Synopsis
This is the message I wrote on my guild's forum.
It has been fun.
Hey guys. I sadly have to announce that raiding is no longer an option for me. Last week I had to unsign all raids because of my newly started job which at that point drained all my energy.
Looking to the future I see other stuff coming my way, next to my new full time work, and I have not the time to spend on raiding as is required. Sadly I don't get too much joy from raiding in WotLK as I once did. If that was the case I might have been able to get energy from raiding, though currently it is draining more from me then I can give with my new irl situation. So this is it for me.
Being here from day 1 I feel at home in TEF and if you would let me I'd like to stay in the guild as a social member, though I can understand if you don't.
Good luck in Ulduar and I bet you will be at least horde first in 3.2 as well!
So what does it mean for this blog? Well basically I won't be raiding. I will have no drive to do hard calculations on what talent is best for what and what a certain development means for the future of druids in raids. Nor will you will get any valuable information (for as much that was the case before) about raiding.
This blog will become a more casual blog. Next upcoming post will be about the bearforms and cat forms I just saw on PTR and how disappointed I am in them. I might join a few raids or instances but most of the time I see myself doing non-raiding and non-pvp (hate pvp) achievements. Not as much game achievements though personal achievements. Leveling my 4 alts to 80, gearing them a bit, grinding mobs for that one drop (which believe it or not I think is fun and is taken largely out of WotLK), playing casual and just for the fun.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Relax, take it easy
Damn I hate that song... rather the singer. Anyway. I am not playing much these days. Just started a new job. I feel relaxed about it, like it, knew I would like it, but getting into the rythm of getting up early and sunday to monday somehow only sleeping 1 hours has exhausted me a bit. I am not playing at the moment. The thought of anything else but sitting on the couch watching tv is exhausting enough. So I'll write a bit later I think.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Recent Comments
Check the left. New widget recent posts. Now I don't need to scroll anymore to check your comments!
Quick thanks to Andrew who you most likely know as Karthis who found this and implemented it in his own blog recently.
Got it here.
Quick thanks to Andrew who you most likely know as Karthis who found this and implemented it in his own blog recently.
Got it here.
Praat geen poep!
Synopsis
Sorry for the Dutch title. Translated it means "Don't talk shit". It is funny in Dutch because it is not usual word usage. The sentence in itself is a direct translation, word for word, from English to dutch.
Anyway it refers to Blizzard PTR patchnotes. It is talking shit.
What the hell does this mean: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
??? Any idea anyone?
I think it might refer to a system like items. An item has x points to spread. Some in agility, some in stamina etc. If I am correct it means that in case of mangle, mangle is reduced by 11%.
If so I did a bit of calculation.
Instead of 5.9k dps on General Vezax I would do about 5.5k. The value was really close to 5% dps loss. One thing though, this os on a fight where you can non stop use the boss as a target dummy. Other fights, like Yogg where you mangle more then Shred and Rip, you will see more dps lost.
Still only guessing. Tell me if someone at Blizzard grew some brains and tried to explain to us how the internal point value of abilities is used. Bogus patchnotes imo.
Here is the (Dutch) "song" by Dingetje. I think I was 10 at the time this was a "hit". Prolly 20 years ago.
Sorry for the Dutch title. Translated it means "Don't talk shit". It is funny in Dutch because it is not usual word usage. The sentence in itself is a direct translation, word for word, from English to dutch.
Anyway it refers to Blizzard PTR patchnotes. It is talking shit.
What the hell does this mean: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
??? Any idea anyone?
I think it might refer to a system like items. An item has x points to spread. Some in agility, some in stamina etc. If I am correct it means that in case of mangle, mangle is reduced by 11%.
If so I did a bit of calculation.
Instead of 5.9k dps on General Vezax I would do about 5.5k. The value was really close to 5% dps loss. One thing though, this os on a fight where you can non stop use the boss as a target dummy. Other fights, like Yogg where you mangle more then Shred and Rip, you will see more dps lost.
Still only guessing. Tell me if someone at Blizzard grew some brains and tried to explain to us how the internal point value of abilities is used. Bogus patchnotes imo.
