I really can't make my mind up. My hunter dinged 60 last night, picking up a nice blue for a pretty easy quest in the process. And now I'm thinking of retiring him.
I've come to the conclusion that spending time on two characters on two different factions is more hassle than it's worth, especially given my limited playing time.
On the plus side you get to do different quests, and have unfettered access to all of the cities and areas. Especially on the Alliance side some of these are pretty cool - the temple area of Darnassus, Ironforge and Aerie Peak being amongst my favourites.
On the downside you miss out on some of the social side - I've not really got to know my NElf's guild - and can't keep an eye on LFG or general guild chat for groups forming or invites that your other character might be interested in.
Given I'm not going to switch factions entirely (apart from anything else, the human NPCs are just too smug), I had the brainwave to restart my orc warlock. Despite deciding in the past that I'm not too keen on him I think after getting to like my hunter's style of play the other pet class might be worth a second look. Warlocks have some pretty cool tricks up their sleeves (although nothihng quite matches Feign Death), plus he's already a decent-ish level (45). It'll be interesting to see how he is for grouping - will peoples' distrust of NElf hunters outweigh their preference for Ice Trap over Seduce?
Just to note, probably unsurprisingly, that Zeth'Gor was much easier on my level 59 hunter than on my better-geared level 61 warrior. But I'm not bitter...
Friday, 6 June 2008
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Goals Update
Time for a goals update, 6 months on from the last one. My WoW has been distinctly casual in a way since then, although I've raided far more than I ever did pre-Burning Crusade.
Gear sets: I'm now up to 2/5 Tidefury, but not at all working towards completing this. I'd still like the head from the Big Bad Wolf, as the ultimate orc shaman piece. Meanwhile I'm 1/5 t4, hoping to get the chest and head at least and perhaps the gloves. Along with the t4 chest and a few more badges for a better neck I'll be in full epic healing gear. On top of that the t4 helm will make it all mail gear. I'd also like to get a decent caster staff and try out elemental dps at some point.
Netherdrake: Still no cash, so this is going nowhere. I can't see myself doing a major rep grind before WotLK comes out, so this is definitely a back-burner item.
Revered with Sporeggar (Transmute recipe): Again, no progress on this one. Low down the list, but maybe I'll get around to it.
Revered with Keepers of Time (just for completeness): I'm 213 rep short of this goal, so I'll definitely do it at some point.
Fishing: I'm up to 324 fishing, which is enough to catch Sporefish or start off the Lurker fight. I'll get this to 375 before WotLK, but it's bottom of the list of the skills I want to max out.
Other skills: Still need to max out my Axes, Maces, Staves, Two-Handed Maces and Unarmed skills, although apart from Two-Handed Maces they're pretty much there.
Quests and instances: I still want to complete the Hero of the Mag'har quest chain. I've also still got to complete Magisters' Terrace (my one visit there so far saw us unable to kill Kael'thas) and I'd like to get to the Emperor in Blackrock Depths (my previous visits there all stopped at the Molten Core entrance). On top of that I'm hoping to persuade the guild to go to BWL sometime before WotLK hits.
Beyond these it's just a question of seeing how far we get in TK and SSC before summer and the impending expansion slow raid interest down too much.
Gear sets: I'm now up to 2/5 Tidefury, but not at all working towards completing this. I'd still like the head from the Big Bad Wolf, as the ultimate orc shaman piece. Meanwhile I'm 1/5 t4, hoping to get the chest and head at least and perhaps the gloves. Along with the t4 chest and a few more badges for a better neck I'll be in full epic healing gear. On top of that the t4 helm will make it all mail gear. I'd also like to get a decent caster staff and try out elemental dps at some point.
Netherdrake: Still no cash, so this is going nowhere. I can't see myself doing a major rep grind before WotLK comes out, so this is definitely a back-burner item.
Revered with Sporeggar (Transmute recipe): Again, no progress on this one. Low down the list, but maybe I'll get around to it.
Revered with Keepers of Time (just for completeness): I'm 213 rep short of this goal, so I'll definitely do it at some point.
Fishing: I'm up to 324 fishing, which is enough to catch Sporefish or start off the Lurker fight. I'll get this to 375 before WotLK, but it's bottom of the list of the skills I want to max out.
Other skills: Still need to max out my Axes, Maces, Staves, Two-Handed Maces and Unarmed skills, although apart from Two-Handed Maces they're pretty much there.
Quests and instances: I still want to complete the Hero of the Mag'har quest chain. I've also still got to complete Magisters' Terrace (my one visit there so far saw us unable to kill Kael'thas) and I'd like to get to the Emperor in Blackrock Depths (my previous visits there all stopped at the Molten Core entrance). On top of that I'm hoping to persuade the guild to go to BWL sometime before WotLK hits.
