Best feature of patch 3.3? Clearly the cross-realm Dungeon Finder. On the end-game side it may weaken the ties of guild, as PUG runs now appear to be the norm. On the enormous plus side, not only have the PUGs I've seen so far been far better behaved than you might expect (although no brighter or able to express themselves without l33t speak) but also it's really revitalised the pre-end-game experience, as you can now realistically run instances again with same-level groups.
I've been tanking on my death knight and druid (in the latter case despite signing up for tank / healer / dps) and really enjoying it. It seems as though, since everyone's clear that it's a totally random PUG, players' expectations are lower and hence they (generally) play their class properly and give thought to things like threat. Or it may just be that, since damage meters don't work cross-realm, one major source of idiot play has been removed.
I'm currently back to the view that tanking is my favourite role, in a way because of the leadership it confirs. In a good group you set the pace, decide which groups to pull, and so on. In fact, my major source of stress in the past has been when I'm tanking but not to a pace I'm comfortable with, usually due to some pushy dps who wants to kill stuff now! I'm currently too slow, and also not fully aware of the big picture, but that will come if I get a chance to practice and the more basic parts of tanking become second nature.
I still enjoy healing, especially in the harder instances that have come with the patch. The downside to healing is that sometimes you just feel you're following the group around and watching green bars, but in challenging situations you do get a chance to put your skills to use and really make a difference. Sometimes your efforts even get noticed by the group! Another upside to healing is that I can realistically gear up to a suitable level for end-game raiding, something that I don't think I could commit enough time to as a tank.
And so dps would seem my least favourite role. Partly it lacks the significence of the other two roles - not because dps isn't important, especially in raid situations, but because you're just one cog of 3 in a group. This is part of what I think leads to the obsession with meters - given what's seen as the least important of roles, there's a natural desire to be the biggest fish in the smaller pond. That being said, I'm really glad of having an elemental dual spec - not only is it really handy to switch between roles in some raid fights, but it's also great being able to blow stuff up really quickly while questing!
Monday, 14 December 2009
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The view from the other side, revisited
While waiting for the patch to hit I've been spending some time on my Alliance druid, as with Conquest emblems about to become outmoded I'm not really motivated to do many end-game instances. I'm really enjoying the versatility of a druid - while feral levelling spec'd he can still pretty much heal so can fulfil any role I wish. I also rather enjoy being a buffing class. On the down side I'm still not a fan of feral dps, although I do enjoy stealth and by now I have sufficient talent points and abilities for the power of the spec to offset my fundamental lack of comfort with energy-based classes.
Sad to say, my current view of the Alliance side of things is that it's rather bland. On the one hand it's all as it should be, but the familiar genre staples rather pale when compared to my usual experience of dealing with proud, threatening orcs or amoral Forsaken. I also find that the graphical style of the game really doesn't suit humans, or to a lesser extent night elves, which look somehow unconvincing. Dwarves, and the Horde races, suit the style far better.
Sad to say, my current view of the Alliance side of things is that it's rather bland. On the one hand it's all as it should be, but the familiar genre staples rather pale when compared to my usual experience of dealing with proud, threatening orcs or amoral Forsaken. I also find that the graphical style of the game really doesn't suit humans, or to a lesser extent night elves, which look somehow unconvincing. Dwarves, and the Horde races, suit the style far better.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
One poor shaman
I'm now about 2000g poorer than I was a week ago, with my first tier 9 piece and about a 10-15% DPS increase to show for it.
I'm raiding mostly as elemental and it occurs to me that that is the right place to be right now. I can comfortably (or even half-asleep) heal anything in the game right now apart from the Black Knight phase 3, Ulduar and ToTC, and those last three I can heal just fine as long as I'm awake. So if I stick with DPSing my way through Icecrown I'll be in a very good position when Cataclysm arrives, and I might even have pulled myself off the bottom of the DPS list by then.
Meanwhile I'm still doing enough healing in instances to keep my hand in, and attempting to keep track of the changes to (or even master) the two different sides of Grulnak is a big enough task to keep me interested.
