Does WoW Teach Players?

I have often said that I do not believe that warcraft is helping the players by making leveling faster and easier.  That they are not teaching the player and that is why we are seeing more and more bad players at the end game.  Easy leveling that doesn't teach you anything.

I've been thinking about it recently and am starting to believe I was wrong, at least in part, because it is not that warcraft is not teaching players, it is just that players do not care to learn.  You can not teach someone that is unwilling to learn.  They are still trying to teach them, but later in the game, and by that point people no want longer want to learn.  Perhaps that is really the issue.

Thinking back to how I learned, before I started to look outside of the game for information, it was from the things that happened in game.  One of the very first lessons I learned, having rolled a night elf, is that falling long distances will kill you.  Anyone that has ever rolled a night elf, at least before cataclysm when they changed it so you can't die from it now, knows exactly where I died to falling.

It was the changes like that change that makes me believe blizzard isn't teaching people.  It is what I would like to see changed back.  Something as simple and stupid as that was a good learning experience.  You run to the top of the tree to turn in a quest and then run out and either by accident or because you know it would be quicker, you go over the edge and die thanks to fall damage. 

Now when you turn in that quest you get a slow fall buff.  Apparently I am not the only person that fell from there.  Then again I knew that.  There were a nice collection of bones at the bottom of that tree.  No matter when you went there 24/7/365 you would see at least one remnant of the dead left behind.

That is why I keep saying that warcraft is not teaching people.  Little things like that is how I learned.  Why was it changed?  Were brand new players quitting because they died right there at the beginning of their game play?  No seriously, I want to know.  Why was that changed?

That is the perfect way to teach people.  If anything night elves learned it sooner, and more effectively, than any other race in the game thanks to that death plunge.  Simple, subtle, and teaching.  Who would have ever thought that something like that was a teaching moment.  But it was.  It taught me that falling hurts and can kill me.

And while things like that were changed many other things were not.  There are still many other little lessons in game.  Or there had been many other lessons in game.  They all seem to be disappearing.

So it is not the quick leveling that is making these people bad, it is the removal so the subtle learning lessons that are making for bad players.  While there are still many of them in game, the most important ones, the ones you learn from at the start, are almost all gone.  So I might have been as much right about blizzard not teaching us as I am wrong.  This case would be the right case.

Remember pulling one murloc and getting 12 and dying near instantly?  That was a teaching lesson.  Remember roaming mobs that would sneak up behind you?  That was a teaching lesson.  Remember the runners that would go grab as many friends as possible if you did not find a way to either kill them so slow them instantly?  That was a teaching lesson.

All things like that, all little things, we did not notice it, but when we were leveling we were learning.  Now, we don't.  Mobs die too fast, there are less chances of pulling 12 murlocs when you want 1, there are nearly no roaming mobs any longer.  All these learning moments were removed from the game to be replaced with quick leveling.  So I was right, blizzard is not teaching us.  But I was only right to a point.

Blizzard moved the learning experience to the later levels.  It still tries to teach the players, but they make the catch up so much easier now.  They let players get from 1 to 85 with as little resistance as possible and then decide to do those teaching moments in the newest expansion.

The sauroks around the lake in dread waste don't like to come one at a time.  Most often you will get two or three of them.  And they have roaming mobs, oh boy do they.  Everywhere in the dread wastes in a massive collection of roaming mobs.  Townlong too.  And for runners, want to teach people about runners, just visit those virmen near the farm while questing.  You better slow or stun or outright kill them or they will be bringing back friends.  And they are fast.  And they also have roamers.

So maybe I was wrong.  Maybe the game is still trying to teach people but they are end loading it instead of front loading it like it used to be.  The more I think about it the more I can see there are plenty of learning moments in the new content that you can experience through questing.

So does warcraft teach players?  Yes, it is still attempting to do so but the problem is that the players do not want to learn.  I have a theory as to why this is.  A few actually.

Theory #1 : People want easy.

No matter where they try to teach people the people do not want to learn.  I know plenty of people that do not touch the dread wastes at all because it is "too hard".  Too hard my ass.  Is it the best place in the game to learn how to play at this given moment.  If they want to gate content that is where it should be gated.  You can not enter any dungeons, raids, etc, until you have the achievement for completing all quests in the dread wastes, and you must do them all solo.  Seriously.  It is people wanting the easy route by skipping the best teaching, gearing, and challenge while leveling zone currently in the game.

It is the only zone in the expansion I have completed on every single character that has reached 90.  I skipped most of jade forest, valley, and summit, never touched wilds and only did the shado-pan stuff in townlong on most of my characters but I did the wastes completely on every single one.

Why?  Because it is not hard and offers better experience and better rewards.  It is because it is the fastest zone to level in.  It is easy because I learned how to pull mobs back when I was level 12.  Because I started to learn how to control a situation when I level 6.  Because I've been dealing with deadly pats that could take me out since the 20s and maybe even earlier.  Dread wastes was no more of a challenge to me than tying my shoes is.  I've been doing what is needed to accomplish it for as long as I can remember.

And that is why people aren't learning.  They just want the easy route so they skip anything that gives them a challenge.

Theory #2 : End game is all that matters.

Blizzard is pushing this concept on people in various ways.  One being they are pushing the entire player base into raiding, like it or not.  They sped up leveling so people can get to end game as fast as possible.  They create nothing for the leveling player.  No lower level dailies outside of cooking and fishing.  No lower level daily dungeons, no lower level tier sets for justice or something, nothing to earn at the lower levels.  Just get through it and get to the content that matters.  End game at max level.

This design basically forces people that want to get there as fast as possible to take the path of least resistance.  If wastes is going to be too hard for them they will level through dungeons, pet battling, doing the forest quests, wilds quests, summit quests, anything that keeps them away from challenge and gets them to that all important end game that blizzard keep telling them is the only thing that matters.

Whatever the reason, I was wrong, blizzard is still trying to teach people.  They just made the mistake of where they are trying to teach them.  They need to move the learning back to the start of the game.  They need those falling to your death moments.  They need those roaming mobs sneaking up on people and killing them.  They need the poor innocent adventurers dog piled by a pack of a dozen murlocs and ripped to pieces.

People need to learn early in their playing.  Not late.  I was wrong, blizzard is still trying to teach people.  But I was right in the idea that people where not learning because blizzard basically gave them a chance to avoid learning.

Every zone at every level from 1 - 90 should have those very same challenges.  It should teach them early and keep them on their toes.  The only reasons that the dread wastes is so hated by many is because they do not know how to handle it.  They never learned, and because they can skip it, they never will.

Blizzard doesn't even need to remove the speed of leveling.  It can stay as fast as it is.  But they need to add the danger back into leveling and with that the learning experiences that will make players better players later in the game.

The only reason the dread wastes seemed too hard to so many is because they had never experienced that type of challenge.  If the entire leveling experience was filled with those types of challenge then the dread wastes would be just another zone to them, like it was not me, nothing special.  Just a zone with better quest experience and better quest rewards.

Case and point to show someone that learned how to play the right way and someone that learned how to play since cataclysm when you could basically skip learning.

Someone that learned how to play:

One of the klaxxi areas.  You know the type.  Lots of mobs tightly together.  Flying packs, roaming packs, connected packs.  I walk up there on my mage while leveling and wait.  See a pat move and grab one mob when I know I will only get one.  I slow, blow it up, slow, blow it up, kill it before it gets to me.  I repeat this, taking my time, about 4 times with this paladin watching me.

Someone that never learned how to play: 

The paladin does a laughs emote and says, fucking noob, and goes charging in.  Pulls a roaming pat of three mobs, the two he was aiming for and a set of flyers.  He dies in seconds.  Mobs come after me, I hit invis to save myself.

This went on for a little bit.  Me pulling one, or two, at a time and killing them.  Him reviving, running in, dying.  I finish the quests and wait for him to come back and revive again.  I say to him, I pull one at a time so I can live and finish the quest, how is your progress going?  I then mount up and run away.  It was my way of saying, fucking noob, right back at him.

If only he had learned at a lower level that you need to watch for roaming mobs, pull controlled pulls, and even move back to assure you are fighting on your terms, he would have not died multiple times and he would have not made himself look like the total jackass he is.

They are still trying to teach their players but they made the, I believe, massive mistake of where they decided to move the learning experience.  You can't teach people at the end, you need to teach them at the beginning.  Once someone hits 89 and gets to the wastes they are set in the ways.  If they are a bad player and they always will be.  Maybe a small, very small fraction will take this opportunity to learn but most won't.

