The Honesty Clause

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

Christmas and New Year’s, like summer, is a time when WoW slows down and your raiding will most likely be suspended for a couple of weeks, I know ours were. The key to a successful holiday period is planning and communication – from both the officers and guild members.

Both of the guilds that I’m a part of are starting to come to life again after the holidays, but are finding themselves staggering a bit as they’re trying to get back to full speed. Some members are noticeably absent even two weeks into the new year. A fair few are admittedly playing SW:ToR, some are claiming “family emergencies”, some are saying nothing at all.

What I would like to ask of anyone who plays a game together with other people who depend on them for completing tasks such as raiding is this; be honest. If you’re going to be playing another game, just say so. If you just want a break, say so. If you’re quitting, say so.

There will be no hard feelings, I just want to know so that I can know whether to start recruitment to replace you – or if you’ll be back next week. Not knowing what is going on puts your guild and guild mates in a bit of a bad situation. No one wants to over-recruit and then suddenly have an influx of people returning, and having to bench half a raid each night.

I discussed this with a fellow guild leader (from another guild) the other day, and they said that they had a fair number of people who claimed “family emergency” since SW:ToR came out. Usually of course you can’t know, and it may be completely honest, but in at least one case they knew for a fact it wasn’t true. The reason a lot of people will use the “family emergency”-excuse is because they don’t want to lose their raid spot in case they decide they didn’t like that other game and come back. No one will ever fault you for leaving due to “family emergency”.

(Obviously I’m not saying that no one has a legitimate “family emergency”, just that in this particular case there was a very large number happening at the same time SW:ToR was released.)

All I ask is for a bit of honesty. If not for me, then for the other 9 or 24 people that you play with. It’s completely all right for you to want to check out another game, but don’t keep everyone else on hold and possibly having to cancel raids while they’re waiting for you to make up your mind. They have to be allowed to move on, get a replacement, and keep raiding.

Have anyone else noticed a loss of people since SW:ToR or people just not coming back after the holiday season? How do you deal with it?

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Posted in Guild, Random Ramblings | 12 Comments

15 Days of Screenshots (Day 10)

Posted on January 10, 2012 by

This is the tenth post in a series according to the 15 Days of Screenshots challenge issued by Saz over at World of Saz.

Day Ten: Your WoW Crew

Who are the people you hang out with day in and day out? Do you only hang out with your raid mates? Do you have a small, tight knit group of friends that you hang out with? Or are you a strange longer who just hangs out with your pets?

My time in WoW is spent in all sorts of ways. I do spend quite a bit of it on my own either queuing for instances, trying the Looking for Raid, leveling or doing something else. That said, I like doing things together as well, and prefer to do so when it’s possible.

There is of course my raiding crew with whom I raid regularly. Some of them I also do Heroics and other things with, or level alts. You name it.

 

Mah Crewh!

 

Let’s not forget my good friend and Guild Master – who loves gnomes a little too much.

Hands off that gnome!

 

Then there’s my lovely friend Kimzowy who lets me join her guild’s raids sometimes on my Paladin.

You lookin' at me, frog?

I hang out and chat with more people of course, but these are the ones I talk to/play with on a daily basis.

What about your crew?

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It’s a new year (again!)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by

And so another year has begun, filled with expectations and the possibility of starting over – or continuing. For me, the year started with a horrible cold, but I’m finally better and hoping not to get another one for a while (I’ve now had two really bad ones within six weeks of one another).

I hope that the new year has started well for everyone else. For me raids were cancelled during the holiday season, which was probably good since I didn’t get much play time in anyway. I’m starting to get back into the swing of things though, and I’m going to try and get back into the blog as well.

To start the new year off, let’s look at what I’ve been doing since I got back online earlier this week.

Finally!

Yes! It only took forever...

Okay, admittedly this happened before Christmas, but I think I forgot to gloat tell you about it. I’m so happy it finally dropped I just felt I had to put it in here. And yes, I needed a headline just for this. I really did.

