World of Warcraft Raid Leader of a very casual raid team talks and vents about life in World of Warcraft, and maybe a little bit of life outside of WoW.
For the near future, I may be declaring my new main as my priest Dizzty, So after almost 4 I won't be referring to myself in game as Lag. As in all games, things happen. Names change, and sometimes we adjust either due to circumstance or desire for something different, but I have a confession to make.
This image looks nothing like my priest, I just liked it
I tried disc this weekend and I love it!!!! Atonement healing FTW!!!! Reward burning the enemy with holy power by healing your friends? Absolutely!!!!
I am going to step into raid tonight as a Disc in our ten man for the first time, and I'm excited to see what happens. Right now I am working on a crit build, and man, I am loving it so far. The feeling of being able to heal and shield your party just by dpsing is awesome. Having to guess and work around when you think damage is coming in, is cool in itself as well. So we will see how raid goes tonight. I hope well, because i've sunk a lot of gold into respeccing and regemming.
Here is to hoping raid goes tonight as well. We have 7 peeps signed up, and at least one other whom I can talk into coming. Anything over that, we will see.
So, looking at this virtual realm thing, now that I've read up on it, I feel I need to opine, much as I did when they announced Flex-raids coming up.
Yeah, that is kinda how I felt when it was first announced. Only, less chickness, more short fat dudish screaming... well you get it.
Anyway, now that I've read a little more, I can tell you from the get go who is going to hate this idea with a passion. Who is going to rail and scream and call Blizzard names. Who is going to take up arms, troll forums, and make Blizzard's forum moderator's jobs hell for the next while.
Everyone who hates cross zone realms (CRZs)
Because really, this is the next step after CRZs. This is them taking all the realms and combining them in a way where we get more population, more competition for mining nodes, more fighting people for quest objectives, and frankly all the downsides you get with CRZs. Knowing I will have to listen to these people, is why I feel like screaming.
Now to be fair, I have never personally had a problem with CRZs. I have gone back leveled a couple characters since they were implemented and haven't had a ton of challenge with leveling professions as I go and keeping up. As a matter of fact the biggest problems I had was that I stayed in zones long after quests had got green and gray because I leveled to quickly to not have to stop and grind for my professions. That's ok, because that means I also hung in leveling areas long enough to get the whole story. Even flying around Wrath areas like Sholazar Basin, I still had no more trouble farming ore then when I was a level 80 getting ready to fight the Lich King. This doesn't mean I didn't have competition, I just don't think it was so bad that I felt like it took away from my gaming experience. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed seeing other people playing in the areas I was in, and have enjoyed CRZs for the most part.
Virtual Realms will take it a step further. That means, my home realm Zangarmarsh will be combined with other realms. I will still be Lag of Zangarmarsh, but if there is a Lag of (Insert realm name), we might end up playing together and our realms, or a number, will be listed like a surname for identification. Not that it might not get confusing even with the surname type identifier.
If you are on a virtual realm, that means you can join guilds, with any guild on your virtual realm. You can mail between characters, you can do current raid content. Essentially, it will behave like one giant realm where we share Auction Houses, Raids, etc... And while this is good for low pop realms and will give people options there that don't involve paying to transfer to a more populated realm, I wonder how it will effect high population realms, or mid population realms like mine. I think it's fair to question whether or not this is good for everybody, or if this is a band-aid fix for the low population realms, that is going to involve everyone who logs in.
Now, I like the idea, that I may finally be able to level several horde characters that will benefit from my BOA items that are gathering dust in my bank. As someone who has 8 out of 11 characters on my home realm at 85 or higher, most of these are going to waste, and I like leveling characters. (Yes, I know I'm sick)
This means I might be able to build a support system horde side, like I have on my alliance side. (The only professions I don't have leveled are leather working and skinning, and that will be fixed when/if I level my monk.)
