.... and Bring your friends. Raid update 11/30/2013

This was a short raid week, we only ran Tuesday night and we worked on the second wing of Flex.

       We ran on Tuesday, and it was a good feeling raid.  We didn't get any new bosses down, but we managed to pull in some folks that hadn't run with us before/or in a while.  Galakras only took two attempts and Iron Juggernaut one if I remember correctly.  The thing that ate up a lot of our time was A. Getting started, people weren't ready to go on time, (including me, I was running late getting back from work and I wasn't the only one.) and B. We over thought things.

      This first one happens.  We were working on getting things ready, and people were still stuck in dungeons, Heroic Scenarios etc....  That being said.  The second I get 10 people together, I am starting the raid.  We didn't start until almost 9:30 (now 10:30 server since out merge with Hellscream) and most of that was waiting on people who normally raid with us at the same time, and we didn't have the group until then.

     The trash before Dark Shamans took a bit of time too.  I hate it when Blizzard puts a large amount of trash before bosses, and on this one it doubly sucks because half of it is hidden in side buildings etc...  So we finally pulled the bosses and we wiped at about 40%.  And this is where we lost our second chunk of time.

     Now, I'm pretty laid back.  I welcome discussion during raid, and suggestions etc... However, the next ten to fifteen minutes was wasted on people arguing over needing the three tank method on this fight, and saying that we couldn't do the two tank etc...  I politely disagree personally, I think if we worked at it we could do the two tank method, however at the end of the day, Scopriack was nice enough to swap to heals and I hopped on my tank and we three tanked it.

     To the three tank option opinions, I do agree this method is easier.  A lot easier.  We almost had the boss down and if we do three tank option again I think we will have him this upcoming week.  My opinion is however, that while one method is easier, it doesn't mean the other method isn't possible.  It might be harder and take a little more work, but possible sometimes means a little more work.  We might need to learn the two tank method, or there are going to be weeks that we don't clear this boss, even after we down him.  Which means, I might look at who we have when we start raid next time, and we may start on third wing if there isn't another tanking option.

       In other news stuffs this week, Hellscream and Zangarmarsh are now joined realms which means I now have a couple alts on Hellscream with BOA gear.  I look forward to building some horde alts to help out my lonely rogue over there, though I am also torn with working on my horde alts over on Hyjal where I can help my friends who are rebuilding over there.

      Trade chat is fantastically entertaining right now, though it will settle soon.  The biggest douches from Zangarmarsh,and the biggest douches from Hellscream are still competing for biggest douche of all.  This means constant pointless arguing which you can pop some popcorn and watch.  Me, other the then change to server time I haven't noticed my life changing for the worst with the merge.  I was able to do Celestials four times on Monday and get my priest his legendary cloak.  This never would have happened before the merge, which means, more world boss love, more opportunity for everyone.

And that's pretty much it for this week.  I am going back to a once a week blog.  I was trying to do two, but it didn't work out for me with scheduling etc....  I might go back in the future, and I'll throw up extra blogs when there is news I feel like needs being covered, but for now, only expect one a week.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

   

Lately updated (Week of 11/18/2013 raiding update)

November is killing me, but I can't complain I am doing it to myself.

       Tuesday was fun, but a little frustrating.  Our pace wasn't quite what it's been and we managed to get the first three bosses down in Siege Flex wing one.  We probably would have gotten Sha (boss 4) down but we had an unfortunate disconnect, and that ate up time trying to figure out if we should wait for that person, or if we should go ahead and pull.  I finally swapped toons, and we pulled but didn't quite make it.  Of course our poor raider managed to get back on about half way though the pull.

      Wednesday was awesome.  We did pick up a few people for Galakras fight from the guild Lotauna is now running with.  (I can't remember the guild name or I would properly shout out to them) We still have her shammy, so we were good.  Galakras went down fairly well with little trouble.  Iron Juggernaut took us a little work but we managed to get him down too.  We got a few pulls on Dark Shaman, but at the end of the day we did not manage to get them dead.  However, we did get them down to thirty percent, which on the first night on our own wasn't a bad shot.  We did the two tank method this week instead of the three which was a swap up from our first attempt, and I can see us getting it down with this method once we get our stuff figured out.