Project Ten

You might remember my little project of having one of every class at level 85? It’s taken me a long time, but I finally finished it today when my Rogue hit the desired level. I now have one of each and I have to decide what the next step will be. Oh, I already did – it’s to get them all to a decent gear level (I’m thinking around level 378, which should be easy with the new Heroics), before the next expansion. I suspect we’ll have plenty of time, so shouldn’t be hard.

 

Done!

 

 

Achievements and Goals

I’ve also been a bit bored, so I did some silly achievements on my Warlock. I started working on Salty, but the fishing competitions scare me. Also, I realised I can’t possibly finish it until Summer Bass becomes available again in March anyway. So instead I’m going to work on some other ones.

 

Money splurging...

I want to get some of the mounts and pets that I’m still missing. I’m considering getting Loremaster, but it depends on if I can find the energy to start over since I hadn’t completed Azeroth before Cataclysm and it all reset to 0. I did however get another achievement I wanted.

The Seeker. That's me. And Harry Potter...

So in short, my plans for this year (or until the next expansion) is:
- Get all characters to a decent gear level
- Get missing mounts from Argent Tournament on Warlock
- Get missing pets from various places on Warlock
- Get missing achievements for Warlock
- Consider doing Loremaster (and probably decide against it)

Now I need to decide on specs for the classes that I have to gear up. And do my Argent Tournament dailies… for the next 60 days or so…

I wish you all the best for 2012! What are your plans?


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Posted in My Adventures/Characters, Random Ramblings | 10 Comments

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2011 by

Merry Christmas everyone. I’ll be away until after New Year’s visiting family – see you all in 2012!

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Posted in Random Ramblings | 5 Comments

Transmogrifun?

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

When patch 4.3 hit, it also meant that transmogrification entered the game. Admittedly I’ve not been doing lots of research and farmed lots of gear for my characters – in part because I’m simply too lazy to do so. However, I still think it’s a fun feature, and I intend to keep updating my characters as I find new things.

This is the state of my characters so far.

Warlock

My Warlock had all of her old tier pieces, so I simply went with my favourite one; the Tier 5 – Corruptor’s set. I wanted a nice scythe to go with it, but sadly I don’t have the one from the Midsummer boss, so I’m currently running around with from the low level Warlock quest – Staff of Justified Sins.

 

Priest

Since I’ve played my Priest sporadically ever since I rolled her in Vanilla she has a little bit of everything, but not a full set of anything. So I put together what I could, including the Priest shoulders I like most.

Head: Vengeful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Hood
Shoulder: Mantle of Absolution
Chest: Merciless Gladiator’s Mooncloth Robe
Hands: Brutal Gladiator’s Mooncloth Gloves
Weapon: Engraved Gargoyle Femur

Death Knight

I’m having a love affair with my dps Death Knight at the moment, but because she’s not an overly old character she doesn’t have a whole lot of gear lying around. So, she’s actually simply wearing the DK set that you get as you complete their starting zone. Although I don’t like the style of boots they used then, so she has the look of the Woe Breeder’s Boots instead.

She only has one sword so far, I’m hoping for a second one soon. Then she will have two looking like this instead of just one. (Red Sword of Courage)

 

Paladin

Again, this character isn’t very old and doesn’t have a lot of stuff lying around. I actually really enjoy the T12 for Paladins, so for her Holy set that’s what she has. For her retribution set I just picked some pieces for fun. I swear she is the Blood Elf with the worst fashion sense in Orgimmar. I’m still looking for some better matching pieces, for now she’s wearing the drops from the new Heroics for gloves and boots.

Retribution Set
Shoulder: Heaving Plates of Protection
Chest: Imbued Plate Armor
Legs: Boulderfist Legplates

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Posted in My Adventures/Characters, Random Ramblings | 7 Comments

15 Days of Screenshots (Day 9)

Posted on December 19, 2011 by

This is the ninth post in a series according to the 15 Days of Screenshots challenge issued by Saz over at World of Saz.

Day Nine: Your Character’s Hometown

We all have the same starting zones where we begin our various quests, but where does your character actually hail from?

Despite not being a role-player my Warlock has her own story and background. There are specific reasons why she became a Warlock specifically (all tying back to the original description of them being Mages who ended up going “too far” in their quest for more power).