Beyond these it's just a question of seeing how far we get in TK and SSC before summer and the impending expansion slow raid interest down too much.
Why I WoW
The other night we did our Gruul + Maggy raid, and it occured to me that this is in a nutshell why I play Warcraft: group play and group achievements.
Maggy was straight forward. We had two wipes - the first due to a poor choice of tanking assignments, then second due to clicker error - after which we fine-tuned the healing assignments and got a fairly clean kill. Given that as a casual guild we had both new alts and new raiders present that seemed a pretty good performance. Came second on the roll for the tier 4 chest, but I'll get that eventually.
Maulgar was also a first-time kill I think. The mage tank died a bit early (and I briefly tanked him by somehow out-healing his damage...!) but otherwise it was all good. Gruul we had a few problems with - 3 wipes I think, all at between 3% and 8%, and people were starting to get a bit tired. But on the fourth attempt we kept the whole raid alive much better and although we lost the main tank our off-tank outlasted Gruul. It was a bit dicey towards the end - I was just spamming max-rank Healing Wave on the tank - but it always felt like we'd kill him.
On the small scale helping out with a group quest, or running an instance with a decent group, up to a raid of people who mostly know and trust each other (in that wierd internet friends-who-are-strangers way) is what the real draw of the game is. The exploring, levelling and progressing "computer game" part is what you start off with, but it's not what keeps you playing 3 years later.
Maggy was straight forward. We had two wipes - the first due to a poor choice of tanking assignments, then second due to clicker error - after which we fine-tuned the healing assignments and got a fairly clean kill. Given that as a casual guild we had both new alts and new raiders present that seemed a pretty good performance. Came second on the roll for the tier 4 chest, but I'll get that eventually.
Maulgar was also a first-time kill I think. The mage tank died a bit early (and I briefly tanked him by somehow out-healing his damage...!) but otherwise it was all good. Gruul we had a few problems with - 3 wipes I think, all at between 3% and 8%, and people were starting to get a bit tired. But on the fourth attempt we kept the whole raid alive much better and although we lost the main tank our off-tank outlasted Gruul. It was a bit dicey towards the end - I was just spamming max-rank Healing Wave on the tank - but it always felt like we'd kill him.
On the small scale helping out with a group quest, or running an instance with a decent group, up to a raid of people who mostly know and trust each other (in that wierd internet friends-who-are-strangers way) is what the real draw of the game is. The exploring, levelling and progressing "computer game" part is what you start off with, but it's not what keeps you playing 3 years later.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Into Outland
My hunter reached Outlands for good yesterday. He'd been there earlier in the week on hitting level 58, so I ventured through the portal and I set his hearthstone to Shattrath, but needed to return to Azeroth to get his cooking up to speed. The bear flanks proved fairly easy to collect in Winterspring, but sandworm meat was much more frustrating to come by in Silithus. He got there in the end though, and also completed a few more quests in the process, so was 59 before I could call Azeroth done with.
Apart from spending a fair bit of time in Felwood and the early parts of Winterspring, mainly because I was finding the Timbermaw and Jaedenar quests quite fun, he saw very little of the final zones in the old game. Winterspring was touched upon, EPL only visited to hand in a quest, and WPL saw about 4 quests done as did Silithus. Un'goro and Burning Steppes were also only visited in passing. While I'm glad of the new speedy levelling experience, as this will be my 4th character to 60, it seems a shame that more recent players of the game will miss out on some great zones and quests.
Apart from spending a fair bit of time in Felwood and the early parts of Winterspring, mainly because I was finding the Timbermaw and Jaedenar quests quite fun, he saw very little of the final zones in the old game. Winterspring was touched upon, EPL only visited to hand in a quest, and WPL saw about 4 quests done as did Silithus. Un'goro and Burning Steppes were also only visited in passing. While I'm glad of the new speedy levelling experience, as this will be my 4th character to 60, it seems a shame that more recent players of the game will miss out on some great zones and quests.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Warrior stubbornness talent...
No, not a suggestion for WotLK, but perhaps a requirement for the player behind him / her. I'm already starting to doubt my warrior levelling plan after a bad time in Zeth'Gor on Wednesday.
On the one hand it's a good thing about TBC that mob settlements are more dangerous than before - or so it seems. With patrols and the like you can't just wander in and start killing your quest targets, you need to keep an eye out. On the downside the place just highlighted the problems with being a warrior - it's kill or be killed, and if you're outnumbered much at all it's you that's going to die. Through sheer stubbornness I eventually got the "Burn" quest done, but must have died about 4 times in the process.
