I'm a Travelling Man, and I Quest in a Lot of Spots

Now that I finally remembered to bring in my screen caps, I can continue with my rambling, all over the place post...


Yeah, I've been going back and doing some questing. Remember how I mentioned I was doing some stuff related to cooking? Well, there are a number of results of my doing so. First was getting the "Into the Basin" achievement. I got it by finishing all the Nessingwary quests. You know, the ones where you run all over the place, "hunting" 60+ game animals. (and if you were like me, and didn't get all the related quests at once, the number climbs to well over 100)

The good news is that Katt & I now have a good supply of Rhino Meat and Chilled Meat.

And I got another achievement in the process:

OK, so... WHAT am I trying to get?

Well, the one above is what you get for completing part 2 of the achievement: getting 30 of the listed. My *intent is to get the full achi for getting (and making) all 45 recipies.

After much running around, and spending a few more Dalaran Cooking awards (most of my running was to complete the quest chain for Kungaloosh) I now only need one more recipe:

Freaking Haunted Herring.

Ugh. It's a rare drop, mainly from various Northrend bosses. Yuck. It wasn't on the AH, and it may not even be BoE, so this will be a bot of a challenge...

Lastly, I went on a LFG Random with one of our guildies... we ended up in HoS. I actually like that instance, because there are these easy to kill crystal looking mobs that are certain to make my ePeen swell:

Yeah, that's me hitting 10k DPS. Sadly, I didn't hit screen cap fast enough, because when more of them were alive, it peaked at roughly 13k, then dropped rapidly. Still, w00t!

Yah, I *do* pay attention to recount, but I do *not* base my tactics on it. Per esempio:

I ran Hall of Reflection last night in my LFG Frost run. During that first series of fights, I was 3rd in DPS (below the tank) because I was focusing no getting one of the ranged mobs CCed on each and every wave.

In a couple cases, it took me nearly 10 seconds of running out, casting and running back before I was actually able to start DPSing. Does the low DPS bother me? Not in the slightest.

But it doesn't mean I don't take a certain amount of pleasure topping the meters ;) I think, therefore I ego.

Toodles!

A Farmer in the Dell (Heroic)

3.3 is now live along with the new LFG function, and bloggers worldwide rejoice: a spicey, new topic, fresh off the Blizzard Grill!

SHINEY!

And yes, this is a bandwagon I will happily jump on!

I don't know HOW many Heroics I have run, but it's been a bunch. I've managed to purchase one T9 (tier 9) piece; Turalyon's Gauntlets of Conquest.

If you're following with any interest, between the above purchase, and a few decent drops, my GS (per WoW-Heroes.com) is up to 1710.

(sorry about the fuzzy pic, Blogspot now "enhances" my embedded pics - click to see a clearer version)

Or, if you're more familiar with the Add-on scale, my GS is about 3,300.

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My performance is.... well.... adequate.

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I *DID* have one fight where I hit 4,000 DPS. I can't even remember which Heroic it was in, but I was accounting for ~40% of the total PuG party DPS. (I think I averaged about 3,000, and the next highest was averaging about 1,600)

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BUT, (again, lest good performance go to my head) I've had some fights (the several attempts at Malygos come to mind) where I'm still doing only 1,600. Ick.

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So, it's with a huge dose of Sad Furlbog® that I read in some other blogs (Righteous Orbs) that there are newly dinged 80s, in quest greens & blues that are pulling down ~2k. (a n00bcow in this case)

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So, enough about my "oobur leet geer"...

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Overall, I really can't complain about the new LFG tool. On my battlegroup, it's not uncommon to wait 5-10 minutes if I go in as a solo DPS. If it's later at night, I have waited for 20 minutes or longer.

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A funny anecdote about this. A guildie joins group with me (his main spec is DPS shammie) We sat in LFG for at least 10 minutes. He /p's "Watch this", and re-enters us into LFG, this time with him as healer. As soon as I click "accept", we get the invite. I mean literally within a second or less. Healers are always in demand. DPS? Not so much...