I once wrote her background story, and I started another story of her as she is currently, where I had planned to work the background into it – but in the end I’ve not managed to finish it. Sometimes I think about putting her background story up here, but since I’m not a role-player I’m not sure that makes a whole lot of sense.

So, her hometown? I have a very specific image in mind of what her house looked like where she grew up, but I can’t find that in game, so for the sake of this challenge, let’s simply say that being a human her hometown is quite simply Stormwind. It’s more likely she lived on an estate outside of the Stormwind gates, but there are none in the game and Stormwind is a beautiful city.

Where would you say that your character hails from originally?

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The Spirit of Giving?

Posted on December 9, 2011 by

First off, I’m going to admit straight away that this post is me whinging and whining. Some might think it’s a silly thing to be annoyed about, but I can’t help it.

I was really excited a few days ago when I saw that they were offering WoW and expansions for $5, $10 and $20. One of my little brothers has been saying he wants to start playing, and I have a friend who wants to come back to the game and needs Cataclysm. With Christmas coming up, this seemed perfect.

US Store Promo

I checked the EU store to see if there were similar offers. There weren’t. I figured that they might come later. Because another year I remember they had the offer both for EU and US with the same 5, 10, 15/20 charges only in Euros instead of dollars.

Today I got an e-mail saying that the EU Store had the games on sale. Imagine my chagrin though when I saw the prices.

EU Store Promo

To put this into perspective for those who may not fully know the Euro to US Dollars conversion rate, I’ve run these numbers quickly through a currency converter.

WoW Battle Chest
US: $5
EU: €9.99 = $13.35

Wrath of the Lich King
US: $10
EU: €24.99 = $33.40

Cataclysm
US: $20
EU: €24.99 = $33.40

The one that is most similar in price is Cataclysm, but that’s still more than 10 bucks more than in the US. The Battle Chest is more than double! The WotLK is three times the price!

I just don’t understand why the difference is so big. Especially considering that last time the prices were more or less equal on both sites. If I was to buy my brother the Battle Chest + Wrath it’d be almost $50 in the EU compared to $15 in the US. That’s not a small difference.

So yes, please excuse me for complaining, but this is something that really bothers me. Maybe because I have less money this holiday period than ever, but it also doesn’t seem very fair for the fans on the EU side to have to be paying so much more than those in the US.

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Posted in Random Ramblings | 10 Comments

4.3 – A Week Later

Posted on December 7, 2011 by

It’s been a week today since the 4.3 patch went live on EU realms, and I will admit that I’ve quite been enjoying myself. That being said, I haven’t even had time to visit the Darkmoon Faire or try the Looking for Raid feature.

So, what have I been doing?

I’ve been running the new Heroics over and over again. I got my Warlock Valor capped, and after that I spent a lot of time gearing up a couple of alts. My Death Knight now finally has the gear to try the LFR, and my Mage is one ilevel short. Hopefully in the next few days the Mage will finally get that final illusive ilevel.

I’ve also been prospecting a lot of stocked up ore in the hopes of finding Inferno Rubies to cut and make a nice profit. I know a lot of people who are a lot better at the AH game than I am (so, just about everyone) made a whole lot of money this past week. I made 50k, which is good for me. I’ve never made 50k in a single week before.

The New Heroics

As I was saying, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the new Heroics. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that for the most part it’s gone rather well. There’s no wiping for ages like there was in ZA/ZG in random groups. Sure, there might be a wipe here or there, but for the most part the runs are smooth.

A few things that are bothering me though when running these dungeons.

Arguing

Is it just me or are people more rude than usual? There seems to be an awful lot of name calling and being rude. There’s always been a lot of “you’re a noob, l2p” talk in dungeons, but these new ones seem to have brought about all of these people at once. Maybe it’s because everyone’s come out of hiding to do these new instances, I don’t know – but it gets tiring to listen to even if not directed at you.

I even had a dungeon where a friend and I queued up as dps, so we waited the required 15 minutes to get in. We got End Time and the first boss was Echo of Tyrande. While running between the moonlight patches the healer kept going outside of it and aggroing mobs. The tank didn’t bother taunting them and eventually the healer died.