Here is the (Dutch) "song" by Dingetje. I think I was 10 at the time this was a "hit". Prolly 20 years ago.
Quick balance update
Synopsis
Balance results.
Not raided yet, just been trying on a heroic target dummy. At the moment (only me) I have 2.9k dps on the dummy and non stop casting (no out of 5sr) I last about 7 minutes.
Is that ok? (Not using treants though)
Basically I spam wrath till eclipse, then starfire for the duration of eclipse. Then 3 or 4 more starfires (depending on when I have to refresh my dots), followed by wrath spam again.
I want one thing though, I want to see when eclipse is off cooldown. Meaning when I should stop starfire because I want the eclipse that is triggered by wrath, not the one triggered by starfire.
PS, on general vezax today I did 5.9k DPS and at some point was at 107% of the DK tank's threat :P We can use a bit of a nerf (patchnotes).
Balance results.
Not raided yet, just been trying on a heroic target dummy. At the moment (only me) I have 2.9k dps on the dummy and non stop casting (no out of 5sr) I last about 7 minutes.
Is that ok? (Not using treants though)
Basically I spam wrath till eclipse, then starfire for the duration of eclipse. Then 3 or 4 more starfires (depending on when I have to refresh my dots), followed by wrath spam again.
I want one thing though, I want to see when eclipse is off cooldown. Meaning when I should stop starfire because I want the eclipse that is triggered by wrath, not the one triggered by starfire.
PS, on general vezax today I did 5.9k DPS and at some point was at 107% of the DK tank's threat :P We can use a bit of a nerf (patchnotes).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I hope...
Synopsis
Apparently the bitching got through to Blizzard.
The current normal/heroic/hardmode shit is fucked and people hate it. Well at least some people. Well at least me (and Darksend).
This is what I found on my guild's forum. Posted by my guildmaster:
Quote:
"Blizzard is getting ready to put the next raids on PTR, they're going to be the Crusader's Coliseum and they'll have an interesting twist to them. For the first time, we'll now see Heroic 25 man raids and Normal 25 man raids. Massive LFG-confusion is sure to ensue, but this is the list:
10-man
10-man Heroic
25-man
25-man Heroic"
I hope this means no longer hardmode/normal mode. I hope there will be different loot tables for each as well! We will see t9.10n and t9.10h, t9.25n, t9.25h.
I hope, I hope... So now (I hope) when you kill hardmode 25 you will be looking not the same as every (possible) noob out there. This also means people can still experience the game content. I hardcore raiders will be a lot more satisfied.
He goes on; quote:
"The new system in the coliseum is interesting, in Heroic Modes you get rewarded based on how few tries you use to kill a certain boss. You only have X pulls every week, and the sooner you kill the boss the better/more rewards (loot too, I assume) you get."
This means that say there is a boss like Flame Leviathan is now in Ulduar. And say it is way too hard. You can't get past him. After 6 (?) tries or so he will be gone. You can move on to the next boss.
Also this means that any group of green wearing level 80 players can see every fight (for a short period before they die) in a week and get 0 loot, still having seen the end boss.
I think that is fair. Good Idea from Blizzard. Everyone can learn all the fights easy mode (normal). When you go hardmode (heroic), after having done it in easy mode it will not fuck up the loot you get in reference to gearing players. This means that the problem blizzard had before is solved.
Example: You are able to kill boss 1 in an instance every week, but boss 2 needs some work. There is 4 (?) loots every week. That sucks for gearing people. You need to farm the first few bosses for weeks before you are geared to take the last one.
People used to solve that by farming trash. Go into Sunwell, kill the first pack of trash, loot it, get out, reset, go in and kill trash again. Dropping a few recipes, a few things needed to craft stuff and maybe a trash epic.
Now you can still get upgrades by killing it on normal (easy) mode. Then you can try and get some loot from hardmodes.
This all leads me to conclude there are no hardmodes. There are still achievements, though no hardmodes. Trying for hardmodes will require "wipenights". Those are definitely gone. After x tries the boss is gone. So if loot is gonna drop 6 (?) items for a oneshot and 1 (?) on the last possible try this means the following; Doing hardmodes fucks you over! Hardmodes need a few things; skill and gear. If you decide to do hardmodes early on you will not get gear. Others who decide to do hardmodes in week 10 will get lots and lots of loot and then do the hardmode easy in said week 10, where the ones trying hardmode from the beginning get no gear.
