Ding, dong, Garrosh is dead. (Raid update week of 10/19/2014)

It was a good week.

     Tuesday we went in and finished what is now 10 man regular SoO.  We pretty much just blew everything up from Thok to Garrosh with ease.  All the 6.0 adjustments have just made us incredibly overpowered and amazingly destructive when it comes to boss life.  The rest of the wing just went down without much fight.  We even one shot Garrosh.  We then decided to see how heroic felt with the changes.  We got through wing one easily, and stopped there.

      Wednesday started off with a couple of hitches.  Galakras caused some trouble as a couple of simple mistakes wiped us a couple of times.  After that it was all sunshine and rainbows.  We mowed through more bosses until we got to the last pull of the night.  Thok ended up being a little bugged and he turned and blew us all up without going into his second phase so we ended the night there.  Tuesday we will be finishing this save and killing Garrosh on Heroic.  I have no doubt it will go easily as the last time.  It will be nice to see if I can get a second leveling bow for my hunter, or something for Lag.  We will see.

      They really have made the difficulty of running  raids very easy.  I imagine it's to get people in and amped up before the next expansion drops.  Honestly, I may even pug a couple of SoO's this weekend to get a chance to get a leveling heirloom for a couple more characters in WoD.  There is no reason at this point not to hop in and get a little something to get running in the next expansion.

     It's been an interesting week or two.  Not only has the patch been out giving us the ability to outright destroy old content.  No, really, go run some old raids.  Most of them just blow up easily with little effort.  A few mechanics may still cause trouble to some classes, but mostly you can destroy anything from Cataclysm back.

     I know I am starting to work on the legendaries from Ulduar, and soon Firelands.  I also plan on getting Shadowmourne eventually.  I see 25 man raids of ICC happening with 20 characters all trying to get their own legendary through the system where you can browse and find raids.  I can't think what it's called off the top of my head.  It should be fun.

     Anyway, that's about it.  I want to talk about Gamergate, but at this point it would be a little premature to say more then this.

     It is never OK to threaten anyone, in game or out, regardless of sex, race, or creed, with violence sexual or otherwise ever.  I know that Gamergate is focusing on the attacks on female players, but in all honesty with that above statement being true it shouldn't be limited in discussion to any one group.  Talent when it comes to playing has no boundaries in any group.  The wonder of online gaming is that anyone can excel and when we roll that virtual reflection of ourselves we should be able to play as anyone, anything, we want without having to bend to the criticism or threats from anyone else.

     Pretty much anything else I can say is a reflection of the above statement.

      See you all in game.

Lag/Lazyeye.

Relax man, it's not that bad.

I need to put in a little interjection here if I may.

      When I have gotten online I have been bombarded at times with people asking about why their DPS sucks, and if I feel X class is doing better then Y class.  People are worried that their class is not hitting hard enough, or they are worried about their new rotations and lack of abilities that they loved.  (I have really felt this, playing a mage without living bomb feels wrong somehow) or many other things that have come out after the patch.  Let me tell you now...

     Just take a deep breath and don't make any snap judgments.

     Blizzard is hot fixing bugs and issues daily.  This includes different abilities on the classes.  This also includes damaging abilities from bosses, raid adjustments etc...  Also you have to keep in mind right now Blizzard is starting to look at the end game as level 100, not level 90.  You may not feel a balance for your class until you hit that next level cap after the expansion drops.

      There was also a lot of talk of Blizzard cutting abilities from classes.  We knew it was coming.  Learn and practice your new rotations before you decide you don't like them.  Right now you are fighting the muscle memory you have spent an expansion building up, now it's time to adjust and get used to everything before the expansion drops.  Then, some other abilities will change and you will have to relearn things after you hit 100.  So, the moral of the story here....

    Expect change.

    Change is good.  I can't imagine playing the content now with all the nuances that Vanilla Wow had.  (Yes, I'm going against the rose tinted glasses assumption that everything was better back in the day.)  Change is what brought us to where we are today.  Without it, I firmly believe that there would be a whole lot less people still playing Wow.  This is what keeps the game alive.  This is part of what keeps it from becoming too boring.  Plus, we have all been through this before.  Every expansion things have changed.

    So quick recap, take a breath, don't panic, wait before you freak out.  I would hate for someone the change what they are doing over a problem that might not exist a month from now.

Lag/Lazyeye

The next Cataclysmic event! 6.0.2! (Raid update week of 10/12/2014)

And now we are in a whole new world....

We will never look like this again!

     Sunday, yes this one starts with Sunday raid night.  Sunday can't say much really.  A few of the main raid team couldn't make it because it wasn't a normal raid night, but we did manage to work on Garrosh for a couple of hours.  We got to phase 2 a couple of times, but didn't really push him as far as we had previously.  We will have to keep working....

      Tuesday was patch 6.0 day.  Everything changed.  We still went in and raided even with a lot of mods not working and everyone in the midst of relearning their classes.  I will say right now I didn't really feel the item squish. that much.  Then numbers popping up of course were lower, but the bosses didn't seem to be going down any slower then normal and we managed to work our way past Galakras for the night.  We only really wiped once, and that was on Galakras because the smash animation at the top of the tower had been updated and was harder to see.  Then some tank ran up the other tower without his healer.  How embarrassing.  For myself.

       Wednesday we picked up where we had finished.  We managed to work our way through a bit more and found our way all the way through Spoils of Pandaria.  Once again everything was pretty much a one shot (Save Malkorak who took us two shots) and we kept moving forward pretty well.  I am of course saving our progress so we are now going to start on Thok next week.  There is no reason we shouldn't get to Garrosh again and have the raid saved to him by the end of next Tuesday at this point.

        So far nothing in 6.0 has surprised me.  I am missing a few buttons, but I can live with that.  I played through the pre-expansion quests, which were better then the Theromore scenario, but still pretty disappointing when you match them up against the pre-expansion events for Wrath and Cataclysm.  I know the bigger the pre-patch stuff the less work is going into the actual expansion, but I still like a nice big meaty lead in.  This just felt like, "Hey, do a handful of quests and smack some orcs.  O.k, good, done, have a pet."  I would have loved to have had to fly across Azeroth hunting down Iron Horde scouts or have to fight against the Blackrock to keep them from making a treaty with this "Iron Horde."  It all feels very small and contained to me, and that is a little sad.

        The one thing that has been wonderful has been all the people I have seen coming back with the new content.  We have seen Khallon, Orheim, Kedec, Sylvanara, and several others who have re-appeared in time for the patch.  I have heard of a few more who are thinking about coming back as well.  Other players have re-appeared in guild but haven't blown stuff up with us again like Deathsprite and Easybake.  I'm very happy to see the returning faces.

Well, that is this week and my quick impression of the patch.  What has your experiences been?  Are you enjoying the changes? How do you like the new character models? (I love them btw)

Lag/Lazyeye.

6.0 is officially dropping October 14th.

So, it's worth remembering what we are walking into....

      So to start with, the patch notes are right here.  http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/15682579/602-ptr-patch-notes-9-9-2014.

      I am excited about the fact we get a pre-expansion event again.  I maintain the biggest mistake that Blizzard made with Mists of Pandaria was just releasing a scenario and not having an event to work everybody up for the new content.  Now I've been playing since Vanilla, and I'm trying to think through pre-expansion events.  The only one I don't believe I did anything with was the pre-burning crusade event.

     I am looking forward to zerging the Dark Portal and playing thought the beginning of this madness.  I am still on the fence about the new models.  While they look cool, It was disconcerting to look at my pally Lag with a whole new movement and face.  I know I will adjust to it.  But it might take time.  I do like the fact that whatever you are focused on it outlined in the game as well.  Once again though, It feels unnatural compared to how you are used to playing.

     The item Squish it coming as well.  People have been wondering about how that is going to effect running old content for transmog etc...  Matt Rossi from Wow-insider apparently ran Firelands on his warrior and destroyed everything with ease. (http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/10/10/breakfast-topic-some-good-news/) if you want to read about it.

     Tuesday we will need time to work down our rotations before raid etc...  I plan on spending some time on the PTR/Beta to rework how things are going to feel for my hunter and pally.  I want to make sure if I'm tanking or dpsing I'm not tripping over my own rotation, or the changes coming in.  It's going to be tough enough trying to down Garrosh Tuesday, I don't want to add to the issues.

      Along with models, pre-expansion event, new rotations/ability pruning, we are getting the toybox.  Item squish, all our Valor/Justice points will be gone and converted to gold.  (You will be able to do stuff with the charms we can't stop getting.) Stat conversion as we will be losing hit/exp along with no more reforging. We will be getting a change on all the raiding tiers so we will see how that feels. And the lists go on and on.   Really, skim through the patch notes if you have a chance, It's worth at least seeing what is happening to your classes.

Lag/Lazyeye

   

Another path. (Raid update, week of 10/05/2014)

We are branching into different directions.

      Tuesday we had some issues to start with.  I was tanking, and while I do OK I haven't tanked enough consistently to be amazing at this point.  Scorpy was on his tank as well since both folks who had been tanking weren't able to make raid.  Once again, we found ourselves getting stomped out by Blackfuse.  It wasn't any one thing either.  Scorpy was learning the fight from the tanking side, we had a new belt person because he wasn't there to do belts, and a couple of folks we hadn't played with for a bit.  The new dichotomy  of the make up was what did us in as well as the learning points.  We finally called the raid about twenty minutes early and gave up for the evening.