The tank started whining that he was a bad healer and we shouldn’t even resurrect him. The healer whined that the tank was a bad tank for not taunting and should leave. They kept this going for a very long time. My friend and I, and a third dps just tried to tell them to leave it and keep going. But no, we stood there in front of Tyrande and did nothing.

Eventually my friend and I gave up and left the group, not having killed a single boss. We ended up spending another 15 minutes in a queue.

A lot of runs seem to have people squabbling about who’s a bad player, who’s not healing well enough or not tanking well enough. Am I the only one who just want to get the bosses dead and not spend my time arguing?

Free for All

I’ve talked about this before, and I realise it’s not going to change – but I get really annoyed when people need on every piece of loot they can use. If you’re queued as a dps, let the tank get the tank items first – if he doesn’t need them, they’re all yours. Same goes for tanks and healers, don’t need dps loot if the dps do!

My worst example of this was a tank who needed on tank gear, dps gear and healing gear. The worst part was that I was really hoping for some tank pieces for my DK’s off-spec. Now, I’ll never take something over the tank, but it turned out that the tank didn’t even need the tank pieces he needed on, because after winning it he stood there and disenchanted it in front of me!

I feel a bit bad about one instance where I’d have enough and I took a dps piece on my Holy Paladin. Admittedly, I still feel I was in the right at that point although I’m sure some might disagree with me. The dps shoulders dropped and both the tank and I needed them. Since they’re dps I figured they’re off-spec for both of us and we have equal rights to them. The tank disagreed because he felt he had really bad tank shoulders and wanted to use these for tanking.

When I won them he didn’t say anything, he just opened a trade window. I asked why, since I figured they were off-spec for both of us, and that’s when he said he wanted to use them for tanking. I told him that he really should get the tank shoulders (there’s a good pair from these same instances), but he said that “upgrade is an upgrade”. This is where I disagree. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t tank in dps shoulders. Not to mention that you can grab those as your “upgrade”, and then the tank ones will drop and you’ll replace them. While they’re actually a legitimate upgrade for my dps spec and I won’t be replacing them any time soon.

Let’s be fair, those dps shoulders may have had some more stamina, but not a single tanking stat. Please tanks, don’t tank wearing those shoulders.

(I’ll be honest though, had he been polite and asked for them I probably would have given them to him. Manners will get you a long way!)

The Winner of…

The Winner of the Most Wipes contest is definitely the Echo of Baine in End Time. I don’t know why, but this seems to be where I wipe the most. A lot of the people I meet in there don’t seem to know that they can pick up and toss the totem back at him for increased damage. It makes the fight so much easier when you do that. So much. Really.

Raiding

Our raiding is going a little so-so at the moment. We don’t have a stable raiding team because we unfortunately have people who are working nights a lot. Nothing much to do about if of course and they can’t help it, but it does make for some frustrating raid nights.

This reset is looking horrible to be fair. I suspect we will only get one raid night in, and even then we’re stretching it with people who don’t raid regularly and/or are social members. While I very much appreciate that everyone makes the effort and joins our raids even if they’re not a regular raid member, I just kind of wish we had a stable team. For progression it’s always best to have a somewhat stable team to go in and learn the fights.

We make do though, and we do alright. Even if this week progression might be slow with only one raid night. Hopefully we can make up for it next week.

My friend‘s guild got one boss further than we did this week. I didn’t get to join the raid on my Paladin since they had plenty of people after the reset. While I fully understand not getting a spot (because it’s my alt and their main members should have priority), I still missed not being there and seeing the bosses from the healing perspective. It’s something I’ve quite enjoyed these past two tiers of the game – seeing the fights from different perspectives.

On a final note… Night Elf Warlock just looks so wrong.

W.R.O.N.G.

How are you enjoying the patch so far?

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Posted in Random Ramblings | 6 Comments

15 Days of Screenshots (Day 8)

Posted on December 1, 2011 by

This is the eight post in a series according to the 15 Days of Screenshots challenge issued by Saz over at World of Saz.

Day Eight: Vacation Spot

If Azeroth was the real world, where would you vacation to?

I think there are many beautiful areas of Azeroth where one might want to vacation to. There are bustling cities, wilderness, deserts and highlands. Anything you might want for your vacation is readily available. I guess you could even go skiing in Storm Peaks should you want to!

