Two steps closer to a 10 man drake...

... one more step to go.

Downed Heroic Sindragosa in my mage's 10-man last night, and we went on to pick up Been Waiting a Long Time For This as well, which for many people finished off their meta-achievement and stuffed a dead dragon mount in their mailbox. Woo hoo!

Just one more to go for me. All You Can Eat, which I picked up on my paladin instead of my mage when we went for it due to lack of a second healer, seems like a total cake-walk now after having dealt with Heroic Sindragosa.

My wife swears she will never again suffer through that fight, and I can't say I blame her. What an awful combination of unforgiving, irritating mechanics, glitchy code and at times frustrating RNG elements.

Blistering Cold is a perfect example. Several times we had people die from 30k-40k+ hits while standing at the bottom of the stairs. That's a frustrating headscratcher. Then, there's having one healer get blocked and another one get Unchained Magic during phase 3, leaving one last healer to somehow manage to keep the raid alive through relentless AoE damage, chain cooldowns on the tanks at the appropriate moments, and not to mention, keeping those tanks alive and topped off as well.

Eeeew.

Then, you have the stupid boneheaded things that people normally do on Sindragosa for some reason, like when I miscounted Frost Bombs during the air phase and got one-shot by the fourth one. I'm surprised my combat log didn't list that damage source as "stupidity."

Fortunately, we had one hell of a healing squad on point tonight, and we managed to get her taken care of within a mere hour and a half, including one horrifying wipe with the boss at 20,000 hp left. Hooray for awesome healers, and a 30% buff! I'm positive that Heroic Sindragosa is the only fight in which a halfway-competent raid could use the help provided by Strength of Wrynn. Had the buff been only 15%, we may have struggled for twice that amount of time.

Been Waiting a Long Time For This was a relaxing walk in the park after that, taking only two attempts, and that only because of an unfortunate incident involving an out-of-control Shambler while waiting for the plague stacks to build up.

Next week - time to get a dead dragon mount of my own!

On healing and addons

MoarHPS! had a post today where Codi defended her reasons for not using healing addons. Today's post was in response to a previous post where she merely noted how long it had been since she had started healing raids without the use of addons, and was attacked for it repeatedly.

Utter rubbish, that.

Why anyone would insult or demean another person or player just because he or she chooses to play differently is baffling to me. And the silliest part is that, when you distill any such arguments down to the basics, you find that ultimately the insulter is arguing from a principled standpoint. Which in this case means that the results of addon-less healing don't matter at all. It doesn't matter if the whole raid survives, the boss dies, everyone is competitive on the healing meter, etc. -- if you didn't use add-ons and others did, you're a worse player and everyone else only succeeded because they were able to carry you.

Now keep in mind here, we're speaking about running no add-ons, period. None. No Deadly Boss Mods, no Decursive, and certainly no Grid.

I don't have a horse in this race, but I do have two different perspectives. My wife, who's currently working on Heroic Lich King 25 and Heroic Ruby Sanctum 25 in her guild, uses a few add-ons, primarily DBM and Decursive, but heals totally with the default raid UI. She's very successful at it, and obviously the default UI gives a player enough information and flexibility to support the statement that "add-ons aren't required to achieve a high level of performance."

That being said, I do use add-ons myself -- the aforementioned DBM and Decursive, as well as Grid -- but not only do I have to honestly admit that they really provide a minimal additional benefit, but I've also occasionally found that using add-ons can actually impede one's ability to perform as a healer. For instance, when pugging a raid, seeing all of these unfamiliar names in an unfamiliar configuration on Grid, a healer could find themselves delayed in finding a specific one to start healing. This is because by default, Grid covers names on the unitframes when the unit starts taking damage, replacing them with health deficits or incoming healing. Jaraxxus, a frequent target of the weekly raid quests, is a good example. Can a healer using Grid with default options find the target of Incinerate Flesh before the affected raider blows up?

It could be difficult, going only by class colors in Grid or by checking tooltips. Could it be much easier to simply use the default UI, trade Grid's compact design for a wider, more expansive display, and find your healing targets quickly without fighting your addons?

I think that's not a far-fetched assumption.

Now on the flip side of the coin, I think it's far easier for most people to think of ways that not using add-ons can be a serious detriment to raid performance. The problem is that this is a very short-term viewpoint. And this only on bosses that the specific person has some lesser amount of experience attempting compared to the rest of the raid.