Anyhow, overall I'm pretty happy with the results and the experience. Here are a few observations and some circumstances that stick out.

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- Overall, the LFG *DOES* seem to take relative gear levels into account when creating a group and selecting the instance to put them in. I ran Nexus a bunch when it first started. Since, getting better gear, I've only been there once.

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- Halls of Lightening (HoL) is a bit tough, especially the second to last boss (Ionar) - those damnable crawling bits of electricity. The first time, Deadly Boss Mods (an add-on that gives on-screen prompts about the next type of attack) would give a warning, then -

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*nothing* and then MANY seconds later, I would find myself struggling to outrun the damnable balls of electric hell. I have since gotten better about avoiding them, but for a n00b, new to the fight, they were a MAJOR bitch. Loken was a breeze in comparison.

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- As SO many folks have said - the PuGs are are amazingly quiet. If it's a run that's new to me, I will usually follow for a trash fight or two to establish my DPS vs the group (and I'm usually mid pack) and THEN I'll ask "so, this is my first run through here... anything I need to know?" That will usually get a response, mostly "don't worry, just kill stuff." I have yet to be kicked from a group.

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- The other big comment of other bloggers (and I've commented about this even BEFORE 3.3) was how fast everyone runs through the instances. Only now, after 7 or 8 runs, can I say I know what to do, where to do it and how each fight goes. I had actually watched vids about Nexus, so even before I went in, I had SOME idea, but that was because I knew that was a "beginner Heroic", and that's where I spent my LFG time.

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One note regarding this last comment: with the random dungeon/raid aspect, it's impossible to know where you will be going. This means it is impossible to read up, watch a vid or two, and try to know what's up before going in. This creates a double ding against the new guys:

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1 - They are new. Their gear is "sub par" and since they JUST dinged 80, they won't be really familiar with all their abilities & spells. Ergo the reason they/we are called n00bs.

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2 - They can't possibly read up no all the possible raids they can go in. You

can't simply read the tactics on 5-10 instances and expect to be able to

retain any usable information. It ain't gonna happen. Hell, I've probably

actually GONE through several of them, and I have a hard time keeping

everything straight.

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So, not only are you the scrub new guy, your performance will be below simply because of gear, AND you're going in essentially blind with (often) a group of people that don't communicate, give pointers and probably don't want you there. Not very fun.

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That being said, I have yet to see any open hostility (as some bloggers have ) to anyone simply because their gear is poor. Hell, nobody has even mentioned GS in any of the PuGs I've been in. I've been in a group or two that were simply doomed because of being under geared. (ie, a healer can't expect to heal HoL if he/she is in greens, ESPECIALLY if the tank and one or two DPS are also on the blue/green side.

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But, I've also been the tail end charlie in a couple WAY over geared groups where even the healer has given me a run for the money in DPS. (which is quite humiliating, I might add) There was one run through Nexus that took all of 7 minutes or so, and it seemed like the healer didn't have to heal anyone except for me.

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One last raid of note - Kattastrophe & I enter LFG with both of us as DPS (her new preference) We get teamed up with a group of other low/medium geared folks in Culling of Strathlome.

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One note before I go further - I have tried tanking. I suck at it, and I realize it isn't easy. That being said, you can't out-gear the stupid debuff, if it's bad enough.

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For us, the tank kept running around playing with the trash undead, and kept ignoring the "real" trash, that are too difficult for a non-tank to stand toe-to-toe with. Even with a pretty well geared priest healer.

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The tank just would NOT pull the "big" guys.

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So, after the second wipe against the trash, the healer bails, and we start to vote to kick the tank. He actually leaves before we can, so in an attempt to stave disaster, I switch specs and gear and get ready to at least TRY tanking.

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We manage to get another tank & healer;

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The healer is nowhere near as good as the previous, but he/she is adequate.

