Can a Non-Raiding End Game Exist?

I don't believe so. 

I think that raiding is considered the end game for warcraft right now with the design they set in place with the looking for raid. 

I believe that is why the looking for raid was created in the first place, to train us that raiding is end game for everyone and not just something for the elite like some people like to think it is.  A decent amount of the wow player base sees raiding as something that only the good players should be allowed to do.

It was created with the idea that everyone should be able to raid because the end game is raiding and who buys a game with no intention of seeing the end game?

I personally consider looking for raid optional content in the same way I consider heroic raiding optional content.  The normal raid, to me at least, is end game.  I can choose to do LFR to gear up some characters quicker or to make for a quicker valor grind.  I can choose to do heroic raids if there are people on that are capable of doing it.  Both are choices, things I can do but do not feel I need to.  Yes, I like to do them both, sure, but neither of them are required for me to enjoy the game in my opinion.

By firmly placing my opinion of end game in normals I leave myself in the perfect position to enjoy the game.  I can do looking for raid on all my characters so all of them can see the content and I can complete the game as intended in the normal raid and on the characters I excel on I can attempt the challenges that heroic modes might offer me.

If a raid tier is designed too easy I will drag more characters into the heroics.  If a raid tier is designed too hard I can still at least see everything in the looking for raid if I run into problems.

Being stuck in the middle in the game right now is the perfect place to be.  No matter the difficulty level of the content I can enjoy my game play.  Maybe one character gets to heroics, a few might farm normals and everyone else can see everything in LFR.

But this is not about me.  I am but one person, there are many others out there and while it seems, to me at least, like this three version approach to raiding gives me something for all my characters to do, for some it still leaves them out in the cold.

I will not go as far as to call them bad players but there are still some players that are not ready for raiding.  There are some players that can not contribute enough in the looking for raid version.  So for them, even that is too hard.  There are also some people that just do not group with random people for what ever reason.

What is there for them out there?

Perhaps they know they are not ready for raiding, even at the looking for raid skill level.  Perhaps they are intent on just playing the game for fun, for role play purposes, for questing, for PvPing, for whatever it may be.

What is there for them really?

Dailies?  Once done they are done, once you get what you want from them there is no reason to keep doing them.  That is not consistent content.

Reputation grinds?  Once you get exalted you are done and with the tabard system now getting exalted takes no effort.

PvP?  It is not designed content, it is player created content.  You can fight anywhere at any time with any one in any numbers.  The people can make PvP better, there is not a great deal that designing content for it can do.  1 battleground or 100 battlegrounds won't make a difference.  It is still just fighting.

Gold making?  There are many ways to make gold but once you got your niche down it is all repetitive and sooner or later you are left to think, what the hell is there to spend all that gold on anyway?

Raids have more playability in my opinion.  Even if you have done a raid a dozen times it can still be different when done with different people or as a different class or in a different role.

Doing the molten front dailies on my hunter was fine.  Doing them on another character seemed like repetitive bullshit that was not worth the effort. 

Finishing a raid on my hunter was fine, but so was finishing it on my shaman and my warrior and my druid and my priest and... you get the idea.  Repeat raiding is more satisfying than doing grinds for no reason other than grinding them for something to do.

They need to find a way to make non raiding content that is actually worth doing on more then one character.  Grinding out something for the first time is fun for some people, I like it, but grinding it out a second time when there really is no reason to do it is not something that anyone would find particularly enjoyable.

So without raiding what is there?

Can a non-raiding end game exist?

What Happened to Social Skills?

Seriously folks, what is the problem with people in this game?

I am one of those quiet people in your group.  I do my job as best as I can and I know all the fights no matter what we run into.  If someone wants to be social and talk a little I can play along.  I might not be a social player but I know that sometimes some people need human interaction even if it is only on the net and if they say they hope something drops off the boss I will gladly type good luck because it is the right thing to do.  Nothing wrong with being civil is there?

That is what is wrong with so many people in the game however.  Running yesterday after a tank said that before pulling a boss one of the DPS said just shut up and pull.  Would it have hurt him to say good luck?  It would have been faster to type good luck for sure.  The boss will get pulled at the same time no matter which of those two answers he said.  The shut up and pull comment had no place in the game and people like that are ruining the game for many.

Mind you I did not know the tank or the DPS, they where just random people, but it still bothered me to see someone being treated that way.  Why be rude?  Did it serve a purpose, accomplish a task, meet a quota or something?

Good luck would have worked just as well, if not better.  I don't know the tank, I don't know how they think, but I do know many people that when addressed with rudeness like that will fire back with rudeness and a downward spiral happens.  It could have made the tank feel upset which could in turn effect his game play and possible mean he does a bad job or even worse, a horrible job that turns into a wipe.

Why are people so uptight?  It seems like everyone is wound so tight and their lack of social skills shows, big time.

I am not a social person.  As I said earlier, I can go my entire game time never speaking to anyone and I would be very happy.  Yet I don't act like that.  Decent people with social skills, even if not social themselves, know how to deal with others.

That is the biggest problem in WoW as I see it right now.  It is the player base.  A base of people that are all lacking even in the slightest of social graces.  A base of people that grew up thinking that what they say has no impact on others.  A base of people that do not need to fear the repercussions their words.  A base of people that all believe that anyone that is not them fits neatly into the category of a baddie or a no lifer.

We can blame this on the internet and its anonymity.  We can blame it on a society that likes to tell everyone that they are special.  We can blame this on the parents of these people for not teaching their children how to talk to other people.  There are a lot of things we can blame this on but in the end there is no one to blame but the person that is being rude.

They control their own responses.  They are the one that could have said good luck and chose not to.

More often then not, and seeing it a lot more with the addition of LFR, there will be someone who takes every moment they can to berate someone else.  Be it picking on their performance, at their gear selection, gems or enchants, or even as base as picking on their server or guild just for the sake of making themselves feel better.

Why is it that everyone feels the need to be special?  So much so that they have to do so at the expense of others.

I have noticed from my own experience that the person that starts to trash talk is usually someone not doing as well as they should and maybe it is a defense mode that makes them start to talk crap.  Maybe it is a fear that someone will point out that they are not as good as they think they are.  So to keep someone else from pointing out how they did they have to point out how someone else did to put attention on them.

They are wound up so tight that they go on the offense to attack anyone for anything and this just recreates a bad in game atmosphere.

Do these people realize that there are real people on the other end of the screen?  Do they realize that those people might actually have feelings?

Every time I see someone say to kick all the baddies doing under 15K it bothers me.  It bothers me because there is no need to be rude.

"We need more DPS so we have to kick the lowest ones" would work just as well as saying "kick the baddies under 15K".

Why do people choose the rude or hurtful words?  Given an option, 99 out of 100 times, you will see someone address a situation like this with the choice that shows they lack social skills.

The only vote kick I ever started in a 5 man was against a boomkin doing less then 3K and I said in party before I kicked them that I was sorry but after three wipes and them never pulling even 3K I had to kick them or we would not be able to down the boss because we need more DPS.  I did not call them a baddie, even if they where pretty horrible to be honest.  I explained we needed more DPS if we where going to down the boss and explained they where low man on the totem pole so to speak.

I am sure the thunder chicken was quite upset with being kicked but I am also sure that what I said left him feeling a hell of a lot better then if I said l3p you f'n noob and then kicked him would have left him feeling.

Perhaps the way I handled it made them think they might need to look at what they are doing and try to do better next time instead of just thinking that some elitist asshole kicked them which I am sure they would have thought if I insulted them before kicking them.

Words have power and even with the anonymity of the internet they can still hurt.  The person they hurt might be unknown, the person that did the hurting might be unknown, but those people are both real people with real feelings and real emotions.

I have read on some peoples blogs how people have broken down in tears in real life because of things that where said and done.  I have heard people on vent in my guild so upset over things that someone else said.  I have watched good groups turn into insult fests.  I have seen good players turn to crap because you can tell they are obviously upset in real life and not playing as well as they could.

I have watched how the fabric of the game gets torn down as the veil of fun we throw over it gets burnt and turned into a blazing inferno of hate filled bile so often to the point where it is no longer a game of WoW but a game of russian roulette.  If I queue up will I get a good group or a group of those people.

It seems as if anything turns these people into hate mongers.  Win a roll for something they wanted?  Get ready for the insults.  Do better on something then they did?  Get ready for the insults.  Do something different then they are used to?  Get ready for the insults.

They will find stuff to insult you about, even if there isn't anything.  God forbid you make a mistake from that point on, they have it out for you, they are wound so tight now that the second they get the chance they are going to pounce on you and rip your heart out if given the chance.

The game in and of itself is in a fair place right now.  The people that play the game however are the worst they have ever been.  It seems as if everyone has it in for someone.  Everyone is wound too tight and is ready to explode.

I am not sure why it is, but I am getting more upset when I see someone insult someone else.  Sure, it does not involve me, but I am there to witness it and it bothers me.  It bothers me because I know that is a real person that is being ripped apart in a game that is meant to be fun.  It bothers me because I know it will only continue to get worse.  That behavior is contagious.  That behavior needs to be stopped because it can only be bad for the game.

It might never happen, check that, it will never happen, but blizzard needs to take the bull by the horns and start handing out punishments to the people that act like this, the ones with no social skills.

Sorry, we need more DPS for this boss is 1000 times better then l2p noob.

What happened to social skills?  It is sad when an anti-social person like myself has better social skills than most of the people I run into in the game.

Have a good day, and please, be civil to the people you meet in randoms.... yes, even if they suck.