On brand new, never attempted bosses, everyone is on equal footing. A raider used to the default UI for buffs and debuffs will not have any less of an ability to see when a crucial debuff is applied, for instance, and being used to interpreting this method of displaying information, will not have any unnatural lag in reaction time or in processing new information.

Now, lacking timers and countdowns, like those provided by DBM, can introduce a bit of decision making lag or user input lag as the player becomes used to expecting these abilities or phase changes, but once the player is there and ready to expect these mechanics of the fight, not having DBM can actually be beneficial as a way to reduce to incidence of "tunneling," or simply staring at your screen not processing and changes in scenery going on around you because you're hyper-focused on irrelevant information. Every healer has experienced tunneling at some point, and I firmly believe that an over-abundance of information on the screen, of which DBM is a prime offender, serious decreases a player's ability to remain alert and ready for changes on screen. This is just a natural consequence of seeing all of this constantly changing information displayed in front of a person. That person will become deadened to some degree to the other changes going on in the encounter, especially those not displayed by an add-on -- e.g., boss movement, raid movement, etc.

All this back and forth basically amounts to the following: healing with or without mods and add-ons is ultimately a question of style. If you choose to use them, great. If you choose not to use them, also great. Just make sure that, whichever path you choose to follow, that you are getting the essential information that you need as a player at your current level of difficulty. Perform as required, and nobody even has to know which of these kinds of healer you are in the first place.

Enough said, now?

And, I'm back.

I figured this was an appropriate reason to make the first post in the better part of a year. A full week behind the rest of my guild, due to me being on the bench for the guild first kill. But still -- Hail to the Kingslayer, baby!

Disclaimer: This was on my mage, not my priest. Actually, for maximum ironic potential, my priest has since become a full-time healer in the past six or so months, with a primary spec of Holy and Disc remaining the offspec. Not a shred of Shadow anywhere. It actually makes me a bit sad -- for so long he was never, ever intended to even off-heal. I was a committed Shadow Priest player. And now look at him! It almost feels like he's a traitor to all of Shadow Priest-kind.

I may as well start blogging in my new persona as a mage, but it feels really awkward to do so in a blog essentially dedicated to being a Shadow Priest.

Wat do?

Start a new blog... or rename and redesign this one?

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.

Alts and Naxx loot runs

I have a story I'd like to share that, while it doesn't make me proud to do so, I feel like I should comment on nonetheless.

Last night, I was helping out, along with one other well-geared guildie, in a 10-man Naxx run organized by another guildie solely for the purpose of gearing up his alt that had recently hit 80. This particular run was well organized, speedy, and had a relative minimum of time-wasting. We eventually made it to, and downed, Kel'thuzad within about three and a half hours, which is next to unheard of for a pug. It was an excellent run, even by the standards of most guilds. In my opinion, my guildie handled the job of raid leader with professionalism and competence while maintaining an air of fun and relaxation.

Our guildie managed to put together a fantastic raid that ran Naxx with ease, somehow convincing well-geared players to come out of boredom, badges, or the one item they still wanted. Our tanks were geared out, wearing 25-man Naxx gear as well as Ulduar gear. Part of our success was also attributable to our healers - both druids, one who was in full 10-man hardmode and 25-man Ulduar gear, the other had just dinged 80 the same day and was being escorted through by his more seasoned friend. Both were competent healers and got us through the majority of the instance without a scratch. We wiped once on Kel'thuzad due to an unfortunate Frost Tomb targeting the MT, but otherwise the run went smooth as butter.

The newly-minted 80 druid was also in here trying to gear up, and as a result, he and my guildie were the only ones to roll on most of the gear. And, aside from spellplate that nobody needed (as the only plate-wearers were Warriors), the majority of the gear that dropped was healing gear in some fashion with no competition for the pugged druid. We also had five pieces of tier gear drop, one of which nobody could use, but the others were rolled on by both the druid and my guildie. The druid won all four rolls.

Now, this irked me a bit, as the pugger was basically benefitting off of my guildie's willingness to let him come, despite being undergeared (very undergeared, in fact) and being in direct competition with him for the majority of the caster loot. One of the tier pieces, the chestpiece that dropped from Four Horsemen, the pugger very kindly gifted to my guildie after my guildie (rightly, I think) complained about losing the last two rolls for it and currently wearing a mid-70s chestpiece, compared to the pugger's level 80 gear. The next two tier pieces, both rolled, and my guildie lost those two rolls as well.