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The tank is still less than ideal, but he at least knows what he SHOULD be doing, even if he does keep losing aggro.

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Fortunately, I hadn't changed back to my DPS spec/gear, so I just do my best to play the off tank (and still not doing all that well at it) but between us, we manage to get to the end, WITH Arthas alive (during that escort section, I focused on keeping aggro off him, and bubbling him as necessary), and take down the final boss.

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But seriously, that raid shouldn't be that tough.

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That was one fail PuG we had, and then we had another that fell apart (lost the doofus tank) even before the first trash mob was cleared. (I again switched over and tried tanking, but with a healer in greens & blues - it was destination: fail)

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Overall, I'll give the new LFG system a 4/5. Along with the relatively fast emblem acquisition, there's also the opportunity to tabard your way to a boatload of reputation.

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My only complaint is that the patch failed to address was fixing the jousting. I don't mind that the AI can be tough and smart, but these piss me off to no end:

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- AI that can shield break and charge WAY closer than I am able to.

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- AI that always seems to be on the winning side of any latency. I can go from 3 shields to zero in about 3 seconds, after 1 shield break and some melee. (and my shield timer was still over 30 seconds)

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- AI that refuses to stay ANYWHERE near the field of play, opting instead to go out of bounds, forcing me to either follow (and DQ) or stay in bounds and be shield broken to death (with an occasional charge thrown in for good measure) And even if they don't go out of bounds, they seem to take evil delight getting me stuck on tent poles, fences, torches or any other obstacles.

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Seriously, I could handle tougher AI (more health? smarter?) if only they would play by the same set of rules that I'm bound to play by.

I'm Not Your Stepping Stone, Except When I Am

Note, this was written on Dec 21, 2009. I'm not sure why I didn't publish it at the time. It's still rather poignant and relevant, at least to me, so here you go...

*melancholy face*

(and sorry about the short, choppy "paragraphs", but this is how my brain is "working" today...)

I get the new LFG system.

I get the use of emblems, instead of (only) dropped loot and a DKP system.

I get chain running Heroics for emblems.

I get it, but I don't much care for it.

I don't have much chance to run "real" raids (10/25 man), simply because they can easily take a couple/few hours, not to mention the fact that I am barely geared to run most of them.

I've been a part of a couple of them, and they're kinda neat. (we killed Sartharion *no drakes left* and started running VoA not long before the timer reset) But these are kind of rare happenings...

Other than that, I'm going to have to run 5 man Heroics, which isn't very fun right now. Overall they feel awfully grindy and seem to be groups of 5 people using each other (as briefly as possible) for loot. Minimal conversation, planning or anything else.

First it was a bunch of over geared folks blazing through them so fast you could hardly keep up. Now it's mostly a bunch of under/moderately geared folks trying to blast through. (great for writing failpug blog stories, but useless for anything else)

I have had a couple runs that werwe fun, where we had (and DID) take it slow, look around, plan things out a bit and actually kind of enjoy the process.

Unfortunately, those runs are the rare ones, and with the cross server pugs, but no cross server chat/parties, you can't "keep" those fun players. At most you can run another instance with the same group, but even that rarely happens, even if you are interested.

That leaves the other sundry non-raid related things to do:

fish

cook

rep grind

rep grind

maybe a little questing

(Speaking of quests, the quest line to get the Winter Veil achievement "Fal-la-la-Ogri'la" has to be one of the most frustrating I can remember. That "Simon-esque" thing you have to do in Blade's Edge - The Relic's Emination is pure frustration)

Or you can

Go explore all of Azeroth

Play the auction house

Create interesting shapes on your fingers with papercuts

Or maybe level an alt.

*sigh*

*note as of Feb 18, 2009, I think the "Honor you Elders" questing is rapidly earning my least favorit holiday quest thing. It isn't as intensely nasty (except all the death runs into Org) as the RElic's one above, but the sheer number of annoying places you have to trudge to is just mind numbing...