You need to teach them when they are new to the game, at the start.  You do that by removing that slow fall buff when turning in that quest in the night elf starting area and letting them fall to their death.  That is how you teach people and when you teach people.

So I was wrong, blizzard is still trying to teach people.  But I was also right, because they are not teaching people because by moving the lessons where they did, they made it possible for people to completely miss or ignore the lessons.

Move difficulty, move teaching, back to where it is supposed to be.  At the start of the game.  No more two or three shotting every mob up until you are 85.  Let people earn their way to 85 and learn their way to 85.  Don't wait until current content starts before you try to teach them.  You can keep it quick level still, just make it teach people while leveling.  If they learn while leveling they won't even know they are learning.  It will just become part of the game.

I don't think knowing how to pull only one mob from a pack of mobs is some sort of skill.  It is just something I learned while leveling.  Yet someone else will see me do that and say, wow, nice pull.  I should never hear anyone say that because everyone should know how to do that from the course of their leveling. 

How they learn to pull is by them pulling wrong and getting killed, near instantly.  They will go back and do it again and again until they learn how to do it.  And guess what, even as a low level while leveling, this is one hell of a triumph that makes you feel great.  You got those suckers that killed you.  And guess what, without you even noticing it, you learned how to pull.  The game effectively taught you something.  Tada.

Move teaching back to the beginning of the game.  That is all I have to say on the matter.

Getting Rid of the Bloat

One of the biggest concerns with hunters this expansion has been with ability bloat.  No other class received the "double your buttons" treatment like hunters did and the hunter community spoke out about it.  The expansion has been out for quite some time now and the hunters that did not just give up on it have gotten used to it.  But that doesn't mean they like it.  They are still very verbose about their dislike of the bloat situation.

Where we stand right now I feel bad for ghostcrawler because he is in a no win situation.  Admittedly I can not feel too much sympathy for him because it is a situation he and his design team created themselves.  They should have never let this bloat be released in the first place.  To paraphrase what he said and show why I feel for him he said, we can't just take things away because people will feel like we are removing their power or removing something they like.  Something along those lines at least.

That is why I feel for him because that is exactly how I feel with the changes to stampede.  I've gotten so used to using it as a utility ability that the changes to it do indeed make me feel weaker and it removes an ability that has become an extremely powerful tool in my collection of a million and one abilities.  Changing it has made me lash out as it has many others.

So if he is going to address the button bloat issue he is going to have to do it with caution.  They can not just change things on a whim, as it seems they did with stampede for PvP reasons.  They need to think better before just changing how abilities work and/or removing abilities all together in an effort to quick fix something.

Some days when playing I wish playing a hunter was like playing my rogue.  Just a three button rotation, four if you include the fact that one replaced another at a certain life level of the mob, and a few cooldowns.  While there is a lot more to it if you wish to get deeper into it you can do competitively well with less than 10 buttons total and only 3 of them ever used regularly.  Does that mean I would want that for hunters?

It is a tricky situation because people do not like having things taken away from them.  When they removed concussive shot from the beta I posted here about how I would miss it and about the many uses of it and how often it has decided a life or death situation for me. 

They were trying to remove bloat, but in the wrong place in my opinion.  They decide to add a glyph for arcane shot that would effectively turn it into a concussive shot with the damage of arcane.  I then wrote again about it and explained how that was not the point.  The point was it was something that was there when we needed it, it was free, and we did not need to waste a glyph slot on something that has been baseline since as long as I can remember.

The hunter community was almost unanimous on the topic and after various posts online on blogs and in forums and much support and lobbying concussive shot was given back to the players.  Chalk one up for the good guys.

This would lead people to ask the question, and rightfully so, why if we are so upset with the bloat do we keep lobbying to keep abilities they try to remove.  That is a very good question and I will try to explain from my standpoint.  I can not speak for others, but I believe a fair deal would have the same opinion I do on the matter.

Concussive shot was not a part of our rotation.  Never has been and never will be.  For many hunters it was not something that was ever even on their bar.  I am almost assure you that if you ask 100 raiding hunters (that do not PvP or solo) if they have ever used concussive shot 50% would say, what is that, 25% would say, on certain fights it is helpful, and the other 25% would say, nah, I don't even have it on my bar.  All guessing at numbers, but using the hunters I have met and taught in game I would say that would be a fair guesstimate. 

Concussive shot was not a required shot.  You can get a lot of use out of it in PvP and soloing and there have been more than enough raiding occasions to use it but oft times someone else can do the slowing so not many hunters even investigate it.  Over the years I've had sapper concussive macros, spirit concussive macros, etc.  All to get things that spawn slowed ASAP.  I am one of the 25% that actually used it in all aspects of the game.  But the key here is, it was not part of my button bloat.  It is a utility ability.  It can be useful and it does show the good hunters from the bad ones.  But it is not something that is used as part of your standard boss fight and not using it at all and letting someone else handle the slows will probably never effect your raid team in any way.

That is why they could give concussive back.  That is why hunters do not consider concussive part of the ability bloat.  It is situational.  Masters call, traps, distracting shot, scatter shot, silencing shot, etc.  They, and many like them, are all utility shots that have their uses but are not part of our regular rotation.  Heck, you could even add things like misdirect, deterrence, disengage and feign death to that list even if those four quite often find their uses in every fight at one point of another and could be considered part of our standard use.  They all share one thing in common, utility.

The hunter issue is not with utility bloat.  Yes, there is utility bloat but that is not what we talk about when we talk about bloat.  Yes, that moves to the PvP saying easy to play and hard to master for the hunters because the hunters have so many abilities that are situational and in PvP you might have every single one of those situations.  But I've never once in my life heard a real PvPer complain that they had too much control or too much utility.  I've heard them say it was hard but never heard them say they want it removed.  Utility is good, utility is not bloat.

The issue with bloat is not about utility abilities.  Sadly, it seems like that is what is going to take the hit when blizzard tries to remove the bloat.  Do you think removing snake trap is going to remove the bloat?  Nope.  I know it will not but blizzard will think it will and we will be once again forced to fight for our utility ability back.  If you are saying, but who ever uses snake trap I won't even explain and just leave it at, you are going to have to trust me that many of us hunters have found a use for it in various situations. 

If snake trap was still like it was in beta, where it did 200K DPS by itself during its duration, then I could see it being part of the bloat.  It would become part of the bloat because it would be part of our rotation.  See, that is the difference between utility and bloat.  Bloat is something we have to do whereas utility is something we can do if we needed to.  If snake trap did 200K DPS during its duration it would be bloat because we would have to use it.

I am just hoping that someone at blizzard reads this and understands that we hunters love the fact we have a million buttons.  Having a million buttons is not the problem.  It is having that many we need to use to do our rotation that is the problem we refer to as bloat.  It is the fact that because we have so many it gives us the feeling as if our signature shots are not hitting as hard as they should.  It gives us the feeling as if we are weak, even if the end result numbers show we really aren't all that much.

So ghostcrawler is in a hard situation.  How do you remove the bloat, all those extra damage dealing abilities, without making people feel as if something is being taken away from them?

As always I have some suggestions for changes.  Some of which are completely different to what we know and others might be a little controversial.

How would I remove some of the bloat?

1) Give Dire Beast the Blink Strike treatment.

To remove the bloat you need to remove the damage dealing abilities that require an extra key press.  Abilities like thrill of the hunt and now blink strikes already subscribe to that theory.  Dire beast is one of those abilities that could easily be adapted to do the same thing passively.

Dire Beast: Your Cobra/Steady shot have a 100% chance to summon a dire beast.  This ability can only be triggered once every 30 seconds.  Your beast will last for 15 seconds and each time your beast deals damage you gain 5 focus.

See, it would now be a passive.  Reduce the damage dealing component a slight bit, as it is now not something you have to hit, it is a passive, which in turn frees up a global cooldown every 30 seconds.  To offset that reduce the damage it does to roughly approximate the damage you will gain from being able to fire an extra, lets say, arcane shot during that time frame.

For example, if the beast attacked 10 times and did 20K each hit, meaning it did 200K during its duration, and the arcane shot you will now be firing in place of that now unused global hits for 40K we just remove that 40K from the beasts standard damage dealt.   So that would mean you now want the beast to do 160K over those 10 attacks so you lower the attack to 16K each.  (yes I know the numbers are BS, I am just illustrating a point on how it would be designed)

So now dire beast is now a passive, it does not change the damage the hunter does at all in the slightest, and it removes one of the bloat buttons.  Of course it would still need to be managed.  To have maximum up time a hunter would have to make sure to hit with a cobra/steady exactly on cooldown to trigger another beast but even if they didn't it would still come in time and the better more skilled hunters would be rewarded with a small, but deserved, boost by getting maximum beast up time thanks to make sure they time their cobra/steady shot perfectly to get as much beast damage and focus as possible.