A Rogueing We Will Go

The two starter daggers from the legendary quest line for rogues are just so good that even if you do not play your rogue often you have to get them.  Not to mention, a mere 10K gold for them is a steal based on the prices that I see weapons going for on many servers.  Weapons, even 359 ones, are always over 5K so I say go for it.

If you are in a guild like mine or basically any guild that is not so uptight that they are not willing to waste a few minutes on the 4th boss to allow any guild rogues to start the quest even if they are not raiders then you can get every rogue in your guild a nice set of daggers.

You can do many at a time too.  Just pull boss, vanish, wait for reset, pick pocket, bring in next rogue that does the same thing.  Everyone online that wants it can get it in one visit if your guild is willing to take the time to do it.

When we get there we ask if anyone online has an alt rogue that wants to do the quest and let them come in for the pickpocket.  That is how mine got it.  I have never raided on my rogue.  Perhaps a few of the bosses for the wrath weekly raid thing where my inability to play a rogue well would not exactly put a kink in things.

I had a 356 item level before the daggers and a 363 after so they put a nice little boost on my numbers and now I want to gear up my rogue some to match the daggers.

So I took my newly minted combat spec, which I have not been since back at 60, and entered the queue.  I was up to about 13K-15K in assassination before the daggers on boss fights, not as good in combat, usually 11K-13K but now that I had the daggers I really did not have much of a choice.  The boost to combat was so great that I had to roll as combat.

Now remember before you start to laugh at my numbers that I am not a very good rogue.  I could be better but I always get bored with it and have never invested the time into it.  I am sure if I actually put my mind to it I could do fine.  Not great, but at least better then I had been.

Enter the daggers.

Having no additional practice I entered a dungeon.  My daggers are my only thing gemmed and enchanted.  I still have 5 333 pieces, head and shoulders being two of them that are usually large stat items.

After running through the bosses I now consider anything under 20K as I am doing bad.  On some fights where I can basically stand still and pew pew I have been pulling 27K.

Yes, you heard that right, from a max of 13K to a max of 27K with just adding the daggers.

Holy cow do they make a difference.  Even someone that sucks at being a rogue can go medieval on the big baddies now.

The sad part is that on my main, my hunter, mathematically speaking I need to execute perfectly in every way to get 27K.  Now my rogue, in gear 30 item levels under my hunter, can beat my hunter while doing a bastardized rotation while I am learning with no gems and no enchants.  There is something really wrong with this if you ask me.

I know there is more to learning a rotation, but if you ever read my post on How to Teach a Rotation you will notice that I tell people to start slow and when they master that add more to it.  I've just never had the desire to take my own advice with the rogue because I just do not like playing it so any dummy time more then 5 minutes to me feels like wasted time.

I am starting off with just doing sinister strike until 4 points, revealing strike for the fifth and then eviscerate as the finisher.  That is it.  I am using a three button rotation, 2, 3, and 4 respectively, on my binds.  Rupture is 1 and slice and dice is 5.  I will add them once I get a few more runs under my belt in using just the three buttons.

I plan to attempt to get myself at least all 378 gear from heroics this week, if I am lucky with drops that is.  I can only imagine that 30K will not be a problem when I have all 378s and actually have everything gemmed and enchanted.

If you have a rogue and you have access to the 4th boss of DS I suggest you take the time to do the starting quest.  Even if you never get the legendary version, the two weapons are good enough on their own.  Even more so if the character is only an alt for you.  Having an alt that you could do such good DPS on without even thinking is not a bad thing is it?

Being this is the last tier of raiding the 10K for two weapons is a worthwhile expenditure if you ask me.  I know I will not be making these into legendary weapons until we are punting pandas and I come back to farm it but I still like what I got from beginning the quest line at least.

As for the quest, for those that do not know, it is not exactly what I would call easy.  More so for someone like me who, as I have said, is not a very good rogue to begin with.

You will be tasked with sneaking through a city that is swarming with mobs.  Once you get the pattern down getting back there will be no problem.  Took me about 20 tries before I mastered it.

There are a few tricks you can use too if you are not that good at sneaking around.  One is the way I first made it in.  All you need to do it get close enough to sprint into the area where the boss is.  As soon as you get in there you will get ported out because you where seen but now you can mount up and fly back in.  You might get ported back out again that first time flying back in but the second time you will have no problems.

If you ever leave the area, as in zoning to another zone, you will need to rework your way in again.  Just figured I would give you fair notice there.  But like I said, once you have the pattern to getting in there getting back is not so much of a problem.

There is a second way to make it is, a friend told me he did it and it worked.  It is the latency way.  Go to something like you tube and open a few dozen videos and have them all playing, more if you have a great computer, and wait until your latency to crap out and then mount up and fly in.  Take off all your armor first because it is safer if you just release your mount and drop into the area.  Drop, die, come back to rez your body, you are in now without having to sneak though all those mobs.  Make sure you close all those windows after you are in, you do not want to be lagging when fighting this guy for sure.

Tips for fighting Creed:

1) One cast leaves a void zone on the ground.  It can not be interrupted so you should either stun to interrupt it, or start moving as soon as the cast starts.  That will avoid most of the damage.  Moving might be the best idea but stuns work when learning the difference with the casts.
2) One cast you can interrupt, do it every time.  Even if you have to slow DPS to make sure you have energy for the kick, do it.  That hurts, and that drains all your energy.
3) Third is a breath effect, you will never, I repeat never, want to stop this one.  This is the free DPS time for you and wasting a kidney punch on something like that could be the difference between success and failure.  It is easily avoidable and he does not move while casting it so get behind him and do what rogues do best.
4) Play smart with your combo points.  Using them to kidney shot the boss or apply recuperation is usually more important than doing a 5 point finisher.
5) After a few tries you get the feel for how things go and you can mix it up.  Two or three point finishers or recuperates, so you have 1 point available for a kidney shot is sometimes ideal.
6) If you are under geared like I am, and yes, if I had better gear this guy could have very well been a push over, make sure your keep moving.  Heck, even if you are not under geared, keep moving but move smart.  You want to be close enough for the kick when needed.
7) Max out your first aid if you have not, use it if you need too when he is kidney shot, blind, gouged, casting his breath or you can slow him and get some distance.
8) Think at least 8K DPS, because that is what you will need to down him before he enrages, but worry about that after you have gotten good at avoiding all the casts and abilities.  20K DPS is not going to help you here if you are not micromanaging the little stuff.
9) Know your whole toolbox and use it.  You have many abilities that can help here evasion, cloak, combat readiness, deadly throw, etc.  Use them all.
10) Take your time learning the fight.  Watch a video or wipe on it a few times.  Once you get the pattern to managing his abilities down the fight is a piece of cake.  If you need repairs, have someone meet you outside the phased area with a repair bot or mount.  Do not leave the zone unless you feel like sneaking through again.

Short version, keep moving, keep recuperate rolling, kick his energy drain every time, use your whole toolkit to control that bum.

When all is said and done you will have two new awesome daggers to enjoy and rip things up with.  No longer do you need to work for your DPS, it is given to you in the form of two weapons.

I might actually start to like playing my rogue if I get to pull number 1 numbers doing nothing that takes any skill what so ever.  It would be a change of pace from working my ass off trying to stay competitive.

Eh, who am I kidding, I don't like being a rogue, but it sure is nice to have another character I can bring into a raid that can do decent DPS without me even taking the effort to gem, enchant, or gear him up.

If you ask me, the starter weapons for the quest line are way to easy to attain and are way too powerful for starter weapons.  But hell, what do I care.  I got them so I am happy.

Now I am starting to wonder what those looking for raid rogues with the daggers are doing.  While waiting in queue my poisons wore off and I went into a dungeon with no poisons and did 13K on the first mob.  Funny part is, before the daggers I would have thought that was amazing.  With them I said, something is wrong, and noticed I had no poisons on.  I can't wait to get my gear up to level and see what I can do in a LFR.

If you can pull 13K with a bastardized rotation and no poisons in a 5 man then there is no reason for any rogue with the daggers to be pulling less then 25K in 372 item level gear in a 25 man.  I say kick any rogue doing less.  The daggers do all the work, if they are doing less than that, they are not even attacking to let the daggers do all the work. They are AFKing and thinking that no one will notice that doing 15K is actually horrible if you have those daggers.

I think for me at least, that another reason I am liking it at the moment is that it gives me a chance to learn.  I can do my super simple rotation and not be hurting the group while I am learning.

I always put way to much pressure on myself to do the best I can do.  The over powered daggers allow me to play without having to do the best I can do right at the get go and still contribute reasonably well.  It allows me to learn over time as I go.  It allows me to just play and not analyze everything I do.

This could very well turn into the time where I can actively learn my rogue because the pressure to do well is no longer there.  The daggers do all the work.  I can do badly and still do 20K and if looking at the masses in the LFR system as any sort of indicator then a large majority of the WoW player base can't pull 20K anyway, which means I am in a good position all thanks to blizzard giving rogues a free pass at having to work to be good this patch.

The relative ease to get the daggers means that every 85 rogue in game should have them.  There is no reason not to.  Go get yours now, you will not regret it.

Fun Lines From Randoms

We all run across bad players, nerd ragers, and just generally stupid people.  Most of the time it is no big deal.  Some times it can be upsetting.  Other times still it can be downright funny.  Today I present for your reading pleasure some of the best lines I can remember.  All paraphrased of course as I do not recall most of the exact wording of some.

Setting:  In a dungeon where the tank is marking skulls on targets he wants killed first.

