckle producer of my toons. Maybe if I get to 80 on her and become motivated to equip her with epics, I'll look into maxing Blacksmithing and getting epic patterns.

Miscellaneous
On a personal note. Yesterday Ronnie tried to patch things up with Matt. Matt responded to her this morning, saying thanks, but no thanks. I can't blame Matt. Ronnie needs to just let it go.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

March 17, 2010

Shaman Leveling
She's 80!!! And she already has an epic! :) I dinged 80 a couple nights ago on her. I even got past my fears and joined a few groups as DPS. My numbers were painfully low for heroics, but at this point, it's safer to DPS with my gear than it is to try to heal with it.

What will I do long term? I'm not sure. For now, I'm enjoying her and that's what matters. I guess the bigger question is which spec will I buy gear for with my emblems? I already bought the first piece, which was for Enhancement. But, now I'm thinking I might want to ultimately switch her to Resto.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
I had a frustrating moment the other night. I offered to sit for a few fights to allow other healers to get a chance at gear that I already have. I assumed that when they reached the Lich King, I would be swapped in. To my surprise, and my disappointment, no swaps were made. I sat there on an alt, listening to my guildies experience the Lich King encounter for the first time.

After listening in to two wipes, my disappointment had grown into anger. I had dedicated lots of my time over the past weeks, working hard to get past the difficult encounters. Never complaining about wipes or repair bills -- unlike many of my fellow guildies. I had been in the group that finally brought down Sindragosa. Didn't I deserve a spot against the Lich King?

I spoke up. I sent a polite message to an officer asking why I had not been swapped in. After a brief apology, my invite came about 10 minutes later. I feel slightly bad for the person who left group so I could get in. But, only slightly.

We got Arthas down to 42% before wiping. Several attempts but no success. But still very very exciting to finally be there, tackling the big guy!

Last night we did a full clear, minus Professor, in the 4 hours of our raid time. The next two raid nights will be focused solely on the Lich King. Woo hoo!

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Not sure if I have the time, the energy or the will to continue staying up into the wee hours of the morning with the 10-man team. I so desperately want to finish ICC with them, but the late nights are playing havoc on my health, my job and my marriage. We'll see if there's any possibility of changing the schedule.

Friday, March 12, 2010

October 12, 2010

Woot woot woot! We finally got down Sindragosa on 25-man last night. Yippeee!!!!! Woo hoo!!! Yowza! Yay!

Ahem...

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
So, as I was saying, we killed Sindragosa last night for the first time. That was an exciting bit of progress. I know that I personally improved my performance. From the perspective of a healer, it's all about managing the stacking buffs while keeping the raid alive. On previous nights, I had been making two clear strategy mistakes during phase 3:
  • Trying to clear my Mystic Buffet stacks at every opportunity. Every time a new raid member got ice-blocked, I tried to get behind the block long enough to remove my stacks, regardless of how many I had. Bad result = Not enough healing on the tanks. Resolution = Waiting longer to remove stacks.
  • Not noticing that I had Unchained Magic and that my Instability stacks were getting dangerously high. I had been focusing so much on Mystic Buffet that I forgot about Unchained Magic. Bad result = casting constantly, which lead to my death. Resolution = Pay attention to both debuffs and accept that fact that I must stop casting at some points to let the Instability stacks wear off. A dead healer can't heal.
Last night I focused on both of these and voila! Success! Of course, I recognize that 24 other people played part in the overall success. But at least I can be proud of this progress in my personal performance.

Gear vs. Skill vs. PC Performance
So there's this other holy priest in my guild that outheals me on all fights except Professor Putricide. (And the only reason I outheal him on that fight is that I keep Renew up on the Abomination the entire time.) Up until recently I had attributed the difference in output to the fact that he had better gear than I. However, I recently passed him up gearwise and he continues to have HPS anywhere from 600-1000 higher than mine.

Before I go on, I will point out that I recognize that healing meters are not the same as DPS meters. DPS and damage done are direct measurements of the amount of damage you're putting out. HPS and total healing are reliant upon damage taken that you can heal. In other words, a mob has a set amount of hit points, which means there's a certain amount of damage that needs to be done to kill it. You (the raid) must do that damage to succeed.

Healing is different. If none of my allies takes any damage throughout a fight, there is no damage to heal. In such a fight, my HPS would be 0. Of course, that never happens, but it does show the difference between DPS and HPS meters. Damage is necessary...you can't kill the boss without it. Healing is only necessary if damage is taken.

A more realistic example is one where people actually take damage. Healers step in and heal that damage. If Raider A takes damage and Healer A heals it, that healing is added to the HPS of Helear A. If Healer B heals the same person, he only gets credit for the amount he actually healed. If Raider A takes 5000 damage then Healer A throws a heal on him that heals for 3000, then Healer B throws a heal that heals for 3000, Healer A's gets credit for 3000 and Healer B gets credit for 2000 (1000 is overhealing, and doesn't count).

(Much of this is painfully obvious, but I'm working through it in my head to get to my point).

If Healer A heals Raider A for 5000 (which brings Raider A up to full health) then Healer B's heal hits for 3000, only Healer A gets credit for the healing done. Healer B's heal is considered overheal and pointless for healing done. (Similarly, if a mob dies, any spell or attack against it after death is not counted as damage done.)

Why am I saying all of this? Because I'm trying to explain why my stats might be higher due to gear, but my healing output can be so much lower. We're casting the same spells, and mine are a little more potent, so something else must be going on.
  • Reaction time / Skill: It's very possible that the other priest is much quicker to respond and better able to predict incoming damage. This is probably defined as skilled. I think my reaction time might be slower because I'm about 20 years older than he. I might understand how to play my class as well as he, which would make me skilled in that sense. But, I sadly admit that reaction speed is also part of skill. A professional athlete in her 40s can rarely beat one of the same skill of a younger age. So, I define skill as being a combination of knowledge/experience and reaction time. I have the knowledge and experience but not the best reaction time.
  • PC Performance: When you're casting spells (at least as a priest), you get into a rhythm. I know I can cast a Circle of Healing, then Prayer of Mending followed by two renews before I can cast CoH again. When in the midst of a battle, I sense the rhythm and can usually cast a spell a split second before Power Auras tells me the spell if off cooldown. Best case scenario, it works like clockwork. No cooldowns missed, constant casting. Who could ask for better healing output? With perfect rhythm set up, what can stop me from reaching my potential? PC lag. Yep, in the midst of most battles my PC gets taxed and my FPS goes way down. Even though I know a spell is off cooldown, I try to cast it and nothing happens....until a second or two later. Under those circumstances I am unable to heal as quickly as I should, and I don't see all the damage as it's coming in. Over time this plays havoc on my healing output and on the survivability of the raid.
I'm not using PC performance as an excuse, I'm just pointing out that it does play a role in my overall healing output.

So...why talk about this? I want to improve. One thing I have control over is my PC performance. I can look into buying more memory and upgrading my graphics card. Perhaps when I do that, I can then see what a difference it makes. Then, when I've eliminated my PC as a factor, I can see my actual "skill" level. I don't think I'll ever catch up to the other healer; my reaction time is not something I can improve much. But, ate least I can get closer.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

March 10, 2010

OK I'm a dolt. Yesterday I said I hoped we wouldn't do a fresh clear of ICC on either 10-man or 25-man so we could continue trying to get Sindragosa down. Well, I completely forgot that the wings of ICC are not linear. The first four encounters have to be done on a new raid id, but once you get past those, you can choose the wing you want to go to.

Last night we went right to Sindragosa. We got very very close to beating her. Hopefully Thursday will be our day!

Now...there is one part of my wish that did make sense. Even if we get down Sindragosa, we can't move on to the Lich King without clearing the other wings. Kinda like Sapphiron and KT can't be done until you do the wings of Naxx. So, to see the Lich King we will still have to kill Queen again. Ugh!