I also like the idea of having more accountability in the community. One of the problems with LFR and random dungeons is that you can be a jerk and unless there is someone else in your realm thrown in with you there is no penalty for it. However, if you end up with people in your community a lot more often then your reputation is more at stake. There is more chance of someone you run with being able to call you out in a meaningful way. They will be able to contact your guild officers or guild leader, possibly causing you to get kicked out of your guild. If you keep up that behavior and get pushed out of enough guilds you will eventually lose your credibility and may even get yourself blacklisted on your realm. Most guilds don't want people in them that get them constant mail and complaints.
There is a lot still not set in stone on this, so if they make any more big announcements I will give my opinion. Over all, I think this feature will be a good thing, but I think there is going to be a lot of heart ache over it. What do you think?
So, I would love to tell you, that we all got together, marched in and cleared the rest of HoF this week. That we left crushed Klaxxi twitching as far as the eye can see, and spent hours later cleaning their blood and body parts from our armor and weapons.
Instead I have to tell the sad tale of two nights, where we didn't have enough people to raid. 4 people showed up to the first night, and then 6 to the next night. Now, we had one member who left to take care of her family, and she will be gone for a few weeks, and our prayers go with her because it's going to be a hard time for her. One other had a concert Tuesday night, and you can't plan on when who you want to see is coming in concert. That is stuff I accept and even am happy to see the people on the team aren't putting Wow ahead of their life.
Other people /shrug, we will see
I did check my friends list, and I did see if anyone was on in Bridgeburners... in both cases I had no luck. Bridgeburners were all in ToT Tuesday, and friends were otherwise occupied.
Fortunately we have one member who logged in later last night, who is making a great return to the game. We also have had a small influx of people joining the guild recently. Hopefully with that happening we will pick up, and even train and gear a couple more raiders.
Here is the thing, I plan on being eternally optimistic.
I am facing the reality my wife is gone from the game for a while. (Her computer is dead for the moment, even if she had the play time.) My raid team is still having attendance issues, and the nerd I am I don't like hopping in and raiding with new people a good part of the time.
Time wasn't wasted, we got a LFR in last night, and help a guildie with a quest, and also got a Nalak kill in. So, last night was fine. Tuesday night I just worked on an alt, so, I could argue that time was kinda wasted.. but you can never have too many alts.
Back to the optimistic part... I plan on still building the raid team. I plan on still scheduling raids and I plan on making this work. Eventually we will be a full raid team again, and even if it takes until the next Xpack, we will get there. By the way, any bets on what we are doing for the next Xpack?
Anyway, I will blog later about other things I want to discuss. Like virtual realms etc.. There has been a bunch this week, and I have not had the time to properly read up on it, so I won't opine. Yet.
Sally forth, and next week, we shall squash some bugs
So, Wow Insider just ran and article where Blizzard announces flexible raids. While it is too soon to know exactly what this will do to the game, one can guess.
First of all my warrior Trisham from Aerie Peak says hi, why? Because she can.
Now, on the face of things, Flexible raids seems like a good idea. The difficulty is supposed to be in between LFR and 10 man normal. Awesome features include the fact the raids can accommodate 10-15 people and will adjust the difficulty level appropriately. This means, if you have two extra raiders one night, no problem, they don't have to sit out. Having trouble getting through 10 man normal? Do flex-raid and get some gear. If you don't want to have to roll against that other clothie on your raid team, no problem, the Flexible raid system uses the LFR loot system. Are you afraid of getting locked out of a raid for the week, No problem, just life LFR, Flexible raid system has it's own cool down.
See, on the surface I think it's a great idea, it's a way to work through fights as a guild, on an easier setting so you can see whats going on with the different fight. It is another way to get geared up and ready to rock in the 10 man normal. It may also be a chance to hop in with friends from another guild and have a night here and there where you play with friends you don't normally raid with, without loosing you save and chance to work with your guild on current content.
There are a couple things that worry me about this though,
First of all, ilevel. This is supposed to have a gear ilevel in between LFR and normal. This means we may have a bigger spread in ilevels between raiding tiers. That also means our ability to advance to the next raid tier will need bigger numbers. Not only does this mean faster gear inflation, it means it will be harder to gear those alts up after they hit max level once you get to the second and third raid tiers of an expansion. Blizzard has talked about a gear/numbers squish before, and heaven knows we are ever getting to the point where we will need one, and this may bring the need quicker.
