WoW break

Wow just isn't new or interesting at this point. I don't think the flavor of the added druid abilities or the revamp of the old abilities makes me feel that I've gained anything incrementally fun on my main. While the game has opened-up considerably for casuals, I still find the reward horizon much to long for the benefits.

Ida, go play a Death Knight?

No thanks. It has taken me quite long enough to level to 71. I don't care to repeat any part of Outlands even though progressing into Northrend with a new class would probably keep me interested enough to continue in WoW. Organizing all the add-ons I've come to depend on just to play through zones I have already seen just isn't very compelling.

I feel that the next release of WoW or next Blizz MMO will gather my $15/month. As for now, the only thing in-game I am enjoying is the AH, which probably isn't worth $15 RL dollars per month.

Under what circumstance would I stay?

1) If I could start another class (rogue) at my current level, I'd likely stick around for that.
2) Insta-level my 71 to 80 for $15 to get into raids and PvP.

I really just hate leveling. It is so boring. The plots are so mundane and uninteresting and the process is just too slow. Professions have also become quite useless. I need a game with quicker rewards.

The stick is just too long and the carrot seems to be the same carrot from TBC.

All that being said, I may stick around or come back. But for now, dear readers, I will be investing some time in some other blogs.

Is WoW too complex for fun?

Wow is a tough game to play. Everything was Candyland for the first 30-40 levels or so. Then, my bags filled up, stats became important and I started to sweat a little just thinking about playing. Along came level 60 and TBC. Stats became even more important, there were more of them and marginal benefit graphs started popping up. I didn't know which gem to buy (still don't). I didn't know which enchants were the best. I did't know that enchants don't proc with weapon strikes when shapeshifted?

My /played vastly underestimates the time I spent gear-searching, theorycrafting and scheming over which rep to get, which dungeon loot to pursue and which attack rotation to use. All this time, I felt that my druid was a calico, clown-car of equipment, clothes, gems and profession junk.

My conclusion.....WoW is hard. What makes WoW hard?
1) too many choices for gear
2) too many spells
3) too many ways to modify gear

As the amount of choices increases, the potential for making errors in choosing gear inceases. Also the potential for making a character incredibly powerful also exists. What if you showed up in PvP without much stamina or resilence? What if you thought attack power was better than Agi for cat dps? The gap between those who can assimilate, crunch and optimize is growing. The result is that the damage output, tanking capacity and healing ability is very high for some and vastly unrealized for others. This is especially evident in PvP, where I am routinely getting 2-3 shotted by rogues after the introduction of glyphs- they must have been given some really good ones. And what is the story with warriors getting the spinning blender ability? Healers stand their ground while I dps and heal until someone arrives to help. I

Impressive. Most impressive.



Hopefully this chasm will be reduced to allow players with less time more access to fun in PvP and more chances of contributing toward PvE goals. Reducing the amount of gear choices available, labeling gear for specific use and labeling enchants, glyphs, inscriptions, potions and other gear for specific use would be very helpful.

To reduce the amount of time it takes to find these objects, it would be very nice to have a class/spec filter at the auction house that would allow one to see (when toggled) only those items that might be improvements for class and spec given existing gear.

Additionally, if we consider instance runs a kind of shopping with a chance of getting the desired drop, a system where a dungeon drops only bracers and main hand weapons or feet and trinkets would be preferable to the current system where all drops for any slot could occur for any class. The result of the current system is that without great gear lists, which there are many, significant amounts of time are required for gear searching before you even get to the instance and have to deal with low probability of your heart's desire actually dropping.

As for the casual approach to all of this, I am lucky to have a class that has great online forums and resources. There are gear lists that are reliably and accurately updated. If I didn't have these lists, I'd hope to find an addon that would compare what I have eqiupped to what I am considering for purchase or loot. The combination of Talented and Dr. Damage will accomplish this.