Now that is how you remove button bloat without making hunters feel like they are having something taken away from them ghostcrawler.  I don't envy his position, but I believe removing the bloat my way would help.  Maybe if he sees this it might give him some ideas and he can clean up the idea a little better.

2) Change Level 90 Talents to be Modifiers to Multi Shot.

 Glaive Toss, Barrage and Power Shot all have tiny side effects involved in what they do, as well as doing damage.  In an effort to remove an additional button from the bloat they can change these abilities from being a second targeted AoE to modifying the one we already have.

Something like this maybe.

Glaive Toss: When you fire a multi shot you will also hurl two glaives at your main target, each dealing X damage to each enemy struck and reducing movement speed by 30% for 3 sec. The primary target will take 4 times as much damage from each strike.  The Glaives will return back to you, damaging and snaring targets again as they return.

Of course being this will be added to your multi shot and will no longer be a 15 second cooldown the damage done from the glaives would need to be scaled down appropriately which would seem considerable at first but not when looking at the grand scheme of things.

Barrage: Your multi shot will now become your multi barrage.  Your multi shot will now rapidly fire a spray of shots forward every one second for 3 sec, dealing a total of X% weapon damage to the enemy target and an average of X% weapon damage to each other enemy target in front of you. Useable while moving.

Of course being there will be only the stand multi 1 second cooldown so the damage would need to be scaled down and the cost of your multi shot would need to be increased by 20 focus at least to offset the fact it is firing for three seconds instead of one instant.  Added effects, like serpent spread and beast cleave would work every second of the three seconds and bombardment would change in this event that makes the next multi barrage half cost.

Power Shot: You wind up a powerful multi shot, which deals X% weapon damage to the target and X% weapon damage to all other enemies in an X degree cone of the target. Enemies hit by Powershot are also knocked back.  Increases the global cooldown of multi shot to 6 seconds.

Of course this would be the true power option for multi shot.  It would do a lot more damage than the others as well as have a knockback function (that a glyph would be available to disable) but as such it would increase the cooldown of multi shot to 6 seconds.

All three of these changes would remove an ability from the game while modifying an existing one instead of adding another.  All three would also see situations where they might be the better choice for AoE.  I am not sure if my redesign here is different enough between glaive toss and barrage, but at least it is an idea.

3) Make A Murder of Crows a constant.

While changing things to a passive this was one I was really looking forward to changing.  My idea for the change would make for something that would be extremely difficult to balance but would be interesting to see in action.  Our new passive ability would go something like this.

A Murder of Crows:  Whenever you fire an arcane shot you will summon a crow that lasts for 20 seconds.  No more than 5 crows per hunter can ever exist in this manner.  Your crows will do X% weapons damage multiplied by the number of crows alive at that time.  If a crow is killed before its duration is complete you will gain 5 focus.

This would make for interesting balance.  Keeping maximum crows up would of course be a huge DPS increase but can you keep your rotation going and make sure you always have 6 crows up?  That could be fun to find out.  The crows themselves will have very little life and could easily be killed so they would not be too over powered in PvP thanks to this constant crow presence but in a PvE environment they will have the benefit most pets do and most likely not take any damage and live for their duration.

Like I said, it might sound a little complex, but in my head I am really loving this ability.

4) Increase the cooldown of Stampede & Lower the cooldown of Stampede.

You can't do both, or can you?

Increase the base cooldown of stampede to 8 minutes and make it a little more powerful, more true to the original intention of the ability.  Also return the utility of the ability where they will do real abilities, case buffs, growl, etc.  Have the ability labeled as not usable in arena.

Then add a glyph to decrease the cooldown to 2 minutes and change the power of the ability.  It can then exist in the neutered form it is currently in where they use no special abilities, cast nothing, and basically just nibble on the toes of unsuspecting critters and it will be labeled as usable in arenas now while you have the glyph in.

This gives the best of both worlds.  PvPers do not have to worry about the burst as much but now need to deal with these ankle biters more often even if they only tickle a bit now and non PvPers have an actual cooldown working the way it was intended to work from the get go, but at the cost of a much longer cooldown, which is fair compensation to get back the ability we want the way it should really be to begin with.

What does this have to do with button bloat?  Well, not much, but with an 8 minute cooldown it is more likely you will only use it once a fight and not twice and it would be much more powerful as an 8 minute cooldown.  So it only reduceds bloat to the extent of 1 key press instead of 2 per fight.  Still a 50% reduction if you look at it that way. ;)

5) Do Something with Lynx Rush

I almost forgot about this once awesome ability when I was writing this post because it is so horrible now.  I do not even have any ideas that could morph its current state into a passive that is useful and not repetitive with blink strikes.  This is the best I could think of, and of course it would need to be balanced correctly.

Lynx Rush: Every time your pet lands a critical basic attack a bleed that lasts for 5 second will be applied to all non crowd controlled targets within 10 yard equal to the damage of the critical.  If a second critical hits before the 5 seconds are up the damage will be adjusted and the debuff will reset to 5 seconds.  If there are no secondary targets for this critical bleed effect to hit then a bleed for 50% of the critical will be applied to the main target and refreshed on a critical in the same manner.

Okay, admittedly not the greatest but I told you I was at a loss for this one.

7) Fevor is Focus.

Change fevor into a passive boost to focus generation.  If used correctly it would give you 100 focus for its 30 second cooldown.  Change it to something like 120 focus over a minute, 2 focus per second, as a passive.  You get less because you do not need to handle it, but it translates into more than it would if someone forgot to use it.  Sure it would ruin the pooling for burst and coupling up with crows, but being crows in now a passive as well the need for pooling for burst like that is no longer really needed, is it?

End note:

So now instead of adding upwards of 6 new buttons, one utility from the level 30 talents and then 1 each from 60, 75, and 90, stampede and readiness for SV and BM it adds less thanks to many becoming passives. 

For the expansion we would then only pick up two new buttons (1 for marks) instead of the the possible 6 we did at the start of the expansion for specs like survival and BM which saw silencing shot, readiness, stampede, level 90 AoE, level 75 ability and possibly the level 60 one as well.  Those buttons where the bloat.  Those are the buttons that need to be handled.  Those are the ones that some people might scream if they were removed but making them still be there, but passive, could help with the screams.  Bloat can be removed.

The funny part is this, even with the bloat removed, hunters would still have more rotational abilities than most classes.  Makes you wonder, if they already had more rotational abilities than most classes, why were they given more new ones than any other class.  Don't you think a class with three buttons could have used a forth and fifth before a hunter that had six got 4+ more?  I think that is a reasonable question.

With all that said now I must admit I have gotten used to all the extra buttons.  Have been for a long time.  I don't even notice they are there, it is just a part of my rotation.  But it doesn't mean I would not want to see things trimmed down.  We are not even done with the expansion and my poor fingers are getting tired with all that moving around.  A nice 5 buttons or less rotation is a nice break once in a while.  That must explain why even if I dislike playing my rogue and playing in melee I've actually been using my rogue quite a bit this expansion.  It is nice to not have to be a world class typist while playing a game.

I don't envy ghostcrawlers job in dealing with the people as he tries to fix the bloat issue but we know something will be coming and something will be done.  Lets just hope that he doesn't try to remove concussive shot, again, in an effort to remove bloat.  If he does it just proves he has no clue what we mean by bloat and would deserve us giving him crap.

What would you do with the bloat issue?

Or are you like me and just do not care as much about it much anymore because you have gotten used to it?

Marvel Heroes Week 2 Review

Being I dabble in playing marvel heroes when I have time that means my marvel heroes play time is on the weekend.  In week two I have noticed a few things I would like to see changed.  As I mentioned in the initial review the game has potential but needs some work.  Now in week two I get down to some of the things I think need work.

End Game: Dungeons

There needs to be something else to do.  Maybe there is and I have not found it yet but spamming instanced content to continue leveling is not my idea of fun.  More so when doing all the dungeons available at the avengers tower I never once got a full group.  Did the first few with four and took me hours, not kidding, hours, trying to get a modok group.  I would join, be alone, kill some trash, leave.  I did this over and over at least 7 times before I got lucky and had a group with 2 other people in it.

We started with one standing at the entrance doing nothing and just the two of us clearing trash.  We got to doctor octopus and preceded to get our asses handed to us.  We zerged it until we downed it.  Sometimes I think it would have been easier solo than it was with 2 people.  The third person had dropped group just before that point.  We continued along until modok and the other person left.  I tried to solo it but couldn't so I gave up and had to start at the beginning again. 