I hope Blizzard has seen the light. Achievements in raids suck. Achievements to get 100 horsies is nice, but don't integrate them as a requirement into PVE.
I hope... I hope...
Remember, this is hearsay from PTR which is not even "live" on PTR yet. So all may change, but I think it will change for the better.... I hope
Apparently the bitching got through to Blizzard.
The current normal/heroic/hardmode shit is fucked and people hate it. Well at least some people. Well at least me (and Darksend).
This is what I found on my guild's forum. Posted by my guildmaster:
Quote:
"Blizzard is getting ready to put the next raids on PTR, they're going to be the Crusader's Coliseum and they'll have an interesting twist to them. For the first time, we'll now see Heroic 25 man raids and Normal 25 man raids. Massive LFG-confusion is sure to ensue, but this is the list:
10-man
10-man Heroic
25-man
25-man Heroic"
I hope this means no longer hardmode/normal mode. I hope there will be different loot tables for each as well! We will see t9.10n and t9.10h, t9.25n, t9.25h.
I hope, I hope... So now (I hope) when you kill hardmode 25 you will be looking not the same as every (possible) noob out there. This also means people can still experience the game content. I hardcore raiders will be a lot more satisfied.
He goes on; quote:
"The new system in the coliseum is interesting, in Heroic Modes you get rewarded based on how few tries you use to kill a certain boss. You only have X pulls every week, and the sooner you kill the boss the better/more rewards (loot too, I assume) you get."
This means that say there is a boss like Flame Leviathan is now in Ulduar. And say it is way too hard. You can't get past him. After 6 (?) tries or so he will be gone. You can move on to the next boss.
Also this means that any group of green wearing level 80 players can see every fight (for a short period before they die) in a week and get 0 loot, still having seen the end boss.
I think that is fair. Good Idea from Blizzard. Everyone can learn all the fights easy mode (normal). When you go hardmode (heroic), after having done it in easy mode it will not fuck up the loot you get in reference to gearing players. This means that the problem blizzard had before is solved.
Example: You are able to kill boss 1 in an instance every week, but boss 2 needs some work. There is 4 (?) loots every week. That sucks for gearing people. You need to farm the first few bosses for weeks before you are geared to take the last one.
People used to solve that by farming trash. Go into Sunwell, kill the first pack of trash, loot it, get out, reset, go in and kill trash again. Dropping a few recipes, a few things needed to craft stuff and maybe a trash epic.
Now you can still get upgrades by killing it on normal (easy) mode. Then you can try and get some loot from hardmodes.
This all leads me to conclude there are no hardmodes. There are still achievements, though no hardmodes. Trying for hardmodes will require "wipenights". Those are definitely gone. After x tries the boss is gone. So if loot is gonna drop 6 (?) items for a oneshot and 1 (?) on the last possible try this means the following; Doing hardmodes fucks you over! Hardmodes need a few things; skill and gear. If you decide to do hardmodes early on you will not get gear. Others who decide to do hardmodes in week 10 will get lots and lots of loot and then do the hardmode easy in said week 10, where the ones trying hardmode from the beginning get no gear.
I hope Blizzard has seen the light. Achievements in raids suck. Achievements to get 100 horsies is nice, but don't integrate them as a requirement into PVE.
I hope... I hope...
Remember, this is hearsay from PTR which is not even "live" on PTR yet. So all may change, but I think it will change for the better.... I hope
Balance coming up... I think?
Synopsis
A head's up of my Balance adventures.
Yesterday I realized how much I like to dps when standing still. I so hate those huge like mobs without a real defined hitbox. Most of all the arms of Kologarn. I never know where the fuck I am. I have to watch my messages to see why the fuck I am not hitting him. "You need to face your target". With large groups I have one selected, doing Berserk and wanna swipe. Well the mob is either somehow behind me or too far in front of me. How fucking annoying.
