Grah! So close!

So last night we got a progression team together and headed back into ICC to pick up where the Lower run from the night before left off.

We made quick work of Saurfang (killed him before he even got a single Mark off) and Festergut (oneshot, despite having to use 2 brezs) before heading heading onto Rotface (or, as we've taken to calling him, Buttstink).

I think it was the 4th time (by which I mean lockout period, not individual run) since the Plagueworks opened that I've been involved in attempts to kill him. And it was the first one that didn't feel totally and utterly frustrating. Despite about 10 wipes, I actually had fun for the first time.

Why?

Because for the first time it felt like we were doing it right. Not quite good enough, but at least right. Almost every attempt got him down to at least 25% before it started falling apart on us. And each attempt, even the ones that weren't quite as good as whatever came before, felt a little better. And it was always the same story: we'd be doing perfect, then one person would die and it would just snowball. I know when we finally get him it's going to be with all 10 members up, all brezes off cooldown, and no Ankhs used.

Our last attempt of the night was a 1.16% wipe. We had him down to 85K. And I think that if I hadn't panicked and stopped thinking, I could have gotten him. I got overwhelmed with slimes because everyone else was dead and I just stood in one place. If I would have kited him to keep the slimes off me, maybe waiting for a Slime Spray to drop into Cat for a last all-out damage barrage...maybe.

We decided to go up for one final attempt after that (it was right on the edge of our usual end-time) but trash had respawned by then. It was a completely demoralizing way to end the night. Not even a spectacular failure wipe, but having to leave right as we're all excited that we can do it because we didn't have time to re-clear trash.

As we were putzing around Dalaran trying to pat ourselves on the back to some extent, our main healer mentioned that he noticed the healing getting easier and easier as the night wore on, which I think is the single most encouraging thing a healer can say.

I don't know when we're going to be able to get back in there. Saturday, maybe. If we sacrifice a guild night. Or Sunday after we run the guild weekly. We'll see.

It's weird finishing a night of raiding and feeling so accomplished and so defeated at the same time.

To sate the defeated part, I went over to Mass Effect 2 to waste some mercs for the next two hours before heading to bed. That took the edge off. :-)

Not to complain, but...

So last night I encountered one of my biggest pet peeves in all of WoW.

The night before I had scheduled an open-invite Lower ICC 10 run with the intent of mixing some members of our progression team and some non-progression members to help them get more gear/experience. I scheduled the raid for our usual start-organizing time of 19:45.

I ended up getting stuck at work almost 50 minutes late, and by the time I'd made dinner, eaten, and logged on, it was 19:50. I immediately checked the calendar and saw that 14 people had accepted for the raid.

One was a double sign-up (a main and an alt of the same player). Down to 13. Two weren't online...11. So I was going to have to ask one person to sit.

As I was weighing all the options (and figuring out which two people I was going to have to ask to come on toons they didn't accept on because we were short a tank and a healer) I was informed of this scenario:

One of the newer guild members (only invited a couple days previous) had spent the better part of the last two hours trying to organize his own ICC 10 PuG. Even though he knew there was a guild run of it that night and had, himself, accepted. He was even attempting to pull guild members into his PuG. Only when it seemed clear to him that our guild run was going to get off the ground long before his did he just stop and wait.

Guess who didn't make the cut?

It drives me crazy when we get new recruits that seem to think gchat is nothing more than a dedicated line to potential PuGgers. Every time they log on, they're immediately asking for groups for X dungeon or Y raid. Even when it's stuff they know we run as a guild on a set schedule.

Don't try and pick people up from the guild to run the weekly raid when you know we schedule guild runs of it on Wednesdays and Sundays.

No, I'm not going to drop my Fish Feast farming for you when you want me to tank your undergeared butt through H HoR, especially when it's 20 seconds after you've received the ginvite.

Our Friday guild run is scheduled to start in 10 minutes. No one's going to join your VoA group right now. Stop asking.

At the very least this kind of behavior is inappropriate. Honestly, though, I find it completely disrespectful.

Granted, I typically only have to put up with this kind of thing for a week or so. Every time one of these people come into our guild, they find out that pretty much no one is willing to be their personal group servants and they move on. But at the same time, enough individuals come through often enough like this that it feels like a constant battle.

C'est la vie.

Druid Forms in Cata

So among the few things we know about Cataclysm is that two more races will have the Druid class opened to them: Worgen and Trolls.

To me, this is nothing but a huge disappointment. Why? Let's take a look.

