Tag: WoW

I’ve never considered myself a “WoW snob” before – but maybe I am. There are two group situations that REALLY piss me off to the point of saying something in group to the people involved. This is not how I would typically handle a situation, but I find myself unable to stop.

Situation 1: You’re a tank spec’d class like a warrior or a paladin and you’ve got a good set of tank gear but you queue for random dungeons as DPS. You personally can not parse more then the current tank, or even the heal spec’d priest. This was the situation in Heroic Pit last night. I understand that people want to earn emblems for both sets of gear but if you have nothing but tank gear and are unable to keep up dps (we’re talking 1-1.5k here) you’re not doing anything but hurting the group you’re in. It was incredibly disheartening for me to be out parsing as a healer in my heal gear (and I don’t have raid gear).

Situation 2: You’re so uber and aware of your own awesomeness that you just run around without any consideration for anyone else in your group, especially the tank. There are a few events in Heroic Pit that I have seen happen time and time again. Number one, after the first named there are these jumping leaping ghouls that like to bound around. If you happen to be an over zealous character without regards to anyone around you, chances are you bound off down the path and these ghouls see you, find you, and make short work of you. Number two, did you know you can skip a few of the encounters on the hill after the 2nd boss? The trick is that the entire group must run up the hill TOGETHER and you must stay AWAY from the hill until you are all ready. Approaching causes the mobs to spawn. They will not spawn until you get close. Even after telling the group that we would move as a unit, a few of those awesome unique players decided that they were too good to listen and ran off on their own. Then trained a few groups onto us remaining players, wiped us, and then left group.

I don’t mind new players. I think it’s cute, and I’m always making “awe, so cute we have noobs!” comments in guild. I don’t mind people who can’t parse as high as I’d personally like as long as they’re not parsing low because of something easily within their control like queuing for dps as a tank. It would be fantastic if every group I entered was filled with players who listened and were aware of their surroundings (HOW many times do people have to pull the mobs by the slaves in Pit “accidentally” as they work on their quest that they never did in regular mode. Just speak up and let the tank know you need the slaves! They’ll clear for you instead of you acting like bait).

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s about to happen any time soon.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

There’s a certain irony in my game play lately. On one hand I’m quite content with my adventures in World of Warcraft which makes for some pretty boring blog posts (there’s no drama after all) and on the other hand it leaves me feeling incredibly disconnected from the small community of bloggers and friends that I’ve ‘met’ on twitter. After all, I’m not playing Civilization V, I’m not exploring FFXIV, I’m not looking forward to the CCP/White Wolf recently announced vampire MMO, I’m not eagerly awaiting any MMO (SW:TOR, Secret World, GW2) or game (DA:2) and I don’t have a strong opinion on any of the drama that may be going on. That’s right, for the first time ever I’m simply enjoying the games I am playing (WoW and Minecraft for the most part).

Who would have thought.

Yesterday was a pretty good day game wise. My Spriest picked up a dps trinket from Heroic Pit, and also managed to snag a main hand weapon from the first named, allowing me to finally use the off hand from Halls of Reflection for both my heal and DPS spec. During the instance, the healer (a druid) decided they would leave. When the healer in my group leaves I always switch my talents and queue as the healer – I know I can heal every zone just fine. We finished the instance without incident. I also healed Halls of Reflection (heroic) twice. I was looking for the healer trinket from the second boss, but it hasn’t dropped yet. One of these days I’ll get it. Both instances went just fine.

I really enjoy having both a heal spec and a dps spec. Afterward Toargo and myself completed a few older dungeons. Magister’s Terrace (heroic) for an attempt at the mount (which still has not dropped for us) and Netherstorm instances so that I can work my faction and finally be able to complete those on heroic. Even though I’ve out leveled the zones, I enjoy working on the achievements.

I’m still working on collection the 200 brewfest tokens I need. I absolutely hate the ram repeatable that sends you into the city to act as a crier so I tend to stick with the two that I know I can do, the Dwarven one (although my server has been losing the battle these days) and the repeatable ram one that doesn’t have a blue ? over the NPC’s head so it’s hard to tell that it’s there. Also no mount yet in my brewfest bag that I do daily but I’ll keep trying.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

I have to say, I really like how talent options are done in World of Warcraft. I like that you can change your talents on the go (unlike EQ2 where you’re required to travel to your home, and use your achievement mirror each time) and I like that each specialization is drastically different than the others. What I mean is: if my priest is specialized as a shadow priest (which she is more often than not) she actually does more than enough damage to be considered dps. In EQ2 if you use your healer to go down a dps line you’re not going to be competing with Tier 1 dps in groups. You’re still going to be a healer – who can do some damage.

In a lot of cases there are multiple dps lines as well which is great. For example my druid and shaman can both choose a healer talent line – or a melee dps talent line – or a caster talent line (or a combination). I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what sort of set up I’d like. Usually, I go caster talent for my OS (off spec). That way I don’t need to carry around two sets of gear (melee + healer). Since I’m so used to playing casters, I decided to take the melee rout on my shaman.

I’m bad at it. Very bad. BUT it’s a learning experience, and one that I’m sure I’ll get better at. Shaman are slightly different (enhancement) because a lot of their damage relies on random procs. There’s n0 specific cast order for max DPS, but instead there is a cast priority depending on what you have procing.

I’ve come to respect this game more then I have in previous years. Yes, anyone can play and it is quite easy – but if you want to be GOOD at it, it requires a little work and research.

How does everyone else decide which talents to select? Do you go the comfort rout, what you know? Or do you experiment with what you’ve never tried before? Let me know in comments!

Sholazar Basin, pictured above. One of my favorite zones from Wrath. I’ve spent a little time over the past two days questing here to earn some easy money (alts are expensive, and gems even more so). The priest has managed to climb her way to a 5k gs and just shy of 5k in her discipline gear. Healing is much easier now though I still have to be on the look for things like – the tank taking off and pulling everything in sight before I’m even in the zone and buffed.

I’ve learned a good number of things leveling up. I can appreciate good players. Players who (for example) ask before they mount up in The Oculus if it’s alright to ride a certain dragon mount for their achievement (that’s right, I’m looking at you mage who grabbed the healer mount without saying a word). Death Knights who don’t decide to randomly pop their army on an encounter that has a mob spitting at everyone it faces (those army zombies are incredibly annoying, flipping mobs every which way). I’d like to say that I’m learning a little more patience, but I’m not sure if that’s really true. I no longer fear pick up groups like I once had and that’s always a welcome change.

With both my warlock and priest sitting at level 80 with ok gear I’m contemplating who (if anyone) to work up next. I enjoy the process of leveling, and there isn’t such a dire need for my ‘mains’ to grind out dungeons any more aside from my dailies for frost tokens. My characters are:

• 80 Priest(Shadow/Discipline)
• 80 Warlock(Destruction/Demonology)
• 70 Shaman(Restoration/Elemental)
• 68 Death Knight
• 38 Druid
• 20 Rogue
• 18 Paladin

Both the paladin and the rogue are a lot of fun to play, but I’ve also been wondering if I should experience the alliance side of things before it all changes with Cataclysm. With the expansion looming close in the distance there’s really no great need to grind out gear to be the best of the best right now. Then of course comes the decision of what to play on the alliance side, and where.

Ah, choices!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!