So since we have a huge wave of newbies we are doing a lot of bosses easy mode. Next Wednesday I will go Balance if they let me. Would mean a 1.5k dps reduction or so, but that should not be that much of a deal on 25 man easy mode.
My gear is pretty much ok. A lot of gear that was being disenchanted (nobody greeded) I got, and instead of disenchanting I kept the caster gear, swapped it for crappier caster gear I already had and then disenchanted the crappy thing. The guild still had the shards, and my gear is very nice!
Yesterday I spent some time (too much time) configuring my gear. Don't know how well Rawr is for balance, but I used it to see where I could get upgrades. So now I have my 3rd t8.5 helmet. Now when fully gemmed I am hitcapped (266 rating, which is 3 above the cap I am told), I have 409 haste, but not too much crit though. Though I still have to see where I am at when I have respecced. My spellpower, coming from gear alone (and maybe some random feral stat) is at 1820. So that should be close to 2k selfbuffed in the correct spec.
Not bad for off-offspec gear. No?
PS I really want to see triple spec (Meaning dual spec + 1 extra).
A head's up of my Balance adventures.
Yesterday I realized how much I like to dps when standing still. I so hate those huge like mobs without a real defined hitbox. Most of all the arms of Kologarn. I never know where the fuck I am. I have to watch my messages to see why the fuck I am not hitting him. "You need to face your target". With large groups I have one selected, doing Berserk and wanna swipe. Well the mob is either somehow behind me or too far in front of me. How fucking annoying.
So since we have a huge wave of newbies we are doing a lot of bosses easy mode. Next Wednesday I will go Balance if they let me. Would mean a 1.5k dps reduction or so, but that should not be that much of a deal on 25 man easy mode.
My gear is pretty much ok. A lot of gear that was being disenchanted (nobody greeded) I got, and instead of disenchanting I kept the caster gear, swapped it for crappier caster gear I already had and then disenchanted the crappy thing. The guild still had the shards, and my gear is very nice!
Yesterday I spent some time (too much time) configuring my gear. Don't know how well Rawr is for balance, but I used it to see where I could get upgrades. So now I have my 3rd t8.5 helmet. Now when fully gemmed I am hitcapped (266 rating, which is 3 above the cap I am told), I have 409 haste, but not too much crit though. Though I still have to see where I am at when I have respecced. My spellpower, coming from gear alone (and maybe some random feral stat) is at 1820. So that should be close to 2k selfbuffed in the correct spec.
Not bad for off-offspec gear. No?
PS I really want to see triple spec (Meaning dual spec + 1 extra).
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Game within a game
Synopsis
At the moment I never ever fly from point to point on my own. I always use flightpaths. I even go out of my way to find a flightpath to fly to the closest flightpath near my destination... why? Here is why.
It cost you a few flightpath gold but...
Curse Bejeweled link
My highscores are:
- Timed 580 (about)
- Normal 111k (about)
Also check out Peggle!
Curse Peggle link
Currently got 6 / 12 completely cleared.
At the moment I never ever fly from point to point on my own. I always use flightpaths. I even go out of my way to find a flightpath to fly to the closest flightpath near my destination... why? Here is why.
It cost you a few flightpath gold but...
Curse Bejeweled link
My highscores are:
- Timed 580 (about)
- Normal 111k (about)
Also check out Peggle!
Curse Peggle link
Currently got 6 / 12 completely cleared.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday night dailies - a story
Synopsis
How a DK can make your day.
Meet Drethen. I met him about an hour ago. As you can see he is fully epic and has 4 pieces of the Valarous set. If he would fight you at first you would think he would be able to at least do you some harm. No?
Well there I was, doing dailies. I was in Brunhildar village and I had to hit 6 lazy people over the head with a cane. Still doing that daily because I want the polar bear mount.
So I ran in there, hit 1, 2, 3 mobs. I never kill them. I just hit em, keep on running in catform and after I hit the last one I dash out of there. I don't bother killing them and they only get me down 3k health max or so.
After hitting mob nr 3 I ran past an ally. Didn't bother to check him. I suddenly noticed I had stopped running and had some ice chain thing around my ankles. I turned and saw him coming after me. I went bearform (which versus melee is the easiest to do I find, being in bear spec and gear already). So I started hitting him, swiping and in the process having 4 additional Vrykul on my ass.