Worgen:
I cannot tell you how excited I am to be getting this race as a playable one. Holy crap, fun. I mean, really? Werewolves? How freaking cool is that?!

But us Druids...we spend a lot of our time in shifted forms. This takes a whole lot of the appeal out of playing a Worgen Druid. Who cares if I can shift into a badass werewolf? I'm going to be spending all my time as a cat/bear instead. So I don't get to see it. Even when I'm running around towns, I'm usually in Travel or Cat forms, if not Flight.

Unless Blizz pulls something completely unique and amazing out of their collective hats for Worgen forms, it's going to feel like a complete waste. And then all the other Druid races will probably just seem a little lame in comparison.

Trolls:
I have a feeling the Troll forms are going to be the best of the bunch. They already have the whole primal god motif going for them, and they're all pretty much awesome. From the day I ran Zul'Drak I wanted a quest where Har'koa adopts me and lets me take her form.

But seriously, think about it. Shirvallah, Bethekk, Nalorakk, Halazzi, Rhunok, Har'koa? And that's just the bears and cats. Not even counting the others like Mam'toth, Akali, Akil'zon, etc.

But, alas, I play Alliance. So no matter how undeniably cool the Troll forms are, I won't have access to them until I want to leave my guild. (I don't.) I'll just have to envy them from the other side.


Maybe cats and bears aren't going to be the default forms anymore, though. Maybe the Trolls and Worgen will get something else. Things that are reasonably close in idea but that aren't exactly the same. I could see a rhino tank. Or a wolf (worg?) DPS. Is it possible? What would those forms be, do you think?

What about our other non-combat forms?

Flight forms are already pretty cool. Worgen and Trolls will probably get their own color schemes. I envision a Worgen Epic Flight form being a huge shimmering black bird. That would be awesome. Maybe Trolls would get something more Eagle-like; like Akil'zon.

Our Travel form is an admitted placeholder. It was never meant to the the final artwork. I've always thought the travel form (for Night Elves, at least) should be a stag. It would work, as the icon is a hoof. What about the other races, though? Cheetahs almost make sense for the Tauren, being so close to the Barrens and all. They just need a better model.

So what about it? Worgen and Troll forms? Travel forms? New trees or doomchickens? What do you think we'll see in Cata? Or even beyond that, what would you like to see?

Family Bondage

Please ignore the title. It's an inside joke. But I couldn't help it.

I don't think many people my age (29) will ever say this, but I'm a gamer because of my dad. He's the one who got me started.

Way back in the day when a computer with a CMYK monitor was a pretty amazing thing, he would occasionally bring one home from his office for the weekend for me to play on. He'd show me the fantasy adventure games that were the precursor to things like "King's Quest." You know. A text based game with really bad little images to help you along.

(Incidentally, this is also what got me into programming, as I wasted as many hours playing around with BASIC as I did playing games.)

Later on it was an Atari 2300. Then I branched off into other consoles as they came out (Hi, Nintendo!) and he stuck with the PC. He was big on just about anything Sierra put out, and I would happily jump in front of the computer when he wasn't on to take advantage of them as well. He also introduced me to Warcraft (the original RTS) and games like Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, SimCity, Castles, Lords of Magic...I could go on and on.

A couple years ago, after I got serious about WoW I thought, "You know, I think my dad would enjoy this game." I play in a guild with a lot of Parent/Children pairs (or sets) and this really drove that idea home.

My dad didn't game nearly as much as he used to, but I think that was due to keeping machines well past their gaming prime. So a lot of stuff coming out that he would play, he just couldn't. Despite wanting to introduce him to the game, I decided to hold off until his comp was a little more up-to-date.

Late last year he finally upgraded his PC. I saw a chance. So over the Christmas break I gave him the Wrath install DVD and hooked him up with a Trial account. I told him he might enjoy it.

He rolled a Human Warrior (hmm...sounds familiar...) and started leveling him through Elwyn Forest. I kinda expected him to like the game. I didn't expect him to like it enough that he was playing 4- or 5-hour stretches at a time. (Like me, he had enough time off banked up to take the last two weeks of the year completely off work. So many an afternoon were spent glued to the screen.)

I wanted to roll a new toon to kinda jog behind him at times and help him out. I definitely wanted something with a heal button. I already had a Priest in my roster, so the only Human class left to me was a Paladin. (I wanted a new toon because I didn't want to get ahead of him in levels and start carrying him through the game.)

I reset all the beginner tips so I could see what the game was telling him and what he might still need filled in. I have to say, Blizz has done a hell of a job making the starting experience a lot easier. It can still be overwhelming, but it's much much better than it used to be.