      So I count it as a good raid week even though no new bosses went down.  This week we will only be running second wing on Tuesday, as Thanksgiving had killed our other raiding day.  We will be walking in and trying progression.   My goal is to eventually cut the first wing out altogether, then the second wing, and since flex is gated only work on the wings that are pertinent to us at the moment.  As much as I've stated I want to get to 10 man this expansion, I love the way flex works so much it is becoming less and less of a priority for me.  Heaven knows it might be better to have a flex team instead of a 10 man team built by the launch of Warlords of Draenor.

     This is coming out late, and my month has been disrupted by NaNoWriMo.  (NaNoWriMo.org)  It's a challenge I have always wanted to do, and finally dove into this year.  So far I feel I have had great results personally, and if your an aspiring writer the challenge makes you sit down and write consistently to meet the goal.  For me, I can write about 1,000 words in about an hours.  This means I have been pulling an extra hour here and there to accomplish it.  This also has left me mentally burnt out here and there.  So, next month I will be better at posting this blog, This month has been hectic.

     Changes are coming for us here on Zangarmarsh.  Tomorrow, (probably today by the time I finish and post this) Zangarmarsh is merging with the Hellscream realm.  This means I will first hand get to see how this realm merger works out.  If it works as well as it's supposed to that means I get 11 new character slots I can use to build up more of the community on the horde side and alliance side of Zangarmarsh.  (And Hellscream)  I'm curious at how this will effect the guild, the raid team, and even the whole realms economy and dynamics.  It's going to be a fun ride, (I hope working on being the optimist) and the guild will ride it together. I have already had a couple discussions with Gwyndolynn about scenarios we may have to look at for the guild depending on how the merge effects it.

     Anyway, that is it for now, I will have a quick blog again this weekend to comment on A. how the merge seems to be effecting things, and B. How we do on our raid night this week.

Allons y!

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.
   


   

Fly you fools! Well, wait until 6.1 anyway.....

The wonders of how some things blow up.....

      On "The Instance," one of my favorite pod casts recently there was an interview with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, (Whom apparently stopped monitoring Magilla's vent so he can wipe us when we are cocky for Blizzcon) and in the interview Ghostcrawler was asked about flying in the next expansion.

       Ghostcrawler mentioned it had been DISCUSSED that they hold back flying until the first patch (6.1 respectfully) because they want to make sure everyone takes the time to explore the new content in the upcoming expansion.  By forcing players to walk instead of flying, it makes them interact with the world more, and they don't skip areas or content while leveling, or after. 

      Of course, people blew up at this.  Trolls came out in force on the forums threatening to quit the game, and even making passive aggressive comments like, "Well if Blizzard doesn't like flying mounts they should just take them out of the game" (Paraphrasing.) People started firing off their mouths (fingers?) in disgust, anger, and I think just for the fun of trolling because this apparently is a big deal.

       Blizzard has since then come out and confirmed that flying is not likely to be available until that first patch, and of course that hasn't eased the anger at all.  If you take the time to go through the forums right now, you can find enough righteous anger to feed power to an army of Paladins.  I do suggest taking some heavy medication though before going into the forums.  That place is scary.

     How do I feel about this?  Let me tell you!

      I'm not a fan of this, but I'll get over it.  I enjoy flying, I use it to work on my professions a lot once I get to max level.  It sure is convenient when you want to get around and not get sucked into the mess of fighting bunch of mobs just to get your mining node ninja's by a hordie.  I don't think I am among the people that they are choosing to do this for.  I like to finish all the zones in an expansion at least once, so I can get all the story.  Even after flying is in, I will go back, run through quests, and see what is going on in each area.  I still haven't done this for the horde side in Pandaria, but as my need for LFR is lessening, and NaNoWriMo is over in a month or so, my rogue may get some play time to do the horde half of Krasarang Wilds and any other areas I've missed.