This may also feed player burn out. There are those of you, who feel you need to do every daily, and every raid you can weekly to get geared and maximize your character. That is all fine and good, but right now, if you do all the LFR's on a dps character you are looking at about 2 hours per LFR X 8 possible LFRs. (You can skip lower ones though, unless you like them for valor) plus your normal raid times, which for the sake of argument we can say is 6 hours a week. That means you may already be doing 22 hours a week give or take between queue times and getting through the stuff your doing now. Adding another 4-6 hours of raiding on that is just going to push raider burn out into a higher degree.
Alright, that is my take on it for now, let us see what happens when it's implemented. Hopefully my fears are unfounded, and this adds more appeal to the game for everyone.
O.k, I am excited. And reasonably so. For the first time in a couple months Fear Itself downed a new boss. I know, some of you out there are like, "Garalon? We killed that MoFo months ago," and you may have, however, I think this is the start of the upswing that will take us away from the issues that have plagued our raid team the last few months.
Garalon is down, and i'm keeping the save. Hopefully we will get through HoF in the next week or two and get to work on Terrace of Endless Spring again. At that point, I may do one time ToES, and one night Throne of Thunder. I want to start hitting the Throne.
Of course we aren't the only ones who have had a hard time this expansion. WotLK to MoP: A Trend Analysis of Raiding Difficulty. This article on MMO Champion details the amount of Boss kills per raid tier, or more accurately, how many guild have beaten each boss per raid tier. It is enlightening, and well worth reading.
I am looking forward to getting caught up on content. Last night showed me one thing, we went from pulling Garalon and dying horribly within moment, to downing the boss withing a couple of hours. We even got to smack the next boss in the face once. It was a good feeling though, seeing the group progress every pull, do a little better each time, and then finally kill the ugly A bug.
I am still liking my heals at the moment. I may swap to Disc eventually, but as my priest is going to have to get caught up on the legendary quest line, I am also going to have to dig into dailies etc.. because in order to have every advantage at the end of the day, I have to hit that, and hit it hard. There is too much benefit to ignore the change to get an extra gem slot on your weapon etc... even after you have moved past the sha touched items.
But the biggest Kudos goes to the people in that raid last night. Magilla, Laroth, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Lotauna, Easybake, Cuin, Badwulf, and Scorpiak. You all rocked it and make me proud to smash things with you. Well, smash when i'm not healing anyway.
And a shout out to people in Russia! Why, because apparently you guys have the second most views on this Blog. Seriously, you beat Canada and Alaska! (O.k., I admit Alaska is part of the U.S.)
Last night was good but rough. We got off to a late start, between a couple peeps getting smacked with real life and other events we didn't get running until about half an hour after the raid was scheduled. When we got running though, we one shot the first boss Imperial Vizier Zor'lock! (It sounds more impressive when you give his name and title) The pull was good and smooth, everybody did their job, and we cheered his demise.
I was happy in particular, because while my heals on my priest weren't spectacular... they were decent and I kept up for the most part.
Little did I know Zor'lock was giggling as he died, for he knew what was going to happen next.
We got beat down like hookers at a pimp convention. O.k., it wasn't really that bad.
The first pull actually went great, Blade Lord Ta'yak didn't seem any more difficult then normal, heals and dps were in place nicely, we got to the wind tunnel phase, most of us made it to the end, but when the winds shifted, we didn't swap quickly enough and he had about 3% life left when he enraged and destroyed the two tanks who were left standing.
Not feeling too discouraged I complimented peeps on the feel of the pull and called for us to get back into the fray.
Now, we have a running joke that Ghostcrawler Greg Street has bugged our vent. When things start to go strange and wonky, we normally make comments about, "Man, Ghostcrawler must be listening in and playing with us tonight." "Or crap, shut it, Ghostcrawler can here you! Do you want him to screw with the boss?" Yes folks, Ghostcrawler is our raids Boogey man.