To my surprise Drethen died really fast. He wasn't naked for as far as I could see. I don't know where his health went that fast, but it being Saturday night, I guess he was drunk :D
So he died. I swiped the Vrykul to death and was still at 80% of my health ^^. I laughed hard and then when he ressed next to me I decided to become a masochist. I was in cat, hit him a few times, 5CP Rip and then as he ran away I walked after him very slowly, making sure not to hit him, watching him die from the ticks.
I hid, killed him again. Then I went and finished my quest. On my way out I could not resist myself. I met him again, made sure I did a /laugh before I killed him and then went to turn in the quest.
What the hell was he thinking attacking a druid who was clearly wearing an Ulduar weapon... What the hell was he thinking. My lvl 70 hunter could have killed him.
This totally made my day.
If you ever read this Dreathen, thank you! ;)
How a DK can make your day.
Meet Drethen. I met him about an hour ago. As you can see he is fully epic and has 4 pieces of the Valarous set. If he would fight you at first you would think he would be able to at least do you some harm. No?
Well there I was, doing dailies. I was in Brunhildar village and I had to hit 6 lazy people over the head with a cane. Still doing that daily because I want the polar bear mount.
So I ran in there, hit 1, 2, 3 mobs. I never kill them. I just hit em, keep on running in catform and after I hit the last one I dash out of there. I don't bother killing them and they only get me down 3k health max or so.
After hitting mob nr 3 I ran past an ally. Didn't bother to check him. I suddenly noticed I had stopped running and had some ice chain thing around my ankles. I turned and saw him coming after me. I went bearform (which versus melee is the easiest to do I find, being in bear spec and gear already). So I started hitting him, swiping and in the process having 4 additional Vrykul on my ass.
To my surprise Drethen died really fast. He wasn't naked for as far as I could see. I don't know where his health went that fast, but it being Saturday night, I guess he was drunk :D
So he died. I swiped the Vrykul to death and was still at 80% of my health ^^. I laughed hard and then when he ressed next to me I decided to become a masochist. I was in cat, hit him a few times, 5CP Rip and then as he ran away I walked after him very slowly, making sure not to hit him, watching him die from the ticks.
I hid, killed him again. Then I went and finished my quest. On my way out I could not resist myself. I met him again, made sure I did a /laugh before I killed him and then went to turn in the quest.
What the hell was he thinking attacking a druid who was clearly wearing an Ulduar weapon... What the hell was he thinking. My lvl 70 hunter could have killed him.
This totally made my day.
If you ever read this Dreathen, thank you! ;)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Zildjar's lament
Synopsis
A byebye post to a guildy with whom I go back a long time. He accidentally (?) removed his forum rights so I was unable to say something to him.
A lot of players have stopped playing in my guild. Most of them I can't remember how I met them. I just know they are there and I know who they are. Not Zildjar though. I remember meeting him explicitly.
So most of you wonder who this Zildjar is.
Armory link
He's a rogue and I met him in Vanilla. He was leveling while I was leveling my druid. He followed kind of the same road as I did. I was a healer back then so the best way for me to level was doing instances. I met him a lot. He was always 1 or 2 levels higher then me. I wanted to overtake him and hit 60 before he did, but he didn't let me.
When I was about level 40 I was bored of leveling without guild, I remembered Zild's tabard. It was black and I liked that so I asked him if I could join. My intention was to have a leveling guild, rather then a raiding guild at that time, though I never had to change guilds to get my raiding hours. A simple whisper to the guildleader of Brotherhood of Thrall was enough to get an invite.
One day later we merged with Nordic Chapter, keeping their name. Together we raided and when blizzard released all HWL gear for honor grinders we were about to hit BWL but never entered because we could not get the people needed.
In TBC we were still casual and we were raiding Kara (4 bosses in or so). The name Nordic Chapter was not RP apparently (???) and instead of choosing a new name, without much warning the guild split.
Difficult time because there were 2 guilds formed. I had to choose between friends. Zild wasn't one I considered in that (though he choose the same guild), but eventually I choose The Esoteric Foundation. We were an RP guild (lol) but later went hardcore raiding climbing up from server position 50 to 5 within the remainder of TBC.
