Explanations, and a New Main

I've been absent from Shadow Priest blogging for a while not because I got bored, or quit WoW (although I've come close a few times, I think). I just switched my main to my mage, located back on Zul'jin where my wife and I were playing last year before transferring to KT in the final months of BC.

Posting about mage theorycrafting doesn't seem to fit in a blog titled "A Shadow Priest," hence the lack of activity. I appreciate that some of my older posts are still getting comments -- I like seeing that I wasn't just talking to thin air (but I wouldn't necessarily care if that was the case, either!).

In the past couple months, I've been dedicated to my mage and finally got back into 25-mans about mid-August. He's about as geared out as one can get without dipping into Heroic 25-mans, pretty much. I also transferred my priest back to ZJ as well. I suppose I should update my bio on the right sometime.

I'm starting to get bored as getting gear is way too easy when you clear 10 and 25 man ToC and 10 and 25 Onyxia every week. Hell, it was easy before I was doing that. After a couple weeks I finally got enough people to get interested in going back to Ulduar, and finally saw Thorim, Vezax, and Yogg for the first time -- sadly enough. We're wiping on Yogg's second phase, but that encounter is everything I was hoping it would be. It beats ToC hands down.

I especially like and enjoy encounters designed not to be brute-forced through gear. They show thought and effort on the part of the design team, and other than Ulduar, that sort of effort isn't really apparent in the raids so far implemented in this expansion. 80s are perfectly capable of wiping even in BWL these days. I've been in quite a few pugs myself who didn't bother listening to warning to avoid standing in front of Ebonroc, for instance, or to avoid Nef's shadowflame.

We're not likely to ever do much in H-ToC25, due to too much dead weight on the roster, but H-ToC10 is still a possibility. This is an unfortunate truth, but given the direction raiding has been going since WoTLK launched, and Blizzard's stance towards universal content delivery, it's kind of to be expected, although I'm not a fan of it. Lackluster performance and minimal drive to succeed are simply a natural consequence of the level of (gear) quality being so high these days, compared to what's actually required for the current content. Improving skills and performance in order to push progression content is simply not necessary when your gear is already compensating for so much in the regular runs, but not enough to bridge the gap to the hardmodes/Heroic modes. Many people in the guild who might be interested in Heroic modes for the rewards in doing so aren't interested in putting up with the weaker links that we would have to bring in in order to make those attempts.

Blizzard really, really fucked up with ToC, in so many ways. It's a mistake in every way.

This is turning into a much larger post, so I'll cut it here. Hope to write more in the future. May be mage-related more than priest-related, so fair warning.

Blizzcon 2009

Watching the live feed on the net right now.

DirectTV's feed is terrible, but I'm loving this coverage.

The CEO definitely said we could look forward to some "cataclysmic" news this weekend. (ooooOOOOOoooo) :)

edit: It was all true. All of it. Boubouille is the f***ing man.

edit2: Worgen have the sickest looking zone I've seen in WoW yet. Very Ravenloft-esque!

New races leaked (?)

http://www.wow.com/2009/08/10/cataclysm-races-leaked/

Very interesting... :)

Expansion speculation

So, since I seem to be on a roll today...

I'm very interested in all of the expansion speculation. I like the idea of two new species and (I hope) a new hero class, as well as an underwater, naga-land landscape (the Maelstorm). I would totally reroll as a Worgen, if that ends up being one of the new species, and I bet my wife would too. The biggest doubt in my mind that Goblins and Worgen will be the new expansion's species is lore considerations: it seems like even more of a shoehorn job than blood elves and the Horde was.

In my opinion, although Lich King brought a huge number of improvements to gameplay, lore, and questing, the endgame content has been something of a bust. Say what you will of brutal, back-breaking encounters in TBC, but they sure gave guilds bragging rights after beating them. Although I never had a chance to see them, you still hear people talking about Kael'thas, Vashj, and Illidan, and even some of the minor bosses, in a kind of awe-inspired tone. Hell, even Magtheridon, Nightbane, and Gruul get some mentions. Naxx was really a poor way to open up raid content, and definitely spoiled veterans and newbies alike, in a very bad way. Nobody cares or is impressed by Gothik (who used to be a guild-breaker), Razuvious, Four Horsemen, or even Kel'thuzad.

Ulduar was neat in concept, but it's getting phased out too quickly. Now the cutting-edge raid will be gladitorial-style combat? Seriously? Where's the epic-ness in that? I mean, the only big lore connection I have heard of is Anub'arak's return as an actual boss, instead of the panty-waisted excuse for a schoolgirl his 5-man incarnation is.

I really hope Blizzard comes out with the new expansion inside of a year. We need to move out of Northrend. I, for one, am sick of it already.