DPS:  Tank, can't you get control of the mobs, they keep going after me.
Tank:  Maybe if you attacked the right target, don't you know what the skull means?
DPS:  Yes.
DPS:  It means it is the dangerous one and I should keep away from it.

Setting:  A rogue in a dungeon doing low DPS on trash.

Tank: Why are you only auto attacking rogue?
Rogue:  I am saving my energy for the boss.

Setting:  After the third wipe in a dungeon someone looks at the healing meters.

DPS:  WTF is wrong with you healer, you have not been healing anyone but the tank.
Healer:  My job is to keep the tank up, I do not heal DPS that stand in stupid.
Tank:  They are not standing in stupid, it is area effect damage, they can not avoid it.
Healer:  Yes they can, they can get out of the area.

Setting:  After many mistakes by a warlock which included pulling, targeting wrong mobs, doing low DPS, you name it, these priceless words where exchanged.

Healer:  Stop pulling mobs lock, wait for the tank.
Tank:  And please try to attack the same things I am attacking.
Healer:  Did you buy the account because you are a horrible player.
Warlock:  I did not buy it, it is my account.
Healer:  Then you have no excuse, what are you, an idiot?
Warlock:  Yes.

Setting:  This baby is from my first time tanking a random after the LFD first came out.  I came into the middle of a battle and three pulls later without getting any heals I had this exchange.

Tank:  Why are you not healing me?
Healer:  If you are going to keep all the mobs to yourself and not let anyone else get some I am not healing you.
Tank:  I am the tank, that is my job.
Healer:  That is no excuse.

Setting:  Healing the first boss of BH when it first came out with a holy paladin that thought they where gods gift.  This exchange happened after the second wipe.

Paladin:  Why am I doing all the healing Shaman?
Shaman:  Excuse me?
Paladin:  I have nearly double your healing, you are doing nothing here.
Shaman:  Recount healing done:
Shaman:  Shaman 80%
Shaman:  Paladin 20%
Shaman:  Recount data over healing:
Shaman:  Paladin over healing 84%
Shaman:  Shaman over healing 4%
Shaman:  Recount data dispels:
Shaman:  Shaman 32
Shaman:  Paladin 1
Shaman: Are you only healing and dispelling yourself because the way it looks to me is I am the one doing all the work here and you are just spamming yourself with heals because the only thing you are beating me on is overhealing.
Paladin:  Numbers don't lie, I did almost double the healing you did, that is all that matters.
Tank:  The paladin is right Shaman, numbers don't lie.
Paladin:  See, idiot.  Kick the baddie.
Tank:  I agree, I am removing the baddie.
Paladin:  Ha ha, learn to play tard.
Paladin has been removed from the group.

Setting:  Week one of the ZA/ZG grind with a healer that was decked in all heroic T11 gear.

Healer:  You guys better not be tards.  I am not healing anyone that doesn't know how to move from the poison.
Tank:  Does everyone know the fight?
Healer:  They better because I am about sick and tired of all these failtards in here.  Anyone that dies to the poison that is easily avoidable it a horrible player.
DPS:  Can we kick this healer, he is getting on my nerves.
Healer:  I am going to carry your sorry ass, just make sure you know how to move from the poison you baddie.
DPS 2:  I know the fight.
DPS 3:  Bet you 10000 gold the healer dies to the poison.
Healer:  I'd take that action but gold can not be traded, tard.
Tank:  Pulling.
Healer has died
DPS3 :  I'll start a new character on your server with this same name, you owe me 10K. lol
Healer has left group.
Everyone else has died.
Tank:  That was so worth a wipe.
DPS1:  I've come to learn that the more someone talks the worse they are as a player.
Tank:  Ain't that the truth.

Setting:  In a dungeon during noble garden time.

Healer:  You seem rather squishy tank.  I am having trouble keeping you up.
Tank:  Not sure what the problem is.  I usually have no issues in here.
DPS:  Maybe you should put your armor back on instead of the easter stuff. lol
Tank:  lol .  That might help.  Sorry.
Healer:  Some times I wonder about you bears.
Tank:   I forgot I was wearing it when I came in.  Its one of the problems with being a bear, I only see fur no matter what I am wearing. :)

Setting:  In a VoA where the leader forgot to set master looter.

Leader:  Everyone just roll greed on the bear being someone already hit greed so it will be fair.
Everyone but one person rolls, they all roll greed.
Leader:  Roll so we can move on.
DPS:  This baby is mine, screw you I am not rolling greed.
DPS hits need.
DPS leaves group.
Leader:  Sorry everyone.  I should have set master looter.  I hate F'N ninjas.
Healer:  Its okay, he didn't get the bear.
Leader:  What do you mean?
Healer:  It is still on the body, he left so quick it never gave it to him.
Everyone:  lol

That is all for now.  Maybe if I remember some more I will share.  Hope you enjoyed.

Building a Casual Raiding Guild

Common Casual Misconceptions:

Casual guilds let anyone raid:
Some might.  Most don't.  They still require people to be able to do the job.  They still want people gemmed, enchanted, reforged, and speced correctly.  The only difference is that we let anyone raid that does those things, even if they are not great players and try to help them get better.

Casual guilds do not have the ability to stick it out:
I am not sure where this idea first came from but wiping is not something only hard core guilds endure.  Casual guilds do as well.  As a matter of fact, being able to deal with wiping is one of the requirements we ask of all our raiders when they first apply.  The difference is a casual guild might wipe for 2 hours and give up whereas a hard core guild wipes for 4 or 6 hours before they give up.  The reason for this is that a casual guild was only going to raid for 2 hours anyway, wipes or not.

Casual guilds can not progress at a good pace:
When new content hits my guild is a top 10 guild on the server.  After a few months we are down to 30 or 40 or further even.  It is not because we are not moving at a good pace.  We down bosses just as fast as everyone else.  It is because we put in less hours per week that makes it look like we are behind.  In many cases if you counted "time spent in raid" instead of real life time, our guild progresses faster then most top 10 guilds. 

Casual players are just not as good:
Another mistake people make.  Casual does not mean bad.  Casual just means that they do not spend as much time on it as someone else might.  Spending less time on something does not mean you are bad at it.

Casual raiders do not care about doing their best:
Tell that to my raiders.  No one shows up ungemmed, unenchanted, unrefored or unprepared. Just because we are casual does not mean we do not try our best.

Casual guilds do not do heroic content:
To some extent this is true. Sometimes they dabble in them, sometimes they do many of them, but most times, they would rather start from the beginning again with some new players so they can also get a chance to experience the raid and get some gear.

What Should a Casual Raid Expect From Raiders:

1) Team players
- Without a doubt this is the single most important part of building a casual team.  You need people willing to rotate, people willing to sit out, people willing to run on a alt to help group make up.
2) Class knowledge
- Casual does not mean bad.  Remember that.
3) Gems, Enchants, Flasks, Food, etc.
- Just because you are casual does not mean you do not need these things when raiding.

What a Casual Raid Accepts That a Hard Core Team Might Not:

1) Connection
- Hard core teams need people to have a solid connection.  Casual raids teams are more forgiving to some extent.  Too many connection problems and you will be sitting out but a blip here and there will not get you kicked from the raid.
2) Someone making a mistake
- A casual raid will most likely tease you about your mistake, they do not expect you to be perfect from the first attempt.
3) Someone slightly undergeared
- Casual guilds often have to use fill in players which means someone that is not exactly ready might be dragged along just to fill the raid, as long as they are good at their class.

How to Succeed at Casual Raiding:

1) Adapt
- Unlike hard core guilds you will often find yourself in odd situations where you do not have a good team make up.  All ranged or all melee, or short a tank or short a healer.  A casual raid teams will make it work.  Like solo tanking a two tank boss with creative use of cool downs.  Two healing a three heal fight by changing how you approach the fight.  You have to be able to use the tools available to you.  Casual raiding really is bring the player and not the class because you have no choice sometimes.
2) Bad Players
- Unlike hard core teams that can spot a bad player a mile away the first time you see them raid even if everything about their gear and spec seemed perfect, bad players can sometimes go unnoticed in a casual guild for a while.  You need to learn to spot the difference between someone that is learning and adapting and someone that just can not do it.
3) Positives
- Even wipes can have positive side effects if you look for them.  You have to not only know how to spot the good within the bad but know how to make that work as a motivator.  I can not tell you how many times this expansion alone after 4 or 5 wipes on one boss we made one more attempt with a "what was positive about the wipes" speech before we made our last attempt for the night only to end up with a boss kill.  Three times this expansion it was a boss that was what is called a progression boss, a first time kill. 

Setting Up The Raid Team:

1) Attendence
- Even casual guilds have people that will have excellent attendance.  If those players are good then build around them, do not "try" to fit them in.  Build around the people you know will always be there and are good at what they do.
2) Performance
- Just because you are assembling a casual raid team does not means you can be loose with the terms on what is needed from your players.  If you run into a boss that needs 24K DPS form everyone it needs 24K DPS from everyone.  No way around that.  Just because you are a casual raiding guild the boss is not going to give you a break.  Do not ever fall back on "we are casual so we can't do it until we over gear it".  A casual guild can do anything a hard core guild can, it just takes us longer because we do not play as much.  Expect hard core performance even if you only raid 2 hours a week.
3) Pride
- Isn't that one of the deadly sins?  Well, who cares, be proud of what you accomplish even if to others it might not seem like anything special.  My guild went into DS the first time and one shot two bosses.  We did not even experience a wipe until the third.  That is a great team motivator.  We are not a heroic guild so the average item level of the team was probably in the 370-375 range and there were 385-390 geared people that wiped on the same bosses we downed in one shot the first time we saw it.  Nothing wrong with letting your team know they did good and should be proud of themselves.