That's all for today. Busy at work.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

March 9, 2010

I took a few days off work this past week, which meant I spent time playing and not blogging. :-)

Shaman Leveling
In a recent post I mentioned my frustration with my damage and survivability while questing. Well, I spoke with a shammie in my guild and she convinced me to try out Enhancement instead of Elemental. My biggest concern was equipment. Being Ele/Resto was easy because I didn't have to worry about changing equipment. But I realized a few things:
  1. With my abundance of Conquest and Triumph Emblems, I could easily afford to by the heirloom items -- two maces, chest piece, and shoulders.
  2. All those non-spellpower enhancing quest rewards that were ending up being vendor trash? Why not choose the Agility/Melee ones to build an Enhancement set? Honestly, this was a big realization for me. So many times I've gone for quest rewards and felt dismay over having no viable options for my current spec. Countless items have become vendor trash seconds after being rewarded. Now, with a melee and a caster spec, I can actually use more of the items!
  3. At this point in the expansion (almost the end!), people are less likely to complain when you roll on off-spec stuff in instances. I'm still healing dungeons, but I'm rolling need on Enhancement gear when it drops. Of course, I'm first waiting to see if others roll need first (like hunters or actual enhancement shamans). If they do, I pass. I figure they deserve it more since it's their main spec. But, if they roll greed or disenchant, I figure it's mine!
So how do I like Enhancement so far? I love it! I still have my general neutral feeling about melee. But, compared to Elemental, it's so much easier to solo. I don't even have to put down totems if I don't want to. And there are only a couple buttons to mash. Questing is now going to be a breeze again.

As mentioned above, in instances I've continued to heal. Mostly because it's easier to get into groups that way. But also because much of my gear is still spell power focused. I'm a bit self conscious about going into a dungeon and meleeing with caster gear on. Maybe if/when I get a full set of melee gear I'll be more comfortable doing so.

Which leads me to my question, what will I do when I hit 80? Will I bench her? Will I raid with her? If I raid, will I focus on Enhancement? Or will I give in and be resto? When I was leveling my druid I really thought I'd do more raiding with her than I've done. But, she has pretty much become my flask creator and gem transmuter. I'm willing to accept that I might bench her at 80. Honestly, the fun of leveling up a different class is satisfying enough. Once you hit 80 the game play doesn't really change; it's just your dps or hps that you focus on increasing.

We'll see...she's 75 now, so only 5 levels to go.

Paladin Leveling
My Pally is now 71. When I finally got her to Northrend and bought her cold weather flying, my focus became what I suspected it would...gathering ore to level blacksmithing. Yep, the fun with her is the profession leveling, more than the game play. What can I say, she's melee. ;-)

I've got her to 401 Blacksmithing. It's that phase where many of the recipes require a mix of cobalt and saronite. Of course, I can't wear any of the stuff I'm making at this point. But, who cares? I'm having fun making it. I'm putting some of the items in my bank for possible future use and sending the rest to my mage for disenchanting. I remember while leveling alchemy that I reached a point in the process when I had to gain a certain character level before being able to continue further. I'm not sure if that will be the case with blacksmithing. But, no worries, I'll get her to 80 eventually, though not as quickly as I will get my shammie. Unless...I get in the mood to hide. Then the pally will be my only play option.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Last week's Icecrown Citadel runs were interesting. We finally got down Blood-Queen Lana'thel. Though it was by the skin of our teeth (pun intended). I think only 2 or 3 people were alive at the end. She enraged, killed almost everyone, but those who remained were able to get in the final bits of damage to bring her down.

A kill is a kill! :)

Our new challenge was Sindragosa. Having practiced it on 10-man (more below), I was able to execute the strategy fairly well. In fact, as a whole, we did great. We got her down to 12%, I believe. Not bad for the first night of attempts. But, that's pretty much where we made it in 10-man. I'm going to have to read the posts again on healing that fight. Something about that final phase is killing us and I can't seem to figure out how to heal through it.

Despite not getting her down, we were still very happy with the progress we made. The question of the day is, will we reset the instance tonight? Or will we go in with our raid id from last week and continue to attempt to get Sindragosa down? I hope it's the latter. We're so close to the Lich King, we can taste it. And, considering how our defeat of Blood-Queen Lana'thel was pure luck, I don't want to risk getting stuck on her again this week. We should count our blessings and push through this week. Hopefully the officers agree.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
My ten man team is doing really well. We now have two Blood-Queen Lana'thel kills behind us, so she's "on farm" for all intents and purposes. We're now on Sindragosa too. Like I mentioned above, we've gotten her down to about 12%, just like in 25-man. So, the key really is figuring out how to heal that last phase.

We've had some tension recently in our 10 mans. Perhaps we're spending too much time together? Perhaps we're all not getting enough sleep because we're so focused on progression in both 10 and 25 mans? Whatever it is, it's causing a lot of bickering and arguments. I hate to suggest we take some time off, because that would delay our progress, and we're soo close to the Lich King. But, I'd hate to see our group dissolve because of resentments. Hmmmm....

Well, tonight we have the same question as with our 25-man: Do we save the raid ID and keep pushing until we get down Sindragosa? Or do we start from the beginning to get folks badges and possible drops?

I vote for the former, but I'm also one of the lucky ones who needs nothing from 10-man. So, my opinion might be a bit biased. I want the "Kingslayer" title now! Before the raid-buff goes up so much that anybody can get it! :-(

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

March 2, 2010

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green
Last night I played my pally until pretty late. She reached lvl 62, at which point I remembered I had already created a set of Fel Iron Plate items. I went to my bank and put them on. Golly green, Batman! I had never checked out their appearance before. What a glowing glob of green ick I look like! I haven't made the chest piece since I'm already wearing the heirloom breastplate. But now I'm tempted to do so just to take a screenshot of my big green dwarf pally.

Monday, March 1, 2010

March 1, 2010

Once again, a long time between posts. I really need to get out of the computer lab during the day. Although I'm doing good stuff in there, I'm neglecting my diary duties. :-)

Pally Leveling
So...my pally has been the object of my attention this past week. The 50s were tough, as I didn't like heading to BRD for the random dungeon, so most of my xp came through quests. It would have been simple, but I was picky about the zones I wanted to spend time in...and I didn't want to do any green quests. But, yesterday afternoon I finally dinged 58 and headed to Outland! Then, after a dozen or so quests and a couple runs through Ramparts, I dinged 60 and got my flying mount!

Now that there are more abilities to use, I'm enjoying playing her much more than I did when she was much lower level. I still don't prefer melee, so I won't be surprised if I bench her after I reach 80 and get a few pieces of heroic gear. But, at least I will have enjoyed the different play style and will have a toon that can make Eternal Belt Buckles. Hehe...I know the belt buckles aren't really a good reason to put time into getting a toon to 80. But, like I said, I am enjoying the change in play style, even if it is not ultimately my "thing".

Shaman Leveling
Before raids started, I hopped on my shammy. She was so close to 72 that I could taste it! A couple quick quest turn ins and ding! I was excited to train some new skills, only to realize there were only restoration spell upgrades. Upgrades are nice, but it was a little underwhelming.

I'm having a little hard time with her. While soloing I'm not doing as much damage as I would want to do...and I'm dying quite a bit. I suppose the deaths are partly due to the fact that I'm using the heirloom staff and not a shield and one-handed weapon. A shield would probably increase my survivability, but the extra xp per kill makes me stick with the staff. This is only an issue when I'm soloing, obviously. When I'm in groups, I rock the DPS meters, so I know I'm playing her right in that situation.

They do say that Enhancement is the soloing spec. But, I like the ability to switch between Elemental and Resto since it doesn't require me having two sets of gear. So, I suppose I can just suffer through my low survivability. Though I can't help but wonder if I'm playing her wrong. For example, I go back and forth in my mind regarding which Water totem to put down. Do I use Healing Stream Totem to keep myself alive a little longer? Or do I use Mana Spring Totem to extend my time betwen breaks? Or does it balance out because I use that extra mana to cast healing spells on myself anyway?