There were a lot of noob moments ("Jumping doesn't help your combat." "Campfires will kill you if you stand in them." "You don't have to save before you quit." "Yeah, Hogger's what's known as an Elite mob.") and some general gamer rust. I'm still trying to get him to use two hands to play instead of one. Being able to move/turn and fight at the same time would make things easier on him, I think.

After a few days he said that it was one of the most fun games he's played in a while and being able to play a game with me was making it that much better. He was looking forward to the weekend when he was planning on making the push to 20 and then deciding if he wanted to continue with the full game or not. I was sure he was hooked and I smiled.

Then disaster struck. Between a number of factors, his whole weekend got pulled out from under him and he didn't get to play at all. Then work started back up, leaving only weekends available. (His trial expired on a Wednesday.) He said that, while it was fun, he could too easily imagine that happening enough times in a month that he wouldn't be able to play enough to make the subscription fee worth it. But he was heartened to know that the game would save his progress indefinitely in case he ever changed his mind.

I couldn't argue with that. No use in paying for a game you couldn't find time to play.

This was all during the first week of January.

A week and a half ago I called my dad for some help with my taxes. Some of the new homeowner stuff was a little confusing to me, as this was my first year owning a home. After we got all my questions answered, he mentioned that he had gone out and picked up his own retail copy of WoW and upgraded to a full account. He's going to stay on a month-to-month (non auto-renewing) subscription for now, but I have a feeling that as long as he finds a few hours a weekend to play, it won't be long before he's running around Northrend.

I checked the Armory yesterday. My Paladin is now 5 levels behind him. Time to catch up...

Fixed!

I finally edited my post regarding Armor Penetration gear lists. I made some silly mistakes and assumptions. Those are fixed now and new gear lists have been generated. That extra 70 ArPen removed a lot of room for variety. There's still a ton when you're raiding the higher content, but it severely limited the choices for casuals.

Looks like there was a lot of WoW news over the past 4 days that I missed while I was up enjoying a ski weekend. I'll try to catch up on it and see if there's anything overly pertinent to Druids as of yet, or just anything that may be of good general interest.

All my classes

So as was mentioned in my post the other day, before settling on my Druid as my main, I tried a Hunter and a Warrior. As you can see up at the top of the page here, I currently have said Druid, plus a Shaman, Hunter, Priest, and DK.

But in four years, I've played almost everything once and I have opinions on all of it.

Druid - Obviously my favorite. I've never been anything but Feral. I spent all my initial leveling time (1-70--started in vanilla, but didn't make 60 before BC) as a Cat. It wasn't until I decided I wanted to try this raiding thing that I specced more towards the Bear side. With the advent of Dual specs I did a little happy dance because I could spec specifically for both instead of gimping a spec or my ability to perform a certain role. While more of my current time and knowledge is tuned to Bear tanking, Cat DPS is still my first love and I'd never complain about going back to it near-full time.

Shaman - The only other class I've ever gotten to max level. I do all my leveling in Enhancement, which I find to be a ton of fun. Sometimes more than Cat DPS. But my Shaman's main role (and my purpose for getting him to the level cap) was to be a back-up raid healer. I picked a Shaman because it's healing style seemed most appealing based on my limited knowledge of the different healing classes when I rolled him. I haven't been disappointed, either. Raid healing on Dal is a lot of fun and a great change of pace from the 3 melee specs I have across my two main toons.

Hunter - As mentioned in a previous post, my first toon ever was a Tauren Hunter, and it got me to buy the game for myself. As far as DPS goes I still prefer melee, but the complexities of balancing what my pet is doing along with what I'm doing is a unique mechanic that I enjoy. Plus I'll never complain about having a personal tank that takes my every order and can't sass when he dies and I'm halfway across the map running my butt off. Right now I've been neglecting my Hunter because I think it's going to be my Worgen class when I start leveling through Cataclysm, so I don't really want to spend my game time continuing to work on my current one.

Death Knight - I waited a long time after Wrath dropped to finally create my Death Knight. Initially I was only interested in playing through the starter quests. Afterall, I already had two characters that could do melee dps. Why would I need a 3rd? But the playstyle is still unique and fun. Plus it's my only 2H melee class. For the longest time, this was my unguilded "escape" toon. The one I could play when I wanted to WoW but wanted to avoid the guild for whatever reason. When I got serious about getting him to the cap, I brought him into the guild. Still haven't reached the cap, though. Been busy with ICC. I think I might eventually turn this guy into a PvP toon and use him when rated BGs drop.