Once Again, Team Players:

1) Alts
- People that can fill any roll and are geared and knowledgeable are a god send.  We have a few non raiders in my guild that have many alts and we often pull them in, sometimes for only one fight, just to get things done.  We also have many people, like myself, that can fill any roll and do whatever is needed.
2) Sitting Out
- People that can accept sitting out are a staple of a good casual guild.  Most casual guilds have more players then they have raid spots and everyone want to get into a raid once in a while.  People that are willing to rotate make it so much easier.  I am the raid leader and I sit out from time to time just to let someone else in when I know the group has 8 or 9 others that know the content really well enough to not even need a leader.
3) Not Greedy
- This tier shows exactly why we have had success as a casual guild.  When tier tokens drop and someone has the LFR version they will pass to someone that does not have even a 384 to help them get their set bonuses.  People that share the loot because they want to instead of because they are asked to makes for a better team.

Just Remember:

1) It's Not Easy
- Building a decent casual raid guild is harder than building a hard core raid team.  Hard core raid teams have people that want to get in and if they lose someone there are 100s of people dying to take that spot while casual raid teams need to sift through everyone else and hope to pick out the ones that make things work and sometimes just can't find anyone that fits the bill.
2) Don't Get Attached
- Casual raiders usually fall into three categories. 
A) Bad players - which you have to decide if they can get better or get out. 
B) Ambitious players - which are only raiding with a casual guild to get experience so they can try to get into a more progressed guild.
C) Time restrained players - that have other real life issues that sometimes mean they come and go. 
- All three types might be around every day for months and then leave at a moments notice.  While you might miss them as people and players, you have to learn that people come and go and do not let it effect you.  You also need to remember that just because someone was a super raider in T11 does not mean he is ready for T13 the moment he comes back.  Do not let your feeling for the person or player effect what is best for the team.
3) Keep it Fun
- You are not pressing for a world first or even a server first.  Is server 40th really that bad of a thing?  Not at all, if anything it is a good thing.  While the server first group has blown through the content so quickly they get bored with it you took your time and had fun with it.  Also, you can continue to have fun with it by bringing new people through it that have never been there.  There is something to be said about experiencing the first time downing a boss a second time and a third time with other people having their first time.  It is a different mind set for raiding and it is not for everyone but if it is for you, then it will remain fun for you and extend the life of the content for you.

End Note:

The Great Plus and Great Minus for LFR for the Casual Guild.

Plus:  A great way to help gear up faster and get some experience with the basic concept.

Minus:  Everyone seem to think they "know" the fight even if they only did it in LFR.

Your Characters Christmas Wish List

What would you get your characters for Christmas?

My Hunter -

My Hunters wish list would include the last piece of the meta achievements it always seems I miss.  I am missing 1 thing from glory of the raider, 1 from glory of the ulduar raider, 1 from glory of the icecrown raider, 1 thing from nearly everything.  For Christmas I want a group of people that would be willing to help him get that last piece.  Even if it required a few wipes to make it happen.

My Priest -

She would love to have a decent ground effect AoE heal, something like a healing rain or at least a shorter, much shorter, cooldown for the AoE shield.  Why can't she have something that is a constant effect like all other classes?

Speaking of adjusting AoE heals for her, it would be nice for the prayer of healing to actually work correctly and not be tied to only party any more.  Priest are the only class I've noticed that have to actively be placed in specific groups for their AoE to work correctly and it only works on that group.  Bad design blizzard, my priest wants it fixed.

My Shaman -

Would love better combat regen but is willing to be understanding as to why she does not have it.  Shaman heals are powerful but they oom fast in long fights.  If they had better regen then they do and did not need to have the most mana conserving users playing them to get the maximum effect from them they would be total over powered.

Being this is a wish list however, she does wish to have better combat regen.  Oh, and one instant heal.  Even if it is a small one.  Just something that is instant so they have something they can use on the run here and there.

My Warrior -

More engineer goggles.  Each time a new patch comes out, come out with updated goggles.  Not really that hard to do is it?  Goggles are dead sexy and should have a longer shelf life then just the beginning of an expansion.  Transmog helps but while others might think we are wearing them, we know we are not.

My Rogue -

A hunter type of ability like steady shot.  Focus and energy are the same thing with one difference.  The difference is hunters use a filler to regenerate focus where the rogue... waits.  That is my biggest problem with playing a rogue.  The waiting.  I just can not get a handle on playing a class where I need to wait to do things.  To each their own I guess, but my wish it to make them more rapid fire and less wait to fire.

My Death Knight -

I want the will to clean up on my DK.  It is my bank character with a full bank and I know some of that stuff is junk and I can just get rid of it but I never have the will to do it.  I wish for the will to actually clean up my bank some.

My Paladin -

A spec besides Protection that does not bore the ever living hell out of me.  I can't do holy or retribution.  I mean I can do them, I just can't enjoy doing them.  Not sure why, they just do not work for me.

My Warlock -

I wish for a rotation that did not seem to take a year and a day to get through.  Heck, I would like a rotation where I could occasionally finish it before the mobs die.  I do not mind ramp up time but when the ramp up time takes longer to set in motion than cooking breakfast does, there is a problem here.

My Mage -

More polymorph glyphs.   I always consider mages the comic relief in the game, even more so if they are gnomes, as all good mages should be.  I would love to see them have a myriad of things they could poly into.  Just for laughs make a santas little helper poly for the holidays, things like that.

My Druid -

Sunglasses for the cat dance.  That would be a nice start.  Tree form back as the standard and not a cooldown.  They would be nice too.  A ranged interrupt for my bear would be a god send.

Odds & Ends

Rogue -

My Rogue is still pretty much under geared being I do not use it much but I was able to get to start my legendary quest line.  I most likely will never finish it for a few reasons.  One being I do not play my rogue much, two being I am not a very good rogue to begin with and three being there are much better people at playing rogues in my guild and they are the ones that deserve it.

That does not mean I can not go out and get myself the two 397 weapons.  Even if that is all I get it is still a great investment for my Rogue.  With this being the last tier or raiding this expansion the two daggers I get will most likely be the best I ever get anyway and two 397 weapons for 10K is not a bad price.

Too bad that my rogue only had 10K on him.  I now have a broke rogue.  But when you do not use a character much, what do you expect him to have.  Didn't stop me, my rogue spent his life savings.  Now the hard part, doing the quest.  From what I read I will need to win a rather hard battle.  For someone that is a good rogue it would not be much of a problem.  For me, it will be a huge challenge.  Sound like fun.  Challenge accepted.

Priest -

She is one of the few characters I can see really taking advantage of mogging with.  While I have made sure my engineers always have engineer goggles I have not really mogged anything else.  It seems, at least from my experience, that female priests all over are the #1 users of the feature and mine should as well.  I was considering something simple like a black embersilk dress but that does not fit her well.  She is a priest, she needs to be the light and not the darkness.

I want to bring her back to her early days.  For those that never heard me mention it my priest was leveled, until 60, through PvP.  When I started her it was before the LFD system came out or maybe I would have done that too and I was leveling as Disc so while I could quest as Disc is a fantastic leveling spec I felt like I wanted something different so I leveled her through PvP.  She had some awesome outfits while leveling. She looked like the basic biker chick, kicking ass and taking names.

She had some great days in the battlegrounds while leveling.  One time left alone at the stables and five horde coming in she went into attack mode.  She defended the stables all by herself and stood proud atop the bodies of five horde that thought they could take out one little female healer standing there all alone.  She looked bad ass and she was bad ass.  I want to bring her back to those days.

Sure, I said that she should be the look of light but for some reason the kick ass look just looks better.  Now if only I could remember what armor she had back then.  Probably something she made herself.  All my other characters sent her cloth and she did not quest so the only things she ever had where PvP items and stuff she made.  No heirlooms either back then.  So I am sure figuring out what she was wearing wouldn't be all that hard knowing the limited options she had.

I remember heading all the way over to the PvP vendor in ashenvale as soon as I was high enough to buy some items from there.  It was funny because she had discovered nothing at all in the world.  She had no flight paths, she had to make the long trek there.  I actually remember it fondly.  Up until cataclysm came out where we were given all the fight paths instantly now she had a total of 3 or 4 flight paths in all of the old world.  I always found that humorous.

When it all comes down to it, she is the only character I have ever leveled where I actively noticed her look so as such she is the only one I will probably mog.  Not because I want to, so to speak, but because I feel as if I have to.  She just doesn't look comfortable with the stuff they make for priests now.  It seems all too stuffy for her.  She is a down to earth girl.  A jeans and leather jacket type of girl.  Speaking of that, I think I need to get her a motorcycle too.

Druid -

I did the first part of LFR on my bear yesterday and noticed I had less life then I had before.  Took me a little bit to figure out why.  I had upgraded two items last week.  Tier legs and boots.  My meta apparently was not activated any more.  Ah ha, that is what it was. My old boots had an agility/dodge gem in it and the new boots I put in pure agility.  That was the difference.  So I put in a agility/dodge gem and my bear is a buffer bear now.

I can't believe that I did not notice that.  I am usually good like that making sure that everything is correct.  Oddly enough, no one said anything to me either.  People love to point out other peoples faults and I am sure that if someone saw it I would have been given the standard noob and l2p lines for missing something that simple. 