      Will this break the game for me? No.  Do I understand why they are doing it? Yes.  Do I think they should? Not really.  I think they have stressed "play the game the way you want to play it" enough that limiting people like this is not a smart thing to do.  I don't think the people that skip through quests and ignore story lines are going to be any more invested because they are forced to run around for a month or two after the expansion drops.  I know what Blizzard wants to accomplish, I don't think they will get anything but headache over it.

     This brings me to a dilemma on my part.  I normally think when Blizzard makes a decision they need to stick to their guns and see how it plays out.  However, they have listened and changed things when the community rails against them before.  I think if Blizzard has made this decision they do need to see how it has and effect on game play, because I could be completely wrong and this could get people tied even more deeply into the world.  However, I predict that Blizzard will 180 on this if the shouting gets two loud and give us flying right when we hit 100, and the other part of me thinks they should do that instead.  So, in my head I am split on this issue.

      What do other people think about this?  I would love to hear the feedback from other people who are more sane the forum trolls on how they feel about a delay on flying when they hit 100.

     If you want to hear Ghostcrawler's interview it's on "The Instance" Show number 347.  Also, on the most recent show 348 they discuss this a bit more and give you their take on the flying thing.  I recommend you listen to this podcast anyway just because Scott Johnson, Willy "Dills" Gregory, and Mark "The Turpster" Turpin are just fun to listen to.

Lay/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Two more down, weekly raiding update 11/14/2013

What a good week.

     Tuesday night has me excited.  Not only (once we got the group together) did we clear the first wing of flex in about an hour, but I don't believe we wiped but once.  On Trash.  That has me partially excited.  The thing that really had me excited was the fact that we abused the flex feature.  We started with about 13 people, and then two people came in between the first couple of bosses.  We had a DC before the third boss, and when they got back on, a different person needed to leave and get to work.

     This means, our raid size shifted constantly through the run, and we were able to handle it just fine.  This is with one DPS who admittedly should have been left out, but I want to develop people where I can.  Despite low dps, this person was one of the last people to die on the fights, and listened well.  If he keeps running with us I have no worries that his DPS will catch up soon enough.  Part of the reason I love the flex system is it gives me the freedom to look over, and develop people.

      The night ended with us killing Galakras.  That's right, I got to pop an apple beer as we managed to down a new boss.

      Wednesday night was pretty good as well.  We fought the big Iron Scorpion for about an hour before we took him down, (thats 2) and by the time we cleared the trash out of the next room, we got three pulls on the Dark Shamans.  The last two pulls were 2% and 7% respectfully.  That means I think there is a good chance we will have them next week and move on to Nazgrim.  (I'm not 100% sure because we used the 3 tank method, and we may have to swap to a 2 tank method next week.)  We were lucky to have Zios from Exile pop over and help on the second night, and Jinbar (Who I may by mispelling or mis-naming) hope over and help us as well.

     All and all it's been a good week.  Spirits where high, we downed some bosses, and I think we will be able to re-down them next week.  There are certainly no complaints on my end.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Blizzcon 2013 in review.

The dust has settled and Blizzcon is now over.  If you were fortunate to have the time and money to go gratzy!  If you were like me and just sat back and watched the news feed.... here is a review of things that pertain to Wow that jumped out at me.

      First thing first.  Next expansion is "Warlords of Draenor" which if you living in a hold you may have not heard by now.  This refers to the orc Chieftains/Warleaders that lead the orcs into Azeroth when the black portal opened.  Garrosh has apparently escaped the Pandaran (Bunch of ninja pandas can't keep him locked up) found a mysterious friend, and been whisked away to Daenor 30 years earlier before it was blown up and turned into Outlands (Burning Crusade!) Garrosh has changed the time by keeping the orcs from being corrupted by the burning legion, and now plans on shaping them into the iron horde, which he will lead back into Azeroth to defeat us all.  In doing this he has created a separate time line which he has now linked to ours via the black portal.  So, not time travel, more hopping into a time puddle, or alternate dimension.  So, timey whimey wibbley wobbley stuff.  Long story short, we can kill anyone there and it won't effect our timeline.