Four more attempts to join for a group found me solo.  I did not even waste my time clearing trash because it was not worth the effort.  Not like anything would ever drop that was decent for me anyway.  I took some time off and did mad group 1.  I joined and was solo again.  There is no auto grouping for this one, so I had no choice, no one wanted to join a group so it was do it solo or do not do it at all.

The worst part of this is that you need to do this before you can do the challenge ones which is where you are supposed to do all your leveling.  Really, this is how we are supposed to level?  You have got to be kidding me.  More on that later.

I managed to take my sweet ass time and solo two of the four zones in mad 1 at 27.  Not really all that easy with DD as he does not seen to have the greatest of AoEs but he does have excellent mobility and I used that to my advantage.  With the more knowledge I have now I am sure I could have actually done all 4 myself if I tried a second time.  Not sure if I would have got the boss.  A few more tries at getting a modok group that ended in me being alone and I finally saw someone asking for a group for mad 1 and joined him.  It was just he and I but he was relentless trying to get a group spamming chat and after about 45 minutes we had a full group with a level 33 involved as well.  So we did mad 1.

I got myself a modok group shorty after that, was only 4 of us, two left on modok and me as DD with another DD two manned it.  At least I got it done, that is all that mattered.  We switched between add duty and boss duty as if we were talking to each other on vent even if we were not.  We melded well together in play style and we both seemed to adapt to what the other was doing making it easy, even if long, fight for a 28 and 26.

I found a doom group on my first try and was lucky enough to get into a group with 2 40s in it.  Which means I really did not need to do a great deal with it.  I just came along for the ride.  Easy peasy when you don't have to do all the heavy lifting.

I did a couple of mad 1 challenges and got to level 30, there is some good experience to be had there.  But looking at it and knowing this is the content I need to grind to get to max level immediately made it less appealing.  Timed groups I need to wait for and can miss is not really fun.  Once I waited for the countdown to reach zero and instantly it was back at 15 minutes again so I having to wait again also was a huge turn off.

So suggestions here: 

Have the auto group function work for mad 1 also.  Have the daily dungeons scale, even mad 1 scale.  I should not need to try to enter something a dozen times to find a group.  If I am solo, make it for the solo player based on class.  It would just be better design that way.  Better than me wasting hours to try and get a group.  And the mad challenge thing needs to be more come as you are.  You know, a constant thing where you come and go as you please.  This waiting 15 minutes and you can still miss it in a matter of 1 second is not going to cut it, even more so if this is how I am supposed to level.

End Game: PvP

I joined red team.  I am DD, he wears red, seemed appropriate right.  Doesn't make a difference what team I was on or what color I was wearing, death would be all I would ever know.  Not because of my lack of PvP skill or anything but because what prayer do I have when I am 28 and everyone else in there was at least 44.  I saw maybe one or two people in their 30s and I tried to fight them and still lost but at least I lasted a while and could put a little hurting on them but more often than not I would run into the fray and die instantly to some level 50+ spamming an AoE that one shot me.

So suggestions here:

Brackets.  No really.  I would not mind dying if I could at least have a chance.  If I knew it was something I was doing wrong I could get better but when I can not even get in range of someone because their AoE one shots me it loses all its fun.  I attempted to find someone on the other teams my level and kept going in and dieing and just quit.  I won't be going back until I am max level now and I doubt I will then either, the bad taste is already in my mouth for PvP in marvel heroes.  Brackets could have changed that.

End Game: Leveling

Unlike WoW end game here end game is when story mode ends.  It could end between 25-30 for most people when they beat doom on quest mode.  Level cap is 60.  So you have to level as part of the end game.  I have no issues with that.  I like to level but am not really interested in it as they have it now.  Spamming challenges is not exactly my idea of fun.  They need to have new zones with higher mobs that you can just walk into.  Like the open world zones when leveling but for higher levels.  So I can pop in and grind at will when I want to.  Now that would be a lot more fun then waiting for the queue time for this all day long.  Is there an area like that I have not found yet?  Sure hope so.

So suggestions here:

Add some non instanced option to grind.  It is pretty sad that once you finish the story your entire life is spent in instances.  We need a world to be out in or it is not really an MMO no matter how many instances you give us.  Just because there are lots of people you might meet in queue nothing will ever have a real MMO feeling than seeing people out in the world.  People you meet in instances are just NPCs really.  At least that is how I always felt about them.  They are not people.  People are the ones you meet walking around and there is no place to walk around here.  More world zones that are level appropriate are needed.

Moving along...

So I ditched DD, nothing really interesting about the end game, at least nothing I would want to do.  I did get the fabled cow thing from my card however, so as rare as that is supposed to be I guess it was a good take.  I was just not going to sit and wait for groups to not get any gear.  I think I've had enough of that with wow.  No thank you.  This goes back to the outdoor world thing.  At least there I can grind when I want and how I want so not getting any drops is something I can deal with.  But when I do organized group content I kind of expect to sometimes get something I can use.  Three mad 1 challenges and not one thing I could even equip dropped.  Hey, at least I put the other stuff in my over stuffed to begin with banks so I have it if and when I can make that character.

Starting Over:

I started over on my third character.  My second, the thing, had no quests because I did not want to reset quests when I started him as I had not finished them on DD yet.  This is a really horrible idea.  Every character should have their own quest line.  That just goes without saying, how could they not do that.   It is a glaring oversight by the designers in my opinion unless I read something wrong.  It seems like the quest progression is tied to me.  Not to my characters.  If that is indeed the case it needs to be fixed.

I started a third character now and when asked to reset my quest progression I did some online research and found that if I reached end game and reset I would still be allowed to do end game on the character that reached it.  So I reset my quest progression and my new character could start from the beginning with the quests.  Now that was nice.

I really do not think it would have been fun grinding and grinding only to level.  Quests might not offer much but it works nicely as a guide on where to move to next and I like that.

So suggestion here: 

They need to add individual character progression.  So you can be at different stages of the quests on different characters and not just have them all be one bunch collected to do the same quest line.

Overall:

Second week of play was not as enjoyable as the first.  The lack of anything to do end game could very well put the nail in the coffin of this game for me once I am done leveling my other characters.  Once you are done leveling through the quests there really doesn't seem to be anything worth doing. 

They need a few world zones for leveling past 30 and not just instanced crap.  Something you can do without a group.  And being they really require groups for everything, having mad 1 part of auto grouping would be nice because you can't do anything until you do that and without a group maker, even on the weekend when the game was packed, trying to assemble a group for it was near impossible.

I've still got thing and scarlet witch to level and I might even buy another if the mood strikes me to do so.  But at the moment I am not exactly sure this is a game I would want to support to much with money as it is not worth it.

I can not see how you released a PvP system, even if it only beta, with no brackets.  I can not see how you release a game where each character does not have their own quest progression.  I can not see how you release a game with no way to level end game outside of instanced content and not in the open world like it should be for anything that wants to call itself an MMO.

As I said after week one, I like the game and for a free to play game it is a great time waster, but if it really wants to be more than something that people play for a few hours or a few days or even a few weeks and then forget about it, they need to address some of the glaring issues with the game, like the ones I mentioned.

End note:

Another change I would like to see made is the dungeon kick function.  Three times yesterday I was kicked.  Twice before my loading screen even put me in the instance I was kicked, and the third time it was three level 10s that kicked me as soon as I zoned in and said, we don't want anyone else with us.

I am all fine and dandy with those three wanting to play together and not wanting me there.  I'll just zone in again and get another group.  I don't know why the other two kicked me because I was kicked the second I zoned in.  My screen had not even loaded the dungeon yet, that was how fast I was kicked, we are talking like in less than the 5 seconds it takes to load a screen.

What my issue with the kick function is is that it places you back at your starting zone for the quest chapter you are on.  Now I need to fight the whole fucking way back there.  I do not mind if someone does not want me in their group.  Ask me to leave and I will walk out.  Kicking me puts me roughly 15 minutes away from where I need to be best case scenario. Just made me yell, you mother fuckers, at my screen.  If I knew who kicked me I would purposely follow them around and try to get groups with them just to kick them so they have to travel the long way back to where they were too.  That is uncalled for and is rude.  You can solo most leveling dungeons on any class.  Just let someone tag along.  I had a few level 4s in one I was doing at 12 and I just soloed it, who cares that they were a low level, drag them along, this is supposed to be an MMO isn't it?  It is not like wow where a certain level of ability is required even if minimal.  You can zerg this content meaning if you are willing to spend the time you can basically solo anything.  There is no reason to ever kick anyone.