Didn't happen but I still called myself a noob.  We all make mistakes sometimes and with meta gems it is easy to make a mistake like that.  I am sure I am not the first one that broke a meta gem activation and I will not be the last.  Glad I found it before someone else did.

Red Gems -

With as many characters as I try to keep up to date and all the new gear out there I am running low on my stock.  There is no cheap way to restock right now at the moment.  Perhaps I should take advantage of the long queue time for tanks in the LFR right now and get some mining done.  Both my paladin tank and bear tank are miners. 

I did that the other day, gathering 244 obsidian ore while waiting.  I have a killer farming spot where there is never anyone and they respawn fast so it is constant mining.  Being it is under water I use my druid for it.  Instant seal is awesome for underwater mining.  Even if there is someone else there I can easily out pace them.  They need to mount up again, I am instant seal.  They need to fight mobs that they run into or they can't mount, I switch to bear, stun, mine, switch to seal and swim away.  Mining underwater is the way to go for me.

I choose to mine obsidian ore instead of elementium for a few reasons.  One is there is a lot less competition.  Two is that the obsidian breaks down into more uncommon gems then elementium does.  Three is that I have the great place to do it with my druid.  Four is with my transmute masters if I get a lot of uncommon reds I can really clean up on the red rares with a little luck.  Sadly, the last time I went out and prospected those 240 ore I only got 5 red uncommon gems.  Bad luck sucks.

I was thinking of buying the uncommon ones on the market but at 70-100 gold each it is still a waste of gold in my opinion.  I have to wait for 15-20 minutes in queue anyway.  Might as well farm it and put that waiting time to good use.  Red gems are going for 400-500 however, so with a transmute master I can get lucky and make some gold but I am not really interested in making gold.  Making gold this expansion is easy.  I am interested in being a cheap elf and getting things as cheap as possible.

Some might say just make the gold and then spend it.  I am a horder.  If I make the gold I want to keep the gold.  Seriously.  I hate spending it.  Not sure why, it is not like I need all that gold for anything.  I just like having it if some day something pops up I want to spend it on it is there.

I think the gem design this expansion was done horribly.  Outside of shield tanks which use mastery mostly all my other characters need red gems.  Bear is agility. DPS is agility, strength or intellect.  Healers are intellect.  All reds.  They made red the only gem worth using and thus created a huge market for them and made all other gems basically useless.

10K DPS -

When doing the LFR yesterday on my hunter and my druid it had me wondering how it is possible to have a 372 item level and only do 10K DPS.  Even if you cheated your way in with 100% PvP gear I think it would be nearly impossible to only pull 10K DPS.  Even as a tank I pull more then 10K DPS.  There were two fights where I was not the lowest DPS as a tank.  That is really sad.

Where is the self respect of these players?  I know when I was first gearing up new characters I would have never even considered entering the queue for a heroic unless I could pull 8K.  I figured 8K was the acceptable number to be doing at entry level in a heroic and I was not going to ask to be carried or not give it my best.  Anything less would be me not trying enough.

I suck at my rogue, you have heard me say it many times.  I wanted to play a little on my rogue so I made sure I spent some time on the dummy learning and getting comfortable with my rotation.  Sure, nothing works the same in reality as it does in practice, but I felt if I gave it my best then I would be okay.

I did 9K in my first heroic.  Not great but acceptable.  I wasn't asking anyone to carry me.  Sure, I did get a tank that was doing more insult me for being carried but he was just a blow hard jerk.  9K in a heroic is just fine and that tank can go screw himself for all I care.  I was proud of what I did.  I went in and did not ask to be carried.  I pulled my own weight.

Why can't everyone be like that?  Carry your own weight.  It is not much to ask.  People are not asking you to do 20K+.  They are just asking you to pull your own weight.  In all 372 gear and the content we are speaking about, LFR, I think 15K is a fair benchmark for pulling your own weight.

Sure, people that know what they are doing will do more then 15K easily in 372 item level but people that are at least attempting should be able to pull 15K.  Anyone under 15K is just not trying.  Heck, even when I am tanking if I do under 15K I think I did bad.  I have been pulling 13K on my tank.  I need to step it up.  Yes, honestly, I should be doing more.

The only thing worse then the 10K people in the LFR are the idiots that need to nerd rage over them doing 10K and winning something while in the group.  Had a group where a DK doing 10K won a token and someone had to start spamming the recount numbers over and over saying how he did not deserve them and it is the games fault for letting bads win and bads be there and... oh my god shut the F up. 

It is only a game, you can play it again next week or how about this, you can do the real thing and get the real item instead of the raid finder item.  Sure, I agree, the DK did not deserve to win, hell, he did not even deserve to be there, I do agree with you but there is no reason to make a fuss over it.  Chill the hell out, nerd rage is not an admirable trait and you should stop it.  If you must say he did not deserve it, say that and then move on.  No reason to do more then say one line if you really feel that complaining is required.

I think I would rather have the 10K people instead of the people that rage over it.  I think blizzard should find a way to auto remove AFKers, this means people that just auto attack, and a way to remove anyone that posts anything from recount.  Seriously.  Posting recount should be a system kick.  Posting it 10 times in a row while raging should be a 24 hour game ban.

Steady Shot -

I am thinking I need to rework my rotation on my hunter a bit.  I got beat by a hunter doing a steady shot rotation.  Do you know the steady shot rotation?  It dates back to BC when hunters where one button wonders.  Press steady shot, keep track of the swing timer, press steady shot again.  One ability was all they needed only that now you do not need to watch swing timer any more, you just spam it.  I checked his recount and he never had a serpent sting, never had a chimera shot.  His damage was from steady, the bleed, aimed on proc only, auto shot and wild quiver.  That's it.  Did not even use kill shot when in kill shot range.

First off, how fun could that conceivably be?  Hitting steady and then aimed on proc and that's it.  He did not beat me by much.  Admittedly I could have done better myself, I did 24300 and he did 24800 but he still beat me.

I am tempted to do this and see what I end up with.  He must have a hell of a lot more gear then I do to beat me doing basically nothing the whole fight.  If he doesn't, I think hunters need to be reworked.  No rotation should ever be that simple.  Seriously.

I think I am just jealous.  Jealous that he got the same numbers I did and he didn't actually have to do anything to get it while I worked on trying to do my rotation the best I could and timed things and got beat.  Hell yes, I am jealous.

Did something change that I do not know about?  Is this really the new marksmen rotation and everyone is keeping it a secret from me?  Share the love people.

Either way, I just can not see how that only could be better then mixing in other shots.  At the very least keeping the sting up refreshed by chimera should be better then that.  Maybe it was just a gear issue.  I'll have to take a visit over to female dwarf and check out what type of gear would be needed to get that high just needing steady shot.  If it is a gear issue, then I am still jealous.   My poor hunter has only gotten into one DS so far.  Still seems like I will be tanking and healing more then I am huntering.

Taunting -

I've gotten so used to the paladin super aggro that I forgot where my taunt was.  I have righteous defense set up to be a right click on heal bot (yes I use healbot while tanking for quick and easy targeting) but my heal bot bugged out for some reason and someone grabbed aggro on a mob.  I went into panic mode.  Holy crap.  What is my RD bind?  What is my hand of reckoning bind?  Where are the buttons so I can click them even?  Ah, where is anything.

Don't get me wrong.  I have RD and HoR keybound but I have not needed to use them in, well, ever.  RD is usually the only thing I will ever need and that is tied to right click on heal bot.  Just goes to show you that key binds are completely useless if you do not remember where the hell you bound the things.

I went looking all over my skills like a mad man, found it and clicked it and all was well after that.  It did send me into a panic.  Seriously, as a tank I have one main duty.  Keep aggro.  If I do not do that then I am useless.  While it was never an issue, I even got the mob before he made it to who he was going to, so no one else even took damage when I lost aggro, I still feel as if I failed at my job.

I have to rebind my hand to an easy to remember position at least.  Sure, I might only use it once every 1000 pulls but I should make sure it is somewhere I'll remember if I need it.

When it first happened and I started looking at my abilities the thought flashed through my mind that I do not even know what the image for the taunt looks like.  How over powered is that?  I lose aggro so rarely that I can't even tell you what hand of reckoning looks like.

Legendary  -

Our guild had it good with deciding who gets to assemble the legendary first this expansion.  With the three main people we considered eligible for the first caster staff it worked itself out because one person was busy with work issues when it started, the other passed being he knew he could not have 100% attendance leaving the third person to be the one to get it.  No executive decisions needed to be made there.  Great for guild leadership.

The second was easy as well.  While we did have three rogues that where mains, only one raided with us.  The other two were rarely if ever in any raids.  If it ever came up we would have just said that the person that has been raiding with us would get it, but it never came up.  Having only one main rogue helped.  We have 4 reasonable rogue alts that might get a second one if we ever get around to it, which I doubt, but as alts, no one really cares much.  Another win for the guild leadership. 

When things work themselves out there is no need to make decisions which means there is no chance for drama.  I love the drama free life.

However, legendary weapons are the bane of all guilds.  I've seen more then one guild disband when a legendary comes out and there is fighting over who gets it first.  I personally think all legendary items should be for a single class only.  With luck most 10 man guild will have little or no problem if that was the case.  If it where a per class and spec thing then making the decision is a non factor.

I worry about what would happen to my guild if a hunter legendary ever came out.  We are full on hunters.  We could field a 25 man with just hunters probably, all over 20K DPS hunters too, so it is not like we have a group of totally bad hunters.  A few do not raid often, so telling them they can not be first would probably not create drama.  Five have other characters they raid with predominantly so that makes them a non issue as well.  Two more are part timers.  Even myself, as a main hunter find myself in the position of being on a tank or healer more then I am on my hunter.

