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.

What's Going On - What's a RetPals' Role?

Thanks to Tamarind at Righteous Orbs I have a couple topics to ramble on about...

This first one is a follow-on to my diatribe yesterday about how raids can be an "omgwtfbbq!" experience for me. Some of it may be due to the lack of good play by others, but much of it is my own fault. But, before I go into my failings, party failings and "bangin & blaming" anyone, let's take a step back.

What are the "core" abilities of a Ret Paladin?

- DPS (though 2 equally geared/skilled DPSers, a Ret and say Mage, Lock or Rogue, and the Ret will probably be 5-10% lower in DPS/damage)
- Buffs - Blessings of Kings, Wisdom, and Might.
- Survivability - We're plate wearers and can self heal
- Raid/"Oh Shit" healing - We may not cast quickly, but 7k+ heals can get the Tank (or anyone else) through a rough spot
- Cleansing - We have some of the fastest, most thorough debuff removers in the game
- Taunt/Righteous Defense/Repentance -We can pull Aggro off clothies and (hopefully) survive until the situation is "fixed"


Now, in 10 man (and even moreso in a 25 man) raid, there are dedicated raid healers, and off tanks to help deal with many of the smaller oh shit moments. The flexibility of the Ret might not be as helpful.

But, in a 5 man, (which is all I've done so far) it seems to me that each player has to be on their toes a bit more. I know it's a *bit* of a joke, but the roles in raids, 5 man especially, seem to be as follows:

Tank - don't let the healer die
Healer - don't let the tank die
DPS - don't let yourself die and STAY OUT OF THE FIRE! Oh, and kill the bad guys.

Now, because this smaller player pool, having the Healer taking care of the Tank AND doing raid heal can be a problem. Mana, cast time, damage spikes and such can make it difficult for them to raid heal. Let alone do cleanses, etc (if they even can)

And with Pallies being as "self sufficient" as we are, this *can* be a help because the healer can (should?) be able to focus elsewhere. The hybrid aspect of Pallies is there to work well in multi-functional roles.

That being said...

During a recent run through 5 man ToC Heroic, we had a Tree healer that wasn't really doing that much healing. While eating after one of several wipes I glanced at the healing page of Recount. During the previous fight/wipe, I had roughly 75,000 healing, and the Tree had about 200,000. THAT is truly a failure of the healer (one of our guildies mentioned that the guy had ToC 25 man gear, so gear wasn't the issue). But that much of a failure is rarely the case.


So, now to my "opportunities" as a player...

I am bona-fide A.D.D. I was diagnosed way back in the mid 70's, WAY before it became the trendy thing. One of the things that ADD-folks (me) do to compensate for being easily distracted is to hyper focus. We have learned to focus VERY intently on something, so that we can avoid the temptation of the other distractions. The world can fall down around us, but we won't notice. The only problem is that, well, I'm focusing on one thing. (ok, maybe 2 or RARELY 3) This means that I will NOT be able to:

- maintain rotation - (watch the bars light up and do the FCFS thing)
AND
- watch the aggro meter
AND
- watch my own health
AND
- make sure my target hasn't run away
AND
- make sure I'm always targeting something (the [tab] key doesn't always work)
AND
- keep an eye for any debuffs *I* may have
AND
- watch deadly boss mods for phase thingies
AND
- watch the chat window for instructions
AND
- make sure I'm not standing in the fire

Let alone watch the rest of the group.

This isn't a problem that Ret Pals face alone. EVERY player has a similarly long list of things to watch/take care of. And when you list it all out like this, AND see someone doing it well, you get one of those "holy SHIT that's awesome!!" moments.

Now, learning to scan the screen, to keep intent, partly focused and such is a learned skill. And I *am* making progress. My biggest bugaboo is that I sit and stare at the cooldowns on my action bars, and not watch the rest of the screen enough. (*blush* or at all)

Driving is a good analogy:

-Watch the road
-Check left side mirror
-Watch the road
-Check gauges/speed
-Watch the road
-Check rear mirror
-Watch the road
-Check right side mirror

etc, etc

I just need to incorporate the same scanning/awareness in WoW.