As the run went on, the pugger recieved at least two helms, a mainhand/offhand combo, boots, a neckpiece (possibly) and several other pieces of gear that immediately replaced the items he walked in wearing. My guildie received one piece of gear in all besides the chestpiece the pugger passed to him, in a run he organized, put together, and coordinated for that expressed purpose. The rest of the raid, all puggers except for three guildies including myself and the raid leader, were beginning to rumble a bit at the loot-whorishness of the pugger, but the guildie leading the raid quite correctly and fairly gave him all the gear he rolled on and won with little comment, whether my guildie needed it or not. By the end of the run, the pugged druid was in more than half epics, if you counted the tier pieces he recieved but had not turned in.

Fast forward to Kel'thuzad -- we down him on the second try with little trouble and the tier 7 headpiece drops for both our undergeared players along with the other loot. The pugger rolled on one of those pieces of loot (I think it was a cape) and recieved that, and then both rolled on the headpiece token. The pugger won that roll as well.

However my guildie had apparently had it by that point. He masterlooted the helm token to himself, explained that he couldn't let the pug druid take that piece of loot along with all of the other gear the druid had also won, pointed out that he had recieved two pieces of gear in all (and really, it was technically only one) compared to the pugger's 10 or so, and the rest of the raid voiced their agreement. The well-geared friend of the pugger in question said simply "wtf." and left the raid, followed by his friend.

Was this the right thing for my guildie to do?

Now, while some, including myself, would argue that my guildie was justified in looting that helm to himself, no one, not even my guildie could say it wasn't techinically "ninja-looting." Ninja-looting or not, after recieving at least two other helms and most of the other tier gear that had dropped, I think that pugger should really have passed on that last bit of loot. Most people, I think, would have at least considered passing on it, if not done so. Most people would also argue that the pug druid was a loot-whore through and through. But does that make what my guildie did right?

My take on it is that it might have been ninja-looting, but it was quite defensible ninja-looting, if there is such a thing. I wouldn't say it was the right thing to do by any stretch, but I understand my guildie's frustration and justification for doing so. The pugger was obviously taking advantage of the run my guildie had set up, having both phenomenal luck with drops and rolls, and phenomenal opportunity in having a geared-out raid run them thru Naxx immediately after hitting 80, not to mention having a raid leader that would actually accept them. I think many people, whether they have geared friends or not, would be extremely lucky to have that same opportunity, and in my opinion my guildie was gracious enough in letting him come, to say nothing of freely giving him all of the gear he rolled against him for and lost. While my guildie took advantage of the pugger at the end, in my opinion, the pugger was just as guilty of doing the same as my guildie was, and perhaps on a greater scale when you think about it.

Of course, most people don't care about the specifics of the gear involved--I mean, Naxx10 gear isn't even as important as the VoA mammoth to most people, and you hear of that mammoth getting ninja'ed all the time. So let's turn this incident into an ethical and moral dilemma:

In this situation, what would you have done?

Jumping on the bandwagon

All right, I'll say it: Shadow Priests are being ignored. Ghostcrawler knows it, Shadow Priests know it, everyone knows it.

I don't think that we're competitive dps, either. I wish I had a recent WWS parse to prove it, but I don't. Either you take it on my say-so, or you call me a liar--I'm okay with either of those options. However, the top DPS slots in our 10-mans (which weren't even great for me in the first place), I'm lucky to place top 4 in a non-aoe situation, or above any similarly-geared melee class. Although I'm not the best-geared priest, my rotation is solid and doesn't vary much, and the fights I am thinking of as examples don't require me to move a whole lot (Razorscale, minus aoe-ing the adds; XT when I don't have the aoe slot; Kologarn; Ignis etc.).

So what, then, is the problem? A lot of people would say scaling is a huge issue--Shadow Priests are one of the worst scaling classes/specs in the game right now, second only perhaps to ... actually, I can't think of any. I'm going to go ahead and say we're the worst off in terms of scaling. Our gear gap is growing, and it's not getting any better.

I have heard all sorts of reasons for this gap:

1. Needing to use Glyph of Mind Flay to even get close to the range of other caster dps classes. Range issues in general.
2. Mind Flay sucks. A crappy spell damage coefficient due to snare component + glyph (effectively) removing snare component = bad spell.
   