For as many hunters as we have and as many good hunters as we have, there are none that I think should be first in line.  Except for me selfishly saying myself.  Remember that I am only on a tank or healer to help the guild otherwise I would be on my hunter with 100% attendance.  The only hunter in the guild that could say that.

However, you know if anything like that happened there would be more drama then it is worth dealing with.  The raid leader can not ever take the first legendary unless he wants to hear people cry.  Not to mention, if I where to do that I would always need to be on my hunter so who would play fill in tank and fill in healer.

I personally hope that they do not make a legendary hunter weapon.  It would surely destroy our guild.  So many hunters, all would say they deserve it.  It would cause more problems then it is worth.

As much as I might hate luck based legendary weapons, I am looking at you tempest keep, I think they are better, much better.  No fighting for it.  In a casual guild anyone that can use it can roll for it.  In a hard core guild that wants to make a priority list of who gets it first, they can still do that.

The luck based system would also return legendary items to legendary status.  On my server, with crap progression (heck, if my guild can be top 10 on our side sometimes and we only raid 2 hours a week progression) it seems like every caster and their mother has a legendary. 

I can only imagine what a high progression server would be like.  They would be pugging legendary weapons left and right.  I say put the legendary back in legendary and make it actively hard to get but still attainable by anyone that can down last bosses and the only way to do that is make it a 1% drop.

One bad thing about that way for me.  That means I would never get it.  My luck sucks.

I guess that is enough babbling for now.  Be well all.

Will Burnout Hit Again?

I've mentioned before how I stopped doing the valor grind because of burnout and the feeling like I needed to do the Zuls a million times a week.

As someone that likes to have at least three characters reasonably geared, one DPS, one tank and one healer, I make sure to grind my valor gear on all three.  Grinding is hard work, don't ever let anyone tell you different.  For quick and easy gear you raid but if you want to work for your gear you grind valor points.

The problem is that I never know which character I will need for raiding.  Although my hunter is my main and the one character I wish to raid on I try to help the guild by being a back up in any and all positions.  Being I do not raid with all the characters each week, because pugging in cata is like pulling teeth, painful, the valor grind is the best, and only, way to keep them competitively geared without raiding.

Doing the Zul grind was hell, so much so that I only worried about my main and one alt, my shaman healer.  On rare, and I do mean rare, occasion I would do a random with my tank if I could get a full guild group.

What burnt me out with the Zuls was the not so random factor of them.  It was always the same two and one person being bad could turn the runs into a nightmare.  Not to mention the fact that the dungeons seemed to take forever.  Even with a reasonably competent group 40 minute runs where considered good.  If any one player was lacking, one hour plus runs where not unheard of and some would say common place.

Enter the burnout.  I would do my hunter first, then my shaman and by then I had about as much of doing those two dungeons as I could handle.  Good thing I was raiding a lot on my warrior, that is how he got his valor and drops for gear otherwise I would have not had any gear on him.

The Zul grind almost caused me to quit.  It did not seem worth it.  I was grinding content that was not enjoyable, took too long, repetitive, and a rehash of things I had already done dozens of times years before.

This patch, 4.3, the patch I call the patch that saved WoW, corrected the biggest mistake I think Blizzard has ever made in the history of WoW.  That mistake was making the two Zuls.

By making all dungeons 150 valor points that means you can get any dungeon if you wanted.  The random factor is more randoms now.  Sure, you will likely get the newer ones more often being those are the ones people that need gear are entering specifically but the newer ones are a lot different then the zuls as well.

While we are all rolling through the new ones as if they where a joke you have to take it for what it is.  The new ones are designed for people with a 353 item level and most of us were at least 370 when they came out.  That is why we stomped all over them from the second they came out. 

Credit where credit is due.  For a group of people in all item level 353 and a few probably faking their way in, the three new dungeons are actually still a bit of a challenge but not at the same level of challenge as the Zuls where.  I've seen groups struggle with it when pugging.  They are still challenging for at gear level people and people without much skill.

Even if you get unlucky enough to get in a group with all 353s and fakers the fact that the dungeons are all short compared to the Zuls means it is not as stressful if there is a wipe.  In a Zul if you wiped on one boss you had to think, dear god save me, I still have 6 more bosses to do with these people.  With the HoTs it is more like, this group sucks but I only have to deal with three bosses so it is not that bad.

The new dungeons made wiping a lot more tolerable but that is not the real key to why 4.3 is the patch that saved WoW, the real key is in the fact that the grind is not as stressful as it was with the Zuls when you add all the plus factors together.

In roughly the same amount of time over three nights, tues-thurs, that it was taking me to max out my hunter and my shaman in Zuls before 4.3 I am able to max out 3 tanks, 2 healers and 2 hunters.  Not to mention the mage, rogue, and others I might bring through for a few runs here and there.

But wait, there is more, when doing the Zul grind I would get ZA roughly 7 times and ZG roughly 7 times.  Two things, seven times a week.

Guess what, I am still getting things 7 times but it is different now.  I am never doing the same thing twice on the same character.  I am getting things 7 times because I am doing them on 7 different characters.  Which means, even if they are the same thing, they are always from a different perspective which makes them different, in a way.

Each character does both raids and the three dungeons and puts me at 950.  If that character gets into a raid that week he is capped, if he doesn't, who cares, it is only 50 points.  Most likely, being things are so quick anyway, if I am not in a raid by monday I can run one quick random to cap out.

The beauty of this is that if I do not need any more gear from the new ones I can queue up for any random.  I am not forced into the three new ones.  This means lots of different dungeons we could get.

I have choices this patch.  Good choices.  I can never do the same instance twice in one week with a character and cap out.  No more grinding the same two dungeons over and over.

This patch has opened so many new ways to enjoy the game and cap out.  I can't wait for MoP when we can do challenges for VP, daily quests for VP, and more.  It will turn the grind into less of a chore and more of a do what you want to do to have fun approach.

Do what you want!  Have fun!  Who would have ever expected that a game would allow people to have fun and do what they want.  It is a ground breaking discovery.  /sarcasm off.

The game needed this.  It needed this a lot.  It needed it because the Zul grind sucked all the life out of the game, it sucked all the fun out of the game.

However, as much as a gush about this and am happy with it, what does this mean long term?

For people that are not like me with a million alts I try to keep raid ready even if I do not raid with them they can really get bored very fast. 

If capping is so easy now what does someone with only one character do?

Will they suffer boredom burn out?  They can cap in the matter of 2 hours now if they get lucky.  What are they left with to do? 

The most casual of casual players can cap now even if they only play once a week for a couple of hours.  What if you are the type that plays two or three days a week?  What do you do the other days if you are done grinding for the week in one day?

How about me and people like me?  Sure, I am capping at least seven characters a week at the moment and could probably cap more if I wanted to, but don't you think this will get repetitive as well at some point?  That is the question.  Will it?  I am sure that I am not going to be capping that many in coming weeks but for me, that is an option, one I will decide to do.

Will I get fed up with the 2 raid and 3 dungeon on every character each week sooner or later?  Maybe.  The thing is, at least I can adjust it a little myself, like I said, from running the all heroic option and mixing it up some.  From just doing the two raids only and making half the points each week would also prevent burnout.

I like the changes, I like them a lot.  But I have reservations about how it will all work out in the long run.  It has only been a couple of weeks and I do not see myself thinking what I thought about the Zuls a couple of weeks in.  So maybe there is hope.  I was sick of the Zuls by week two.

I'm guessing this new grind will have a much longer shelf life.  I might start getting sick of it after two months maybe, but then again, after 2 months, I am sure I will have all the characters I intend to raid with fully raid geared and all the back ups with enough valor and HoT 378s to be capable back ups.

The only real downfall to this is for the people without alts.  You cap so quickly now and while that works for me that is not ideal for them.

Did correcting the game for people like me hurt the game for others?

I don't foresee me suffering the same burnout I did with the Zuls, the type of burnout that made me want to quit the game, but at least this time around if and when burnout hits it will not make me wait to quit like the Zul burnout did. 

This time I feel as if I have a choice and last time I didn't feel as if I did.  The appearance of choice makes a huge difference, even if it is only an appearance of choice and not real choice.  People like choices.

Monday Random Thoughts

- My thoughts are all over the place this morning.

- Was tanking on my paladin when I noticed that next to my holy power it shows how much time I have left on my consecration.

- I can't believe I never noticed that before.

- Decided to work on my baby hunter some.

- Got the thrall chain quest back, the 359 jp boots, boe 378 bracers I got from the new heroics and a 333 gun I still had from when I leveled engineering but never sold.

- Everything else was green.  Trinkets where 289 and 272.

- Still had to fake my way into heroics.

- Did every heroic once.

- They gave them to me all in order. 

- Wasn't that nice of them.

- Only got 2 drops in the whole set of runs.

- Both from the last dungeon.

- Now I can actually get into heroics without cheating.

- Was doing 16K-18K on AoE trash, 12K-14K on bosses.

- Guild group, so no 15% buff.

- One guild member said it is because I am so used to hunters.

- True, but it is also because hunters are awesome right out of the box.

- They just scale like crap with gear.

- I could do 14K boss DPS with a 303 item level, no other class can do that.

- That is not me knowing the class, that is a class being really good to start out with.

- Doing randoms on my tank I had a hunter with nearly all 384 or higher doing 15K, with the 15% buff.

- Okay, maybe some skill is involved.