I'm raiding mostly as elemental and it occurs to me that that is the right place to be right now. I can comfortably (or even half-asleep) heal anything in the game right now apart from the Black Knight phase 3, Ulduar and ToTC, and those last three I can heal just fine as long as I'm awake. So if I stick with DPSing my way through Icecrown I'll be in a very good position when Cataclysm arrives, and I might even have pulled myself off the bottom of the DPS list by then.
Meanwhile I'm still doing enough healing in instances to keep my hand in, and attempting to keep track of the changes to (or even master) the two different sides of Grulnak is a big enough task to keep me interested.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
My new alt
An elemental shaman. Not really an alt, just Grulnak in different gear!
My guild are tending to more dps-heavy raids these days, and it seems that ranged dps is more in demand than healers. I've picked up a fair bit of +hit gear here and there, which is enough to make me a pretty decent caster. And although still I find healing more engaging the damage dealer role is growing on me.
I did my first visit (and clear) of ToTC-10 last night. My damage was rather sub-par, and I spent most of the fights in resto mode as we were struggling with only two healers, but it's given me the motivation to get my damage gear properly sorted out. That should keep my alt-oholic tendancies something to feed on for a while, and with reduced time to play at the moment it makes far more sense to be concentrating on just the one character.
Right, time to gather a huge pile of badges and cash...
My guild are tending to more dps-heavy raids these days, and it seems that ranged dps is more in demand than healers. I've picked up a fair bit of +hit gear here and there, which is enough to make me a pretty decent caster. And although still I find healing more engaging the damage dealer role is growing on me.
I did my first visit (and clear) of ToTC-10 last night. My damage was rather sub-par, and I spent most of the fights in resto mode as we were struggling with only two healers, but it's given me the motivation to get my damage gear properly sorted out. That should keep my alt-oholic tendancies something to feed on for a while, and with reduced time to play at the moment it makes far more sense to be concentrating on just the one character.
Right, time to gather a huge pile of badges and cash...
Sunday, 25 October 2009
The view from the other side
It's sort of grey and black and glowy...? No - not that side, I mean team blue - Alliance.
The starkest difference between the two factions for me is that, while I'm on Horde, I'm in one of the biggest and best guilds on my server. When Alliance, I'm guildless. I'll have to fix that, but I don't want to join just any old guild, so I need to find a decent guild that will take an unknown level 71 priest.
Aside from that, the difference is very subjective. In some ways, playing a fantasy staple feels much more "right". I've just done the quest where you end up riding Thassarian's Deathcharger, and the atmosphere was the exact antidote to that mish-mash feeling I get when Grulnak is in some instance with three blood elves and a tauren.
The same fantasy genre baggage colours the many other aspects of the game as well. For example, although Grulnak, an orc shaman, is probably one of the most benevolent non-Tauren Horde in the game (at least, the way I play him) his motivation for some quests is tenuous at best. But even his motivation fits the game a lot better than, say, a Forsaken warlock. Although I reject the "Alliance good, Horde bad" view that some players have (there's the whole Defias thing, for a start), overall Blizzard's (perhaps understandably) lazy approach of having essentially one set of quests for two factions does Horde far more of a dis-service than it does the Alliance. A lot of the Horde settlements in Northrend are really well done, and the Wrathgate chain has its moments, but the last time I really felt the game cateered to the Horde was during the Mag'har chain.
That being said I'm probably heading for trouble as an Alliance clothie as well. If my priest ever reaches level 80 why would he (or say a mage) enter the tournament and not attempt to roast his opponent inside his armour, but instead take up a lance and try and fight him at his own game? Of course everyone does (except perhaps on RP servers?), because that's where the game progression takes you.
Perhaps I just need to lighten up a bit. The thing that keeps me playing is the MMO part of the game - if I want to focus on the RPG part then a single player game would fit my prejudices far better.
The starkest difference between the two factions for me is that, while I'm on Horde, I'm in one of the biggest and best guilds on my server. When Alliance, I'm guildless. I'll have to fix that, but I don't want to join just any old guild, so I need to find a decent guild that will take an unknown level 71 priest.
Aside from that, the difference is very subjective. In some ways, playing a fantasy staple feels much more "right". I've just done the quest where you end up riding Thassarian's Deathcharger, and the atmosphere was the exact antidote to that mish-mash feeling I get when Grulnak is in some instance with three blood elves and a tauren.