3. Haste simply sucks. It doesn't scale, it's too dependent on latency, and its usefulness as a stat hasn't kept pace with the buffs to other mechanics that tremendously increase the usefulness of crit rating.
4. No "big nuke" on a cooldown for burn phases. Inner Focus does not a dps cooldown make. Some Shadow Priests I know don't even take that talent, for so long considered mandatory, with no appreciable impact on their capabilities.
   
5. Various bugs the community has been aware of for ages that haven't gotten fixed; i.e. Shadow Weaving stacking (if anything nerfed, due to the "fixing" of the bug with Mind Flay that made it easy to build stacks), goofy mechanics with Shadow Word: Pain, etc.
6. A long "ramp-up" time that prevents us from front-loading damage in any way, shape, or form. Ten seconds after mages are happily throwing Frostfire Bolts, we're still applying dots and haven't started the meat of our rotation.
7. Sort of related: no spammable nuke.
8. Cooldown on Devouring Plague (though to be fair, this is being fixed). As it stands, if we don't want to burn the cooldown, for example, on trash--it's 20% dps gone off the top.
9. Dispersion has almost no PVE utility at all.
   

This is all just off the top of my head.

I have two major suggestions aimed at improving the scaling issues in particular. One, improve the spell damage coefficient on Mind Flay and drop the snare, or buff the range and drop the snare. Or (dare I say it) do both on the current glyph to simply make it into even more of a must-have PVE glyph, which is fine for me, and I think most Shadow Priests would also agree given the options available at the moment. The alternative is the make the baseline spell a no-snare, extended range, better spell damage coefficient version, and change the glyph so that it will return Mind Flay to the original version. Either way works for us.

And secondly, depending on which direction Blizzard wants to take design-wise for the class, either redesign our tree to not be so reliant on applying/maintaining our dots for optimal damage and give us a spammable nuke, or improve our dots to more directly scale with gear. Wowinsider floated the idea I've heard before of having haste give some kind of a benefit to our dots. As it stands, it does nothing for the dot component of our dps, and with us being so reliant on dots to do damage, effectively makes haste half as helpful as it should be.

I'd rather not sacrifice our reliance on dots--that'd effectively make Shadow Priests into a diet mage or warlock, an accusation levelled at us in the past.

But for the love of god, FIX MIND FLAY!

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.

I'm back

Rough time in the past month or so, but I made it out okay. Work, real life, etc.

I missed writing in this blog, but I simply could not think of anything to say that was worthwhile. I didn't really like the article I had been writing (part 1 of which is below) and I haven't been doing much in WoW besides levelling a mage, who just hit 80 yesterday.

I've been feeling very burnt out on raiding. I revisited this feeling when my mage hit 80 without me even realizing I was about to do so. I hadn't been paying attention, and it was quite surprising when the achievement and grats from the guild popped up, actually. A mere hour afterward, where usually I would be busy running instances repeatedly grinding for rep, badges, and gear, after a failed bid at Wintergrasp for a VoA run and two heroics--one of which failed miserably--I logged off and went to go play [prototype].

Perhaps it's because my 25-man guild recently dropped to 10-mans after repeated attendance problems crippled our 25-man progression runs, and I just cannot take 10 mans seriously enough to make a determined effort. I know I'm feeling a bit disenfranchised and bored with life at 80. Too often I get feelings of deja vu contemplating running dailies for the 24215345th time, or busting my ass grinding money for raids that are inevitably wipefests on bosses we've already cleared before, or levelling professions again, or starting another alt to do the same quests for the fifteenth time.

All right, I'll say it: WoW is definitely starting to lose my interest. A lot of people would squarely blame Blizzard for that, but in truth, it's as much me changing as the game. Here's what it really comes down to: I simply do not have the resources or inclination to sacrifice social life for the game at this point in my life, although I know I'd enjoy it all over again, at least for a while.

I had considered changing guilds to one that required attendance for raiding slots, but I realized that it wasn't just my schedule that I would be accommodating, but my wife's, and I wouldn't consider choosing to play WoW (raid or not) over spending time with her on any kind of permanent or semi-permanent basis. My wife's schedule is simply not set up for raiding with a new guild either, and finding a guild that will (A) end raids early enough for East Coast people with a 9-5 on a Mountain Time server, (B) take both of us, and not just one or the other, and (C) just happen to accomodate our both (reasonably full) weekday schedules while allowing for my occasional days of working late on top of that... well, let's just say, we were lucky to find the one that we're in now. A hardcore progression guild is simply out of the question, even with the recruiting frenzy going on.