I queued last night and got Azjol-Nerub twice. I hated healing that instance on my priest and I hate doing so on my shaman. That first encounter is just insane. The first time I got the instance I was DPS. The poor healer couldn't keep us alive -- or was it that the tank couldn't keep the mobs under control? The second time I got the instance I was Heals. I couldn't keep us alive -- and the tank couldn't keep the mobs under control. In both instances the tank was a DK. It does remind me of how much I hate healing DK "tanks". I am still not convinced that they are really a good tanking class.

But anyway...why did I get put into AN at lvl 72? Even with my Cleansing Totem up, the party took too much damage. I always thought that a shaman would do much better healing that first encounter than I was ever able to do on my priest. I'm not sure why I couldn't heal it. Was I too low at 72? Was the tank not up to par? Was it just bad RNG?

I turned around and healed Nexus right afterward and didn't have a single death. So, even though I find the healing style of Shamans more difficult than that of Priests, I clearly can do it.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Last night we went back to ICC and continued attempts against Queen. Still no success. I do enjoy seeing my healing numbers soar into the 8k-10k range. That's fun. :-) But it wasn't enough.

After a couple hours there, we gave up and headed to Valithria Dreamwalker. It took us only a couple attempts to get her down. Easy encounter, once you get the rhythm of it. There was a little tension at the end when our egotistical pally took credit for the success (I'd say "kill", but that's not appropriate for this encounter). He's so full of himself. But our Raid Leader called him on it and made him take back his words and acknowledge that it was a team effort. Yes, he healed the most, but that wouldn't have mattered if the rest of us hadn't healed the raid, while popping heals on the dragon as often as we could.

I have to say I like the Valithria encounter. It's a refreshing change from the norm.

Oh and last time I posted I expressed doubts that we really have Professor on farm. Well, we wiped a couple times this week, but we got him down. I'm not sure if "farm" implies no wiping. But, I'll say it does not. We have him on farm, even though we might wipe a couple times while getting him down.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Nothing new. Still getting down bosses we have on "farm" (including professor putricide). We didn't raid a couple of our normal nights this week, which put us behind schedule.

I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow night. Will we extend our raid id and try to reach the Lich King? We only have Queen and Sindragosa in our way. Queen is pretty easy with our group. Sindgragosa will be a new encounter for us. We'll probably start from scratch -- if anyone gets a piece of new gear as we work our way to Sindragosa, we'll be better able to defeat her. But, with our limited time to raid 10 man each week, we might never have enough time to clear the whole place.

I want the Kingslayer title and I want it now, daddy!

Level and Goal Check

Death Knight
Unholy
72
Druid
Balance/Feral
80
Hunter
BM
71
Mage
Arcane
80
Paladin
Ret 60 (+19)
Priest
Holy/Shadow
80
Rogue
(no talents)
29
Shaman
Ele / Resto
72 (+5)
Warlock
Affliction PvP
80
Warrior
(no talents)
34

I gained only 5 levels this past month on my Shaman, but 19 on my Pally. This is a sign of a couple things. (1) I've been distracted by out-of-game things, such as family stuff and re-reading one of my favorite book series, (2) When playing alts, I've been choosing to play my Pally so I can hide. I pretty much have all of the gear I can buy with Emblems of Frost, so I'm not motivated to log in on my priest on non-raid days to do random heroics. If I log in as my shammy, I'll be talked into healing randoms for folks on my priest. My mage and druid are recognizable also. So, that leaves the warlock, which is my bank toon again and my pally.

More about my experiences in the next post.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter

Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 604.87 -- no difference from last month.

Shaman
Go full resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

Monday, February 22, 2010

February 22, 2010

Been a while since I posted. I've been busy spending hours in our PC lab at work lately. I've been testing for trago, tucky, marco, etc.

Let's see if I can recap what has happened in game. Luckily for me, the Armory now lists your boss kills and achievements chronologically. So, I can pretty much rely on it for the details. :)

ICC 25 (Priest)
We now have Professor officially on farm. I'm still a little dubious -- not sure we're going to actually be able to get him down each week. But, we have done so for the past two weeks, which makes it officially farm content.

Blood Prince Council is also on farm.

Blood Queen Lana'thel is causing us problems. We spent nearly two full raid nights (8 hours total) trying this encounter. We've gotten her close -- I think 9% was the best we got it to. Perhaps tomorrow night we'll get some more gear on folks on the first several bosses, which will then help with that encounter.

The lack of quick progression is disappointing the officers and frustrating the raiders. No one likes trying the same encounter for 4 hours straight. Unfortunately, this is resulting in tension, arguments and raised tempers. One of our top ranged DPS rage quit the raid last week. I'm not exactly sure why, since I wasn't privy to the ranged chat channel conversation.

I have to say that the officers are disappointing me. I realize it's just a game and that people aren't necessarily trained managers just because they're guild leaders. But, I am really surprised by how unprofessional they are sometimes. They seem to think that ridicule is the way to motivate people to succeed. Instead of easing the tensions in the raid, they're making them worse by yelling at people and threatening to recruit better raiders. It's all very ugly.

ICC 10 (Priest)
Our 10 man team is a much more positive group, though it's not without its issues.

We have Professor on farm in 10 man too, though I still hold doubts about it truly being farm content only after 2 successful kills. We'll see.

Blood Prince Council = farm.

Blood Queen Lana'thel -- We got her down for the first time last night. Woot!

Valithria Dreamwalker -- We got her down in two tries last night. Woot!

Now that's some nice progression. :)

Shaman Leveling
I haven't leveled my shaman much in the past few weeks. Instead I've been focusing on...

Paladin Leveling
Yep, I'm focused on her again. Not so much because I find her fun to play. But because I'm obsessed with leveling her Blacksmithing. Hey...whatever works. :) I'm at a tough spot in the leveling process -- making Arcanite Rods. I've got Thorium up the wazoo, but Arcane Crystals are tough to find and they're way expensive on the AH. Thank goodness my boomkin is able to transmute them, otherwise I'd have to buy the actual Arcanite Bars, which are even more expensive.

So, I'm at a decision point. Do I pay for the crystals and move on? Or do I continue to mine Thorium until enough drop? I'll probably choose the latter. I'm not taking her into instances all that often since I really don't enjoy doing so on her. For some reason, I'm enjoying leveling slowly and mining on her. So, for now, I'll take it easy and level blacksmithing the old fashion way.

New Title
Oh...and I am now an Elder!

Friday, February 12, 2010

February 12, 2010

Good News, Everyone!
Professor went down last night on both 25-man and 10-man. What an exciting night!!!! After weeks of trying to beat him in both groups, we finally did it. I got both achievements: The Plagueworks (10 player) and The Plagueworks (25 player)

Not much else to say about last night, as our focus was on Professor. Great, fun, exciting, ego-boosting night!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

February 10, 2010

What do Snow, Love, PVP, Fools, Blacksmiths, Calendars and Subways have in common? Not much, unless you're in my world. Let me see if I can explain the connection they all have:

This morning I woke up with only one Achievement left for the the Love Fool title -- I Pitied the Fool. I still had the Battle Ring of Gurubashi Arena and the Arathi Basin Blacksmith parts to do. (PVP).

Last night there was a huge snow storm, which is still going as I type this. So, everyone and their mother is either taking a day off or encountering major delays on their commute in. So, even though I could theoretically walk to work, I decided to join the masses and use the snow as an excuse to be late to work. (Snow)

Because we anticipated the snow storm, my morning meetings were cancelled. So, being late would not be that much of a problem anyway because my calendar was free. (Calendar)

I went to Exodar and Darnassus to do the daily quests and purchased a Love Fool. I already had one in my inventory. So that gave me the two I needed. Woot! (Fools)

I hopped in the portal to Blasted Lands and joined the queue for Arathi Basin while making my way to Stranglethorn Vale. It only took a few seconds to queue. I popped into AB, ran around the horde, dismounted as soon as I saw the word "Blacksmith" on my screen and pitied a fool. (Blacksmith).