So suggestion here:

When someone is kicked put them at the gate of where they were kicked from.  NOT back at their starting zone.  Seriously, how could they even think that is a reasonable kick system.  Making the person that did nothing wrong except not be part of whatever clique that group was part of run all the way back to the entrance.

One of those two times I was kicked and did not know why it took me over an hour to make it back to the gate.  And guess what, I was the only person in there and I soloed it.  It is not like I was asking for a carry.  I just wanted to do my quest.  I should have been put back at the entrance when I was kicked.  Plain and simple.  If there is one thing I can rage about, as you saw I did a bit up there, this is it.  The most horrible design flaw I have run into so far in this game and one of the few rare times I actually cursed like a sailor at my screen.  It is griefing in the most extreme way. Ha ha, lets make this poor smuck have to work his way all the way back here.  Yeah, not a good design at all.  Have kicked people go out to the gate of the instance they were kicked from.  That is the only reasonable solution.

In the end, we are not playing a finished product, we are playing a public beta.  There are too many issues for it to be considered a finished product.  The fact that the actual game ends before you are even half way to level cap kind of proves this was not really a finished release.  Lets hope the patches come fast and they fix things sooner than later.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Weekend time means marvel heroes time again, for the time being, so a few lines on that first.

- I've been making an effort to avoid the LFRs so playing a little on my new game for a bit.

- I'll get bored of it soon eough.

- More so now that I reached end game.

- Finished the main story on daredevil and started end game, so to speak.

- There really is no end game.

- Does boring and repetitive mean anything to you?

- Yeah, that describes end game at the moment.

- They need open world zones to continue leveling in instead of being the only way to level once you are done with the story is doing instance content.

- So I'll start leveling another char.

- Once you finish the story with one char you can reset quests on a new one.

- So I guess I'll level one at a time.

- They need to fix that so each character has their own quest line progression otherwise you will have to finish one to do the other because resetting it resets it for all.

- Not a very good design.

- Back to warcraft.

- I did a grand total of zero LFRs this week outside of the 2 on my hunter to try and get runestones.

- At least I got the one guaranteed one now that we always get one off the last boss.

- Otherwise it would have been another week with none.

- I am going to be raiding the next raid before I finish this damn quest.

- The LFRs have become undoable if you do not get them done that first day or two.

- Was listening to guild mates complain about groups all weekend.

- We are talking 5 or 6 wipes on almost every single boss.

- We are talking wiping in last tiers LFRs.

- One of my guild mates just hit 90 on an alt and was running his characters through the older ones.

- He was giving the play by play and all I kept hearing was wipe, wipe, wipe.

- Multiple times he said, I did not know this boss had an enrage timers.

- People in terrace doing 25K DPS, he said the top four were roughly like this.

- Top 128K, second 85K, third 72K, forth (him with his faked 470 item level) 64K.

- Not to horrible right?

- 5th was 45K and no one else even reached 30K.

- Now that is horrible, there is no other way to describe that.

- Did I mention he was the tank doing that in a faked 470 item level.

- Now remove the top 4 DPS and and his tank and that is what a group of damage dealers that are not raiders would look like in the LFR.

- Not one person over 30K once you remove those 5.

- And this is why I say that the LFR is too hard for the people that it is aimed at.

- Those people doing 20K in 470 gear is who the LFR is made for and if you get a group with just people of that skill level in them, they become impossible.

- I think I figured out a way to fix horrible DPS in the LFR.

- Have the game compensate for low DPS by having a "nobody" deal damage to offset those under a certain threshold.

- At 460 item level the absolute minimum you would do, at LFR skill level that is, is 40K.  A real player would do better of course.  So the system could round up anyone below that to 40K.

- 50K at 470 and 60K at 480.

- Yes, those are low numbers, but for the content we are talking about they should be fine.

- Those should all be easily attainable.

- A player in my guild that has never played a mage just hit 90.

- We crafted him some gear to get him to 460 the second he hit 90 and he tabbed out and read about the rotation.

- Switched to frost having never once played it in his life and gave it his best.

- Went into the LFR and pulled at least 70K on all 6 MV fights.

- No loot love so he could not do the other ones.

- Now that is how the average player SHOULD be.

- Hit 460, read up on your class, do 70K instead of going into the LFR and being your normal horrible self.

- I can't figure out some sort of catch up mechanic for the tanks and healers that enter there without the minimum required skill but at least I offered some sort of solution to the damage dealers being bad.

- It is a start.

- But you know there is a better way to fix things than having to add mechanics to help bad players.

- Make the LFRs easier, so the bad players can do it at their skill level.

- Some might say you could not see this coming, that there would be groups this bad and not capable of doing it.

- Some might say that because they are really not all that bright.

- Like the people that design these for blizzard.

- Very smart coding and design wise, not so smart human nature wise.

- I called it as soon as I first stepped into them.

- If you do not have an appropriate amount of actually decent people these would never get done.

- We are seeing that now.

- Determination buff is garbage.

- You could give people a 10,000 percent increase to what they can do and they will still find ways to die to stupid things and you will still wipe.

- Now that we have flex raids coming with easier fights, perhaps even only slightly above the LFR skill level, the LFR needs to really be broken down to a simple tank and spank, with no enrage timers, for the masses.

- Those decent players, the actual raiders, and the ex raiders and skilled but not on a schedule type players that could not commit to an actual raid will go do a flex raid.

- At least if the pug world begins to happen again like the good old days of wrath when raiding was at its highest point ever and there was a pug going 24/7 all the time that could at least get half way through the content in a reasonable time frame.

- I would so love that to return.

- That leaves only the least of the players to do the LFR.

- The ones you would not even invite to a flex raid because they are so bad.

- Those are the people the LFR is made for.

- Healers that can not even keep up tanks if they concentrate completely on them.

- Tanks that never use a defensive cooldown at all.

- Damage dealers that think doing 25K DPS means they are leet.

- Name one boss in the LFR that those people could down?

- If only those types of people were in it.

- I'm waiting.

- Can't think of one right?

- That is because there aren't any.

- And once again I will say what I have been saying since the beginning.

- The LFR is way to hard for the audience it is aimed at.

- It is aimed at healers that can't keep more than one target up, tanks that don't know how to use defensive cooldowns and damage dealers that could not fight their way out of a paper bag.

- Remember those first days of the ToT LFR when we were wiping 10+ times on some bosses?

- With the, presumably, better players in there too.

- Now think about going back to do them when the new LFR comes out and no one with any skill is in them.

- How are those people supposed to do it if it took real raiders that were willing to learn a couple of attempts?

- These people are not raiders because they have no heart for progression.

- They have no heart for wiping.

- So give them something their pace with no real difficulty and no chance at wiping.

- Those LFR heroes are making their way to real guilds.

- I've invited a few to my guild recently under the guise they wanted to raid.

- What experience do they have, none.

- No big deal, I have had many beginners in my time, people that never stepped into a raid, I too was one of those my first time in one.

- All of us wanted to be raiders, I had voice chat downloaded, I hare deadly boss mobs and other addons so I could do my job, and I had read everything I could find on the fights and watched the videos.

- Whenever a new raider joined us it was like that.  I would ask if they had vent and DBMs and they said yes.

- I would ask if they knew the fights and they would say, I looked it up and have a basic idea.

- Okay, lets rock.

- Three times this week I needed to explain to someone how to set up vent.

- One time I had someone tell me, I don't need vent, I did these in the LFR.

- Bye bye.

- If the raid leader tells you to get on vent you do not say no.

- Common sense here.

- Even more so when you have never entered a real raid in your life and even more than that when it is your first time trying to get into a real raid with a new guild you joined for the sole purpose of raiding.

- I did not kick him from the guild, of course not, but I found someone else to join the raid.

- When I next saw him he asked me what else he would need to raid.

- At least he is trying, or so it seemed.

- I said deadly boss mods.

- He said he doesn't need that, he knows the fights because he has done them in the LFR.

- I said, he does need that, the fights are slightly different and things all hit for more, it will help with mechanics and when to move from the bad.

- His response secured the fact he will never raid with me.

- The healers can just heal me through it, my job is to do damage.

- I said, then your job is in doing damage in someone elses raid because I will not raid with someone with your attitude.

- Had to waste 30 minutes walking someone through setting up vent two times for two people this week.

- Did they tell us they did not have vent in the hours or days before they had signed up to raid?

- Nope, they wait until we zone in and I tell everyone to drop to 10 man to speak up and ask, how do I get vent?