Zildjar was known by many things. Glaiveboy (having a warglaive) was one of the first. The later one; Zild-can't stay alive-jar, because he used to go all out on trash and tank them while he could not :D
Later he conspired with other members to divert that name to Grunee by constantly misdirecting to him :D.
Grunee, who also stopped raiding, is a whole different story all together. In short; he is a DPS warrior, who used to be MT in TBC and got famous for constantly falling off the platforms at the Al'ar fight resulting in a wipe.
Anyway Zildjar now stopped and I just wanted to thank him for all the countless hours we spent together and I wish him all the best in a wow-less life.
A byebye post to a guildy with whom I go back a long time. He accidentally (?) removed his forum rights so I was unable to say something to him.
A lot of players have stopped playing in my guild. Most of them I can't remember how I met them. I just know they are there and I know who they are. Not Zildjar though. I remember meeting him explicitly.
So most of you wonder who this Zildjar is.
Armory link
He's a rogue and I met him in Vanilla. He was leveling while I was leveling my druid. He followed kind of the same road as I did. I was a healer back then so the best way for me to level was doing instances. I met him a lot. He was always 1 or 2 levels higher then me. I wanted to overtake him and hit 60 before he did, but he didn't let me.
When I was about level 40 I was bored of leveling without guild, I remembered Zild's tabard. It was black and I liked that so I asked him if I could join. My intention was to have a leveling guild, rather then a raiding guild at that time, though I never had to change guilds to get my raiding hours. A simple whisper to the guildleader of Brotherhood of Thrall was enough to get an invite.
One day later we merged with Nordic Chapter, keeping their name. Together we raided and when blizzard released all HWL gear for honor grinders we were about to hit BWL but never entered because we could not get the people needed.
In TBC we were still casual and we were raiding Kara (4 bosses in or so). The name Nordic Chapter was not RP apparently (???) and instead of choosing a new name, without much warning the guild split.
Difficult time because there were 2 guilds formed. I had to choose between friends. Zild wasn't one I considered in that (though he choose the same guild), but eventually I choose The Esoteric Foundation. We were an RP guild (lol) but later went hardcore raiding climbing up from server position 50 to 5 within the remainder of TBC.
Zildjar was known by many things. Glaiveboy (having a warglaive) was one of the first. The later one; Zild-can't stay alive-jar, because he used to go all out on trash and tank them while he could not :D
Later he conspired with other members to divert that name to Grunee by constantly misdirecting to him :D.
Grunee, who also stopped raiding, is a whole different story all together. In short; he is a DPS warrior, who used to be MT in TBC and got famous for constantly falling off the platforms at the Al'ar fight resulting in a wipe.
Anyway Zildjar now stopped and I just wanted to thank him for all the countless hours we spent together and I wish him all the best in a wow-less life.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
10 man hardmodes
Synopsis
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
How Blizzard killed PVE
Synopsis
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
How nelf cats should really look
Synopsys
Someone made this;
Quote: "I'm a little underwhelmed by the new elf cat models. I don't think they truly capture the essence of the Night Elf race so I went ahead and made a few improvements. I think you can see this is the right direction."
Someone made this;
Quote: "I'm a little underwhelmed by the new elf cat models. I don't think they truly capture the essence of the Night Elf race so I went ahead and made a few improvements. I think you can see this is the right direction."
Friday, June 5, 2009
Blizzard finally agrees. Allieds suck!
Synopsis
New catform lol.
Sorry to all you nightelves out there. About half of you play nightelves. Being Tauren I naturally hate allies for how pathetic they are when they have to kill me on an escort quest, fishing or whatever. I am sure a lot of you on pvp realms think the same about horde, though I am pretty sure a lot of kids play more allied and are more childish the horde. Though you nightelves think the same about horde ;)
[don't take this comment serious]
Anyway, WoW will be a lot more funny when 3.2 comes. I will laugh being ganked by a feral druid. My first reaction when I saw your catforms: "WHAHA! Your cats look gay!" (no offense to gay people).