There, I've said it. I don't enjoy spending hours reading about how to play this game. My attempts to play more efficiently have result in many dry-eyed Firefox sessions, which isn't much fun either. However, after 2 years of playing and reading I have finally found the instruction manuals for my class, professions and so forth in the form of various web pages. I must give credit to the forums, which occasionally have useful information, though I am likely to look there after Wowhead or wowwiki.

However, a bit of direction from Blizz would go a long way toward reducing the amount of crap-wading that must take place in order to have fun in-game.

Shared Blog Azeroth Topic: 10 Memories

1) Level 20: Hello Auction House! Didn't know you existed.

2) Level 11: Hello Twinks! You make PvP much less fun. See you at level 19 for a more fair fight!

3) Level 2: 1 min /played to level 2

4) Level 19: Hello Twinks! You make PvP much less fun.....

5) Level 55ish: Respec from a Resto to Feral. ZOMG DPS!

6) Level 70: Killed a paladin in PvP with my kitty, by myself, after approximately 5 mins of assorted stuns, bubbles, heals and pots. In the rarely unoccupied Alliance WSG tunnell, no less.

7) Level 70: Soloing the Rezza for Orb of Deception in Bear Form (not amazing, just fun).

8) Level 40ish- The Stairs event in Zul'Farrak- I only did it once, but now that I think about it, I'd love to do it again. The Stairs event here is just great. Of all the boss fights I have ever done, this is easily the best. Waves of mobs with time to heal, but no time to really plan. The onslaught just keeps coming. A few NPCs help you out, then turn on you to attack!

9) Level 70: Healing in BGs. Perhaps the best respec and re-focus I have had in WoW. Healing in BGs is great fun, is very effective (i was very in-effective at killing things), doesn't require grouping, honor get rewards fairly quickly and for these reasons is probably my favorite activity.

10) Level 50ish: Silithus. One of the coolest places for a screenshot and only a mother drood could love that stylish gear Ida's got on(a situation which never improved much). Confusion smites the mind of your enemy. They LOL at your choice of armor. My weapon appears to best be used for assistance up steps or scraping gum off of tile floors.

(end post)

Help with PUGs?

I have recently been changing my build. My previous attempt at a Resto/Balance build lasted only a very short time. Truly hybridized, that build excelled at....nothing. Healing remained my goal, so I have now specced 13/0/48. This build is very nice for healing in BGs.

Once I get out into the world of the 5-man, non-heroic PUG, my equipment begins to fail me. I get way too much aggro when healing. Two Lifeblooms are generally enough to pull the 3 non-CC'd mobs off the tank. The hunters in the group can rarely even drop a trap at my feet after the pull starts to prevent at least one of the mobs from reaching me.

Fortunately, the tank can generally continue to maintain his/her assignment for at least the next 5 minutes, which allows me to move around in Tree Form while healing myself. I find this maneuver to be very effective in attracting the attention of rogues and warlocks, who will generally stop soloing their mobs and try to solo the mob chasing me, which also gives me more time to heal.

Clothies are also generally very considerate in keeping out of range of my heals. While communication is important, vent can be overused. Nothing says "I respect that you are running around to attract the attention of the rogue, so please don't distract yourself by healing me" like getting well out of range of my heals. Thanks clothies, keep that up, you don't hold onto health very well anyway.

We are going to be at the second boss within the next 50-90 minutes and we can't be using up our Battle Rez as druids, so thanks for understanding why I won't be rezzing anyone after a wipe. Nature's Swiftness takes a little while to cooldown as well, so I may not use that much either.

At any rate, these experiences really made me take a close look at my spec and my gear. I did a little search and found some gear and little known spells that I thought could help me in these situations.






And for Unbearabely HoT:

A F K Tank Pull
Trap? O O M Rogue Solo
PUG HoTs No Fix Fix


Anyone else have stories or newfound gear or abilities that can help me PUG better?

Wowitemcreator

WoW Databases

WoWDB.com is a superior site in many ways to Wowhead, Thottbot or Allakazham.
1) Tooltips on mouseover allowing item comparison to what you are wearing in-game
2) Saved wish lists
3) Saved searches
4) Integration for bloggers
5) Less association with gold farmers (?)