I typed "afk" and immediately returned to my flight to STV. I took a shower while my toon flew. When I was finished I made my way to the Battle Ring. I pitied my final fool. And bang! Fool for Love! (Love)

So you might still be wondering what the Subway has to do with all of this? Well, as soon as I got the title, I exited the game and got dressed really quickly. By the time I walked out the door, it was already 9:15 a.m. I was convinced that I would not make it to work by 9:30. As I walked down the stairs in the subway station, my train was just pulling in. Because of the snow, there was practically nobody on the train so I got a seat, which is unusual at that time of morning. Then, the commute to to my office was the fastest ever because of the lack of crowds. I got to my desk at 9:27. After all that, I wasn't late!!!! (Subway)

I've got a brand new title and I owe it all to the snow and all the direct or indirect effects it had on my world today! Hurray!! :-)

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Regular raiding night last night. It started off very badly. something happened during the weekly maintenance that made it (1) take 20 minutes to get past the loading screen and (2) impossible to cast or do pretty much anything else. We postponed our start time an hour, which really helped.

So, we quickly and easily cleared the first section. I sat out the first couple fights but joined for the Air Ship and the weekly ICC raid boss. No drops for this gal, but my emblems are really stacking up. We got to professor, on whom there is no longer a limited number of attempts. We got him down to 1% (50k health). It was so utterly exciting. But then we healers dropped like flies and then a tank died and it was all over. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the closest we had ever come to beating him. Our 2 attempts afterward were not as successful. We'll get him Thursday...we have the DPS and the mastery of the fight. We can do it!!!

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Right afterward my 10-man team went in and we cleared up to Professor, which is pretty much the usual progress we make on Tuesday nights. Tonight we'll start with him. I really really hope we get him down. But, a couple of our regulars are not going to be there tonight, so it might be tough.

Social Networking
OK...now a rare non-WoW related topic. My boss just told me yesterday that she wants me to attend a big conference in Nashville this summer. I hate those types of events. I feel overwhelmed by the crowds -- not claustrophobic, just out of place. I don't like networking, and that's what this event is all about. Meeting and talking with my peers. Ugh! Nashville will be a nice city to visit. But networking while I'm there -- not so much. :-(

Progress
And one more personal note. Michael, of Michael and Shannon, sat near me on the subway today and actually said "thank you" when I allowed him to pass me in the hallway. Some day we might all be on speaking terms again.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

February 9, 2010

I had to cut short yesterday's post because too much was going on at work. Things are a little less crazy today (or is it that I'm just blowing off the tasks on my to-do list?)

Love is in the Air
So, I was saying that I'm working on the Love is in the Air meta achievement. As of last night, I only have one achievement left: I Pitied the Fool. It's going to take a couple days, since the Love Fools cost 10 Love Tokens each. But, I should be done before the end of the week, if not sooner.

I was going to say that I found the perfect spot to grind out the Lovely Charms. But yesterday I found an even better one. There's a quest I have not completed that requires me to go to a specific location and destroy some portals or something. At that spot mobs are on a constant respawn cycle. I sat there for only about 30-45 minutes and walked away with over 100 lovely charms. That's 10 bracelets.

But then...I went to Culling of Stratholme as a random heroic late last night and found another way to quickly grind charms - kill all the zombies. I got kind of annoyed because this system definitely favors the non-healers in the group. I had to use Holy Nova in order to get my fair share of charms. :\ So, I supposed DPS will be the ones who have the most goodies from the event, since they have the most opportunities to get charms. When in a group, the charms should be distributed equally, not just to the person who made the kill. But, Blizzard didn't ask for my opinion.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Another 20 attempts on Professor wasted. Though we came very very close to killing him a few times. I think part of the problem is me. I excel at healing during phases 1 and 2. But phase 3 is a different matter. I suck at tank healing while moving.

Heroic modes unlock this week for several guilds, so the limited number of attempts goes away for normal mode. I don't know how our officers will approach this. Will we do Professor until we finally get him? Or will we limit ourselves to a number of attempts?

Shaman Leveling
My Shaman is now level 70. The xp gain since hitting 70 has seemed very slow compared to pre-70. I'm not complaining, as I remember it took even longer back in the Burning Crusade days. It's just that it was a noticeable slowing down of progress.

I've been finding healing to be rather difficult on some occasions. I'm spoiled on my priest by having lots of instants. The shaman only has one instant (Riptide) and it has 6 second cooldown, which is an eternity compared to Renew, whose cooldown is simply the global cooldown. Also the multi-target heal Chain Heal has a long casting time compared to the instant Circle of Healing.

Lack of instants is not the only problem. I think everyone is also spoiled by how easy heroics are with high level gear. So, when they're running alts through lvl 70 dungeons they forget that we're not really overpowered for them. They try running through them, AoEing everything, as if we're in a heroic. Tanks aren't getting time to gain aggro, DPS is getting focused and one-shotted. It's a mess.

I do remember finding it challenging to heal these instances when I was leveling my priest. But back then people were a little more cautious.

To avoid the stress of healing, I've been DPSing as much as possible. I've reached over 1k DPS on occasion. That's fun! :-)

Boomkin Fun
My boomkin finally gained enough Emblems of Frost to buy the Belt of Petrified Ivy. It was a huge upgrade over the item I had previously, so I'm excited. I hope this excitement lasts because it's going to be a long time before I can afford another frost item on her.

Monday, February 8, 2010

February 8, 2010

Love is in the Air

Another World Event is upon us -- Warcraft's version of Valentine's Day. If I remember correctly, this marks my second year playing WoW. I remember being really new to the game and being totally confused by all the people with hearts over their heads in Stormwind. I figured out through trial and error that my female toon should not proposition a female NPC. Everything back then seemed so expensive though, since I was so new to the game. And, since I was just a starter level, I didn't have the opportunity to do most of the activities.

Now two years later I'm hot to get my "the Love Fool" title! As soon as I logged in yesterday, I started doing the daily quests and getting some achievements. The only achievements I had from last year were, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose and Lonely?. Yesterday I was able to get (I won't link them all) Shafted, Nation of Adoration, Charming, Dangerous Love, Tough Love and Be Mine. I still have 5 to go. As long as I can do the dailies each day, I should be able to do it no problem.

Last night I went with guildies to take down the holiday bosses in Shadowfang Keep. Then later I went with friends from another guild. Night and day. Night and day.

Tonight's a raid night, since yesterday was the Super Bowl. Professor going down? I really hope so!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

More Thoughts on Elitism in WoW

A few days ago I spoke about elitism in WoW. The topic is still on my mind, so I'm going to continue putting my thoughts down about it.

Today a top raiding guild got banned for exploiting a bug to defeat the Lich King encounter and gain the world first killing. (I'm not putting the name of the guild because I don't want it to show up on searches. Stupid as it may sound, I don't want to feed their elitist egos by adding to posts in the blogosphere about them. This post isn't about their ban anyway. It's about the elitism that went along with it.) One of the guild's main members put up a blog post in which he highly criticized Blizzard, including accusing them of making content too easy. (OK...end of reference to that incident.)

"Content is too easy." Who are the people that say this? Some (many? most?) members of top raiding guilds do (mine included). But other people do too. Who are they? What do these people have in common? Saying "elitism" is the common quality is a bit too easy. I want to understand it on a deeper level. What makes someone become an elitist?

I wish it were possible to do a survey of elitists to get statistics. I'd suspect that a large number of them are one or more of the following: (1) young -- teens to early 20s, (2) male, (3) able to spend lots of time in game, (4) insecure, (5) unable to discuss ideas rationally and with an open mind.

Why do I say each of these?

(1) Young -- Immaturity is definitely a factor. In general, the experienced, developed, educated mind is one that is less selfish and more aware and tolerant of others. I know that's a big generalization and there are millions of cases where that's not true (look at the Ku Klux Klan as an example), but I think it's safe to say that it's generally true. Most young people are not fully matured intellectually and emotionally. They often lack the ability to be tolerant of others. And, as we all know, young people can be cruel to one another. If you are different, don't fit in, aren't able to keep up with the cool kids, you are ostracized and ridiculed. Of course, this type of behavior isn't limited to young people. Even middle aged and elderly people can exhibit this behavior. But, I'd say that despite their age, they're still intellectually and/or emotionally immature.