Could having a better UI help? Most likely, but that's a topic for a different day... ;)

EDIT - I forgot to actually discuss how this all applies to my rotation/jobs that I mentioned in my post yesterday.

A significant part of those issues/crises are "helped" by the fact that I don't see thing happen early enough. "Better late than never" applies, but "early Bird gets the worm" or, um, "doesn't get waxxed", may be more appropriate. Being "in the moment" and reacting to things as they happen, not AFTER they happen can make a HUGE difference:

- watching the Aggro meter can help PREVENT the boss from chewing on my face
- watching the fight (and not my cool-downs/action bars) will help me stay ON the target, and not lose it
- watch the fight so that I can AVOID the fire, instead of seeing/hearing the low health warning after I've been standing there for 5 seconds, THEN running away, THEN having to heal

As for the Healer getting eaten, well, during the Black Knight fight, the undead spawn phase, there's not much a healer can do to avoid the ADDs. They just spawn and chase him/her down.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But You Often Get What You Greed

After Dinging 80 last week, I had some time to run around and try to run a couple raids and whatnot. Needless to say, it’s been a bit of an eye opening experience.

First was an attempt at ToC, 5 man heroic.

A really well geared guildie tried to help us out, but since this is a tough fight for even moderately geared 80’s and we had us two n00bs, and a couple “so-so" geared others, it was a lost cause. We went home with our tails between our legs.


We then did the herioc run though Nexus.

And here I emphasize RUN through. Our Tank & a DK DPS were both pretty well geared, and pretty familiar with the fight. We had Kattastrophe healing with her Shammy, and a Shadow Priest helping with DPS. (The Priest was the friend of a friend, the DK was a guildie, and the Tank was a PuG)

During the raid, Katt & the Priest were struggling to keep mana’d up between fights. As soon as one was completed, the Tank & DK were already pulling the next group.

This didn’t really hurt until we ran into Grand Magus Telestra. Me, Katt & the Priest got worked and had to run back. I’m still not sure if the DK & tank died or not (I think the DK survived to fight all by himself)

Needless to say, Katt was livid, since the semi-wipe would have been avoided if mana hadn’t been an issue.

The good news is that the rest of the run went off without a hitch. I didn’t get any gear worth remembering.


Then we went on to run 5 man ToC, normal.

We ran this in a PuG, and it went pretty well. I was killed once, I think, but we did OK. I got the Helm of the Violent Fray . A pretty good run, and some lootz! (I also ran it a second time some time later. No loot, but at least I'm learning the fight)


My next to last run was Heroic Violet Hold.

We did this with me, Kattastrophe, a tank we knew, a DPS warrior that Katt knew, and his wife, the Priest I mentioned above. I really enjoyed running with these guys!

We forgot to set it to heroic when we started so we had to exit and re-enter, but other than that it went really well. I even got the best piece of plate loot in the place! (a tank piece; Bolstered Legplates )

Some interesting DPS info, that I’ll discuss in a later post (I hope)


Last we ran Culling of Stratholme, heroic. (same group as last time)

This was neat on a BUNCH of levels. It was a longer one, and we got to meet Arthas! (and let him die a couple times muhahahah! Erm, booo…)

I’m not much into the lore of the game, mainly because so much of what happens is shown to us in small snippets here & there, completely disjoint and with no easy way to remember it. It doesn’t help that I barely ran any of the old world instances either. Here, however we got to see the events of the past in full recreating. VERY COOL!!!

We only had one issue; the tank DCed a few times and contributed to Arthas dieing a couple times. It wasn’t catastrophic, and he’s a really neat guy to play with, so no worries. :)

Oh, and I got one piece of loot: Legplates of Steel Implants. a decent piece of DPS plate.


