Third look at Blackwing Lair

I recently unearthed some old screenshots including one from November 2006 of my original priest at Razorgore. I'm guessing we didn't get very far as I don't remember that raid, before seeing the screenshot I'd thought I'd only been there at a higher level (70 or 80?) such that the fights were trivialised.

Fair to say that, even with our current better understanding of gearing and a decent raiding guild, BWL is far from trivial in Classic and rather harder than my guild was anticipating.

On our first visit last night we downed Razorgore and Vaelastrasz at the cost of 7 and 4 wipes respectively. Given the time spent on Razorgore it was quite late, so we called it a night at that point.

I'm glad to see that the new raid will present us a challenge, and it's great to be involved in some guild first kills, as frustrating as the wipes were at times.

Purples make it better

Actually that headline is unfair on both me and my guild...

Last night in Molten Core the Staff of Dominance dropped. My guild runs an odd system partly of free rolls and partly of a sort of loot council. In the past I've been on the wrong side of the latter, with items being restricted to certain key raiders or to warlocks or mages - this seemed fair enough since they would put the item to good use, but there was the worry of how that would restrict me. However last night it was decided that the staff should go to me.

A big part of that was that many of the mages have the mageblade or other good loot, or are keeping their powder dry for the next time that drops, but also there was recognition that I'm now part of the main team. I also had support from "my" mages that appreciate their extra crit.

So while the purple is a physical (virtual?) representation of it, what really makes it worthwhile is that I'm seen as an asset to, and not a drag on, our raid team.

Historic ambition achieved

In last week's Molten Core run I picked up two more pieces (the gloves and chest) of the Cenarion Raiment, and so have nearly a full set. I'm just missing the bracers - which I could get from the Auction House - and the helm, which doesn't seem a big deal since I already have the Stormrage Cover.

Recently I found some old screenshots from 2006 which included a Tauren shaman from one of the top raiding guilds on my server in full Earthfury. This was something I aspired to but without wanting to go through what I then saw as the niche path of the hardcore raider. And now I've pretty much assembled a set of my own from the discards of my guild, in quite a short time.

I'm lucky in a couple of ways, one in that I randomly joined what would once have been seen as a top raiding guild (but is actually fairly relaxed and casual*), and also that we run with few druids and that I'm one of them. Typically we have a druid of each spec, and it so happens that our feral druid used to be resto and so has little use for the healing drops.

* A caveat to the casual - last week our raid leader decided we should speed up from our previous 2 hour clear, aiming for an hour and a half, which we duly did. It was messier than usual with noticeably more deaths, but pretty much always in control. So perhaps we're not that casual, but are miles away from the stresses and constraints you'd expect in a "hardcore" guild.

That said I am feeling a bit constrained by my raiding spec, or perhaps looking at it differently my lack of the gold needed to respec frequently. Long term I think I'd like a bear-focused Heart of the Wild / Nature's Swiftness spec due to its great versatility and grouping potential. But for now, with Blackwing Lair on the horizon, I'll stick with where I am.

Alt time?

Last Tuesday my resolve finally broke and I created a new alt, a rogue. After debating between a hunter or warlock as a solo artist, and a rogue or mage as classes I've not properly levelled before (paladins didn't merit consideration, sorry) I settled on the rogue as a chance to experience the proper stealth class. However thoughts of the long road ahead drained my interest and so he's now sat at the inn in Kharanos.

Instead some YouTube videos and a respec have renewed my enthusiasm for my druid. I hesitated for the longest time before committing the gold but with my fast mount so far off the more immediate gratification seemed the right course and so it has proved so far.

My 0/30/21 spec has far more utility in Warsong Gulch, thanks in no small part to Feral Charge and Nature's Swiftness, and I can either tank or heal in dungeons. My return to tanking was in the living side of Stratholme with a guild group (which was probably not a wise choice of dungeon), but a run through the undead side last night with another guild group was much smoother, marred only by poor handling of the guards just before Baron Rivendare.

I also managed to farm myself a pair of Atal'ai Spaulders of Defense. I'll probably go back for a set of the Monkey or Stamina at some point, but those are nice enough for now.

I'll respec back to moonkin for our raid on Thursday but I can see myself respeccing every couple of weeks. Being able to take advantage of a druid's versatility really does seem worth the gold.

How will we fare in Blackwing Lair?

I'm not sure how the world would categorise my guild - perhaps semi-casual? We raid one or two nights a week with a fairly stable core of raiders and a rotating cast of the rest - perhaps those who cannot or don't want to raid every week, experienced raiders on alts and relatively newer raiders. We're slowly improving our performance on a good base: for the last two weeks we've cleared Molten Core in under two hours and for the last three have killed Ragnaros before he submerged.

Last night there was discussion on Discord of how we'll do when Blackwing Lair is released. The tone was fairly confident, perhaps overly so.

I'm really looking forward to being in on some guild first kills, and happy to work through the wipes that will inevitably be part of some of them. It will interesting to see how things pan out - I hope that the "new" raid gives us a good level of challenge.

Moonkin problems

I'm struggling a bit with my moonkin spec at the moment. Outside of guild groups I'm sometimes not wanted as a damage dealer, and while I can heal I rarely want to offer myself as a healer since my spec's not really ideal for that.

Inevitably there are stronger and weaker classes for different roles, and I feel it's fair that druids and others should pay the "hybrid tax". It's hard to argue with the general theme of rankings such as those on Icy Veins - if you're looking for a damage dealer you'd really like a mage, if a healer a priest, if a tank then a warrior.

It's also frustrating. If I was wanting to play as a shaman tank (something I've done out of necessity in the past) then it would be fair enough for a lot of groups to not be interested - it's their time as well. But moonkins aren't such bad damage dealers that you'd avoid them, anymore than you'd avoid a shadow priest.

Contrarily, the struggle has motivated me to look harder at my gear and consumable options and see how I can maximise my damage. It seems that I'm valued in our raid. As much as the received wisdom seems to be that the moonkin buff isn't worthwhile and it's better to bring another, "proper", damage dealer, this doesn't seem right to me. For one thing it's not just any four mages that I'm buffing, it's the four best mages in the raid, so the buff is disproportionate, and for another while my damage is low there are fights where I'm competitive with the lower performing "proper" damage dealers.

For now I can live with the problems.

It isn't 2005 anymore

WoW Classic may be pretty much the same game that we were playing 15 years ago, but no one I've met seems to be playing it the same way. For one thing many blue items dropping in end-game dungeons are looked on with disdain - the class "tier 0" set items are a collectable curiosity, but with a few exceptions you wouldn't expect to see these actually in use. It used to be that if a warrior tank didn't use a shield at all times then they didn't know what they were doing, while now furyprot is a thing. And so on.

The things that seem to have changed are information and attitude. Websites like Elitist Jerks and now Icy Veins have made it commonplace to know what gear is best for your class and role, and players now seek this out. I imagine that the game's designers didn't really know what was a good and what was a great item, and I'm sure they expected players in Upper Blackrock Spire to think "oh, that's interesting, Jed Runewatcher is here" (or not know that was unusual), not to have members of a group reset the instance until they found one where he'd spawned.

Or maybe the old distinction between hardcore / raiders and casuals meant that this behaviour was there, but 15 years ago I was never aware of it.

Either way, much seems to have changed.