- We are pulling in 1 minute and you wait until now to ask?

- These are the LFR generation of players.

- The we don't need vent, just go in and beat on it, and people will carry you generation.

- Sorry, it does not work that way.

- Want to hear a funny LFR story?

- Sure you do.

- A couple of weeks ago I was doing terrance and someone died and started yelling rez me rez me over and over.

- The tank said, don't.

- He asked why.

- The tank said, when you can manage to do over 20K in 470+ gear maybe we will consider it.

- Said person did 18K on the first boss, 19K on the second, 16K on the third and 22K on the last.

- We have a new rogue in our guild like that.

- Almost 500 item level now and he still can no manage to break 30K.

- And he was one of the people that said he doesn't need vent.

- And then complains when we do not invite him to the raids.

- You refuse to get the needed requirements to raid, you can not do your job at an acceptable level of play, and you are a damage sponge because you refuse to move from the avoidable.

- No, you can not raid with us.

- Go back to the LFR and abuse those people because I will not let you do it to us.

- My druid has still not done all the LFRs.

- As in not ever, not even once in the LFR.

- This means no legendary for me yet.

- It only enters the real raid when we need a tank.

- Kind of amazed without doing anything to get gear or valor except real raids, no dailies, no dungeons, not even the new heroic scenarios and it still has a 510 item level.

- That is a character that will really benefit from flex raiding.

- Heck, I still have 1 476 (hands) and 1 489 (weapon) piece on it.

- I could do the LFR to get 502s if I wanted to, but I am more than capable of tanking normals with it and pieces will drop sooner or later.

- I am starting to think perhaps, if I could pug all my alts, that I could just avoid the LFR completely.

- I will never have the maximum gear potential a character could have without it, but avoiding it would be a good thing.

- It would really make me enjoy the game more if I could get my gear and enjoy raiding without ever needing to make contact with those people.

- At least until they make the LFR easier, as it should be, then maybe I could really get into the tank and spank get it done quick and easy loot dispenser.

- That is how LFR should be.

- I hate wiping to the enrage timers in the old LFRs, happened to me a few weeks ago on the third boss in terrace, three times we wiped to the enrage because of horrible damage dealers.

- I can wipe for weeks in a row on the same boss and deal with it, even if it gets frustrating, I have no problem with it.

- Yet I can not stand wiping in the LFR.

- I guess it is a difference with who you are playing with what your tolerance level for failure is.

- In random assembled groups my tolerance for failure is absolutely zero.

- So I just complained about the LFR for a few dozen lines.

- Now you know why I am playing marvel heroes instead of running the LFR on my alts on the weekend like I should be.

- Because I am sick of it and the game is a needed break for me.

- Do you think that blizzard is going to make the LFR a lot easier knowing that most of the players with actual skill will have even less reason to do it now thanks to flex raiding?

- Have a great day.

Are Hunters OP in PvP?

I was reading a post, well many really, on the forums about how OP hunters are in PvP and how they need nerfs.  I contend just as I always have that those words are about as far from the truth as if I were to tell you 2 plus 2 is 17.  There is no basis in fact, not even loosely interpreted, that would make anyone believe that hunters are OP in PvP in the hands of anyone outside of the most expert of player.

So the real question is this.  Should hunters continue to be nerfed if the best of the best players are capable of getting a lot out of them?

Your average hunter in PvP is not going to be dominating any group quickly as they are one button wonders at best.  The lesser than average skilled PvP, like myself, might be able to take some classes one on one if we can gain some sense of control but would never win against any class as long as they have at least minimal PvP skills even with a one button burst macro.

There was a phrase first started a long time ago in reference to hunters in PvP.  Easy to play, hard to master.  And that is exactly the case.  Are all these people crying on the forums about how OP hunters just unlucky and running into the few, extremely few, good hunters?

Lets take a look at a post Cynwise made on June 1st of this year, only a few days ago, before the recent span of nerfs.  I will remind you these forum posts I am talking about are all after these huge PvP nerfs to hunters.  So the numbers posted in Cynwise's post are actually better than what they would be now after the nerfs.

I am going to share one image from the post to follow and I suggest people take a look at the post before just automatically assuming hunters are OP because one beat you in PvP.

Image taken from Cynwise's post : Class Distribution Data from Path 5.3.

Please take a moment to read the post I linked above, the one that the image came from.

Now lets take a moment to take a quick look at that image and see what information we can gather from it.

There are more hunters in the game than another other class.  Only paladins have more of their class at max level percentage wise and that is only by a scant .02% more.

So with this data we can say with absolute certainty that there are more level 90 hunters than their are of every other class basically.  Looking at hunter usage in heroic raiding you will see that they are middle of the pack really with mages, DKs, locks near their same representation and warriors monks and rogues being considerably less.  You can even consider that hunters need a buff in PvE considering that.  How could a class have so many more than other classes at max level and not seeing at least an equal representation in raiding when comparing how many of them more there are percentage wise?  But now to to topic, PvP, and hunter representation there.

I will quote a deduction Cynwise made in that post which while only one line basically echos what I am saying here.  "Hunters: Underrepresented in PvE, dramatically underrepresented in PvP."

Hunters have the absolute lowest representation in PvP at a higher skill level than any other class in the game excluding one, the newly introduced monk.

Now to ask people that are crying a serious question. 

If the better PvP players, the ones that play to win and play for rank are not playing the most widely played class in the game and the most widely leveled class in the game, how OP can they really be?

When the people that play to win do not play them they are not OP.  If they were OP then the people that play to win would surely play them wouldn't they?  Hunters represent a dismal 6.3%, nearly a full point behind rogues and only above the newly added monks which sit at 3%.

Let me explain basic math and logic to the people that might have issues understanding it.  In a world of pure balance percentage wise things would remain consistent throughout all aspects of the game.  Only druids seem to maintain what could loosely be considered a balance at all levels according to those numbers. 

If one class was over powered you would see a large percentage boost in that area.  This is because people play to win and if they have that class they will play it.  Looking at those numbers and comparing the at 90 percentages with the 1800 rating ones you will clearly see that priests are amazingly over powered.  So much so that they are almost to the point where they double up.  Shaman are the next highest increased representation class.  Saying priest are OP in PvP has some numbers to back it up.

Where are those OP hunters one might ask?  Dead last (outside of monks).  For a class that basically has more at max level than any other class to have such a minor showing in end game PvP is about as close to proof that they are not as OP as people might try to lead you to believe.

So why is there all this crying on the forums that hunters are OP?

I can tell you exactly where that comes from.  Beastmastery burst damage.  It makes them one button wonders.  So why does that not translate to the 1800+ numbers?  Because the better players know how to counteract that burst.  If it was not capable of being countered those people that play to win at a higher bracket would surely be taking advantage of that to win.

The only people that are complaining about hunters being OP are, please excuse me if this sounds elitist, bad players.  The people complaining just do not have the skills that better players do to counteract the issues with the burst.  They are either caught by surprise, forced to use their defensive abilities earlier so they are incapable of countering it, or are not skilled enough to handle it.  That is it.

The basic fact that at the high end the representation of hunters is so low proves that using that one button wonder approach does not work against the good players.  Feel free to correct my if I am wrong as I am not a PvP player but looking at the numbers, actual numbers, it is the only conclusion I can come to as to why there are so few end game hunters.  It is because they are not OP in PvP, not even in the slightest.

So am I trying to say that hunters need a buff?  Yes and no actually.

Yes, they do need a PvP (and PvE) buff because as the numbers show they really are lacking.  And no, because in the hands of a truly skilled player hunters are amazing in PvP already as it is and it has absolutely nothing to do with their burst.

Yes, you heard it hear first.  Hunters can be extremely over powered in PvP in the hands of a very skilled player and it is not because of the burst.  It is not because of the one thing everyone is complaining about.  It is because they have a huge toolbox for control, a fair amount of movement cooldowns, the ability to move all the time while continuing pressure and an unlimited resource as well as a built in distraction that functions as an active DoT affectionately known as fluffy or spot or whatever you decide to call your flesh hungry instrument of death.

But OP?  Not even close to OP.  Not in the hands of the average player, not even in the hands of a good player.  The skill cap for a hunter is insane.  You would have a better chance trying to three box a boomkin arena team to any measure of success than you would being able to play a hunter at the top skill level.  Triboxing would be easier.

The reason they can not buff hunters is because of that huge skill cap required to be truly great.  The few great hunters in the game would become unstoppable killing machines if they buffed hunters so the lesser skilled, like me, or the no skilled, like the people crying on the forums, could actually become effectively good.