For me, right now, I feel that what I want most is a stress-free holiday where I can do nothing but swim, sip drinks and enjoy the sun. Somewhere secluded, but near enough to get the amenities I may need.

Something like this seems good.

Where would you vacation to?

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Warlock Changes in 4.3

Posted on November 29, 2011 by

Patch 4.3 hits today in the US and tomorrow in the EU, so let’s have a look at the changes that are coming to Warlocks.

General

Shadowbolt has a new spell effect.

I didn’t dislike the old spell effect, but the new one looks pretty cool. I don’t have a movie editing program, so I couldn’t do any recording myself, but if anyone wants to see it before they get the patch themselves, I found a video here.

Soul Fire now scales with 72.6% of spell power, up from 62.5%.

I hope that this will make Soul Fire feel more like the hard-hitting spell I imagine it was always meant to be. It’s not a huge boost, but 10% should at least do something.

The Voidwalker ability Suffering now works like the hunter pet talent Taunt.

I’ll admit, this confuses me a little. It’s a simple taunt, I don’t quite understand the change made to this. I thought it already worked the same way? Edit: I realised that even though the tooltip isn’t updated the change is to the part that says that it will have no effect if the mob is already attacking the Voidwalker. So basically it should now properly be able to hold threat by taunting every cooldown. (If you’re wanting lots of threat though, I suggest popping Demon Soul and throwing out some Searing Pains.)

Fixed a bug that caused Doomguard and Infernal to benefit dramatically more than intended from Demonology Mastery.

This is a well-known bug that basically made your Doomguard and Infernal double-dip for their damage increase, making them do a lot more damage than intended for Demonology Warlocks. Not to worry though, Demonology was buffed in other ways and according to Sims is still a very high damage dealing spec.

Demonology

Master Demonologist now grants a base bonus of 20%18.4% and 2.5%2.3% per mastery, up from 16% and 2% per mastery.

I suspect this is to make up for them “fixing” the Doomguard and Infernal.

Impending Doom is now also activated by Soul Fire.

This is a good change, since below 25% you will be casting a lot of Soul Fires as a Demonology Warlock!

Destruction

All of these changes are made in an attempt to bring Destruction’s damage up. This spec has been falling behind in Cataclysm, and except for some utility on some fights there were times when it felt completely useless compared to the others. Simply because you couldn’t keep up on the dps. Looking at PTR data and Simcraft it does seem that the changes are working and Destruction is now on par with Affliction for single and duo-target fights.

Improved Soul Fire now lasts 20 sec, up from 15sec.

This is a welcome change. Improved Soul Fire is a rather clunky mechanic, and while this may not “fix” it per se, it might at least make it a bit easier to deal with when you have 5 more seconds. That’s 5 seconds more of hoping for a proc for an instant Soul Fire, so we won’t have to hardcast it.

Some Other Changes

While Warlock changes are of course the most interesting, I just wanted to highlight a few other ones as well. And of course, let’s not forget that there is a new raid instance, three new Heroics and the new Darkmoon Faire Island (and it’s time for Darkmoon Faire this weekend!).

  • You will no longer be saved to a Heroic dungeon that you did in the Dungeon Finder. This means that you can still queue for it specifically with friends later in the day even if you got it through the Dungeon Finder earlier in the day.
  • You now only have to kill 2 (you can choose yourself) bosses in both Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub before you can fight the final boss. (This will be nice for those groups that just don’t seem to understand the basic things like… not walking across green lines on the snake boss!)
  • Lots of things that previously just showed up on the World Map will now show up on the Mini Map as well. Things such as Archaeology spots, Quest tracking areas etc.
  • Improved quest flow in Northrend and Outland. Quest givers have been moved into instances for most of the dungeon quests. Northrend has had it’s required experience to level through it reduced by approximately 33%. (Finally! Maybe now I can level that Rogue.)

I’ve also updated the Destruction Warlock Guide for 4.3. There aren’t really any changes to rotation or anything, just the buffs to the spells already used.

What are you most excited about in the patch?

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Posted in News, Warlock | 2 Comments