Why aren't more people using Wowdb?


By use, I am mainly (soley) referring to the comments for items, quests, etc. Is it possible that Wowdb will remain a relative ghost-site for quest and item info due to the well-stocked Wowhead? I prefer searching for gear in wowdb, but if I want to figure out how to get that gear or find a quest item, well.... it's off to wowhead.

Ten Ton Hammer also makes claims about the absence of Gold ads. I don't use TTH, but that may be reason enough to give it a try.

Although I don't have access to Wowdb's traffic, I can imagine that a lack of player-provided info could be very limiting for this otherwise very robust site. So, give it a try yourself.

A Truly Interesting Fight

My raiding experience is not extensive, but I have never encountered a fight in WoW as interesting as Priestess Delrissa and her adds. The mobs that compose this fight appear to lack traditional aggro tables. The result is a very chaotic and fun fight, where you could be alone one minute and double-teamed the next. I have done this fight 3 times without success (probably due to a lack of crowd control classes). For a druid, the challenge here is to offer some meaningful contribution to the group. This is a rare occasion for a druid to perform many roles, none of them well, and save the day.

Feral Druids have some decisions to make before this fight. The strategy of the druid can be to outlive the random attacks (bear form) or help to heal as needed with interspersed DPS, hoping to keep HoTs on oneself or heals from the main healer. Certainly, performing a timely Combat Rez or Innervate can make a big difference. A nice: /cast Barkskin; /cast Tranquility can also be very helpful, so ask your group to keep tight- when they aren't the victim of NPC Fear.

The problem with the Bear Form strategy, is that your bear is not adding meaningful dps or really maintaining aggro. The benefit is that you will likely be last to need heals if you don't get swarmed with casters (my guess is that no single person can aggro more than 2-3 mobs simultaneously). Overall, this seems the worst option to me.

Alternatively, a feral druid can attempt Cat form with emphasis on DoTs being maintained to keep the DPS rolling while feared or otherwise CC'd by the mobs. Either way, a PvP set is very nice for this encounter. The difference between my bear gear and DPS gear is >3000 health and there is no crit protection in Cat form/gear. Cat form with tank gear on will offer some improved survivability, but not as much as burning down mobs with DPS before they can become a problem. DPS in this gear is terrible. I found myself dying in my pure DPS gear VERY quickly.

Unfortunately, we lack good CC in this indoor setting, but that shouldn't cause you to balk at throwing Cyclone around freely and frequently.

This fight is a very nice departure from tank'n'spank, run when (insert voiceover/enrage graphic) fights that typify instances. Hats off to Blizz on this one.

In summary, a Feral Druid's best chance in the Lady D fight is to equip melee pvp gear, stock up on stamina buffs and try to DPS that lady down in cat and if able throw out some heals and cyclone.

Signing off for a bit.

Based on my last post, you may have gleaned that I have hit a WoW wall. Few options for fun exist in the game for me at the moment. So, I'll be taking a pause from the blog, as I take a pause from the game. I will put up some posts of interest from time-to-time, but regular posting needs to take a break. I hope to come back when we get our new talent trees revealed and when the expansion comes out, I know that I will be in a much better position to progress with my guild during the expansion.

As a last prediction, I will say that the new Sunwell gear looks impressive. So impressive, that I think Wrath of the Litch King is not coming out for some time.

I will be doing the following in-game:

1) Farming the Dire Maul for the Orb of Deception. (done)
2) Getting Swift Flight Form (done)
3) Running Karazahn with my guild
4) Getting my Cenarion Expedition and Sha'tar rep up as much as possible to get Earthwarden and Alchemist's Stone (only so I can get my Assassin's Stone).
5) Helping out the guild and finishing the grind for a Dark Riding Talbuk.

However, I really don't plan to progress much between now and the expansion, unless some more options for daily quests with CE and Sha'tar open up and/or ZA gear becomes more readily available.

Other then that, I'm a bit sad to say that the game isn't better designed to allow casual players to progress beyond Kara. It is my feeling that the time cost of gearing up for ZA is just too intense when compared to other things I could be doing. I'll be posting some thoughts on this very topic on this blog and on the forums in the weeks to come.

Until the Exapansion rolls around, signing off from the Cenarion Labs.

Thanks for reading.

Ida

(end)

Time vs Talent

The new badge rewards have fanned the flames of the "ease of acquisition" debate. Raiders upset that nice gear is too easy to obtain on one side and players who can "easily" acquire 100s of Badges on the other side. Wait....who can obtain Badges of this quantity?

The old BoJ gear was quite nice and a bit more reasonable in terms of cost. Still a full clear of Karazhan nets 22 badges and takes.....what about 4 hours? (I have never completed this feat myself.) So, to get that nice new Druid tanking Chest: Embrace of Everlasting Prowess, I would have to run Kara 4 times plus another heroic? This isn't easy my friends. In my world, that is about 2 months of time if I were very lucky and my significant other thought that the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess's stats were worth the opportunity cost of having dinner on a whim with friends.


This brings me to my elephant in the room: There are two separate sets of people who play this game- those who are able to make the time commitment and those who are not. I am not able to make this kind of commitment. Recently, upon logging in, my options are:

1) /1 LF Heroic or LFG Heroic

2) Grind for gold to buy....the only two pieces of gear that would be upgrades for me that are crafted BoEs.

3) Grind gold to buy Coilfang Armaments to obtain the rep for Earthwarden. No other non-instance options for CE rep- tks Blizzard.

4) Go to BGs for almost guaranteed loss to obtain about 300 honor or so to put towards PvP gear.

These options are not that great. Grinding just isn't what this Druid wants to do. So, I seem to be hitting a wall. Well, new PvP gear and new Arena season may help with that, as these require much less time commitment, but still give me that good ole WoW fun. Additionally, some forayes into Kara may improve my gear enough to allow me access to ZA.

In summary, after arriving Karazhan-ready, players must choose how much time they want to spend in order to progress. Moving on from this point may require a considerable amount of dedication. Those with a guild running Kara once per week may have a reasonable chance to progress, while those unable to do so will certainly have a much harder time.

If I could have someone at Blizzard hear one request, it would be to make more encounters akin to Magtheridon's Lair, where only a limited amount of trash-clearing is necessary to have access to the real content- the boss fight. If instances could be significantly foreshortened, casual players would have much more chance of access to end-game content. Until then, this game is largely still a matter of time, more than skill.

New Druid Abilities: Leave other's Bread and Butter alone

Resto4Life has a great post regarding a request for a druid ability.

I was thinking about this today, and I agree with Bornakk- sort of. Druids do have a lot of great abilities that other classes have. We shouldn't request changes along the line of "let us have this [insert class] ability. Instead, how about creative, druid-specific abilities that reflect our animal nature:










No borrowed abilities here. Maybe these would get more attention from the Blues? Anyone else have suggestions?

General Disclaimer Post

Readers,

Please note:

"Always" means most of the time.
"Never" means it could happen.
"I prefer" means that I prefer some thing. Not everyone needs to prefer/like/want it.
All things occur along a spectrum, leaving room for many possibilities.
All means most things, not all things (except when it's a spectrum).

My facts exist along a spectrum. Hopefully, that spectrum involves the truth. I will certainly post any corrections to maintain this site as a place to find accurate information. Sometimes posts are made in humor, like jokes. These posts will not be fact-checked.

Blizzard is a big company with lots of lawyers and copyright symbols and lawyers, which I respect. I did not write the code for WoW and therefore all the images and references you see are the property of the party with the most lawyers and the code writers- Blizzard. I hope I don't offend them in any way.

Otherwise, the stuff on this blog is mine. Please give me and anyone else credit for their work on the internet.

End Post