Basically the only time hunters are OP at max level is at the absolute lowest skill level.  It works for me because if I ever decide to PvP that is where I fit.  The lower skill level.  But once I run into better players it becomes a matter of I need to learn to play better or get my ass handed to me.  And that is exactly what I have to say to those people crying on the forums that hunters are OP.  They are not, it is just a case of you need to get better or you will keep getting your ass handed to you.

Lets face it, if you are letting a hunter beat you with one button the problem is not them being over powered, the problem is you needing to learn how to play better.

Now if you run into a hunter that is chain CCing a group of three all at once while he picks you off, that is an extremely skilled hunter.  Just sit back and relax and watch the poetry in motion as you watch them play the hardest class in the game to master in PvP at a level that 99% of the player base could not even dream to attain.  Don't cry for them to be nerfed, admire the fact that you got to watch how awesome hunters are in the hands of a great player because you will rarely if ever get to see that because they are so hard to play at that skill level.

In the hands of the extremely skilled hunters can be OP but those are few and far between.  But please, stop with the stampede makes them OP BS, it is wrong, just flat out wrong.  Hunters are not OP.  Just look at the numbers if you don't believe me.  Do those numbers show a class as being OP?  Not in a million years.  If anything they show a class in desperate need of some serious buffs not nerfs.

So to answer the question, are hunters OP in PvP?  Yes, and 2 plus 2 is 17.

Setting up for Raiding in 5.4

My effort to creating a decent 25 man raiding team on a small server that has none and very few options to recruit from is still undergoing as my 25 man has finally started to show some progress.  They have still not passed horridon but at least they are now getting to him.  I think next week we will put the final nail in the dino's coffin. 

We are still light 5 damage dealers and a tank.  I picked up three more damage dealers this week when another guild folded.  As anyone knows, being it is not just my server, guilds are dropping like flies.  I am just playing the part of the opportunist and picking out the pieces I want to use and adding them to my efforts of making a 25 man.

I am currently still tanking which is fine with me.  I've learned to accept that is who I am most of the time like it or not.  Would I prefer if my hunter had a tank spec and I did not need to switch characters?  Yes.  But that will never happen so you work with what you have.

But this is not about what will not happen, this is about what is happening.  And with 5.4 comes a bunch of changes that actually will help my fledgling 25 man raiding team actually become a real one.  Two changes come to mind as the highlight for what could be the cure to my issues moving into 25 man raiding.

Flexible Raiding:

This will allow me to see more people in action, to train more people, to gear up people up a little faster.  Even if I was where I am right now, with 18-20 solid people for a 25 man, flex raiding could be the cure for all my problems.  Even with the lesser players and fills in at least we can still one shot the first boss.

Perhaps the difficulty of horridon is not such a bad thing in a way.  It really tests the people that say they want to raid and separates them from the people that actually want to raid.  There is a big reason why those extra spots are filled with different people each week and it is not because I told them they were not doing enough and they could not come.  It is because as much as they say they want to raid, they are not raiders and can not stand wiping.  Good.  Horridon is a trash disposal.  It gets rid of the garbage players that have no heart for raiding.

If anyone is willing to stick it out even if they are bad then I know they have potential to become a raider with perhaps a little more experience and a little more gear.  This is where flexible raiding comes in.  Now I can get them some of both.  Gear and experience in a situation that their inexperience and lesser skill level will not hinder the group as much as it would in the real raid.

It will not only give us a venue to allow them to experience a real raid environment and get them the experience and gear they need it will give us time to bond as a group.  One of the biggest things I preach to all my raiders is that we need to have the same people here each and every week.  The more we raid together the better we get to know each other and we learn how we all react to things and move during times of movement.  Never underestimate the power of a group that thinks as one.

You will never develop that in the LFR and it is a lot harder and takes a lot longer to develop that in the real raid.  Flexible raiding allows us that free extra lock out to work with.  A slightly easier path to successes.  And most importantly.  Another day we get to work together and in a less stress filled environment to boot.

To get a solid 25 man going you need at least 30 people.  We will still be running 2 10s, so we can offer the ones that sit from the 25 that week an outlet to raid still, if they are actually ready and if they aren't, we have the flex raid that we can run any night as a fill in with any number of characters between 10 and 25.  Yeah, that is a good thing.

Lets not even forget about recruitment.  I pugged 2 people last night to try and fill some spots.  One of those 2 ended up joining the guild afterwards.  I kind of knew he would and just wanted to see what we were like while raiding but his guild just died and he needed a home.  Works out that I really need damage dealers that can do more than 50K and he can do over 100K and get out of the bad, so he was a good fit even before he stepped in.  I was sure he would be joining and he did.

Flexible raiding will allow us the opportunity to try new people out and for them to try us out.  Something we have not been able to do since wrath.  It was always great to be able to pug.  Pugging was the ultimate recruitment tool in the game and if I could draw one connection to the fall of raiding and capable raiders, as we see it, that line would go directly from the lack of pugged content.

When you could make a second run with your mains and you did so you always were recruiting people.  Even when you were not trying to recruit people.  After the run someone was bound to come to me or one of the other guild members and ask to join the guild if they had liked us.

No pugs meant no seeing new people, seeing new guilds, testing out the waters.  It was luck or word of mouth that got you a raiding gig.  So flexible raiding means more opportunities for recruitment.

Our 25 will be well under way by the time 5.4 comes out if we keep up at this pace.  It is brutal to build on a server that does not have many to choose from, but we are working with what we have.  But just because we will be well under way with it does not mean we don't want to keep recruiting.  People come and go and to make sure we never get caught shorthanded I need more people to work with.  Good thing we will have more tools to get those people and test them out, like flexible raiding will be useful for in the future.

Virtual Realm:

But that is not the only good news for our 25 man.  The virtual realms really puts us in a power position at the moment when it comes to 25 man raiding on our server.  As the only 25 man guild on the server, even if our 25 team is only 1/12, we are sadly still the #1 25 man on the server.  Kind of hard not to be #1 when you are the only one.

The virtual realms will give us a larger pool to choose from.  More people to recruit. Maybe even better people than the ones we have on our server as it is.  When that time comes, even if there are better guilds out there and we are #8 over all on the server, 10 man of course, we will be the only guild that will be stepping into the new raid with a 25 man team.

Now that is a recruitment magnet.  Want to raid 25 man?  We have the only one going on our server.  While the other guilds can start building to a 25 and will surely eclipse us if they can duplicate their 10 man success, we do have our foot out the door before they do and a head start can't hurt us at all.  Not like we need a lot of help to catch up.  The top 10 man guild on our server is only 2/13.

With the roughly three months we have before the new patch, which in wow time is really not a long time, we can really develop as a team.  If we can at least keep 20 of the 25 if we are not able to fill those last spots with decent people, the virtual reams will assure us that those last 5 spots will be filled by quality players the second 5.4 comes out.

25 man raiding is an attraction.  It is why I get roughly 50 whispers a week asking if they can come with me this week.  This is on a server that probably only has 50 or so decent players on it.  People want to do 25s.  People like 25s.  I just tell them, guild first, and if I have some space I will keep them in mind.

In the past four weeks I have invited a total of 4 people that were not in guild to join us.  One of those 4 had an alt in the guild to begin with and two of the other 3 have since joined us.  That third will follow, I am sure of that.

When I have those few spots open I use them wisely to invite the people I have seen raid or know can raid and hopefully I can interest them in joining us.

It is amazing what a decent group of people can do.  We had someone that was 11/12 leave their guild to join us even after we never got past the second door on horridon because, as she said, you guys are not jerks about wiping like my old guild was, you try to get better and help each other.  I'd rather be here with less progression and be 1/12 25 instead of 11/12 10 any day.  And wow, she was a great pick up too, an amazing healer that has not one but two geared healers and a long history or raiding.  Something very rare to find on my server.  I am sure with virtual realms we can grab a few more like her in time and that is why it could very well be a great addition for us.

But one thing I worry about is that it could be a double edged sword.  I could lose the entire group I have been trying to build just as easily.  What if a guild on one of those servers wants to build on their 25 and is doing heroics?  I just have to keep working and building and hope I can keep what I have.  It is a risk I am willing to take but not like I have a choice.  Virtual realms are coming and they could be good or bad.  I think they will be good for a group like us.

Anyone reading here will know the hell I have had working on making this group and finding people that will show each week.  You will also notice that we have been moving slow.  Really slow.  But we have finally made it to wiping on horridon and not on the doors and that is progress.  Now if only I could fill those last 5 spots with people that knew how to get out of the stupid and do some decent damage we would have downed it last night.