Even if the stars aligned, we don't have the cred or the drive for a hardcore guild at the moment. So, changing guilds is definitely out.

And all of the above is completely disregarding the fact that both of us are reasonably attached to the people in our current guild at the moment.

Is anyone else (subscribers, followers [like i have any], random commentors, or google spiders) feeling burnout on WoW atm? Kyrilean has a post on it on his blog, but what about others? Can you deal with it? Somewhat recently I read the archives of one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad--Pacifist--and their reasons for quitting in the midst of Burning Crusade (with an excellent and nostalgic retrospective by the members). Pacifist wasn't just one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad, they were one of the top in the world, at a time when nobody really cared about world-firsts and shit except WoW players: in BWL/AQ40 and Naxx. And you know what? I liked it that way. I also keep remembering the reasons for the breakup of my old Horde guild on Thunderlord, also in the midst of BC, with whom I raiding with throughout pre-BC content, and all of these things seem to echo my feelings now.

I really don't want to quit yet. I'd be a fool not to see where I am headed though.

I really miss life at level 60. It was really the best time for the game.

Blizzard's new philosophy, part 1

Sorry for the late post, but I only just caught up with WoW news yesterday after coming back from my honeymoon. However, I wanted to chime in with something that's been tickling me for a while about the game.

Blizzard has, in recent memory (meaning the last year or two), begun in earnest a public relations campaign that continues to out-do every MMO company that has ever existed. The amount of community interaction that Blizzard manages, on a large scale, competes favorably with smaller MMOs that regularly interact with their fans. Now, more than ever, Blizzard continues their new trend of community interaction that they began shortly after Burning Crusade's launch, with their new Q&A initiative launched several days ago.

However, this new drive is, I believe, what has contributed in large part to the loss of "old-timer" players and general disenchantment with new gameplay mechanics that are not just surprising, but actually a bit saddening to long-time WoW gamers.

Let me get two things out there right now. I'm not a Blizzard-hater, nor do I hate WoW. Blizzard is a company that continually surprises and impresses me, and the content of this post doesn't even apply to yours truly for the most part. Secondly, I in no way believe that this is the wrong direction for the game to take. I just wanted to offer a perspective on it from the eyes of someone who has played WoW almost since the day it came out in November, 2004.

The disenchantment that I have felt on occasion stems from a natural resistance to change that I, like most people in the world, possess in some quantity or another. Everyone likes the familiar game they've kept as a hobby on the side through different changes in their own "real life," and I'm no exception. However, stagnation kills MMOs. Everquest is a good example of death by stagnation. Although I played the game myself for at most a week, I could see that each expansion was content without evolution, over and over again. Innovation, to the eyes of one unfamiliar with the game's intricacies, was minimal, and repetition, the annoying device of the MMO god of carpal tunnel syndrome and loot whores, was high. As a result, when competition came out that promised a new, exciting experience, players left in droves. By the time SOE attempted to revitalize its marketing, it was far too late already to attract new players. Blizzard has, quite obviously, and beyond the ability of anyone to show otherwise, demonstrated the ability to avoid stagnation in WoW.

However, the other side of the coin is too much change causes players to lose that feeling of stability that maintains their desire to return. Players lose touch with the game when they feel that it's changing too fast to provide an individualized experience anymore, for a variety of reasons. The world of the MMO doesn't conform to memory or experience, or re-learning new rules of the world repeatedly becomes tiresome and unwanted. For a good example of this extreme, check out the "Combat System Revamp" (another SOE flub) in Star Wars: Galaxies. I won't get into the depth and consequences of the changes in this one patch alone, but let's just say they could also have called it the "lose half your subscribers overnight" patch.

Blizzard is walking a fine line here. Stay traditional, but not too traditional. Change, but don't change too much. The more people, and competing desires, the harder to balance--It's essentially a question of economies of scale. I don't think many people who regularly complain about various aspects of the game really appreciate the difficulty that Blizzard has in becoming successful without becoming a victim of that same success. Blizzard has evidently chosen to focus on their community, not exclusively, but to a great degree, as a source for the change that they recognize is necessary for the game to undertake. I'm going to make the assumption that their resistance to certain changes is also guided, less evidently but undoubtably to some degree, by their community interactions.

How Blizzard is walking this line between change and tradition, and the effect that their approach has on their long-time players (as opposed to newbies, or late-coming players) is really what I'd like to address. However, this will have to wait until part 2! I'll try to make it worth it. :)

Lack of updates

My upcoming marriage and honeymoon have caused WoW to be put on the back burner (in terms of mental activity and priorities) for the moment, which explains the lack of updating.

I hope to return to serious posting(tm) afterwards. My future wife and I expect to get much more in-depth with raiding. Hopefully this will allow us to push through some of the current barriers we're running into.

Until then... see you later!

A note to puggers

I really dislike it when people specify "x DPS minimum for invite" or other related criteria. It is literally impossible to quantify expected DPS unless you are talking about one specific situation. For example, on a Heroic Target Dummy. And I do 4k+ dps in a well-constructed 25man raid but I'm not going to brag about my 2800 dps on a target dummy. The only other option is, like the theorycrafters at Elitist Jerks, to simply assume that the player in question has all available raid buffs period. This assumption makes sense when comparing top end capabilities of classes in progression guilds in progression content. However it makes little to no sense to compare these imaginary situations to reality when you're spamming for group members in Dalaran.

So, if you're one of those people that sits in Dalaran spamming Trade with something to the effect of "LF 1 DPS 10 man Ulduar 4k dps please" you're an idiot. You're not even going to guarantee you're going to get a decent dps'er either. Depending on your group makeup and buff synergy, in a ten-man raid my 4k+DPS in 25 man Naxx can turn into 3k or less. It's just how the game works. By the time you lower your "required DPS"to an accurate and representative level for the instance you're finding group members for, the less useful and discriminating your ad is going to be.

Therefore, please don't encourage meter padding and bads that raid with one eye fixed on Recount with those LFM ads.

What you want is a 2.8k dpser who will stay alive to the end of the fight, rather than a 3.8k dps'er who dies to a void zone ten seconds into the fight. You're not going to be able to find that kind of player much more easily than simply taking who you can find (in an appropriate level of gear) and giving the instance a go.

Ignis and XT

Last night we made some attempts at XT-002 Deconstructor and Ignis the Furnace Master. And yes, there were lots of crotch jokes on Ignis. I think we added a couple new words and phrases to our guild lexicon on that one.

Although we didn't down either of them, we made some progress. I'm going to go through some of the things we learned both for my benefit and the benefit of any readers (yeah, right).

• There was a rumor going around that killing Ignis adds 1 minute to the enrage timer on XT. This is false.
  
• Ignis' and XT's trash really isn't so hard on 25 man. At least that, or we've gotten much better at dealing with them.
• Positioning is key on Ignis. For that fight, our best attempt had all of the casters grouped up at the center of the room while the MT shuffles Ignis back and forth in front of the waterfall pool, angling him so that the scorches don't fall into the water. The problem with this strategy is that the Scorch patches make kiting the adds through them difficult for the OTs. Walking right in front of Ignis a whole bunch of times is just asking for it.
• Our sticking point at the moment with Ignis is our kiting strategy. Slag Pot (aka "crotchal") duty is handled. MT heals are handled. We only lose our MT or any crotched player when the buff stack on Ignis becomes too high for us to handle healing the MT and healers have to shift their attention (futilely, but it's the natural reaction). If the MT is going to die, it usually happens during or immediately after Flame Jets.
• I fucking blow at Disc healing (my dual spec). At least I have some good excuses. My offset, while including a couple best-in-slot healing pieces pre-3.1, is really shoddily prepared. I also am using a +hit necklace solely because it has Spirit on it, and a cloak and a belt (the belt with +hit on it no less) with all DPS stats on it simply for lacking a better option. My Shadow spec boots pull double duty as healing boots (best in slot, natch). Thus I heal with Icewalker on my boots like all the pros do. Though, admittedly, Icewalker is a halfway decent enchantment for a Disc healer. Also, Discipline-spec healing is much much different from what I was used to as a long-time Holy-spec healer. Much more fast paced, almost no OO5SR (Out Of Five Second Rule) dancing, spamming Power Word: Shield (which, by the way, is AMAZING with Disc talents)... it's a bit too much too much to process and perform at the moment, although I'm getting better quickly.
• Penance and PW:S are the best spells for a Disc healer on this fight (MT duty and Slag Pot duty). Along with the obvious bouncy-bouncy PoM. Slap your raid leader if you're Disc and s/he puts you on raid healing (gasp) . Actually, if s/he puts you on anything BUT single-target healing.
• Flame Leviathan is much, much more fun with 25 people. :)

I'm confident we'll get Ignis down on Friday (although, myself and my beautiful wife-to-be will not be able to attend). I'm equally confident that Razorscale, once Ignis is down, will suddenly seem to get much easier. She may well go down on Friday as well.