      Stats are changing.  I about stood up and cheered when they announced hit and expertise are gone! Tanks will be losing parry and Dodge as well. They are being replaced by a movement speed and cleave stats.  Movement is pretty self explanatory, and cleave will randomly make you hit extra baddies when you attack.  Which I see as nice, but very situational on when it will be a needed stat.  Along with this, reforging is going away, there are going to be less gem slots, and less items will be enchantable. They did say these gem/enchants will be more powerful and have a lot more choice to them

    Gearing is changing as well.  Instead of having to carry two, sometimes three sets of gear for your character, it now should be fairly universal.  Tier gear will switch stats to match the spec you are in.  So if a Pally goes from ret to holy, the gear will change with him.  No more intellect plate either, holy paladins will convert strength to intellect when the put on armor.  This doesn't mean that some pieces might not be better for some specs then others, but it will mean lugging around a lot less armor.

     Bag space is going to be better.  Tabards, BOA leveling gear, quest items, and toys will no longer take up space in your bags.  Using the new interface/drop down menus for these means your BOA gear will truly be account bound now.  Any of your characters on any realm will be able to access it. This is an awesome change in my opinion.

     When you buy the new expansion there are many features you would expect (new levels (10), new monsters, new land to explore) one of the big ones is you get a free level 90 when you buy the expansion.  This means I will have a higher level monk/druid when the expansion comes out to join my stable of high level characters.  For now this is a one time thing, but as there is a loophole where someone might buy another copy of wow, including the expansions make a 90 then pay to transfer it over to their main account, Blizzard is considering making this a paid feature.  They want to wait and see how people react to the idea first.

     Instead of player housing, you get a garrison.  You can place your garrison in any of the new zones on Draenor.  After you start this you can upgrade and build your garrison to give you access to professions you character doesn't, you can send minions you earn as you level to forage for mats, or even run dungeons and raids for you earning you random loot.  You can earn trophies for display with achievements and can even invite friends to come into your garrison.  They said they are not doing guild halls at this point, but with this advancing, I wonder if that is just a matter of time.

     Raid changes.  The new raids will have 4 different raid difficulties.  LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic.  The first three will all have the Flex ability so you can take anywhere from 10-25 people.  Mystic will have a 20 person requirement.  Loot on the last three will adjust itself to the amount of people in the raid, and the loot master will hand stuff out once again.

    There is a lot more changes/stuff to cover, but these are the things that popped out at me the most.  What are you all looking forward to the most in the next Xpack? Or what do you not like that they are changing?

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

   



   

Sometimes no visible progress is still progress. (Raiding update 11/7/2013)

So, there is good and bad to this week.

     Let's start with the good.  The raid team managed to down the first wing of Flex in one night.  We started a bit late, and finished just after 10:30.  This means that if we had started on time, we would have had 45 minutes to work on the second section of Flex this week.  Right now I'm being pretty lenient on gear and DPS since we have been low on raiders, but that is likely to change in the future if things keep rolling the way they are.  We have had people signing up again for raid, and it gives me hope that we will soon be working a 10 man team.  At least for the rest of this expansion... but I will get there in a moment.

     Wednesday night we worked the whole time on Galakras.  We did not manage to down the boss this night, but we came close.  The add management is getting to where it needs to be.  I don't think we will get through another week without seeing him go down.  There were internal issues in the raid that were stopping us.  They will hopefully be gone by next week.  If not then I will have to deal with it in a fashion that is a little more direct and confrontational then I normally would as the insanely laid back person I am.