I'm going to concentrate on my hunter for a bit, and get him to level 61 or 62. It'll be interesting to compare how he fares in Outland compared to Azeroth, and also try grouping as it seems that there's much more instancing happening in the 60+ bracket than the 50-58 bracket.
To explain a bit about my alt list from yesterday, mages and warlocks are still off the menu for reasons I've mentioned before. From that list I can also remove druids (forms just aren't me, but otherwise balance / resto would really appeal) and priests. Despite priests being a better dps / healing hybrid than a shaman, due to having some CC, I'd rather be a shaman I think. And on the healer side I'd prefer a paladin to a priest, due to being less squishy (although mages seem to be the only real squishy in WoW), or at least wearing cooler armour.
Rogues are still cool, but I can't see myself levelling one just for the ability to sneak around enemy cities and some of the instances. I know there's more to the rogue class than that, but those are the main attractions of it to me...
So, maybe a human paladin, probably levelled to at least 24 to see the Draenei starting areas and replace my delete Blood Elf, perhaps further but probably not in any realistic timeframe. An undead warrior, perhaps forever stuck at level 61 (a dwarf warrior would be cool I think, but not worth the grind, my shaman makes an orc warrior rather superflous, and there is a certain zombie chic about that Forsaken). And an orc shaman main with a Belf hunter alt.
At least for now...
On the one hand it's a good thing about TBC that mob settlements are more dangerous than before - or so it seems. With patrols and the like you can't just wander in and start killing your quest targets, you need to keep an eye out. On the downside the place just highlighted the problems with being a warrior - it's kill or be killed, and if you're outnumbered much at all it's you that's going to die. Through sheer stubbornness I eventually got the "Burn" quest done, but must have died about 4 times in the process.
I'm going to concentrate on my hunter for a bit, and get him to level 61 or 62. It'll be interesting to compare how he fares in Outland compared to Azeroth, and also try grouping as it seems that there's much more instancing happening in the 60+ bracket than the 50-58 bracket.
To explain a bit about my alt list from yesterday, mages and warlocks are still off the menu for reasons I've mentioned before. From that list I can also remove druids (forms just aren't me, but otherwise balance / resto would really appeal) and priests. Despite priests being a better dps / healing hybrid than a shaman, due to having some CC, I'd rather be a shaman I think. And on the healer side I'd prefer a paladin to a priest, due to being less squishy (although mages seem to be the only real squishy in WoW), or at least wearing cooler armour.
Rogues are still cool, but I can't see myself levelling one just for the ability to sneak around enemy cities and some of the instances. I know there's more to the rogue class than that, but those are the main attractions of it to me...
So, maybe a human paladin, probably levelled to at least 24 to see the Draenei starting areas and replace my delete Blood Elf, perhaps further but probably not in any realistic timeframe. An undead warrior, perhaps forever stuck at level 61 (a dwarf warrior would be cool I think, but not worth the grind, my shaman makes an orc warrior rather superflous, and there is a certain zombie chic about that Forsaken). And an orc shaman main with a Belf hunter alt.
At least for now...
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Indecisive (still)
I've spent the last week, if not the last month, thinking about my alt situation.
At the moment I can barely spend enough time on WoW to keep one character current with our raiding and geared up. And being an altoholic is really not helping. So, as I've decided a few times before I need to decide who my main will be for WotLK, perhaps a few alts that I really can't live without (and properly treat them as alts), and leave all my other characters (and plans for new characters) well alone.
I'd got down to the point of having my characters be, in this order - shaman (main), NE hunter (alliance tourist and relaxation alt), orc rogue (explorer, once levelled some day) and perhaps a human paladin.
Then an article over at WoW insider - New WoW shirts at Jinx - led me to their "Tanks... You're Welcome" design, that had me pull out my warrior alt again. There's something really special about tanking - in a bad group it's just stressful and awful, in an OK group you really make the difference between a good and bad run, and good groups are just great. But unless my warrior was my exclusive main, with some real time commitment to his gear, I'd not see nearly as much of the game as I can as a healer with significantly less time commitment. And there's loads of cool things about my shaman that I'd undoubtedly miss.
So my new probable lineup is shaman (main), NE hunter (alliance tourist and relaxation alt) and undead warrior (who I hope to be well enough geared to tank a heroic by the time WotLK is about as old as BC is now).
At the moment I can barely spend enough time on WoW to keep one character current with our raiding and geared up. And being an altoholic is really not helping. So, as I've decided a few times before I need to decide who my main will be for WotLK, perhaps a few alts that I really can't live without (and properly treat them as alts), and leave all my other characters (and plans for new characters) well alone.
I'd got down to the point of having my characters be, in this order - shaman (main), NE hunter (alliance tourist and relaxation alt), orc rogue (explorer, once levelled some day) and perhaps a human paladin.