And if this was the case, man someone pissed in his cheerio's yesterday, because after that first pull, we had healers getting one shot even when everyone was stacked on the arrow. You would throw a heal on a tank, see he was topped off, throw a heal on a dps, and realized in that split second the tank had been destroyed. We had people get trapped behind balconies and tornadoes so they couldn't get to us when marked with an arrow. In short, Murphy showed up and gave us a first hand demonstration on how his law works.
To be honest, this was not how I wanted the night to go. We had someone who has raided with us off and on for years, who may be quitting Wow for good when his time is up. With that in mind, I wanted to march through a dungeon on squashed bugs, and give him a great high to end on, if this is the last time he ever raids with us.
Instead we got the 3 stooges meet Abbot and Castello celebrity death match style.
Here is the thing to remember though... wiping is not a bad thing. It can be at times, but if every boss in this game went down quickly with little or no work, there would be no reason to raid. If we didn't have nights where things went wrong, we wouldn't enjoy those nights when things click right into place and we rock through some encounters we have formally had a hard time with.
The one thing I didn't hear last night, swearing, raider's giving up, and malcontent.
I did get something shiny and new that I loved.... Squeeky toy aggro! It was amazingly funny because raider A. had a dog who was fighting with a squeeky toy. When the sound went through vent, raider B. was getting attacked by a dog who got excited when it heard the squeeking. I now want to whisper raider A. on occasion, and say... "Alright, quickly, I think raider B is falling asleep, squeek that toy and squeek it now! Mwha ha ha ha ha" I digress though....
We were a team, and we were a team working on a fight that was beating us. Now, part of that might be because we are rebuilding things, getting the feel for newer members of the team, along with people who have returned after a while out of game. This may be the way of it.
So we wipe, we wipe so we can appreciate the kill later.
I promise that I won't rant angrily like the post before. I am pretty calm and relaxed, and fully caffeinated, as it should be.
My priest has finally felt the victory of having the gear to break into Throne of Thunder LFRs. However, being valor capped for the week already, I almost feel punished sneaking into those for gear. Go figure. Of course, since my brain can't sit still, my Death Knight Illyrea has been telling me she needs to be leveled too... jobs are never done.
Today, as I put up the raids for the week, I think about whether or not people are going to show up. Not only that, I think about people who have played this game with me, who aren't here anymore. People who have not only raided with me in the past, but have disappeared off the face of Azeroth altogether.
Now, everyone who has played this game for any length of time has had this happen. I know there are people I should think about here, but I don't remember for whatever reason. This game at it's height during Wrath had about 12 million subscribers, and it is now down to 8 million. That is roughly 1/3 the population of this game that isn't playing now.
And for those who say that means the game is dying... well we still have several times more players then any other MMO out there. I believe the next runner up was SWOTOR, and they peeked below 2 million, and now have less then 1 million. That is not the discussion I am giving here though.
Sometimes when I do that first pull, I think of tanks who had stood in my place, dpsers who have had my back, etc... I have been members of other guilds a long time ago. I was in Midnight (Now gone), Guardians of Light (Not 100% on the name on that one) and a couple others I don't remember. However, I know some of my real ID friends are from those guilds back in the day. I now pretty much stick to my home guild Fear Itself, or on horde side, Mission of Mercy.
Oh, and for the sake of it, I have and Illyrea in AIE on Earthen Ring, and Trisham in the Convert to raid guild on Aerie Peak. These characters exist so I can step into chat etc... with these communities that have been built around podcasts I enjoy. I don't know if I will ever max level them. But every now and then I like to hear the chatter from there two groups, which are massive guilds that only exists through add ons like Greenwall etc...
So, simply put... before that next pull. Before you run that next LFR, life you glass of Mt. Dew, (or the beverage of your choice, I also recommend Apple Beer) and think about those whom you have played with that are no longer in game.
And give a wicked grin for those who come back....