(2) Male -- Testosterone is evil. :-) Really, though, men seem to always need to compete for top dog. They need to be the best, strongest, fastest, most skilled, most whatever. Of course, that doesn't mean that females can't be elitists. Surely I've run across many elitist women. But, in the world of video games I think it's safe to say that most of the elitists are male.

(3) Able to spend lots of time in the game -- I don't believe I've run across many elitist players in WoW that are only able to play 3-4 hours a week. In order to be an elitist, you need the gear to back it up. Gear is only obtainable by spending time in the game. Even with heroics being easier to run these days (because of the current LFG system AND the average gear level players), a person with limited time to play will still find it hard to keep up with the Joneses gear-wise. My priest has close to a 5700 gear score at this point because I raid about 18 hours a week with her (25-man and 10-man combined). My druid, on the other hand, still has a gear score in the mid-high 3000s since my time on her is limited to a daily random heroic and the occasional additional heroic if time permits.

But, I've gotten off track. My point with this is that people who say the content is too easy are, more often than not, the people that have enough time to obtain the gear to make it easy. I think the first encounters of ICC are easy -- on my priest. But, when I'm in ICC on my mage and her guild mates, I find it challenging. Why? Mostly because of gear. My priest's guildmates are all highly geared. My mage's guildmates are average to well geared.

I'm not trying to get into a discussion about whether or not the end-game raiding content should be doable by the masses. I can see both sides of the argument on that. Making raid content difficult for top raiding guilds gives them incentive to stay in the game. If the content were too easy for them, they'd get bored and move on to another game. I get that. But, I also remember wanting to see raids such as Black Temple and Sunwell before I was in a raiding guild. I knew I never could because I wasn't geared enough. It made me a sad that there were parts of the game I'd never see because of this, despite paying the same amount of money per month to play the game as the top-end raiders. So...I understand both sides of the argument regarding that.

But that's not my point.

My point is that many elitists are only able to be elitists because of their gear. The only way to get exceptional gear is by spending lots of time in the game. But...does the ability to spend a lot of time in the game and get better gear entitle anyone to feel superior to those who don't have the time?

(4) Insecure -- This one could be hotly debated (and denied, of course), but behind most elitists there is an insecure person. Anyone that has to base their worth and self esteem on their status in a video game is making up for something in their real life. I'm not saying in-game elitists are no-life losers in real life. Nope. Not all. Some might be. Others might be very successful people with wonderful family lives who contribute to society in very positive ways. But, even the most successful person can have insecurities. And when I say "successful", I'm not limiting it to having a good career. I mean anything that would make a person feel successful, including, but not limited to, being a low income single parent raising a healthy well adjusted child. In my book, that person is just as successful as the most infuential lawyer or doctor. (And sometimes even more successful, but that's another discussion.)

Anyway...I think elitism is often a manifestation of insecurity. The need to make yourself feel superior to others by putting them down. That's so often a blatant sign of insecurity.

(5) unable to discuss ideas rationally and with an open mind -- This is the typical internet era jerk. There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet F!kwad Theory that basically says, given total anonymity and an audience, even the most normal person can become a jerk. My own take on that is something you find everywhere on the internet, including in WoW.

For example, just today I read a post on the WoW forums in which someone was saying "stay away from such and such players because they do low dps in heroics". They actually said the names of the players and revealed their dps numbers in a recent heroic run. They claim they were doing a public service. This, of course, led to a debate regarding the notion of the acceptable amount of dps for heroics. Those who felt the original poster was wrong stated reasonable arguments: Heroics were originally desgined for fresh 80s. When Wrath first came out and we all started running heroics we had ilvl 200 gear or less. We made it through heroics just fine, though maybe with some difficulty at times. Now that many people have ilvl 245-264 gear, heroics are much easier to run. In some cases, the heroic dungeons themselves have been made easier by nerfing certain mechanics. Many people are leveling alts who are fresh 80s. They haven't been able to get to the point of gaining the 245-264 gear. They're as geared as we were when we started heroics and, in many cases, the dungeons are easier.

With all these reasonable arguments, the original poster and those that supported him continued to hold their ground. According to them, anything under 5k dps is just unacceptable in heroics at this point. End of story. Anyone with less than 5k dps is fail and needs to learn to play or just quit WoW altogether.

I'm sorry, but any reasonable rational person can see the lack of logic in that position. But most elitists fail to debate reasonably. They can't admit the true sub-par DPS for heroics is DPS that is lower than expected for ilvl 175-200 geared people. That's the ilvl that heroics were designed around. Instead they insist that everyone should be at 245-264 at this point. They won't even respond to posts about fresh lvl 80 alts.

What they really should say, and a reasonable/rational person would, is that they recognize that ilvl 175-200 is fine for heroics, but they prefer to run heroics with people with higher gear levels. That is perfectly acceptable. It's a preference for them...they want to get through heroics quickly. And, saying it that way does not put any judgment on the people who have not achieved that level of gear yet. But, instead, they call anyone without their expected level of DPS "fail".

Another example of an irrational or unreasonable stance is the discussion about the ease of current raids. Uber-geared highly-sklled end-game-focused raiders will definitely find encounters in ICC easier to beat than others who don't match that description. In fact, I'll even stipulate that it's not necessary to have uber-gear to feel that way. As long as you're highly skilled and focused on end-game content, you'll probably find many ICC encounters to be easy.

But...does that mean that anyone who doesn't have the same perspective as you is "fail"? Take my mage's guild for example. They are a group of good, and in many cases well geared, players. They still struggle on 10-man Saurfang and, the last time I checked, they are still trying to kill Rotface. If anyone asked them if they thought the content was easy, they'd say "no". Are they as geared as the top raiders? No. Are they as experienced with end-game raiding as the top raiders? No. Do some of them lack the quick response time as top raiders? Yes. But...are they "fail" because of these differences? No.

Any reasonable/rational person would agree that the top raiding guilds have an edge (gearwise and skillwise) over other guilds. They would admit that their perspective of the game is only shared by a small percentage of the WoW community. They would say that, although they find the content easy, they can understand why it's more difficult for those with less advantages than they. (And they'd say so without condescension, of course.)

Does better gear make you more valuable of a human being? Does more skill, experience, reaction time, etc. make you a more valuable human being? No, but elitists make it seem that way.

OK...I've gone on and on. But this topic fascinates me. There are so many facets to it; surely not every elitist is an elitist for the same combination of reasons. And, I'm sure there are more personality traits behind elitism that I haven't thought of.

It's such a negative force...and yet there doesn't seem to be any way to rid the world of it.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Level and Goal Check

Death Knight
Unholy
72
Druid
Balance/Feral
80
Hunter
BM
71
Mage
Arcane
80
Paladin
Ret 41 (+3)
Priest
Holy/Shadow
80
Rogue
(no talents)
29
Shaman
Ele / Resto
67 (+23)
Warlock
Affliction PvP
80
Warrior
(no talents)
34

I gained 23 levels on my Shaman in the last month. The majority of the xp was gained through random dungeons. There's almost no point anymore to questing in Outland. And, with flying available at lvl 60, there's no longer a need to kill random mobs on the way to your quest location. Just fly in, drop down, kill any mob that might be in the immediate vicinity, get quest credit, fly out. The "kill 10 mobs" or "collect 30 naga claws" type of quests are no longer worth the effort. You level in dungeons long before you have time to finish killing the mobs.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter

Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 604.87 (up almost 40 points from last month).

Shaman
Go full resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Elitists - Reason With Them or Ignore Them?

You find elitism everywhere in WoW and its related communities. You see it in everything from using GearScore as a determination of skill, to posting damage meters as a way of stroking one's ego. It seems to be a phenomenon that won't go away.