The same fantasy genre baggage colours the many other aspects of the game as well. For example, although Grulnak, an orc shaman, is probably one of the most benevolent non-Tauren Horde in the game (at least, the way I play him) his motivation for some quests is tenuous at best. But even his motivation fits the game a lot better than, say, a Forsaken warlock. Although I reject the "Alliance good, Horde bad" view that some players have (there's the whole Defias thing, for a start), overall Blizzard's (perhaps understandably) lazy approach of having essentially one set of quests for two factions does Horde far more of a dis-service than it does the Alliance. A lot of the Horde settlements in Northrend are really well done, and the Wrathgate chain has its moments, but the last time I really felt the game cateered to the Horde was during the Mag'har chain.
That being said I'm probably heading for trouble as an Alliance clothie as well. If my priest ever reaches level 80 why would he (or say a mage) enter the tournament and not attempt to roast his opponent inside his armour, but instead take up a lance and try and fight him at his own game? Of course everyone does (except perhaps on RP servers?), because that's where the game progression takes you.
Perhaps I just need to lighten up a bit. The thing that keeps me playing is the MMO part of the game - if I want to focus on the RPG part then a single player game would fit my prejudices far better.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Was once a (non-raiding) tank
I'm slowly laying to rest my idea of levelling a tank alt, partially because common sense tells me that I just don't have time for an alt to fulfill the most gear-dependant role in the game, but also because I'm coming to realise that the tanking I remember fondly from vanilla WoW just doesn't exist any more.
Vanilla WoW was a less egalitarian, but somehow more PUG-friendly place, than its WotLK incarnation, almost because it lacked all the improvements we have come to take for granted.
Back then there were raiders and non-raiders. Raiders were either raiding or preparing for their next raid - with no limits on consumables, no daily quests and with the trash in Molten Core not dropping money or nice vendor-junk to help offset the cost of repairs raiding was a serious business. Tanks and healers either had to pay for regular respecs to allow them to farm, or had a farming alt.
Non-raiders were who you found in PUGs. Probably they were gearing up and getting their attunements - Molten Core, Onyxia and Black Wing Lair - prior to applying to a raiding guild, or possibly they'd weren't planning to raid but just wanted to gear themselves up as best they could, but either way they were generally more accepting of their fellow PUGers.
Except of course that, unless you were a mage, rogue or one of the few reputable hunters, you'd struggle to find a DPS slot.
But once grouped, players knew they had to work together to overcome the instance, especially the tricker mob pulls in the harder instances.
Nowadays everyone is a raider, to some degree, and with the fantastic emblem gear available everyone runs heroics - while being much more demanding of who they will deign to group with. A leading DK tanking blogger is seen wondering if 31.5k unbuffed health will be enough to get an invite to a group. It's common to see people assembling PUGs and demanding not only the "Epic" gear achievement but also the achievement for completing the instance or raid that the PUG is planning to visit.
And once in an instance, now that all tank classes have AoE threat abilities, the burden of crowd control is placed firmly on the tank's shoulders. If the tank has the ability to get aggro from the entire pull, but not the gear to withstand it, then they are blamed for the group failure. Unless it's the healer who's deemed to be undergeared, in which case they are blamed.
Once they join a PUG, all players seem to forget any crowd control abilities they may have, presumably only to remember them once they step outside again.
I'm not sure if part of the problem is that tanks are afraid to ask for help with crowd control, for fear of being derided. Whatever the cause it seems to be that now, the group mindset that was once quite common even in the worst PUGs of yesteryear, is absent.
And, while adding good emblem loot to heroics may have made them far more popular, it's made them a far less friendly place to be for the tanks and healers they were originally aimed at - those who can beat the normal level 80 instances but aren't yet geared enough for Naxxramas.
Hence I'm tempted to stick solely to my massively overgeared healer, and leave my tank alts firmly parked in the level 67 - 73 range. And try to remember that I have a spell called Hex.
Vanilla WoW was a less egalitarian, but somehow more PUG-friendly place, than its WotLK incarnation, almost because it lacked all the improvements we have come to take for granted.
Back then there were raiders and non-raiders. Raiders were either raiding or preparing for their next raid - with no limits on consumables, no daily quests and with the trash in Molten Core not dropping money or nice vendor-junk to help offset the cost of repairs raiding was a serious business. Tanks and healers either had to pay for regular respecs to allow them to farm, or had a farming alt.