    Despite the fact we didn't get further, there was definite progress on both wings.  We had not gotten through the adds before on Galakras, and on the first wing we made it through with only a couple of wipes.  Things may have been avoided here and there, but as we tighten up week to week this will get better.
So, despite the fact we didn't kill any new bosses, and my applebeer remains untapped in my fridge, (I normally pop one when we kill a new boss to celebrate.) I feel we are moving forward.  Now we just need to get the last couple of links secure and in place.

     I know This is a little later, and the first day of Blizzcon was today.  All I am going to discuss here is the raiding announcements.  My take on the other things from Blizzcon I will put in a later post.

    I am excited to announce, (And to have been right about) all raid being flex next Xpack.  There will be four different difficulties.  LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mystic.  The first three will allow anywhere form 10-25 players.  The raids will adjust difficulty depending on how many people are present.  So if you grinding LFR and a couple of people drop, you will be able to keep moving forward.

    The exception to the flex ability will be Mystic.  Mystic raids will be set at 20 people, and will be a step ahead of heroic content.  I didn't predict all of this, but I was in the camp that predicted normal and flex would be the same thing next expansion.  Sometimes, against all odds, even I am right.

Anyway, keep watching the info flow in from Blizzcon.  I have been checking www.wowinsider.com constantly to keep up on all the announcements.  There is a lot of cools stuff.  And the new expansion....

But I will discuss that later,

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

Blizzcon is coming! Blizzcon is coming!

And the countdown is almost over....

    This weekend is Blizzcon.  It is a Blizzard fan's holiday and the excitement is in the air for all we will learn this weekend.  The slow news is going to stop, and there will be a torrent of information thrown at us.  Diablo, Hearthstone, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and anything else Blizzard with be discussed, thrown before the masses, and devoured by millions of fans everywhere.  So what are the bets on what we will see? Well my predictions are as follows.

     Diablo- We will get game play and more information on the upcoming expansion "Reaper of Souls."  I don't believe there will be any big spoilers or announcements on this one as Blizzard has already given us the expansion trailer that highlighted upcoming new class, changes etc....

     Hearthstone- I imagine that there will be an announcement on when this game will go live for everyone.  As those like me who have played with it in the beta know, it feels like a finished product at this point.  It' finished enough that the announcement could even be, "November 10th, day after Blizzcon, Hearthstone goes live!"

     Starcraft II- We will get a preview and trailer from "Legacy of the Void" the upcoming Starcraft II expansion.  I don't think there is going to be a world of surprise here, but a lot of excitement as we see what the Protoss expansion of this game looks like for Starcraft II players.

     World of Warcraft- Here is where my excitement is.  I think we may see some promo footage for the World of Warcraft movie, however, I don't believe it starts filming until January so we won't see actual movie clips etc....  We will have an expansion announced.  Blizzard would be insane not to have an announcement for the next expansion at this Blizzcon, and whether you still believe the expansion is going to be "The Dark Below," (which had been fairly well debunked) or "Warlords of Draenor," which was just copyrighted by Blizzard, or something completely different, you will find out what is in store here.  Also, after the success of the program last Blizzcon, expect another deal where if you promise to keep your sub active you will get a goody for free.  Last time it was Diablo III, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are targeting the same audience if the do the same deal with the Diablo III expansion.  However, if they do that I think Diablo III will be included, otherwise the offer won't pick up anyone new.  They could also do this with Starcraft II and Heart of the Swarm, positioning more people to want to buy the new expansion when it comes out.

     I would also like to see them talk about their past product.  For those who don't know, the Blizzard game "BlackThorn" which was released for the SNES is available to download for free to your computer right now.  You just have to go to battle.net and find the right spot to download the client.

     Now, I don't expect them to talk about Titan this year, after the project was reset earlier this year it's unlikely it's in a place where they are ready to promote it.  I also don't expect them to have gnomes in the new trailer for whatever Wow expansion we are about to be faced with.

    So, if your fortunate enough to be going to Blizzcon, give an extra Cheer for Blink 182 at the ending concert for me.  If you bought the streaming package, enjoy.  I will be sitting here, sifting through news excitedly, ready to give my take on the different things we are about to learn.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye