Oct 7

Although this article contains the barest minimum of spoilers, I thought I’d break it behind a "read more" link for those of you that don’t want any information whatsoever. Read more… »

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1. WotLK in Closed Alpha, or So They Say
2. The Death of the Epic Mount Quests
3. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King
4. Preparing for WotLK
5. WotLK Information Released

Sep 29

Wrath of the Lich King, to me, represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about classes and stacking, both in the smaller 5-man group and the larger 10- and 25-man raids. This is especially true of tanking. Let’s take a look at some blue posts, or at least a portion of them (some of them are a big large):

Ghostcrawler in "Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King"
Threads have popped up in several class forums that seem to be converging on a few of the same issues. So rather than cross-posting a lot, I thought I would start a new thread.

Tanking design:

1) Our goal in Lich King is for all 4 tanking classes to be viable.

[...]

5) For raids, we want all 4 tank classes to be viable. If your group has e.g. a Prot paladin and Feral druid as main tanks with appropriate gear and reasonable skill, you should be good to go.

6) This is a shift in philosophy for us. Previously, we sometimes tried to steer Ferals as being better off tanks than main tanks. We also expected specific classes to appear in the raid. Our new assumption is that you might have any of the 4 tanking classes as a tank. We are trying to achieve as much parity as we can among the 4 tanks without making them too similar. If nearly all guilds want the same class as their MT, we’ve failed.

Here’s another one, in response to the question, "So can someone tell me (preferably Ghostcrawler) why someone would chose to bring a bear druid over a protection warrior to a raid? As nearly as I can tell all bear abilities are available to a warrior and a protection warrior has far more utility while tanking.":

Ghostcrawler in "Feral Tanking, looking for enlightenment"

There is no reason to bring a druid over a warrior. Not if we do our jobs right. There is no reason to bring a warrior over a druid either. We want you to get a tank. We don’t want you sidelining your X tank while you are trying hard to recruit a Y tank.

Bring the tank with the best gear or the most skill. Bring the guy that always shares consumables or can make every raid. Bring the dude who doesn’t complain or researches boss strategies or finds great new people to join your group. Don’t bring a player because his class has the magic button for a boss fight; if we do our jobs right, there won’t be any.

I mentioned to a good paladin friend of mine, "Hey, they removed the target limit on Swipe and Thunderclap, nice." to which he replied, "Great, now Pally tanks are useless."

His statement got me to thinking: why? Why are paladins suddenly useless? Is it because Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights can do respectable AoE threat now? Say this same friend was a warrior. I would much, much rather bring him to a raid or dungeon because he’s my friend and I know that he’s competant, than go, "Sorry, we need a paladin for some big pulls."

I’m sorry, but I can’t see how this is anything but a good thing. The fact of the matter is, if you’re a competant player, or you have, you know, any friends at all, you’re going to be able to get a group. This will actually let me play with people that, you know, I acutally like and know how to tank.

Furthermore, instead of me going, "Wow, I should really level a paladin, tanking would be easier and my friends would invite me to groups more and girls will like me and I will like myself," I can say, "Wow, I can play my feral druid, a class that I actually enjoy playing, and I can tank as well as any other tank. I’m now an asset to my team, instead of a liability (thanks Ratters).

Part of me can understand the idea that "Oh no, the thing that defined me as a class is going away, how will I ever be useful," but the answer is, "You’re a tank, you’ll always be useful." Just because some random druid can AoE tank a bit now doesn’t mean your friends won’t invite you to a group.

Personally, I really like the new idea: play the class you enjoy, bring the folks you enjoy playing with, and still get the job done.

Related posts:

1. Decisions
2. Moving Forward
3. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
4. Why Can’t I Decide?
5. Chill of the Throne: Sunwell Radiance 2.0

Sep 12

There are two additional things I am very excited about in Wrath for my feral druid, and I forgot to mention them in the previous post. First of all is the new and improved Swipe. Now with four targets! A buff, surely, but wait, there’s more! With a Glyph of Swipe, that number is increased to five!

Swipe probably won’t be replacing Lacerate completely, now that it scales with AP, but this is surely a great boon to tanking druids everywhere!

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1. 15 Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
2. I Love Being a Feral Druid
3. Am I Doing Something Wrong?
4. Why I Love Druids
5. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Jul 21

We’re all so full of Rash of the Itch King news that we can’t stand it, right? Being an Altoholic, I’ve read more posts about class changes than I can remember the details. Of course, I’m trying to hold back–I’m opted in for the Beta, but still not sure if I’d do it or not. I like things to be a surprise, but then again maybe I could get this itch to make a Death Knight out of my system early in the beta and get on with my life.

At any rate, being a code monkey, I was browsing around the UI and Macro’s forum and came upon a post describing the changes to the API for addons, etc. in LK. One exicted me greatly:

Key bindings, macros, and many UI settings are now stored on the server and will be available wherever you play.

How cool is that? If this could somehow be extended to addons too, that would be really exciting!

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1. Paid Name Change
2. WotLK Beta: Wrath Gate and the Quality of Quests
3. PLAYXPERT Beta Released
4. WotLK: Now With More References!
5. My Plans for WotLK and Beyond

Jun 25

The Part Time Druid posted an excellent post entitled “Why do We WoW?” over on his site. I’ve talked with my wife about this quite a bit, as when you think about it, it really is a good question.

PTD brings up a few possible reasons we WoW, from searching for meaning in life or being competitive, down to accomplishing goals or socializing. But, he argues, these things don’t really exist. There’s no arguing that the drops you get or the items you craft aren’t really real. You don’t get any “thing” in real life that shows that you downed Illidan. Even the more abstract WoW-reasons, such as achievement-reaching or socializing (aside from the people aspect) aren’t real. They’re just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, which, when you get down to it, are just electrons flowing on wire from my house to Blizzard’s place. No matter how much I do in WoW, I haven’t really done anything.

Or have I?

The rewards may not be tangable, but the chemicals in your brain that make you feel good are the same as the ones you get when winning a sports game, or passing a difficult test, or any other exciting accomplishment. I’m not saying that you should seek WoW as an escape from real life; there’s no replacing experiences in the mortal plane, especially when it comes to family and loved ones. I’m just saying that just because the physical thing you get isn’t real, it doesn’t mean the accomplishment’s not. The first time I went to Kara, I was excited. My wife doesn’t WoW, but she shared in that excitement with me. It was real, most definitely real.

That’s not even counting the social/people aspects of WoW. I invited a shy friend of mine that I met in WoW to a guild, and she ended up in a romantic relationship with a member of that guild. They even told me to come to IF one day and thanked me for “introducing” them. That’s as real as it gets, folks. Look at Second Skin–they were able to make an entire documentary of just the “people part” of MMOs.

But, aside from all that, Part Time Druid hits the nail on the head–it’s entertainment. I pay my $15 a month to enjoy myself, the same reason I pay money to get cable TV or go play raquetball at the “Y” or do anything else I do that costs money. I guess, in the end, that’s what it all comes down to.

What are your thoughts? Why do you WoW? Or do you even think about that? Do you look for reason in your WoW, or are you happy to just enjoy your entertainment?

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1. Forum Post of the Week: The End
2. So You’re Off to BT/Hyjal: A Guide by Gragnarth
3. Why Gearing for Naxx Matters to Me
4. Feeling Lonely – Stay or Go?
5. Playing with Others

Jun 19

This is in response to the Shared Topic from Blog Azeroth entitled 10 Best Memories in World of Warcraft.

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Wow, this is gonna be difficult. So many memories in the couple years I’ve played WoW, a great majority of them good. I’ve tried to read as few of the other BA bloggers’ answers to keep from spoiling my own–though I’m sure a lot of them will be similar across all WoW players. Blizzard seems to work hard to make certain points in the game very memorable. A lot of them will be “firsts,” as those are my most memorable moments.

10. Logging In the First Time

The first time I logged in to WoW, I created Celidur, my mage. Finally logging in and seeing what all the hubub was all about, being able to control my own character and explore this massive virtual world with all my friends, was a great experience. This is by far not number 10 in the list of best memories, but it was the first, so it goes here.
Read more… »

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Jun 18

So Tasmyn, my druid, was feral when she hit 70. I tanked and DPSed some instances, and decided to give resto a try, as she had some resto gear laying around. It’s nice too. I enjoy both specs, but I really enjoy the soloability and versatility that comes with the feral spec (unlike, say, a prot warrior).

However, her gear isn’t the greatest. She’s still grinding away to Earthwarden, currently using Braxxis’ Staff of Slumber. She’s got the feral T4 helm, and a full Heavy Clefthoof set. She’s at approximately 23,000 armor, about 12,500 health, uncrittable, around 22% dodge and about the same amount of crit. (I’d link an armory page, but she’s currently in her resto gear and switches more often that I change my underwear. Okay, maybe not that often. But still.)

I am having serious issues tanking. Against a boss or other single mob (or a well crowd-controlled pull), I’m alright. But when there’s a few more, especially 3+, I’m having problems.

Maybe it’s my process? Depending on the pull, I’ll Starfire cross (or “X”, the second kill target), shift to Bear Form and FFF skull (the primary kill target). I’ll hit Enrage as they’re coming toward me, and queue up a Maul. When they arrive I’ll get a Mangle off on skull and then a Demoralizing Roar to get a bit of aggro on any of the other mobs. At this point I’ve tried a couple of things; sometimes I’ll get a Lacerate or two on the primary target (seeing as the DPS is going balls-to-the-walls on it) and then get a Lacerate on cross. Or I’ll get a Lacerate in and Swipe a couple times. Or I’ll Lacerate cross first and the Swipe. No matter what I try the same thing happens.

Before long, I loose aggro on a mob. If I’m concentrating on skull one of the other mobs will usually head to the healer (or some AoEing mage or Seed of Corruptioning Warlock, but that’s their problem–isn’t it?), or if I take a moment to get a Swipe and/or Lacerate in on one or two of the other mobs, my primary target makes a break for the DPS.

So my question is, is this something I’m doing or not doing? Or just the fact that my AP is a little low (due to still using Braxxis’ Staff)? Or is it the fact that DPS isn’t waiting long enough, or using too many AoE attacks? In regular 5-mans, it’s usually not too bad, the DPS can take a hit or two. But in Heroics, one shot is about all it takes. Also, in places like, for example, toward the end of Steamvaults, where there are those 5-mob or so pulls, I really, really have trouble.

I’ve done a lot of reading on tanking in Bear Form, visited a lot of blogs and read a lot of forum posts, so it’s not like this is something that just started and I haven’t done any research. Any experienced bears out there that could lend me a hand? (Or possible call me a n00b and tell me to L2P, that’s okay too.)

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1. 2 More Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
2. Moving Forward
3. I Love Being a Feral Druid
4. Levelin’ Like a Madman
5. Two Pugs Enter: Stupidity vs. Ignorance

Jun 16

This is in response to the Shared Topic from Blog Azeroth entitled Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King.

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I became a player in the Level 70 game a bit late. My only level-capped character is Tasmyn, my (currently) feral druid. I have a warlock at 66 who I may decide to pick back up one day, and I have a hunter that just dinged 64, who is likely to hit 70 before too long.

I’ve put a lot of work into finding gear for Tasmyn. I found BBB’s guide to starter feral tanking gear, and I’ve got most of it. So, after a few weeks of being 70, I had about 20,000 armor, 12,500 health, and an average crit, dodge, etc. I stayed away from heroics, not knowing if I was ready or not, until I tanked heroic Underbog recently. No problems, so maybe I should get into the heroic deal. That would help a lot.

But my problem is raiding. I really would like to see some raid content before WotLK comes out. I already missed all the old-school MC type stuff, as I was still under 60 when BC came out. I don’t want for the same to happen again. Problem is, other than guilds who do super-speed Kara runs, folks are pretty apathetic about gearing up. Why bother, right? WotLK is “just around the corner” (read: soon). So I’m having a bit of a problem finding a guild that will let my n00b butt in Kara.

So should I just not worry about it, do what I can and wait for the gear reset that is LK? Or should I redouble my efforts to get into Kara? Or maybe I should focus on getting my two 60’s characters to 70? Or maybe I should keep leveling my lowbie pally tank that I’ve always wanted? I feel like there’s so little time. Am I just imagining things? Just not trying hard enough to find a guild? Or am I trying too hard, when I should just calm down, level some alts, do some PvP and chill until LK? I don’t know.

Related posts:

1. BA Shared Topic: 10 Best Memories in World of Warcraft
2. Preparing for WotLK
3. 2 More Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
4. Moving Forward
5. WotLK Beta: Wrath Gate and the Quality of Quests

Jun 11

Short story: I’ve been considering transferring. I know this is a post not everyone will be interested in, so I thought I’d summarize it there and put all the details behind a “more” link if you’re interested in giving me advice.

Read more… »

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1. Decisions
2. Even a Single Kara Pugger
3. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
4. Foray into Multiboxing: Dual-Boxing with Recruit-A-Friend
5. Not Joining the Bandwagon

Jun 2

In a guild application I saw recently, the following question was written: “From an ethical and environmental point of view,
what is your position on murlocs?” Now, I’ve posted briefly on murlocs before, but I didn’t exactly go into a lot of detail. So, to answer the question in the guild application and to provide you all with my rather profound (pfft) opinions, may I present Murlocs: The Dissertation.

Read more… »

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