The arguing in Trade chat never ends. One person posts a question or a comment. Another responds with an elitist (unhelpful, by the way) response. Followed by several supporters from both sides of the coin.

The same happens on forums or blog sites, such as WoW.com. Someone posts a reasonable article. Then at least one elitist person responds with an attack against all noobs. That's followed by several people supporting or attacking the elitist.

Why do people even try to reason with elitists? I admit, I often get suckered into reading the debates. There's something enjoyably masochistic about putting myself through it. I suppose it's like watching reality TV -- the shock value when you think, "I can't believe he just said that!" Yet afterward you ask yourself why you even watched.

But honestly, why do people even bother trying to reason with them? Has an elitist ever been convinced to recant their statements?

On WoW.com today there was an Arcane Brilliance article about DPS meters and how people misuse them. One reader wrote a typical elitist response -- anyone who complains about DPS meters is the person with low DPS who is being carried by the others. This elicited pages and pages of responses, attacking his point of view. The elitist never posted again, indicating that he had read all the responses and had recognized the err of his ways. He either probably never looked back at the post, or maybe he read all the responses, enjoying how much he had riled things up.

Why do we do it? We know we're not going to get anywhere with them, so why try? Why not just ignore their statements?

When someone accuses another of being "fail" because his gear score is in the 3000s, why does that person feel the need to defend himself by explaining that the toon is not his main, or that he has taken 3 months off from the game, or that he only has 2 hours of play time per week, etc?

I experience this first hand from both sides. My Priest is one of the best geared on the server. Currently, her gear score is 5600 or so. I don't brag about it. It's just a sign that I have a lot of time to play and that I'm lucky enough to be in a 25-man raiding guild and I've won some very good drops. I've received high praise for my "leet-ness" while on my Priest.

Meanwhile, my Moonkin's gear score is still in the 3000s. I've been criticised and ridiculed for having such a low gear score and "low" dps. The level of her gear is much lower than that of my priest because (a) she is not my main and so I spend very little time on her, (b) she has no raiding opportunities in the guild she's in (and even if she had, I wouldn't have the time).

But, I'm the same player behind both toons. I am not a fail player. And, even if I didn't have the highly geared priest, and only had time to play the Moonkin, I'd still be the same player. High gear scores are mostly just a sign of time spent playing the game. They're not necessarily indicative of a person's skill, and definitely they're not indicative of a person's worth!

In the end, the elitists are people who judge others' worth on their gear and their knowledge of the game. Reasonable people recognize this as the crap that it is. So, why do they (we?) let them get to them, making them defend the not-so-elite?

Is it important to argue with someone who makes outlandish remarks so that either (a) they will change their opinions, or (b) others will not be fooled into agreeing with them?

Or do we just like to argue?

If we just ignored elitist comments, would the elitists stop talking?

Friday, January 22, 2010

January 22, 2010

Am I a Good Progression Raider?
I mentioned in my last post that our 10-man raid leader raged in vent recently. Well, at the same time, our guild officers have been expressing concern over our progression. We're still the #3 alliance guild on our server, based on 25-man progression, so I'm not sure concern is warranted, but...the fact that they're concerned has made me think. Am I a good progression raider?

Here's what I mean by that: As I said, we're #3 for alliance 25-man progression on our server. However, the other two guilds are much quicker to get down new content. The gap between us is noticeable, especially as each week goes by. I spoke to this in a previous post where I pondered why that was the case. Gear definitely helps, but I'm leaning toward believing it's skill that makes the difference in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wallowing in self criticism and pity. I know I am a good healer. But, I'm noticing that I'm not as quick to pick up strategies as my fellow raiders. I watch the videos, I read the strategy guides. But when I get to the encounter, I have a hard time executing the strategies -- at first.

Some of my fellow raiders are able to pick up immediately on everything that's going on around them. They see things flying in the air (e.g., light and dark orbs in the Twin Val'Kyr encounter, Malleable Goo in the Professor Putricide encounter, etc.). I am able to see and avoid these things eventually. But it takes me many times going through the encounter before I get to the point that I'm able to understand and react to it all. Reading and watching videos doesn't help. It's actual practice that works for me. Yes, I realize that that's pretty much true for everyone (except those incredible gifted players who get everything on the first try). But, my point is that I notice I need more practice than most of my fellow raiders.

They also seem to recognize each other in the midst of all the chaos. I honestly can't tell the difference between any toons except for shape-shifted druids. For example, I can distinguish Trees from the other toons around me. Paladins, not so much. And yet, various people say, "stand on me", "come to me", "move away from me". I recognize the voice, but unless you're a Tree or you have a distinguishing mark on your head, I honestly don't know where the frick you are. And yet others seem to see this quite easily.

I'll stop to remind myself that I have no doubt that once I have had a chance to experience an encounter enough times, I am excellent at executing strategy. I know I'm a good healer and I know I'm a good raider. I recognize that there are many people that, no matter how much they experience an encounter, they're just not good at it. I don't fall into that category.

With that in mind, I get back to my original question. Am I a good progression raider? When a progression guild, focused on keeping a top spot, goes into new content, they want to master it quickly and be the first to kill a new boss. In order to do this they need a team of quick learners. This is especially important with the current system of limiting the number of attempts you have each week. The #1 guild on our server killed Professor Putricide the first week, despite the 10 attempts limit. It's now the third week and we still haven't gotten him down. I'm confident we'll get him soon, which speaks to the overall skill of the members of my guild.

I know that my mistakes contribute to our lack of quick progress. Note, I said "contribute"; I do not take full blame. I recognize that I'm not the only one in the guild that is still having problems with strategy execution. Clearly, if I were the only person not mastering the strategy, we'd be fine.

I'm not sure what the outcome of all of this analysis is. I do recognize and accept I'm not as quick as many of my guild mates. For heaven's sake, I'm old enough to be the mother of most of them! I might not naturally have the quick reflexes they do, and it might also be due to the age difference. I do eventually pick up strategies and become excellent at them. But, would my guild progress faster if someone else had my spot (and the spot of the other raiders in my same situation) while going through progression content?

ICC 25 (Priest)
With all that said, last night was fun. We one-shotted both Festergut and Rotface and skipped Professor in favor of seeing new content. After 5 or 6 wipes we got the Princes down. That was a fun encounter. I definitely could improve my performance on it, but by the time we did our final attempt, I felt that I was getting good at it.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

January 21, 2010

Another busy week at work, along with a few sick days, so I haven't had much time to write.

Shaman Leveling
I've leveled my shaman quite a bit -- she's now 63. Almost all of the XP has come from healing instances. Pretty much the only time I've actually quested on her has been while sitting out on raids. I can't get committed to an instance, since I can be called to join the raid at any moment. I'm not complaining, though. I'm sure when I raise another toon that is pure DPS, I'll do more quests than instances. So, I'm enjoying this opportunity to sail through the leveling process.