Another week and more shuffling around.  Perhaps next week I can dig up a few more people to fill out the roster.  It is times like that I wish I had more to choose from than what my server has.  In 5.4, I will.

So setting up for 5.4, here is my todo list.

Keep recruiting to fill out that main 25 man.  Get the second 10 man up group caught up to the first which is 3 bosses ahead of it.  Keep recruiting for the possibility of fill ins.  Get to the point where we can run 2 25 man flex raids at some point so I always have a selection of player to choose from to fill in and can continuously view new players in a controlled environment.

Then when 5.4 comes out, take advantage of flex raiding and the virtual realms to boost an already set up and ready to roll 25 man raiding guild.

I can't tell you how good it felt that first time downing a boss as a full guild group on 25 man.  It has to have been about 3 years or more since I can say we have done that.  It was a nice feeling.  I just hope it all turns out as well as I envision it could.  But I will not hold my breath, blizzard does have a way of screwing things up.

I am looking to start a raid patch as a 25 man guild.  I honestly can not recall ever doing that before.  Ever.  Not once did a patch come out and I knew who all 25 players would be.  I think I have a chance for that happening now.  I real chance, and I like it.

The 25 man started really late but we have three months left before the next patch.  My goal is to be at least 10/12 25 man normal by the time 5.4 comes out.  It seems a realistic goal now.  Just one short month ago with half the people struggling to do 40K it did not seem like a possibility.  But a few weeks passed, a few new people were added, and now it looks like we will be moving ahead again. 

It took a lot longer than I would have wanted it to but it does look like it could be a reality now.  Moving into 5.4 with a fully functional 25 man raid team.  Some people might look at that and think 10/12 is nothing to be impressed with and while I might agree most of the time I have to point out that we are the only guild on the server that has even managed 1/12 25 man.  So yes, 10/12 on my server would be a huge success with the changing coming only meaning it could get better.

We are surely setting ourselves up to be in a good position when 5.4 comes out because we will already be doing 25 man runs.  How odd is that?  We were doing it because we wanted to and now it seems that it will end up helping us get better thanks to flex raids and virtual realms.  Makes you think I knew those two things were coming and that is why I started to do this a month ago, doesn't it.? ;)

There is always a method to my madness.  Or is that a madness to my method?

Review: Marvel Heroes

I started playing Marvel Heroes this weekend and to say it plays like Diablo 3 would be an understatement.  It does not play like Diablo 3, it is Diablo 3.  I am actually quite surprised that Blizzard does not have a team of lawyers already on their back about it.  But that is not saying Marvel Heroes is bad because it isn't.  Diablo 3 was a hit and was enjoyable and Marvel Heroes has the potential to be as well.

I have not hit max level and don't expect to for quite some time.  There is really no need to.  The game is over by the time you reach level 30 even if you over level yourself through it.  You can finish the storyline comfortably between level 22-25 without much of an issue.  The level cap is 60 but the post story line game is nothing but a grind game.  Grinding for gear and drops.

There are plenty of characters you can play as, my starting character is Daredevil.  During the course of the story line you will get another hero drop after finishing the starting solo quests and a second after finishing the story line.  The heroes you get as quest rewards will always be one of the starter free choices.

The starter characters are just fine and so is the rest of the game as a free to play game.  I can't see anything you would actually feel the need to spend real money on unless you are dead set on playing one of the characters that are not part of the starting choices.  If you are like me however you might want some extra storage space and that is the only thing that actually makes me consider spending a little cash.

If you want to play one of the other classes you can get them as random world drops.  To use the word random might give the impression they are easy to get if you grind enough and I do not want to give off that impression.  I've gotten one random world drop but from looking around it would seem I was one of the rare lucky ones.  The drops do not come frequently so finding a character you want to play might take time.  As my luck has it from other games it carries to this one.  My one character find was the thing.  The thing was also the free character I was given as a quest reward.  Oh well, so I have doubles, but it is worth saving them.  Or so I have heard, so it is in my storage.  I hope to find out what having 2 of the same characters can do for me later on.

As I said the game is Diablo 3 but it is Diablo 3 with a twist of MMO added in for good measure.  There will be little zones off the world map you can enter that will be just for you.  Not all of them are there all the time, just like in Diablo 3.  They could have elite mobs or champion mobs, just like Diablo 3.  When out in the world map however, unlike Diablo 3, everyone is there with you.

One interesting addition to the game with the MMO aspect is that there are event bosses like Venom or Rhino attacking and you need to group up with everyone together to get them down.  I ran into Rhino spawning the other day and was the only one there.  Needless to say it was quite the adventure.  I survived, with some heavy movement tactics, until more could come to join me fighting him.  From that I noticed that these boss mobs and event mobs are actually easier when you are alone.  At least for me.

With all the graphics it becomes near impossible to see the event boss you are supposed to be attacking.  While I do admit it is kind of fun doing the fight with what seems like 100s of people all attacking the same mob the visuals are a bit to visual and really cloud your view.  Even with the even mobs being slightly larger than a standard mob when there are so many people around and so many visual effects going on you still can not see them.

When the fight is over loot drops just like Diablo 3.  However, unlike Diablo 3 it seems (I can not be 100% sure) that the loot that drops is a free for all.  While defeating Venom will assure everyone can get a Venom metal the gear he drops seems to be on a first come first serve basis.  I could swear I have seen things pop on my screen and disappear before I picked it up.  Oh well, chalk this one up to something I can say I dislike about the game.  A free for all on loot that drops does not seem to support the idea that people should work together.

In dungeons, which you will encounter when leveling, I do not believe the loot system is the same.  I think what drops is yours.  I have even tested it as best I could by seeing something good drop and not grabbing it and noticing no one else did whereas if I saw something good drop on an event boss and did not pick it up it would disappear in a matter of seconds.  If you drop something however, someone else can pick it up.

That seems to be the only way to trade in game at the moment.  There is no auction house.  There is no trade function. There is no mail system.  Dropping it on the floor for someone else to pick up seems to be the only way to trade, so if you work a trade with someone make sure you are in an area alone when you trade because anyone that walks by can grab it.

The dungeons seem to be an auto grouping system when doing them.  I've been put in full groups, half groups, groups with people that were not even in the dungeon.  For the most part it seems to work well but they probably need to work on it a little more.  One dungeon I did I was the only one in it.  I am guessing that mean no one else was joining it when I was.  I ended up running the whole thing myself, albeit slowly, and defeating the last boss, juggernaut in this case, solo.  It took a fair deal of time as I was a melee and he hits like a truck, but his moves are all telegrapher and with a little bit of timing and a lot of running, I was able to only attack him when he was in charge mode from behind and then get away.  Like I said, solo it is a lot easier for me to see the visuals of what he is going to do.  With a group I most likely would have went splat.  All those effects do seem to cover off the baddies ground effects.

From that experience it showed me that this game can be enjoyed on a solo level or a group level.  Even out in the world all mobs are shared mobs.  So you will see people helping you as they pass by and you can help them as you pass by.  You will both be able to get the experience from them.

The one odd thing I found about the game is one of my favorites.  I love breaking everything.  Did it in Diablo and do it here.  I destroy everything everywhere I go.  But we are supposed to be playing heroes.  Shouldn't we be going around protecting people and keeping property safe instead of blocking up cars and breaking into offices and destroying all the furniture.  Kind of add that I attack four guys just standing around talking because they are the bad guys yet I just came from beating on 6 cars until they blew up and took a bunch of machines with them.  Who actually is the bad guy here?

I can see myself playing this game from time to time.  I can also see myself spending a few dollar real money to get some more bag space.  They really do not give enough to the free user in my opinion.  But over all the game still has a lot of growing to do.

It feels it was released in an unfinished state.  Content ends at 25-30.  Even if there are daily dungeons and other things to do after that it is just to grind looting for gear and character drops.  There is just not enough in the game to support going from 30 to the level cap of 60 at the moment but I feel this game has a great deal of room to grow.

Final Grade:  B-

I like the Diablo 3 game play for a fun, just to pass the time, sort of game.  It loses points for being unfinished but gets bonus points for having so many character options, even if you might need to buy them to get them at some point.  Based on an interview, they plan to be adding new stuff to it often.  Perhaps that will be the missing content and it can move up to a solid B.  Only time will tell.

I say, if you have some free time and are looking for some brainless fun.  Go for it.  Just don't be surprised when you are fighting an event boss as Daredevil and there are 25 other Daredevils there and with all that moving around you forget which one of them is you.  Yeah, happened to me.