Gear Reset and Whining.

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but I feel like I have to weigh in on something that bothers me. Patch 3.2 is going live today. Along with that, all the instances that dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor will begin dropping Emblems of Conquest. Also, bosses in the new Crusader's Colliseum various raid dungeons will begin dropping a new type of emblem, the Emblem of Triumph. Emblems of heroism and valor will be going away, though the vendors selling items for these tokens will remain since you can still exchange higher level tokens for lower level ones on a one-to-one basis (Conquest-->Valor-->Heroism).

This change introduces a miniature gear reset for players that have not been able to raid thus far in Wrath, or for those whose raids did not appreciably advance in lower level dungeons, since they will be able to collect emblems of conquest from things as simple as Heroic 5-man dungeons and turn them in for ilvl 226 epic gear (equal to items that drop in 25-man Ulduar) which was, up until today, the best gear in the game. This will allow characters to gear up relatively painlessly and experience much of the new content that Blizzard is introducing.

When this feature was first announced a few weeks ago, the forums were inundated with posts from angry raiders that ranted about how their achievements were now worth nothing since now nubs would be able to have equivalent gear to them.

Here's a little personal disclaimer: I describe myself as a raider and an altaholic. That is the bulk of what I do in the game. I have seen every boss in the game and defeated all but a few of them (have never killed C'thun or Kil'Jaeden). I enjoy raiding. I enjoy the camaraderie of it, the challenge, the organizational aspects as well as the coordination and fine tuning that goes with defeating the hardest PvE content the developers have come up with.

However, I do not share the opinion of these other raiders. In fact, as a raider, I resent being associated with it. I simply do not understand the concept of whining because someone else is getting something more easily than you did. The fact that an alt or a new 80 can gear up in tier 8.5 equivalent gear without stepping a foot in Ulduar does absolutely NOTHING to diminish the accomplishment of slaying Yogg Saron or General Vezaxx. A player who facerolled his way to 80 isn't magically going to find the ability to raid just because he is wearing some new and shiny gear. Someone who didn't have the time to dedicate to raiding before isn't going to suddenly find time in his schedule to raid.

I think it is awesome for characters to be able to see all the content in the game. I think it is great that players will get a sense of accomplishment and progression for their character, playing at the level they are comfortable playing at. It's not about us. We should be happy that other people will get to experience the the parts of the game that we most enjoyed. But no! Because of this very vocal minority (I sincerely hope it's a minority), raiders are described as whiny, elitists who will not share their toys. Here's a tip boys and girls: just because someone else has a shiny red wagon doesn't mean yours is any less shiny than it was!

Someone please explain this mentality to me because I just don't get it!

Firefighter

I've been away for a while.
In that time I've made a transatlantic flight, spent time with my family (on both sides of the Pond), worked a fair bit and played WoW. LOTS of WoW. My DK is now 71 and my warrior is 74. I am still raiding with probably the most amazing group of people on the server (Feathermoon-US, for those of you that didn't know) and enjoying the hell out of it. Our latest masochistic experiment is Firefighter, also known as Mimiron Hard Mode.
We have been seriously working on it for two weeks totalling about six hours in the little midget's room. We've made various tweaks to our strategy, the most significant being at the beginning of yesterday's attempts when our raid leaders decided that it would improve our chances of beating the enrage timer to roll with two healers instead of three.
So I put on my kitty gear and proceeded to fill the spot of last DPS. I was happy with my numbers at the end of the night but not so much with my performance. I died a couple of times to avoidable damage, stood in too much fire in phase 2 and overtaxed the healers. I think Ritavu put it best when he said:

The good news is that we seem to have a winning formula that we have to execute. The bad news is that it seems like the threshhold for attention and focus is so high that it's just unsustainable over any extended period of time.