Non-raiders were who you found in PUGs. Probably they were gearing up and getting their attunements - Molten Core, Onyxia and Black Wing Lair - prior to applying to a raiding guild, or possibly they'd weren't planning to raid but just wanted to gear themselves up as best they could, but either way they were generally more accepting of their fellow PUGers.
Except of course that, unless you were a mage, rogue or one of the few reputable hunters, you'd struggle to find a DPS slot.
But once grouped, players knew they had to work together to overcome the instance, especially the tricker mob pulls in the harder instances.
Nowadays everyone is a raider, to some degree, and with the fantastic emblem gear available everyone runs heroics - while being much more demanding of who they will deign to group with. A leading DK tanking blogger is seen wondering if 31.5k unbuffed health will be enough to get an invite to a group. It's common to see people assembling PUGs and demanding not only the "Epic" gear achievement but also the achievement for completing the instance or raid that the PUG is planning to visit.
And once in an instance, now that all tank classes have AoE threat abilities, the burden of crowd control is placed firmly on the tank's shoulders. If the tank has the ability to get aggro from the entire pull, but not the gear to withstand it, then they are blamed for the group failure. Unless it's the healer who's deemed to be undergeared, in which case they are blamed.
Once they join a PUG, all players seem to forget any crowd control abilities they may have, presumably only to remember them once they step outside again.
I'm not sure if part of the problem is that tanks are afraid to ask for help with crowd control, for fear of being derided. Whatever the cause it seems to be that now, the group mindset that was once quite common even in the worst PUGs of yesteryear, is absent.
And, while adding good emblem loot to heroics may have made them far more popular, it's made them a far less friendly place to be for the tanks and healers they were originally aimed at - those who can beat the normal level 80 instances but aren't yet geared enough for Naxxramas.
Hence I'm tempted to stick solely to my massively overgeared healer, and leave my tank alts firmly parked in the level 67 - 73 range. And try to remember that I have a spell called Hex.
Monday, 12 October 2009
For the Alliance! (sort of)
Tukkillen is now a dwarf - I decided that a troll alt really is of no interest to me, and even when same-faction race transfers become available there's really no point in having two healer / caster dps hybrids on the same faction.
He's only sporting the heirloom shoulders - Conquest emblems are too valuable for me to trade down, and Grulnak is unlikely to ever get the Crusader title so the Seals route for the chest piece is out. With Cold Weather Flying, the heirloom shoulders and a change of scene and quests Northrend is looking pretty good for levelling at the moment.
I'd really like to get into some groups to see the Northrend instances from a dwarven perspective, so currently I'm trying out a Discipline "damage" build to give me both grinding and healing options. So far, so good.
I'm not at all sure how much he'll get into the end game though - it'd be nice to be able to heal heroics at least, but I can barely keep one character raid-geared to my satisfaction so two really isn't an option.
Meanwhile Grulnak is back to raiding, at least as much as real life allows. He now has two Valorous Worldbreaker pieces and one Conquorer's, so will get the four-piece bonus once I've saved up enough emblems for the helm. He's still not seen TotC, although I'm hoping to fix that once the raid schedule and mine find some common ground.
He's only sporting the heirloom shoulders - Conquest emblems are too valuable for me to trade down, and Grulnak is unlikely to ever get the Crusader title so the Seals route for the chest piece is out. With Cold Weather Flying, the heirloom shoulders and a change of scene and quests Northrend is looking pretty good for levelling at the moment.
I'd really like to get into some groups to see the Northrend instances from a dwarven perspective, so currently I'm trying out a Discipline "damage" build to give me both grinding and healing options. So far, so good.
I'm not at all sure how much he'll get into the end game though - it'd be nice to be able to heal heroics at least, but I can barely keep one character raid-geared to my satisfaction so two really isn't an option.
Meanwhile Grulnak is back to raiding, at least as much as real life allows. He now has two Valorous Worldbreaker pieces and one Conquorer's, so will get the four-piece bonus once I've saved up enough emblems for the helm. He's still not seen TotC, although I'm hoping to fix that once the raid schedule and mine find some common ground.
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