       Wednesday was a little better.  While it took us a few minutes to get the raid off the ground, we managed to kill Blackfuse in a handful of pulls and one shot Paragons.  We managed a couple of attempts to punch Garrosh in the face, but at the end of the day ended with him still standing.  Hope is not lost however.

       Sunday night we have an extra raid posted this week.  Now, I'm not sure this raid will even happen since a lot of folks have a hard time coming when the raids aren't scheduled, but we are going to try to get one last shot in before 6.0 drops and changes everything.

      Speaking of change, there is one more change we have thrown into the works.

      There is a new guild kicking around the Hellscream server! "Fear Itself!" That's right.  Since Hellscream is connected to Zangarmarsh I decided to start a new chapter over there for folks who want to play around on Horde.  Fear Itself was not taken as a guild name, so essentially we have an Alliance Fear Itself, and a Horde Fear Itself all on the same server.  (leading to my ability to take such screen shots as the one above)

     Now, for the record right now this new guild is just for hanging out, maybe leveling with some friends you already know, and experience the other half of content.  I am not at this point planning on leading any raids over there as I just simply don't have the time.  If someone when the guild is more established wants to do so I will give them my blessing and support, but I don't push for a second raid team anymore.  It has never worked in the past and it's not worth the effort on my part at this time.

      Also, as far as raiding In WoD, I plan on starting about a month after the expansion drops give or take a little.  This will put us right in the middle of December, so it might not happen until Januaryish depending on schedules.  That being said, I want to hop in the saddle and be moving before patch 6.1 comes out and brings us more big raidy stuff.  With the way Blizzard released content in Mists, I'm afraid if we wait too long we will be way behind the curve.

That is the update for this week,

Lag/Lazyeye

So.... Close.... and some upcoming changes. (Raid update week of 09/29/2014)

We are hitting up against the dead line, but we are so bloody close!

         Tuesday was another smooth start.  We didn't one shot Blackfuse, but we downed him on the second go around.  Paragons went down very quickly and we managed to get some time on Garrosh. It was only a couple of pulls and he ate our tanks (one of which was me) alive but we managed to punch him a couple of times.

         Wednesday we had our dedicated Garrosh day.  It took us a few minutes to get started but once we were rolling we made consistent progress.  We managed to get to the point where we were burning through phase one quickly and were pushing through phase two.  We still have a little work to go but I don't think we are far from getting to phase three a few times.  Next week... well we will see.

        With next week we are going to be short a couple of people.  I still want to push and see if we can get the group to work on these fights but depending on who shows it might be rough.  With Blizzard announcing that the PVP season is ending in a couple weeks (most likely on the 14th of October) that is likely patch day for 6.0.  That means, yes I was wrong about when it was going to drop. I can own that.  But it also means that next week will be our last chance to work on Garrosh pre-patch.

          When the patch drops we aren't sure what will happen.  Honestly every time a patch before an expansion has dropped before we have had a small boost to the power of our characters etc... so I'm not too worried.  There is the chance however that we may go into Siege and find out that between the item squish and ability pruning we just aren't performing as well.  Not because the stat squish is a nerf, but because we are not used to our rotations, or translating the damage we are putting out into levels we understand.  Meaning, if I was pulling about 250k dps and now I'm pulling 2k.  How does that translate? Am I doing better or worse?  Honestly until I have seen how others are performing I won't be able to tell.  Neither will anyone else.

          I am also debating other things.  One of the guilds I run with on the side has changed.  When I joined it, it was family friendly clean chat etc...  It still claims to be those things in the guild tab but running with them eventually (I am only occasionally over there) I was shocked to find the environment is now more adult suited from language to subject matter.  This wouldn't bother me as much if I was expecting it, but as I wasn't it was more then a little disconcerting.  I am probably going to sit on the decision for now, but next expansion I may be looking for a new home for a couple of Hordies.  Heck, I may even just start a "Fear Itself" Guild on the Horde side of Zangarmarsh/Hellscream for folks to play in when they are feeling a little Hordie.

         If someone from that guild reads this, understand.  I am not calling you guys out, or being disparaging in anyway.  Guilds and groups over time change.  It is inevitable.  The guild is just not feeling like a fit for me anymore, and that means it might be time to move on.  If I do so I wish you all the best luck in the world, and hope everything continues to work out well for you.

         Well, time to gird up and get ready for work.  See ya'll on next week.

Lag/Lazyeye.  (dropping my priest form the signature since he's just collecting dust now)