And he's right. Two-and-a-half hours after starting on Mimiron, we decided that we needed a break and went to take down Thorim normal mode. The arena group wiped. We were all so mentally exhausted that we made silly mistakes. Trism (our paladin healer in the arena) got too much arena mob attention and died. I took too long to rebirth him and he never caught back up with the damage being doled around. Keep in mind that this is a fight we have had on farm status for more than two months. Next we attempted a Hodir speed kill since we still have an elemental shaman that is lusting after the shield in his frozen cache. We tried three times. Each time someone different died. On the last attempt, I popped berserk, stood in Starlight and got the storm cloud buff all at about the same time. I got aggro and died. I blame being tired but I really should have been a lot more careful.
We learned enough though that I think we will certainly get Mimiron next week. And there will be much rejoicing.

Another WotLK landmark...

...but probably our last till 3.1.

Yesterday evening, a with a raid only 21-strong at raid time, we struggled for two hours but persevered. With 23 people (two more raiders had trickled in as the evening wore on) we managed, for the first time, to best Sartharion, Tenebron and Vesperon together. Finally, after weeks of frustration, we had managed the Twilight Duo achievement.

There was a fair bit of confusion when Vesperon went down, leading to the death of the MT and three healers. We were left with two healers (I was not one of them) and a DK drake tank that was quick-thinking enough to taunt Sartharion before he breathed all over the raid.

It was very frustrating to lay there and watch while half the raid (11 toons) took down an enraged dragon along with all the blazes that spawned, all the while dodging flame waves managing to stay alive. Hats off to Hyce, the surviving DK tank, and Daeloan and Ceta who where the two surviving healers.

/sigh

I love my guild.

For the Horde!

I am not into PvP. It's just not the kind of content that appeals to me in the game. That's not to say that I have anything against it. Far from it. I appreciate the effort and especially the skill that goes into it as well as the the enjoyment that can be gained from it when it is done well and successfully.

So when my guild started setting up a super secret raid deep into alliance territory a couple of weeks ago, I thought "meh...". I didn't even think I would participate. As time went on and excitement mounted both on the guild forums and on officer chat (we use officer chat for any non-RP related conversations as /guild is a strictly in-character channel) I kinda had a change of heart. These are my guildies, my friends. There is no reason not to stand by them and help them out to achieve a common goal.

I spoke to Hyce, the mind behind all this and the leader of the raid, trying to find what would be the best way I could help. I would heal the raid, of course, but was there anything more I could do? Everyone in the guild, including Hyce, knows about my psychosis with alts. So he asked me to take my warlock (Nosima, who is still only level 70) into Stormwind and park her in a super secret location close to the King.

On Thursday night, I took Nosima to Westfall, swam up the coast and into Stormwind harbor. There were no players in evidence and the guards were only 65 non-elites. So I was OK. I swam up to one of the ramps on the South end of the pier and walked up. As soon as her feet were dry I mounted her up onto her dreadsteed and rode like the hounds of hell were after her. I managed to get her to the deeprun tram unscathed and parked her there, since I didn't know where Hyce's super secret Stormwind location was at the time. On Sunday night, after our scheduled OS and Malygos 25 and Malygos 10 runs, Hyce gave me coordinates to the super secret location (which I have sworn on a stack of Bibles, Qur'ans and other holy texts never to divulge) so I did some corpse jumping to get to it. I was, of course, easy prey to any level 80 alliance who saw me in Stormwind as well as to the level 75 elite guards that patrol around. The run across Elwynn Forest back to stormwind as a ghost is so long it almost elicits physical pain. But I made it. Three times. Throw in a soulstone resurrection and that makes four deaths.

Fast forward to Monday night. We headed to Ironforge first. Hyce asked for (and got) complete silence on vent. He was the only one we could hear and his instructions were followed. Not surprisingly, there was a summoning team already in situ at Ironforge (as there was in Stormwind). Within moments, the entire 40-man raid was there. We buffed, huddled in a corner, and then ran through town towards the King. AoEs took care of the guards and the Magni was dead within a minute after we got there. I think a grand total of seven alliance players tried to make a show of defense. All they got for their trouble was a run back from the graveyard. A portal got us to Orgrimmar seconds after the King was dead.

At this point, Hyce called for a 5 minute break before calling the continuation of the raid into Stormwind. I didn't understand the decision, given that the only thing it would do was give the alliance an opportunity to muster a defense. They had to know we were coming. It was interesting to watch the chat in /trade as we returned. People seemed excited that the Horde had made an uncommon move. Others bandied about the name "Mythos" (our guild) and yet others talked about a reprisal force of alliance mustering in the Valley of Spirits led by Mixler (a gnome mage of some repute in PvP circles on Feathermoon).

Eventually, Hyce called for Operation Stormwind so I switched over to Nosima. I managed to get a summoning stone up and the two other alts and I that were there managed to summon a few raiders before we were discovered and wiped out by a greater force of alliance that showed up. Thankfully, Nosima was in the process of logging out when they were hit so she managed to get out with just a sliver of health left.

We immediately turned around and were summoned to Auberdine, while planning to hit the Exodar. We JUST missed the boat, so in a snap decision, Hyce decided that Darnassus was the next target. We jumped off the ship before it reached the pier and didn't stop riding until we were inside the temple engaged with Tyrande. The Alliance defended a little more vigorously than they had before and we lost a shaman who got a bit overzealous and ran out of line of sight of his healers (way to go Oopsie!). Strangely enough the defenders allowed him to self-rez and run back into the fight. Tyrande lasted a little longer than Magni had and ultimately perished to a superior force.

Once we were back in Orgrimmar, without even waiting for a breath, Hyce ordered us back into Stormwind. I logged onto Nosima and took the time to bandage her up from the 220 health she was left with before summoning the demonic TV to bring everyone there. This time, we managed to get a sizeable force into the room before the Alliance scouts found us. Again, a number of overzealous (but very capable) alliance-killers (including Oopsie again) drifted forward and actually managed to aggro Varian Wrynn. Ever on the ball, Hyce managed to grab away the King and fight him in a corner while the most of the rest of the raid burned down alliance. We were still not all there. I think the last raider reached the room only seconds before Wrynn bit the dust. Still, this was the most resistance we had seen and Mixler was among the fallen.

Compared to Stormwind, the Exodar was almost a joke. Like in Ironforge, I think we saw a grand total of five or eight alliance that put up a token resistance, but nothing that seriously inconvenienced us.

Now, we proudly ride our black bears through Dalaran and I bet most of us have kept the letter from Thrall denoting our achievement. The experience wasn't truly PvP, I guess. It was more an exercise in stealth and subterfuge as well as a logistical manuever trying to get as many people into an enemy-infested area undetected. I had a lot of fun doing it (and strutting about later on my sparkly new black bear) but mostly I was glad I had spent time with my friends and accomplished something with them. In the end, I think that is the real reason I play the game: to socialize and share experiences with my friends.

The great Lifebloom nerf of 3.1

Please take this post with a grain of salt. I think I may be overanalyzing things that may or may not translate into the live realms.

So what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to heal? Tell us Blizz! Every time we think we have it figured out you turn us on our noses and tell us we are doing it wrong.

Single stacks of Lifebloom were a PvP tool. The one that made the resto druid the most feared creature in pre-wrath arenas. No matter what you did, that bloom was going to heal your target and there was nothing you could do about it, short of bursting him/her down or switching to another target.

Triple stacks were the purview of tree druids in PvE. Stack them on the tank and keep them rolling. Do not let them bloom. Do not collect $200. It provided a good amount of HPS (healing per second) and an amazing amount of HPM (healing per mana) giving us both throughput and efficiency. when WotLK hit and we all levelled our healers to 80, we found that higher ranks of lifebloom were not quite as efficient, but still provided both benefits they had enjoyed before. Coupled with a newly useful Regrowth and a recently nerfed, but still useful Wild Growth we learned to respond to burst damage and group damage in raids as well as only bufferring against it.

Enter the great lifebloom nerf of 3.1, stage left. Suddenly, our most efficient heal becomes our least efficient one. Suddenly, the dreaded bloom - the very thing we conditioned ourselves to avoid at all costs - becomes another tool in an already complex arsenal of healing tools. Suddenly, lifebloom in PvP gains a new life and becomes three times more powerful, at the significant cost of its efficiency.

So, I ask again: how are we supposed to heal? Obviously, the Blizzard game developers have something in mind for the druid. But what is it? We are no longer the rolling tank healer that we used to be. The 6-second cooldown on Wild Growth suggests we aren't supposed to be a full-time AoE raid healer. Rejuvenation ticks way too slowly to be an effective response to damage with any kind of burst potential, but can be used, in conjunction with other HoTs as the buffer it has always been thought of. Unglyphed Healing Touch is too slow and too expensive to use continuously and Nourish without a 4-pice Tier 7 set bonus is mediocre both in throughput and efficiency, as Phaele showed in her excellent breakdown a few months ago.

The answer, I think, lies in a combination of all the spells we currently have access to. Will we be the powerhouses of old? No, probably not. We can, if we so choose, continue to roll lifeblooms on tanks, but will face the prospect of spending the second half of any boss fight staring at an empty mana bar. No. Stacking lifebloom will no longer be the answer. Throw single lifebloom stacks around in the raid in a sort of fire-and-forget manner may be more forgiving since their ultimate blooms (whether they heal or overheal) will restore a portion of our mana.

I think the ultimate winners from this nerf will be restoration druids that heavily favor PvP. Their healing is going to see a jump in an arena where efficiency, though still important, takes a back seat to throughput. For the rest of us, Lifebloom in conjunction with a newly crit-friendly Nourish and Rejuvenation, as well as the occasional Regrowth, will characterize our new reactive style of healing and contrast sharply with the proactive approach we were always known for. Time will tell.

Great run through Naxx last night!

This post is just a shoutout to the great group of raiders in the 10-man Naxx I fill in for on occasion. They brought Doomdark along last night and I was fortunate enough to pick up five pieces of gear, including three T7 pieces. WoWWebStats tells us that Doomdark came in last on DPS, just above the tanks, but that was expected. I at least did better than the last time I was there, averaging around 1850dps. Next time will be even better. I think I am going to tweak his build a little bit.

A complete clear of Naxx in just under 3 hours, is a nice achievement. Almost had the Undying too. Had 2 deaths up to Sapphiron, but the bone dragon only had three people up when he died.

So a GREAT BIG thank you to Hyce, Depaul, Sisterlily, Solaerl, Ritavu, Tahkoda, Hodegue, Teimhnean and Daeloan.

Elk/Doomdark

Raiding last night...

On January 27th, our Mythos and Leviathan (commonly called Mythiathan) raid downed Fathom-Lord Karathress for the first time. One of our raiders made this banner to commemorate the event.

Twenty five of us went into Serpentshrine Cavern last night. Just the same as on Tuesday. The results however, were markedly different. We cleared 5 out of 6 bosses in under three hours. Hydross the Unstable, the Lurker Below, Leotheras the Blind, Morogrim Tidewalker and Fathom-Lord Karathress were all the victims of Mythos/Leviathan one-shots. We wiped once, on an ill-fated double bog giant pull. But we had the bosses' numbers. We had a few more of the regular raiders there than we did on Tuesday, but, by and large, the rosters looked very similar. I think it has a lot to do with humility we were taught on Tuesday. Ventrilo was a lot quieter last night, not as many flippant comments, not as many strategy suggestions from the peanut gallery. We listened and we executed. This was SSC as it was meant to be conducted. It was a marvel to behold. My congratulations to our raid leaders Ritavu and Asashin and all involved in the raid. See you on Sunday when we will behold the fall of Lady Vashj.

Hydross pwns Mythos

Last night was brutal. We have been downing Hydross on a weekly basis with minimal trouble for the last couple of months but something was off last night. We wiped on him a total of five times before calling the raid for the night. I know Ritavu (our raid leader) was disgusted with our performance and for good reason. We were uncoordinated, standing all over the place, catching tanks in water tombs and generally being unfocused. Myi (one of our mages) blames it on a sunspot. I think it was a sobering reminder of what being arrogant can result in.