One observation about DK tanks in the early 60s: Some are good, but most are very very bad. At least most of the ones I've experienced. No situational awareness, no line of sight pulling, no understanding of mana=heals. I'll break each one of these down a little:
  • No situational awareness: Many of the DK tanks I've encountered stand in fire, don't pay attention to pats, and generally don't pay attention to their surroundings. Anyone with a DK has to have a lvl 80 somewhere. So, it's not that they're completely new to the game. Perhaps they're new to tanking? Maybe they're used to barging on in and surviving pretty much any group of mobs they encounter while questing? Or maybe heroic farming has made people think that all content can just be steam-rolled. If we are in heirloom gear, yes we have an advantage in the leveling instances. But, no matter how geared you are, you can't live through a 12 mob pile up. I'm a good healer, but I can't heal that.
  • No line of sight pulling: This really seems to be limited to DKs. All other tanks I've encountered know the concept and use it when needed. Perhaps it's because they have spent so many more levels in instances, since DKs skip all the pre-55 instances. Or maybe it's just that they lack basic tanking skills, or even worse, don't care. Steam rolling again...easy to do in heroics with epic gear on. Not so easy to do in lower level instances, even in heirloom gear.
  • No understanding of mana=healing: A particularly bad DK tank said one of the most surprising things to me. After three large unwieldy pulls, I had to stop for mana. I said this in party chat. As I sat down to drink, I watched as the tank and the rogue sauntered off to the next mobs. Every healer has gone through this decision making process before -- do I run up and do my best with the very little mana I have? Or do I just let them die? I chose the former...it was a mistake. We all died. While running back, I reminded the DK that I had said I needed mana. He didn't respond. Then...next couple encounters were equally mana intensive as the previous ones. I indicated in party chat that I needed to get mana back. Once again, he and the rogue went bravely forward to engage the next mobs. This time I let them die. The tank started calling me obscenities for not healing him. I reminded him that I had said I needed mana. His response was shocking. He said, "So what? There's nothing I can do to help you get mana. How the *%*& am I responsible for that?" How the heck did this guy get to level 80 on another toon without understanding that when the healer says she needs mana, that means everyone needs to sit tight while she drinks up?
Honestly, I can't wait to hit max level so I won't have to deal with so many idiotic death knights!

ICC 25 (Priest)
On Tuesday night we went right into Icecrown to get to the new content. Unfortunately, it seemed that everyone in the WoW universe had the same idea -- the lag was horrific. We could barely cast spells or move. After we killed Saurfang, we decided to call it a night. There was no way we could do the harder encounters with so much lag.

ICC 10 (Priest)
We made it to Professor Putricide last week, but we used up all 10 attempts without getting him down. We went back again on Tuesday night. We one shotted everything up to and including Festergut. We called it a night at that point then returned last night. For the life of us, we couldn't get Rotface down. It was very frustrating. After a few hours of attempts, we finally decided to get a peek at the new content. That's some hard stuff! We died within seconds of starting the Princes encounter. After three wipes, we decided to leave Icecrown.

OS 10 (Priest and Mage)
In the past week I've gotten the "...of the Nightfall" title on both my mage and my priest. My mage even won the roll on the drake. Pretty cool stuff.

Raid Leader Craziness
So, our 10-man raid leader has been close to intolerable lately. He does two things that really annoy the crap out of me.
  1. Whenever he's out of mana or dead, he'll declare a wipe. If it's early on in the encounter, I can see how his death might mean a wipe. But, if it's close to over, I might be able to handle the healing to the end. He seems to dismiss my healing skills. He gives the impression that without him healing, we're doomed to failure. That's annoying, but it's even more offensive.
  2. He has been going into rages over mistakes we make. It's one thing to be disappointed when we wipe. A good leader brushes it off and provides contstructive criticism and advice on how to do better the next time. He tries to do this, but he fails. Instead, he screams into the microphone at us. Then, when he regains his composure, he won't analyze what has gone wrong. If we step in to do so, he shushes us. I don't know what his deal is, but it's getting very annoying. I'm playing to have fun. Not to be screamed at by someone.
He's a great guy normally. I really like him a lot. He's very knowledgable and is able to orchestrate strategies very well. But, he seriously needs to work on the two points I made above. I mean, last night people were laughing at him, comparing him to the "More dots!!!" and "Minus 50 dkp!!!!!" guy.

That's all for now...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

January 13, 2010

Since I last wrote I've been either on vacation or extremely busy at work. But, I've had a lot of fun both in and out of WoW, so I'm happy. As for the WoW stuff...

ICC 25 (Priest)
The second wing of Icecrown, the Plagueworks, has opened. Last week we got down Rotface with no problem, but were having trouble with Festergut. We finally killed him on Sunday by the skin of our teeth. It was a very very close kill.

We moved on to Professor Putricide and did a few of our 10 attempts then called it a night. Hopefully we'll get a few more attempts in this week.

ICC 10 (Priest)
The progress of the 10-man group was the opposite of our 25-man one. We had no troubles getting Festergut down, but Rotface was a big problem. We finally got him down last night, so we were able to get our first attempts in on Professor last night.

Healing Meters
In the last week I've been noticing a something very disconcerting. My numbers on the healing meters have dropped tremendously, compared to my fellow healers. I don't put too much stock in the meters, as the true gauge of effectiveness is whether or not we succeeded in the encounter with minimal deaths. But, the significant drop in my numbers has concerned me.

What's going on? Am I being slower to react? Are the other healers beating me to targets, leaving me with less to heal? Am I not healing efficiently lately?

I'm running out of mana occasionally, so it's not for a lack of casting.

One change I made recently could be contributing to the problem. I put in a Power Aura setting to indicate to me when Prayer of Mending is off cooldown. I added it because I often try to cast PoM and realize too late that it's still on cooldown. So, I wanted to stop myself from wasting the click. I had hoped it would make me more efficient. It has helped -- I no longer waste the click. But, it's had an unexpected side effect. I end up casting it more often -- every time the cooldown is up. The problem? Sometimes I'm doing so before the previous one has had a time to jump to all of its targets. So, I'm effectively clipping the spell. I'm not a math whiz, so I'm not going to try to put it down with numbers and calculate it all out. I'm just going to try to be more thoughtful about when I actually cast PoM. The signal from Power Aura should only be telling me I can cast it again, not that I should cast it.

I'm also wondering if I overdid the haste on my gear. The other holy priests in my guild who are out-healing me have far less haste than I do and higher spellpower and/or crit. So far in Icecrown I find myself casting instant spells more than anything. I'm not sure how much benefit high haste has when using all instant spells. I focused on haste because I wanted to make Flash Heal / Greater Heal / Prayer of Healing faster. Back in the Ulduar and ToC days I was using Flash Heal a lot to proc Serendipity for GH or PoH. I'm finding I'm using it less and less now since there is so much movement and so much raid damage in ICC. I have very little time or need to build up Serendipity procs. When I'm consciously doing so, it almost seems forced. Like I'm casting Flash Heal on just anybody in order to get Serendipity up. Definitely a waste of mana.

I'll see if I can play around with gems to change things up a bit.

Miscellaneous
Not much more to say than that. As usual, there's a lot to say if I post every day. But, when several days go by, the mundane things seem less interesting.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

January 5, 2010

This past weekend was New Years, so I had time to play in between friends and family time. (ment).

Shaman Leveling
As I posted yesterday, I leveled my Shaman quite a bit lately. This weekend I did a lot of instances with her, both as Elemental and as Resto. Although I mentioned last week that the addition of an extra totem bar is helpful, I'm still finding I have some issues with totem management.

One thing that would make it easier would be to organize totems by the element, not by the spell category. I mean, really, who cares if Stoneclaw is under the Elemental tab? It's more useful for me to know that it is an Earth totem. Organizing them by element would make it much easier to see which choices I have for each category. Hmmm...I wonder if there's an addon for that.

When leveling I go Elemental spec and put down Magma (fire), Stoneskin (earth), Grounding (air) and Healing Stream (water). I've been wondering lately if the Grounding one is a waste of mana though. It's only useful when encountering spellcasters. When I'm fighting melee, it's just a waste of mana. But, Windfury totem is useless to me, since I don't melee. Since they're currently my only air totem options, other than Sentry and Nature Resist, which also have narrow uses, I'm wondering if I should just leave the air totem slot blank while leveling and cast Grounding totem as needed?

Then when I'm in instances (as DPS) I don't put my totems down right next to the battle location. (Should I be placing them closer?) So, Magma totem is a waste, unless the melee comes closer to me. Searing totem is unpredicatble, so it's too risky to put it out (isn't it?) So, should I put down Flametongue to help out with Spell damage? For earth I've been placing Strength of Earth, but it only benefits melee party members. For air I've been placing Windfury, which I think is a no-brainer. Then for water I've been placing Mana Spring.

So...it seems like I pretty much have my sets arranged. But then we hit mobs that inflict diseases or poisons. I'm concerned that I'm wasting mana putting out my regular totems then quickly casting Cleansing Totem. It seems to me that mana regeneration is less important than the quick removal of disease/poison effects. So, what do shamans normally do about this? Do they leave the water spot free then cast the totem that works best for the situation? Or do they cast their standard set then use additional mana to replace the water totem when necessary?

Yeah I know, not big problems in the scheme of things. But, I like efficiency, and I feel I'm not being efficient.

Also, I read on some blog somewhere that while soloing it's a waste of time and mana to put totems down most of the time. I'm not sure if that was written before it was possible to cast all 4 at once or if that's just a general rule that still applies today. Are the totems really helping me out that much against single mobs? I can see that against multiple mobs every little bit helps. But against single mobs are the totems a waste of mana?

On another note, I splurged and bought the mail heirloom chest piece for her. She had been wearing the leather one that was a hand-me-down from my druid. But, since there's nothing else to do with my emblems of triumph, I decided to spend them frivolously. The only real change, other than additional armor, is replacement of spirit with mp5. Mp5 is better for Shamans, so I expect to see improved mana regen. Next up, I might splurge again and get her the mail shoulders for the same benefit, replacing the leather ones her druid sister gave her.

Paladin Leveling
I've also been leveling my Paladin lately. There are a few interesting things to note about experiences with her.
  • Retribution Tanking -- I had been queueing in LFG as DPS, noticing that it's a lack of tanks that causes the long wait. Then in one group I noticed that the tank was an arms or fury warrior, can't remember which, but definitely not prot. He performed fine. Then, when I was in another group the tank (bear) asked if I would tank in his place. He had been tanking all day and wanted a break. I pointed out that I was Ret, but he said I'd do fine and the healer said the same. I've been queueing as Tank or DPS since. And, although I've lost aggro on a few occasions, I'd say I've been tanking succesfully. I'm not sure at what level that will change.
  • Heirloom Items Snob -- In another group in Scarlet Monastery I ran across a jerk. He was a druid healer and felt it necessary to comment on the cloth heirloom shoulders I was wearing. I explained that I only had one pair of shoulders that I was sharing with all my leveling alts. But he pressed on, stating in a nutshell that I was fail for wearing cloth and not spending the emblems on mail/plate shoulders. At first I tried to make him understand why I made the decision -- I only had enough emblems to buy one item and it made since to choose the lowest common denominator, e.g., the one that any toon could use: cloth. But, he didn't seem to care. He was just a jerk getting his rocks off criticising me for my gear choices. I gave up and put him on ignore. The very first cross-server ignore. The nice thing about the new LFG system is that I'll never have to be in a group with him again!
  • I pulled her out of her guild. It was one of those guilds that recruit in trade. I joined it several months back just for the heck of it since she is one of my unknown toons. But, on New Year's eve I couldn't take the atmosphere anymore. It was a positive one, don't get me wrong. But so friggin sappy and juvenile that it was hard for me to enjoy it. I don't like being in guilds where everything said in guild chat is a sexual inuendo. But, this was the opposite extreme. Some of the members talked about God and Jesus quite often (I have nothing against Christianity) and most of the members were in junior high and high school. I could be their mother! It just wasn't the right fit for me. So, now I'm guildless. I'm considering putting her into my Priest's guild. But, that would leave only one toon (my warlock) that is completely unknown. I do like to hide every now and then....
Oh...and I've since purchased the mail/plate heirloom chest and shoulders for her. Splurge? Yes, but, at the rate that the emblems of triumph are coming in, what else will I use them for? But please don't tell the jerk druid healer I encountered. I don't want him to get all smug about it. :-)

Old Guild Leader Strangeness
So, my old guild leader is acting strange again. The other day he sent me an in-game mail wishing me a happy Christmas. How nice. Considering we rarely talk any more, I thought it was a nice gesture.

Then out of the blue this weekend he sent me a Whisper saying, "LOL As much as things change, they stay the same." Having no idea what he was referring to, I asked him what he meant. He responded saying that I (me) had once again left a decent guild of fun people to join a raiding one. He, of course, is referring to my recent movement of my mage from one guild to another. Despite knowing I didn't have to explain my actions to him, I responded, saying I only moved guilds to follow two in-game friends. His response was, "If you say so."

Where does this animosity come from? He is so bitter about people having different ideas of what makes the game fun. He continues to like leveling alts and helping people level theirs. He enjoys questing and profession leveling. That's great. I'm happy for him that he continues to find those aspects fun and rewarding. I do too, on a certain level. I'm still leveling toons and I like to help people out when I can. But...and this is a big but...I do love raiding. So, why does he act like it's a negative thing??? He seems to forget the reason I left his guild in the first place was because he raged one night in guild chat after having /gquit a week or so before. I didn't leave to raid. I left to get away from the atmosphere he had created. But, regardless, I enjoy raiding. That's how I want to spend my time in game. I have every right to focus on those areas of the game I find most enjoyable. Ugh! He can be so difficult.

ICC 10 (Priest)
Since my regular 10-man team did ToC 10 without me this week (I was too tired to join them), I found another group to go with this past weekend. It was mostly alts from the guild with a couple non-guildies. It was tough, but I can happily say that we cleared it. Woot! I got the Soulcleave Pendant off the last boss. I have to admit I felt a little guilty taking it. The other toons were alts that will most likely never have access to 25-man gear. Whereas, I will be raiding in 25-man so I will have access to better gear. But, on the flipside, I might be asked to sit in future raids, so I never know from week to week if I'll be in or out. Also, there's an argument to be made that it's better that a main gets it because it will help with progression. Anyway...I got it. And I like it. :)

ToGC 25 (Priest)
On Sunday we had a big moment in our guild. We one-shotted Heroic 25 Faction Champs!!! We went from constant wipes to one-shotting it. Woo hoo!!!!! How exciting!!!! Twins was another story, but who cares. We got past a big stumbling block.

Success of Other Guilds
So, our success on faction champs made me curious how we stood on wowprogress.com. Our standing has gone up one slot, since we're only the 4th alliance guild on our server that has beat them. That's fun to know. Then, I looked on pugchecker.com to get an idea how many times the top guild on our server has cleared the place. I was surprised to find out they have full cleared 25 ToGC 11 times as of last week. 11 times. I'm not going to do the math, but my guess is that means they've pretty much done it since the beginning.

It made me wonder, how do they do that? We only just got past faction champs and we have gear from 10 and 25-man ICC. We're one of the top guilds with very skilled players.

So what do they have that we don't? Did they go into it with better gear? Possibly, because they cleared 25-man Ulduar several times, including killing Algalon. My guild only did a full clear on 10-man. So perhaps their gear going into ToGC was already better than ours. Well, no perhaps about it, they definitely had better gear. And I'm assuming they had better gear going into Ulduar and even going into Naxx.

But gear can't be the only thing.

Persistence is another factor. Perhaps to maintain their #1 ranking they try for hours and hours on end. There's no telling how many hours they spent going at it. Though, the limit to number of attempts each week does come into play. So, clearly they didn't spend too many hours, though maybe more than we did. We keep our raiding schedule very tight. We only raid 4 hours three times a week.

Skill must be the other factor. But honestly, is the skill difference between us and them so big? Having run with this guild for over a month now, I'm very impressed with the level of skill. But, maybe there are levels of skill within the guild and I'm just not noticing which members are not as skilled as the others. And perhaps the core members of the #1 guild are all on the same skill level?

For those people who read this blog and find it fun to criticize me, please refrain from doing so this time. I'm not obsessed with being the best of the best. I'm very very happy with the guild I'm in and our successes. I don't have any desire to be in the top guild because I know the pressure they're under to maintain that spot. All I'm pointing out is that they have cleared ToGC 25 11 times and we have not even cleared it once. I'm trying to understand what the difference is between us and them. Considering we're the fourth most progressed alliance guild on the server, we clearly know how to get things done.

OK that's it for now. Tonight a new wing of ICC is supposed to be opening. I really hope it's true and that I get a spot in the raid! If not, I'll level my shaman while wishing everyone luck with the new content.