Now still when I look at your catforms I am laughing my fat cow ass off. Putting a picture here just for the fun. Haha you are so hard screwed with these forms. If I were you I would petition blizzard not to change nelf druid form at all. I would prefer the old one over the new ones.
*snicker*
Oh forget snicker.... MOEWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA
Seriously though, I pitty you... WHAHAHAH
New catform lol.
Sorry to all you nightelves out there. About half of you play nightelves. Being Tauren I naturally hate allies for how pathetic they are when they have to kill me on an escort quest, fishing or whatever. I am sure a lot of you on pvp realms think the same about horde, though I am pretty sure a lot of kids play more allied and are more childish the horde. Though you nightelves think the same about horde ;)
[don't take this comment serious]
Anyway, WoW will be a lot more funny when 3.2 comes. I will laugh being ganked by a feral druid. My first reaction when I saw your catforms: "WHAHA! Your cats look gay!" (no offense to gay people).
Now still when I look at your catforms I am laughing my fat cow ass off. Putting a picture here just for the fun. Haha you are so hard screwed with these forms. If I were you I would petition blizzard not to change nelf druid form at all. I would prefer the old one over the new ones.
*snicker*
Oh forget snicker.... MOEWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA
Seriously though, I pitty you... WHAHAHAH
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Jerks are unfriendly...
Synopsis
Elitist jerks. I hope those people never have to review my tax return.
I used to be active on Elitist jerks. I don't like the guys.
I used one abbreviation and a misspell in the first post. I got flamed by a moderator for 3 things I had written wrong. Infraction. Although they guy admitted that on of those reasons was not valid and was his own stupidity I still got the infraction.
I was then pretty new to all druid mechanics. So some "stupid" post I made, of something I was unaware gave me an infraction.
I find that harsh. But ok, I get it.
Also being friendly doesn't get you much there.
Got an other for wanting to post a question. I went to the forum and thought I had to respond to someone else first. I could have ignored him, but I had some good advise for him (for which he thanked me in a personal message). I forgot what my own question was about so I left the forum. Later I remembered it and asked it. It was not one line and something completely different then my response. So I made a new post. WARNING WRONG WARNING! Double posting. Infraction.
Some more crappy things that I disagree with they gave me an infraction for.
Now today someone asked a pretty basic question in the simple questions section. If he had searched harder on the forum he would have found the answer. But since it was simple questions I gave him a response. So I got another infraction.
3 simple rules I learned from this.
1: Don't be nice;
2: Stay away from anyone who calls himself elitist;
3: Start your own blog and write any crap you WTFPWNED LOLOLOL you want to write yourself.
PS I know a lot of you are on there as well and I most likely agree with you and understand that there is a need to keep it strict, but to lack common sense is something else.
Elitist jerks. I hope those people never have to review my tax return.
I used to be active on Elitist jerks. I don't like the guys.
I used one abbreviation and a misspell in the first post. I got flamed by a moderator for 3 things I had written wrong. Infraction. Although they guy admitted that on of those reasons was not valid and was his own stupidity I still got the infraction.
I was then pretty new to all druid mechanics. So some "stupid" post I made, of something I was unaware gave me an infraction.
I find that harsh. But ok, I get it.
Also being friendly doesn't get you much there.
Got an other for wanting to post a question. I went to the forum and thought I had to respond to someone else first. I could have ignored him, but I had some good advise for him (for which he thanked me in a personal message). I forgot what my own question was about so I left the forum. Later I remembered it and asked it. It was not one line and something completely different then my response. So I made a new post. WARNING WRONG WARNING! Double posting. Infraction.
Some more crappy things that I disagree with they gave me an infraction for.
Now today someone asked a pretty basic question in the simple questions section. If he had searched harder on the forum he would have found the answer. But since it was simple questions I gave him a response. So I got another infraction.
3 simple rules I learned from this.
1: Don't be nice;
2: Stay away from anyone who calls himself elitist;
3: Start your own blog and write any crap you WTFPWNED LOLOLOL you want to write yourself.
PS I know a lot of you are on there as well and I most likely agree with you and understand that there is a need to keep it strict, but to lack common sense is something else.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Catforms
Just saying one thing, I have been playing with a pacman quality figure all this time compared to the new forms.
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