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So, I’ve finally dipped my feet into the deeeep water that is raiding, even if it’s only a toe. The longer instances are better, except that they’re so long! (hard to fit them into the life schedule) I can see why folks get a bit annoyed with running the various ToC iterations, over & over & over again. But hey, badges is badges, loot is loot, and and above all, learning to raid/play is paramount.

The quest for lootz continues…

Raid for the Cure - no silly song title here

If you've read BigBearButt's blog HERE, Gnomeageddon's Blog HERE, or Catryalini's blog HERE, or any of a TON of other blogs, you may have heard about an "All Faction Road Race" across Azeroth. It's a massive get-together, show of support and fund raiser for Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity for breast cancer.

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Bring a character of your choice (race, level, etc is all open) to the and take part in a walk across azeroth. BigBearButt's blog has all the relevant details.

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Here's a brief summary:

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Where - Kael'thas realm. US

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Alliance Where - Starting in Shadowglen (Night elf starting area) going on through Darnassus, Auberdine, Astranaar and meeting the Horde at the Crossroads

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Horde Where - Camp Narache (Mulgore - Tauren starting area) and then following the road to Crossroads

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BOTH factions - From Crossroads on to Ratchet, then on to Booty Bay for a party.

When - Saturday, November 14th. Starting in each faction area about 2 pm central time (a bit later for the Horde, since they are closer to Crossroads)

For more info, including donation information, please visit:

http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/11/02/announcement-world-of-warcraft-raid-for-the-cure/

SEE YOU THERE, IN THE PINK!

A battle for Stormwind: Safety Dance

Last night I was selling/auctioning off a last bit of loot in Stormwind, when Carbonite (one of my plug-ins) starts pulsing, and I see on the local defense that Stormwind is under attack. The blinking circles are located near the battle masters and me being me, I ran over.

As I ran up the corridor to the King's Chamber, I saw a few corpses littering the ground; mostly guards, but a couple Horde as well. I continue on. In the "Throne Room", nothing. In the Battlemaster's room, nothing. I zoom in my map, and see that the ruckus is in one of the side rooms.

I mosey on in, and I see about a dozen Horde all firing into one corner, withe half of them actually in the corner in a massive scrim. I think there were about 10-12 of them in the room. After waiting a minute or two, I finally see the ONE Alliance character in the middle, and it's King Varian Wrynn. He's a regular Cuisinart in the corner, spinning like a fiend, with all the Hordites pouring damage into him. Wrynn keeps spinning, dancing, damaging the Horde, only to have them healed up.

From what I saw, there were 6-7 tanks in the corner, a hunter (or something) with a MASSIVE gun, a couple mage types, and one girl running around (healer, I think) I should have gotten a screen cap, but I was just too stunned. (I've never seen a real raid before this)

At this point he's lost maybe 20-25% of his health. As I sit watching (or in a few cases start jumping in front of the Horde guys to try to distract them) I saw a couple level 80 (elite) Alliance Guards run in, only to be cut down in a few seconds.

I got a little bored and went into the throne room, and I see a small fight down the hall, where one Horde straggler just got ripped apart but the now arriving Alliance players:

A death Knight with his minion

A druid in Tree Form

A few others

The Alliance mainly takes up position in the entrance to the fight room and starts working on them, with the Druish tree running around inside.

*SNAP* The Death Knight yanks someone out of the room, and the Alliance members annihilate him. Soon a few more Alliance PvP folk show up, rush the room, and the fight's over within another minute or so. (well, one Horde member had hidden somewhere, and tried to run out a few minutes later, but got killed ASAP)

VERY cool to watch as a n00b!

A word of warning to other newer folks out there:

• If you do nothing in the raid, you cannot be hurt. You can dance, spit, sleep, whatever, and the raiders can't hurt you. (you are "PvE" - player versus environment - and immune to PvP attacks)
• If you are flagged "PvP", you are a target.
• Enjoy the spectacle!
• "Check out" the enemy players (or alliance players) Bring up their character icon next to yours (being careful NOT to attack!) and right click their picture. Select "Inspect" and you can see all their equipment.
• If you heal, or participate in ANY way, you will be flagged and become a target.

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...