- Not sure how it is possible to do basically the same DPS in 384 gear with a 15% buff as in 303 gear with no buff.

- That is the skill factor my guild mate was talking about I guess.

- Had a druid tank in one of my dungeons that was tanking as a night elf.

- Yeap, you heard that right.

- Never switched into bear form.

- He did fantastic, never lost threat, you would never know the difference really.

- He even had all his bear abilities.

- He charged in, used enrage before going, swiped, mauled, lacerated, etc.

- I play a bear, I know all the imagery of those abilities, the night elf did all of those.

- He was using all the bear abilities while not being a bear.

- Ah... how?

- Decided to dust off the old priest and see how she is doing lately.

- Checked her gear out with reforgantor (a good addon if you ask me) and it told me to reforge all my spirit off my gear.

- Okay, I will try it, what is the worse that can happen.

- Lets make sure I get a guild group just in case.

- Wiping with friends can be fun, wiping with people I do not know makes me feel bad.

- Okay, I need to drink after almost every pull now but it seems like my spells have a little more gusto then they did when I last used her.

- BTW, the last time I used her for anything regularly was T11.

- Did a few firelands trash runs with her but nothing major.

- She only had a 360 item level because T11 was her last raiding and she only had 2 378 pieces.

- Did the three new dungeons and am up to a 368 item level.

- Have to love getting all those fresh drops and good quest rewards that first time through.

- Got the group the Moonguard achievement as well going through there.

- Threat plates (another can't live without it addon) and fade made getting the group this one easy.

- The group having some nice AoE helps too.  A mage with arcane explosion speced works wonders.

- I cast levitate on myself at the beginning and said, I'm not falling.

- No one expected to get it, somehow the healer always ends up getting hit by a stray hit here or there.

- I just watched the plates, only cast when someone else had full solid aggro.  Hit fade when new mobs where coming in, and kept moving so the mobs that did like my little healers butt had to walk through someone elses AoE to get to me.

- Easy peasy.

- Had some issues with azshara however.  Never had issues on my shaman.

- We wiped three times.

- Oh well, we all have our strengths and our weaknesses.

- Not sure my priest is in any better position then when I left her on the shelf in T11 because she lacked the healing power but it was not as bad as I would have expected it being so dusty with her.

- Having a guild group helps tons too.

- Just because I did good with them does not mean I would do as well with a pug.

- Pug groups are a horse of a different color.

- You can do a run 1000 times with guild and never have any issues and then do it with a pug and it turns into a complete wipefest.

- I guess like the hunter thing, it is another thing that comes down to skill factor.

- Both mine and theirs.

- At the moment I feel very confident on my shaman that I can compensate for a somewhat bad group and we can be fine.

- I do not feel comfortable with my priest nor do I think my priest has the gusto to handle random people getting into avoidable trouble.

- Their skill, or lack thereof, would effective change my level of skill.

- At least that is the way it would look from the outside looking in.

- You see a healer breezing through a dungeon, no one even coming close to death, and think that is a good healer.

- You see a healer having people drop left and right, losing the tank and wipes coming one after another and they look like a horrible healer.

- The healer is the same healer.  The people around the healer are what makes the healer look good or bad.

- I forgot to do my randoms on one of my tanks this week, I am going to have to get to it.

- I got 500 because I tanked the guild run on wednesday but that is all I did this week.

- I'll knock out the raid finder tonight for the rest maybe.

- I fear the 5th boss in the raid finder as a tank.

- I know what you are going to say, raid finder is super easy, but with no communication on who stays in and who goes out for taunt switching means a wipe, even in the raid finder.

- I've seen it while healing and DPSing.

- So far I've been lucky, I've never had to tank it in LFR, I always come in on the 6th boss for some reason.

- I fear it because the other tank being a bad player can easily make me look like a bad player.

- In any raid the two tanks are as one.  If one sucks, they both suck.

- When two tanks, without voice chat, can do something like that without a word and pick up on what the other is doing and what they need to do and do just fine you can tell both tanks have a clue.

- If the other tank does not have a clue then you can effectively wipe the group when it is not your fault, it is the fault of the second tank for not taking aggro.

- Does anyone know any hints on the 5th boss to help when you are with a clueless other tank in raid finder?

- I am sure, being it is the watered down raid finder, that there has to be a way to solo tank it.

- Heck, even in the real raid on normal you can solo tank 6 of the 8 bosses I believe. 

- Mind you, I've only solo tanked three, so I can't speak about the 6 from experience, just what I have read.

- I am thinking you can solo tank all 8 if you are a little over geared or have healers that are really over geared, even the tricky fifth boss.

- If any one fight would surely need two tanks that would be it.

- Or just one hunters turtle and no tanks.

- Been solo tanking the first boss since day one, no real gear needed to solo tank that one.

- I wonder why every guide I read says that is a two tank fight.

- Must mean heroic.

- I can't see a face tank solo tanking the first boss, but a shield tank should have no problem ever.

- We tried it once with a DK tank and he was just too squishy.

- The shield tanks have such huge avoidance that the stacks fall off on their own.  No need to tank switch.

- When reading up on my paladin while starting to gear it up I saw someone say it was possible to get to CTC hard cap in only 346 gear.

- How?

- I am still not there and up to 362 now.

- I am soft capped but not hard capped.

- I guess I have a lot more reading to do on paladins because there has to be something I am missing.

- Unless the poster was talking out their ass.

- Whenever some says something like that and then does not qualify it with anything to back it up I have to take it as they are full of it.

- Like those people that say dragon soul was so easy, it is a waste.

- Have you done it on heroic?

- Hell, have you done it on normal?

- No?  Then shut the hell up.

- Yes it is easy, it is supposed to be easy, the hard part is doing it in the version for you that is not easy.

- If normals are not super easy for you, then do it on normal. 

- If heroics are not super easy for you, then do it on heroic.

- If even heroics are super easy for you, can you invite me to your guild, because if your guild is so good they can easily carry me through content even the best guilds in the world have not finished yet.

- Speaking of missing something.

- How come the more gear I get on my Rogue and my Mage, the less DPS I do?

- Yes, I am gemming, enchanting and reforging all the new gear.

- Yes, I am doing the same things I did before.

- Well, not any more, I gave up watching my DPS go down with better gear.

- Switched to fire for my mage and combat for my rogue.

- At least now I have an excuse, I am learning a new rotation.

- I really am a one trick pony when it comes to DPS.

- I am good on my hunter, but can not find the right grove with any other characters.

- Perhaps if I invested the same amount of time in them as I do in my hunter I would be good with them too.

- Tanking spoiled me.

- Once you learn how to tank you can tank on any character easily.

- The job is the same no matter what class you are and there is no number to be hung up on while trying to learn it on a new class.

- Did you keep aggro, did you use your cool downs in a timely manner to help your healer, did you interrupt?

- See, easier then DPS.

- DPS it is, "I can do 20K in the same gear on this char, why can't I on this one?".

- Numbers make it harder to compare.

- If that makes any sense.

- Speaking of tanking, where is my tank roll bonus on tank gear for my druid?

- Plate tanks have it good.  Anything with dodge or parry they get a roll bonus on.

- There are no agility items with dodge on it, so my bear gets no tank bonus rolls on tank gear.

- I thought they said tanks would get bonus rolls on tank gear.

- Anything leather with agility on it is tank gear for a bear. 

- In a way it makes sense, poor rogues and kitties would never get gear if all agility leather had a roll bonus for tanking for bears.

- Lets split the difference.

- If the gear has hit or expertise on it, no tank roll bonus, if it does not then tanks get a roll bonus on it.

- Nah, that would not work either, bears just get screwed.

- And even if they fixed it, there will soon be another tank wearing leather.

- Those "wanna be" bears, the pandas.

- If you want to tank as a bear, tank as a real bear.

- Down with panda's tanking.

- They are the lesser bear.

- I want to get Kiril on my bear.

- Now that would be one huge butt.

- You can tell they had bears in mind when they made it, why else would they put armor on it?

- Even if I did see a bear tank as a night elf, I would never do that.

- Part of the fun of being a bear tank is being a bear.

- It sure isn't the number of defensive cool downs.  Compared to my warrior I feel naked on my bear.

- I wonder how the four piece set bonus works for bears.

- If I hit frenzied regeneration unglyphed would I rage starve all the warriors in my raid?

- That would really be screwed up.

- I love all the four piece set bonuses for tanks.

- As a healer they are a god send, if you have a tank that is smart enough to use them at the right time.

- As a tank it is a god send to save the group if the healer falls behind, if you have a healer that is smart enough to take advantage of it.

- I wonder what they had in mind with the healer bonuses.

- I am not really excited about them at all.

- Guess compared to the tank four piece bonus, everything looks pale in comparison.

- Well, that is enough rambling for today.

- Have a great day all.

Adventures in Babysitting

Over all the LFR has been good to me.  Not from a loot standpoint, but I will moan about that later.  From the standpoint of how often I get bad randoms, which is not many, and the fact they are so easy means the one in five players that are bad does not seem to stand out as much as it does in a five man.

Even in the better groups it feels as if I am a babysitter.  Sometimes I feel like I am the only adult thrown into a room of 5 year olds that have not had any parental supervision for hours and it is my job to make them calm down.

In one run yesterday I had a shaman, who if I where into the naming and shaming thing would have his name plastered all over my blog so everyone knows about him, that was about as big a jerk as you possibly can be in a group setting.