Priest - Caster classes aren't and never have been my thing. No matter what game I've ever played that has the classic fantasy archetypes, I just haven't enjoyed casters. But I wanted to give them a shot in WoW. I created this toon when my partner and I (who haven't actually played together-together since the early days of BC) decided we wanted to level a couple of toons in tandem. He picked a Lock, I picked a Priest. I have to say, I've found Shadow to be a ton of fun. Though I'm sure that's due in no small part to the fact that I get to play this toon with somebody I care about. And that he brings a blueberry tank into the mix that allows us to not have to worry about silly things like survivability as we level.

Paladin - I've tried leveling a Paladin on three separate occasions. The first didn't make it out of the starter zones and was deleted. The second made it to level 10 and is now my bank alt. The third is currently level 14, and the only reason he made it that far is that I was trying to keep pace with my dad's Warrior while I had him on a trial account. This third attempt really made me understand why I can't level a Paladin. I'm sure they're a lot of fun at high levels, but in the lower range (at least as far as level 14) they're boring as hell. The only thing they really do is auto-attack and heal. I can understand that up to level 5. Maybe even 10. But by 14, combat really should be more active.

Rogue - I've tried a Rogue once. He was undead. I managed to get him to Taren Mill before I gave up and I haven't tried again. I think this is due to three factors. 1) I already have a toon that uses the Energy/Combo Point mechanic. 2) I already have a dual-wielding melee-capable toon. 3) My rogue will forever be linked with the misery I felt when trying a PvP server for the first and only time.

Warrior - As mentioned in that earlier post, my first-ever toon of my own was a Warrior. I think if I had understood the Rage mechanic more and also realized that I really needed levels to see the survivability difference between classes back then, that he might have made it as my main. Somewhat recently I did try rerolling one, but I had little incentive to work on him because I already had a Rage tank, a dual-wielding melee-capable toon, and a 2H melee-capable toon at much higher levels. Fittingly, this second warrior (just like my first) made it to Westfall before I deleted him.

Mage - Back when I was leveling Saniel through Dustwallow, I was amazed as I watched a Frost Mage pull and kill packs of almost a dozen spiders, all higher level than him. Drink, repeat. As a toon that had to go through my targets one at a time, I was floored by this. I wanted to try. I don't think I made it to level 8. Too much drinking and too much dieing for my tastes.

Warlock - This is the only class to date that I haven't even tried. And I honestly don't have any real desire to do so. Maybe someday, if I'm bored. But I still have more that I want to accomplish with my active toons than I have time to accomplish it.

By the light of the moon!

Lunar Festival is here. It's one of my favorite WoW holidays. I know not everyone likes it, but I enjoy when Blizz gives me an excuse to go see the old world again. Plus we know where the elders are. It's not like you're dependent on the RNG to complete this holiday activity. And we get to fight one of the coolest looking mobs in all of WoW (I think).

But there's another great thing about this holiday. If you're still not Exalted with all your faction cities (I'm looking at you, Gnomeregan...hate you), this holiday is a blessing!

There's 75 Elders scattered across Azeroth (and Outland). Each time you honor one, you will receive 75 rep with every single one of your faction cities. All said and done, that's a cool 5,625 reputation under your belt. For not a whole heck of a lot of work.

There's basically 3 reasons anyone would want to be Exalted with all their faction cities.

1. Mounts; whether your just want to collect them 'cause they strike your fancy or you're actively pursuing the mount achievements.
   
2. You're attempting to get one of the coolest and (currently) rarest titles in the game.
   
3. You want access to the items sold by Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tourney (via Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance (or Horde).

Plus, let's not forget that Cataclysm is right around the corner. Pretty soon the old Azeroth we've come to know over the last 5 years is going to be given a complete face-lift. Why not take one of the last chances you're going to get to explore it?

You have almost 3 weeks to find them all, so it's not like you have to pack it into one crazy play session. You can run off and tackle a few a day until you're done. I don't think it's unreasonable to be able to get anywhere from 5-8 in an hour of solid hunting. Or (if you're a DPS) Elder hunting is a great way to pass the time while queueing for dungeons.

So if you're looking for that rep, get to it!


Finally, a quick note: I'm still working on redoing Thursday's post. I made a completely silly mistake--as pointed out by one commenter--and it invalidated the majority of the post. Hopefully I can get that done this evening sometime. I was skiing all weekend and I'm slammed at work the next two days before taking another weekend ski trip.