Monday Random Thoughts

- Another monday and another week without me playing much.

- I logged on twice this week to raid.

- Did not even log on at all this entire weekend.

- Not even to check mail.

- This is partly burnout and partly blizzard giving me no reason to play.

- Gearing alts, which is something I must admit I love, is not fun any longer.

- I like the building up a character aspect of the game, working toward growing its strength.

- It is why I love (loved) leveling.

- Gearing is no longer a fun part of the game basically because blizzard removed valor gear.

- Being I have to do LFR if I want to gear an alt and LFR is, well, LFR, that means there is no way to gear alts.

- So that alone is reason enough not to play.

- But hearing there is going to be no valor gear next expansion means there is no reason to buy next expansion.

- If I do not like the gearing system now I am not going to suddenly start liking it next expansion.

- At the moment checking out garrisons is the only selling point for next expansion.

- It fits with me enjoying building things, seeing them grow, like I used to with gear as I worked toward something, as in gearing them up with valor.

- LFR is not going to get better, it is going to continue to get worse, and thus my desire to play decreases by the minute.

- Blizzard really screwed the game over with removing valor gear, in my opinion.

- I liked the idea I could do some quests, a few dungeons, maybe a scenario or two here and there, and get a few pieces of gear for alts.

- Then I could bring them in on an alt run and try to fill out their gear.

- Sure, I could still do that now on a lower geared character, but that is not my style.

- Bringing a semi-geared alt with valor gear in I could at least contribute.

- For me that is what matters, even if I could get a complete carry and me contributing would not matter, I still have to try, that is just who I am.

- So I can not hit 90 with 435 gear and bring my alt along, I want to at least gear it a little first.

- So valor gear did that for me.

- Now I have only LFR as a gearing option and it is not a good one.

- It is, without doubt, the worst gearing option that have ever added to the game.

- But that is not what killed warcraft for me.

- Nope, it is not the fact I would rather smash my head into the wall until I was bloody and rendered myself unconscious than use the LFR to gear yet another character that killed warcraft for me lately.

- It is the lack of a coming expansion.

- Not only do we not know when it is coming (on or before december 20th was for their stockholders, not for us, it is not a projected release date), we know little or nothing about it.

- It is not even in beta yet and we should be playing it, the real it, now.

- It should be out already but instead we are still waiting on a beta.

- They spoiled us with faster patches, good patches, and even if they were not great we knew another one was coming in just a few months.

- Mists started off exactly how an expansion should be.

- Mists did it right, warlords fucked it up.

- And now they left us in this stagnation of nothing but SoO and the only thing to do was SoO and the only way to gear was SoO and then there were multiple version of SoO and OMG what were they thinking.

- Did they really think this would hold people over after the awesome job they had done releasing content all expansion?

- Didn't work for me, it lost me.

- And then the few tid bits we have heard about warlords all seems horrible.

- Bad story idea carried out in what seems to be a very uninspired way just to find "something" for us to do because their writers are out of ideas.

- No valor gear meaning we will be forced into the worst part of the game, LFR.

- I'd rather PvP as alliance and lose 30 games in a row than do LFR.

- And the healing changes, while I love the idea of them I do not like the way they are going to carry them out.

- Cast times on everything?

- WTF are you smoking blizzard?

- I need to say this again, do you even play the game?

- They better do a huge change with how they design raids.

- If you think LFR is a nightmare now can you imagine how it will be when none of the healers can cast anything while moving and they are forced to move every 2.3 seconds.

- Fights like tortos could never happen.

- Sure, with a group of elite skilled players having a cast time will not effect them.

- It might actually make the game more challenging and more enjoyable for them.

- That is what makes them elite skilled players, they find a way to make it work, they work on timing and knowing how much time they have between each ability so "if" it targets them they will not need to break a cast.

- That is the reason they are called elite skilled players.

- Go get your average normal mode raider and try tortos with no instant heals, with stupid smart heals, and then tell me the warlords idea of cast times and stupid heals are a good idea.

- I would not even think of raiding with my healers in a world like that and some of them are very good healers.

- One healer, while a complete numbers hog, managed to rank #1 in the world on many fights before she quit.