Next up, a general status post.

On money issues

I'd like to point out that at the moment, I have 146 gold on all of my characters combined. And on top of that, 120g or so is on my level 29 warrior alt.

Dual spec has really cleaned me out. That, and spending 80-100g on repairs on Sunday. Time to grind dailies again tonight I suppose. It would be easier if playing Zerkker wasn't just so much damn fun! I'm sure I'm not the only one to have this issue with their alts.

Thoughts on Ulduar

Wow, I was really unprepared for Patch 3.1 this week. My offset wasn't enchanted, incomplete, and I didn't even have enough money for dual spec! I had several real-life plans this week that conflicted with raiding that I had made thinking 3.1 was still at least a week or two off. I'm sure others did as well, and we had poor attendance as a result.

Now we're stuck on Razorscale, Emalon kicked our ass, and we've gotten a nasty shock about our abilities as raiders on progression content.

As others have observed, Ulduar is much harder than Naxx. Someone said that Naxx made them a worse player. I'd tend to agree.

Fortunately, I think once people get back into the groove of making progression attempts, after having been so long without any, things will get much smoother. For now, though, like last night's raid, progression will be painful. Sort of like going back to the gym after a long hiatus.

Now then, on to specific comments about bosses.

Flame Leviathan - I wasn't present for the 25-man version of the fight, but I did it on 10 man just fine. Very well-done fight. I think this proves that Blizzard is finally getting vehicles, and by extension, vehicle-based encounters, right.

Ignis - I guess this is what Blizzard meant when they said they were making trash harder in Ulduar. Wow. Still, they are doable. I wasn't present for the actual attempt on this boss, but I wanted to comment on the insanity of these Molten Giants compared to, say, Naxx trash. From the write-ups, Ignis himself seems to be of compareable difficulty to Razorscale, perhaps with less emphasis on healers and more on raid coordination (as I've said before... not our strongest suit).

Razorscale - Fun fight. I did this as both Shadow and Discipline spec (I switched mid attempts). It's definitely a healer-tank fight. Didn't seem particularly hard though. I did have some issues staying out of the fire... I'm not used to having to move when I'm healing. A Penance channel caused me to die because I foolishly waited for the spell to finish before I moved. Keep in mind it's just slightly more than one second with my haste rating. That was enough to end me, shields, heals, and all. We're changing our setup a bit and I think our attempts will get much better. For the moment, 85% is our high score though.

In general, I'd have to say Patch 3.1 brings a lot of welcome changes to the table. I'm still sad that my Death Knight tank was destroyed in the name of dual-wield nerfing, and sacrificed on the altar of tank homogenity, but I'm enjoying the changes they made to Shadow spec a lot. Critting dots, an Unstable-Affliction-like change to Vampiric Touch, an Improved Devouring Plague talent... it's pretty awesome. I killed myself on one of the Emalon trash because I cast DP too early, forgetting the new initial damage component, and crit on the cast at the worst possible time. Hello trash mob... goodbye shadow priest. Definitely a "that guy" moment.

Updates

Not much to post about recently, unfortunately. I'm working on getting several scattered objectives done in-game in during raid downtime.

I'm finally levelling enchanting, and working on getting that up. It's difficult after selling off most of my BC materials for cash flow long ago, when I wrote off enchanting as ever becoming relevant to me. I'm regretting that decision slightly now. I'm also monitoring the Bookclub channel and hearthing back to Dalaran and snagging the books when people report them up. It's the lazy man's way to a new pet. I quickly found that camping the spawn points was tedious, and time consuming, and not my thing at all.

Finally, I'm running old raids (did part of Sunwell last night) and trying to see the content I didn't get an opportunity to see in Burning Crusade. We wiped on Felmyst three times and almost wiped on Brutallus despite far overgearing the encounter. I can definitely see why Blizzard is moving away from these types of raids. The amount of min-maxing that was necessary to down these bosses at 70 was simply unfortunate. I quit at Eredar Twins (Mary Kate and Ashley?) but it seemed like that encounter was even more demanding than Felmyst was. I'd still like to see Kael'thas and Illidan (Vashj already taken care of). I'd also like to get into a discussion of Blizzard's raid design strategies and how they are changing, but I'll save that digression for a later time.