He pulled everything.  This is someone that has apparently never played a healer or a tank.  He does not realize that while it might seem as if the tank is moving slow that the tank might be moving slow for a reason.  There is this little thing called mana, any mana user that is not an enhancement shaman knows that you need it.  Just because enhancement shaman can go all day long and never be under 90% mana doesn't mean all classes work that way.

After the first trash, which he pulled, the healers who where caught off guard and had to spam their fast expensive heals to keep him and the other DPS that followed the idiot into battle alive, needed to sit for mana.  He decided to pull the next pack.

The tanks did what the tanks do, they picked up the mobs each time but it is frustrating when you are not pulling because you know the healers need mana and someone is yelling go go go.  Even worse when they start pulling themselves.

The mental midget also told anyone that died to release and come back or they would be kicked.  He said, if you died it is because you are a baddie and you do not deserve a rez.  Attitudes like his are what really ruins the game for most people.  Of course none of those people got kicked.  No one was going to follow this jerks lead.

When he pulled the boss however, we all had to follow his lead of live with a wipe.  Three people still dead because he pulled the boss before they could be revived and he said it was their fault for not releasing and coming back, to just lay there dead like the baddies they are and be happy we are carrying their sorry asses.

Funny part was at the end of the fight he was 6K DPS below me.  BTW, did I mention I was one of the tanks.  Yeap, he, Mr 6K less than the tank, was carrying the dead people that he did not think where important enough to revive.

Even better, one of the people that was dead and we did the boss without, we later saw was doing nearly 4 times the DPS he was, while avoiding all the bad and not pulling for the tanks.  So because they died on trash really meant they where bad.  Nice way to judge a person Mr 6K less then the tank.  Maybe they died because you pulled the packs without all the healers there and the healers lost some people trying to keep up with some idiot that had no business pulling mobs?  I'm guessing they died because you are bad, not because they are bad.

So, with his logic, he was carrying someone much better then him because he caused their death.  I'm willing to bet this person did not pass many classes that required any form of logic in school.

When we landed in the slime boss area, before even half the people where there, he pulls one of the slime packs.  I was there, I did nothing to pull them off him, I let his ass die and then picked up the slimes.  The people that where there worked on the slimes and we got them down.

Someone asked, who the hell keeps pulling.  I said, there is only one dead person and they died on the pull.  Take a guess.  It was at that point that I believe people started to try and kick him but being one of the slimes dropped a green item and he did not roll on it, we could not.

He was gaming the system.  He knew no one could kick while in combat, while rolling on loot and shortly after combat so he made sure to keep the group in combat the whole time.  He never rolled on any loot unless he was need rolling on it so that would hang him up between bosses so he could not be kicked either.

He pulled all the slime packs, even when the tanks where waiting on healers mana.  He died on a couple of them, demanding a revive which is funny considering he was telling everyone to release and come back or be kicked.  After he demanded a revive he was still telling others that.  His reason, the game gave me raid lead, it is his raid, you do what he says or he will kick you. 

Personally I think he should have never been revived.  They should have let his stinking corpse rot there for eternity.  The person that revived him deserved a kick as much as he did for bringing him back to life so he could pull more packs and not get kicked.

On the boss he learned, he pulled with his wolves before everyone was ready.  We where missing three DPS and one healer.  The rest of the raid was waiting, he was, go go go, we do not need a full group for this joke content.  Joke content while he could not break 11K with a 372 item level, interesting statement coming from him.

While that might be true and I too consider it joke content, if you are not going to play right, don't play.  I've always lived by that rule and I would never in a million years embarrass myself by only doing 11K in the LFR.  18K or less in a 25 man with a 372 item level requirement and you need to go back to what I just said, if you are not going to play right, don't play.

We down the boss, of course he does not roll on loot he would just greed on because he can not win it and if he does not roll on it he can not be kicked.

He does more of the same on the next trash and even the next boss.  We almost wipe because when the fight started there were still 4 DPS not there (probably waiting at the last boss for the roll to finish), 2 DPS missing and 2 healers missing.  We barely, and I mean barely made it.  I did a rallying cry at the last second which was enough to keep people alive for a few more seconds and we downed it.

He started with his release and come back or be kicked bull crap again but he forgot one simple thing.  The timer on loot would run out before the next boss and when it did, he was gone.  Thank god.

I even voted to kick him.  Yes, me, the person that never kicks anyone.  I am sick and tired of people with this attitude in the game.  Blizzard needs to take action against them.

Some might say we still did it so what is the big deal.  Some might say I am over reacting.  I say what I always say, if you are not going to play right, don't play.  He was playing wrong on purpose.  I'd actually call that griefing.

Good thing I do not see a lot of people like that in the LFR.  I've been lucky that way, but there have been a handful of jerks here and there.  He was the only one that had really gotten on my nerves so far.  I am sure that is what he was aiming at, to piss people off.

The same run there was a shaman complaining that someone else won two things he wanted and should be kicked because they are not doing anything.  They where doing 24K and lived, the shaman was doing 13K and didn't.  Excuse me?  Who doesn't know how to play?

I've also noticed another trend starting in the looking for raid.  Whoever wins loot off the first boss is kicked.  They could be the best player in there, doesn't make a difference.  Did four yesterday, three of them saw a person that won something on the first boss kicked.

I think that is because people have realized the bug in the rolling system. If you win something off the first boss you will win everything you roll on the rest of the way.  This means, hunter wins someone on first boss, other hunter gets pissed knowing he will not win anything now, losing hunter kicks winning hunter.  Or shaman or warrior kicks winning hunter because they do not want that hunter winning their tier token.

That can be fixed on blizzards end.  Make the loot rolls random and not whoever wins first almost always win.

I've experienced it on both ends.  My hunter has won on the first boss and won every roll that run.  My shaman once had the same thing.  My druid as well.  Those are the only three times I have ever won anything on the first boss.

All my other characters and all my other runs, I have won nothing.  The only time I win is when I win everything.  It is an everything or nothing system in there.

Just my luck that my hunters run where he won 4 things, there were three gloves and one boots.  My shaman, won boots and shoulders.  My bear, won a trinket and legs.  Yes, all three where win on the first and win everything else I rolled on.

How come when I get that first win nothing else for my class ever seems to drop.  When I was on my bear and won the trinket on the first boss I was excited.  It meant I would totally gear up this run.  Did not work that way.  Not one druid token dropped and only one piece of leather for me dropped. 

The only other piece of leather that did drop was one with spirit and I am not a jerk, even if I could use it for offspec, let someone else have it that needs it for main spec.  I knew I would win it if I rolled and it would have felt like I was stealing it from someone that really could use it.

The second time my hunter got lucky and won that first roll, that was the only piece of hunter loot that dropped the whole run and guess what?  It was another set of gloves.  Another wasted chance at abusing the bad rolling system because nothing dropped for me.  Heck, nothing that I could even hit need on dropped the rest of the run.

Warrior, four runs in it with him now, not one single piece of gear has dropped that I could even roll on.  How is that possible?  I have such loot issues sometimes.  No luck.  What are the odds of four runs and not one piece of plate, tank ring or finger or weapon or shield dropping?

Each character I've taken to the weapon loot pinata known as madness for my easy 390 weapons at least once.  Over all my characters, yes, every single one of my million 85s, only one weapon has ever dropped that I was even capable of hitting need on.  What are the odds that nothing will drop that can be used on any of the characters while I am on that character?  It has to be astronomical.  I am not complaining about losing loot.  It happens, I am just grumpy because I have not been able to roll.  I think rolling, even if you lose, it fun.  On the plus side, I got a sweet new staff last night in the real raid, but this isn't about real raids.

Oh, and that one thing that did drop that I could roll on was a mace with an on heal proc.  It was won by a non healer.  WTF?

I don't mind so much with the loot really.  Just kind of sucks to run the raids and never once have even one thing I can hit need on drop.  Twice now that has happened.  Four bosses, not one need button for me the entire run.

Like I said, I can live with that, but I really hate having to babysit people in the looking for raid.  Blizzard has to establish a group code of conduct.  I know, it really should not need to be set because people should know it already, but they do not.  We need to babysit them and that is just not right.  They are the mods, it is their game, they should be the babysitters.

Be civil to each other.

A simple rule if you ask me.  Stop acting like 5 year olds that are running around without your parents.  Just play the game the way it is intended, have some fun, maybe even a few laughs and joke around some, and get your loot and valor and move on with your day.  Is it really that hard?

For some people it sure seems it.  Usually you can tag them as soon as you enter.  They are the ones foaming at the mouth in raid with garbage in every post.  They are the ones that call anyone that rolls on the same loot as them a baddie.  They are the ones that start complaining about anything and everything before the first pull or they are the ones that are the not the tank and initiate the first pull.

Another thing that gets me is who the game sets as leader.  Really.

Once, yes, only once, have I see someone label the second tank as a tank in the raid frames.  When healing this really helps me.  Apparently whomever is lead never knows how to do this or if they do know they never do it.

Sorry, but if you are not capable of labeling the second tank as a tank, not capable of starting ready checks or placing markers, you are not capable of being the raid leader.  Raid leader requirements are so minimal in the looking for raid and yet I have still only seen one LFR raid leader that even had a clue.

When I get lead when I go in, which only seems to happen when I am on my shaman, I set the second tank as a tank and then pass lead to the main tank for ready checks.  Why can't everyone else do that?  It is not like it is hard, it is not like it takes more then 2 seconds.

Oh, I got it, it is because they should not be given raid lead to begin with.  Give raid lead to the babysitters, not the babies.

It is bad enough we have to run with them, we deal with it.  But I don't care what anyone says, I am not changing their diapers.