Then an article over at WoW insider - New WoW shirts at Jinx - led me to their "Tanks... You're Welcome" design, that had me pull out my warrior alt again. There's something really special about tanking - in a bad group it's just stressful and awful, in an OK group you really make the difference between a good and bad run, and good groups are just great. But unless my warrior was my exclusive main, with some real time commitment to his gear, I'd not see nearly as much of the game as I can as a healer with significantly less time commitment. And there's loads of cool things about my shaman that I'd undoubtedly miss.
So my new probable lineup is shaman (main), NE hunter (alliance tourist and relaxation alt) and undead warrior (who I hope to be well enough geared to tank a heroic by the time WotLK is about as old as BC is now).
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
It's about the big numbers
I've not been playing much recently, or posting at all. Real life (mainly my 5-month old daughter) has overtaken my WoW life, but I'll post a backlog of entries soon to make this diary a bit more complete. Sparse though it is a quick read back through the last few entries give me a great reminder of where I've been, and a bit of an insight into where I'm going.
Last night's Maggy + Gruul raid was frustrating to start, with 45 minutes needed to fill the raid due to lack of signups, and a few guildies arm-twisted into coming when they hadn't planned to, or to bring certain classes (warlocks mainly) that we'd have struggled without.
Maggy was straight forward - one wipe after some dodgy tanking / healing assignments, then a mostly clean kill on the second attempt.
High King Maulgar was the fun bit. I think we got the pull right on the third attempt, but the mage tank died while Olm was still being finished off, and with Krosh on about 20% it seem like a wipe was imminent. We cranked up the dps on Krosh with him 2-shotting various raid members (including myself), but an ankh had me back up and adding my lightning bolts to the effort. By the time we got onto the High King we had a couple of bear tanks left, a fair few healers and not much by way of dps. This gave me an excuse to stick to dps for the boss, and although elemental shaman damage dealing is about as dull as it gets (lightning bolt, repeat...) it's actually rather fun.
My theory is this - firstly there is more satisfaction to seeing damage numbers than healing numbers, you could argue that the whole levelling game teaches you that big white and yellow numbers are good. But also with dps you have a progress bar - your enemy's health bar. This goes down at a nice steady pace, with the occasional jump as several hits register simultaneously. By contrast with healing you're either playing whack a mole (raid healing) or watching a wildly fluctuating health bar on some tank until the fight stops. The excitement there comes from wondering, when your target's health gets worryingly low, if your or another healers heal will land before the nameplate goes red. Stress vs fun - what would you chose?
To round the evening off we killed Gruul, for a first kill for me. It took a few attempts - I think 4 - before we got him. The wipes seemed to be down to deaths by Shatter, which would diminish the raid to the point of failure. Although there's a degree of skill involved in avoiding this, it's also down to a fair bit of luck as to where people land after the knockback.
Last night's Maggy + Gruul raid was frustrating to start, with 45 minutes needed to fill the raid due to lack of signups, and a few guildies arm-twisted into coming when they hadn't planned to, or to bring certain classes (warlocks mainly) that we'd have struggled without.
Maggy was straight forward - one wipe after some dodgy tanking / healing assignments, then a mostly clean kill on the second attempt.
High King Maulgar was the fun bit. I think we got the pull right on the third attempt, but the mage tank died while Olm was still being finished off, and with Krosh on about 20% it seem like a wipe was imminent. We cranked up the dps on Krosh with him 2-shotting various raid members (including myself), but an ankh had me back up and adding my lightning bolts to the effort. By the time we got onto the High King we had a couple of bear tanks left, a fair few healers and not much by way of dps. This gave me an excuse to stick to dps for the boss, and although elemental shaman damage dealing is about as dull as it gets (lightning bolt, repeat...) it's actually rather fun.
My theory is this - firstly there is more satisfaction to seeing damage numbers than healing numbers, you could argue that the whole levelling game teaches you that big white and yellow numbers are good. But also with dps you have a progress bar - your enemy's health bar. This goes down at a nice steady pace, with the occasional jump as several hits register simultaneously. By contrast with healing you're either playing whack a mole (raid healing) or watching a wildly fluctuating health bar on some tank until the fight stops. The excitement there comes from wondering, when your target's health gets worryingly low, if your or another healers heal will land before the nameplate goes red. Stress vs fun - what would you chose?
To round the evening off we killed Gruul, for a first kill for me. It took a few attempts - I think 4 - before we got him. The wipes seemed to be down to deaths by Shatter, which would diminish the raid to the point of failure. Although there's a degree of skill involved in avoiding this, it's also down to a fair bit of luck as to where people land after the knockback.
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