Updates in the raiding arena include big pushes to get all of our Heroic: Glory of the Raider done. It probably would have been done earlier had our guild been pushed to do so, but getting some people to wrap their heads around the new raiding model seems to be difficult. Completing the current content as-is is no longer "enough" to be considered hard-core. Not that I care about that necessarily, but the fact remains that the content isn't much of a challenge that way. Fortunately, now it's been made clear that completing those achievements is a big deal and as much a part of progression as anything else. We'll see if these pushes will exacerbate the attendance problem that we're having at the moment because most people consider us "done" with 3.0 until 3.1.

3 Drake Sartharion is still an issue, despite the fact that we're insanely overgeared for it. We're now able to consistently kill Tenebron before Shadron lands, and yet still lose people to Flame Wall and Void Zones. Execution is a BIG problem, needless to say. The more we practice it, the more we can see that this encounter is really not as hard as it's being made out to be. Seeing that and continuing to fail at it is demoralizing, to say the least. Simply replacing those people that consistently fail at it is unfortunately not an option. If there was a method of penalizing people that fail at Void Zones and Flame Wall in a way that wouldn't contribute to the attendance problem, I can't think of it. Unfortunately, simply completing 3 Drake Sartharion is the least of our problems if we're going to actually finish Heroic: Glory of the Raider.

An even bigger problem we're going to have is with Heroic: You Don't Have an Eternity aka "6 minute Malygos." Our best kill, a one-shot last Wednesday, took approximately 8 minutes, 30 seconds. Although we haven't tried the alternate strategy specifically for a 6 minute attempt (all ranged in one spot on the outer ring, all melee killing the lords), I can only fear for the results when we do if execution in encounters continues to be a problem.

Also, last Wednesday we missed Heroic: Shocking and Heroic: The Safety Dance because of one person (though different people) on both attempts. On Heigan, the fail was so close to the end of the fight we didn't even have time to wipe it and start over. We were that close. The Thaddius fail was right at the beginning of the fight, but at that point our achievement run was pretty much over and I think it was a wise decision to not attempt a second try. Our track record with that encounter isn't the best. I think that says a lot right there. Fortunately, as long as we have the healers, Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together isn't too bad. The strategy for that fight is much more like the original version of 4 Horseman, and I think it will be equal parts of fun and frustration.

If we manage to get all of those achievements done, I would guess a good plan could be to award the best achievers with Heroic: Subtraction, Heroic: A Poke In The Eye, and Heroic: The Dedicated Few runs. Then we would try for The Immortal.

Ouch. We need three weeks, if we really turn this around, to complete this achievement, and that's if we one-shot The Immortal. I can hope (yeah, right. I know). Otherwise we can practically kiss any chance of getting a Val'anyr any time this millenium goodbye.

Malygos = STILL ALIVE WTF

Last night was an exercise in patience for everyone. We spent the whole night trying to kill Malygos-25 because lag was so bad the entire raid would freeze up for 20 seconds every so often, and then came the DCs. By the time everyone reconnected, we were dead (shocker).

Other fun things happened. I got killed one pull by an out of control Nexus Lord at the start of phase 2 (no, I was not aoe-ing, I have no idea why the tank lost threat on his primary target). I got a b-rez and almost immediately (within 1-2 seconds) I got double barraged by a Scion. Sheesh.

And the few pulls we got completely free of lag with all 25 people alive going into phase 3 were inevitably ruined because some people STILL cannot get the hang of phase 3 of that fight. He's been on farm for, what, a month and a half now? I don't understand what's so hard about it. God only knows what these drake-retarded people would have done in BWL or AQ. Oh wait, that's it... not raid. I mean, I don't think I'm an especially skilled player, but I went into phase 3 on all but one of our pulls and I consistently rolled 20+ stacks and didn't die till the enrage. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can do this. We should be able to do 6 minute Malygos by now, not still struggling with execution.

Seriously: 3 buttons, 2 directions, 2 enemy abilities to watch out for. How hard is it, really? It's like playing an arcade game. Only the arcade game is for kids. Kids with Downs syndrome.