- Not #1 for her class, #1 healer over all.

- Yes I know healing can not be judged by numbers, but it does show that someone knows that they are doing if they can do it well and not let people die.

- We would under heal just to see if she could do it, she wanted the challenge, she was one of those elite players, used to be in a top 10 guild in the world before she came to us.

- She just wanted to cut down to 2 hour raids instead of 5 hour ones.

- After all the changes and other things she figured, screw it, might as well just not heal any more.

- She quit, not just healing but the game.

- This is someone that loves the game, excels at it, and she quit too.

- So it is not just me and other middle of the pack players this long wait is affecting, it is hurting people higher and lower in the pecking order than me.

- If I love to raid, if I will do anything I need to to get ready, and I would not step into LFR even if I understand I have to do it, how do you think players that are not really raiders like it?

- This is their first step into raiding.

- Not exactly something that will win them over and make the love that aspect of the game.

- If my first experience with raiding was an LFR I would have quit the game the same year I started it.

- It was raiding with a real group of real people talking on voice chat and working as a team to down a big baddie that was awesome.

- It is that group working together toward something that felt epic that made me want to raid.

- There is nothing even remotely resembling "working as a team" in LFR.

- There is nothing even remotely resembling an epic feeling in LFR, unless you want to consider the epic feeling of actually finishing it after 2 hours or waiting and 3 hours or wiping a "good" thing.

- The game has entered a state of waiting.

- And it has entered it in the worst place it has ever been.

- A place when there is nothing to do, even with free (and paid for) 90s.

- What exactly are you going to do with them?

- Go to timeless island and get some gear, kill a couple world bosses, maybe farm timeless coins for weapons.

- Then what?

- LFR?

- No thank you blizzard, I'd rather spend my weekend watching the walking dead marathon.

- Heck, I would rather spend my weekend doing anything that isn't playing WoW.

- Unless of course, if they did the right thing and already had the next expansion out now like it should have been.

- Or at least have the beta out and information flowing on a regular basis.

- But no, they would rather watch their game bleed subscriptions.

- Including ones that have been uninterrupted for many years.

- I would rather warlords be released now, even broken, then have to wait until december.

- Because if I have to wait until december I might not be around to complain about it any longer, but if it was released, even broken, I would still be paying, I would still be playing, and that is all because I would have something to complain about.

- But now, I just do not care.

- If I did, I would be posting more than this one post a week to complain about something.

- Remember, we only complain about things we like, my lack of complaints all week long kind of go to show I just don't like the game any more, at least not at the stage it is in.

- It is losing me.

- I almost decided not to even post this.

- But in the back of my head I keep posting once a week because I keep hoping something will come out to make me care again.

- They are running out of time before this grumpy elf becomes an I don't care elf.

- Cross your fingers for a beta release this week.

- Each week that passes people are canceling their subscriptions.

- The wait can not go on much longer.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Another week without playing much.

- I did like the announcement that you can now do normal and heroic SoO cross server now.

- Ever heard the term too little too late blizzard?

- I joined in with a few other blog writers in one of the guilds I am in and did a 25 man run cross server.

- It was nice to get to raid with some people from the world of blogging.

- It was a nice smooth run for the most part.

- Had a few of those, whoops, wipes on one boss but otherwise no problems.

- Nothing wrong with wiping, it happens to everyone even if you have been doing it a million times.

- I was glad to test out the cross realm raiding and say there were no issues.

- At least not in the run I had.

- Outside of that I only logged in this week to assemble raids.

- Not because I want to raid, I don't.

- I don't even want to play.

- But if I do not log in and assemble the raids, the guild will not raid, and it will fall apart.

- So even taking a break from the game I can not take a break from the game.

- That is how hate for a game builds up.

- Sure, I could just say I am not doing it, but I feel it is my responsibility.

- So I pop on, assemble a raid group, fill in one of the roles if needed, or send them on their way if I am not and stay in contact on voice chat should they need me for anything.

- So even not playing the game at all I am still playing the game.

- Still not sure if I will be playing next expansion.

- Garrisons are the only thing that interest me, and lets be honest here, they could have been added as a patch.

- They did not need an entire expansion for them.

- At the moment that is all warlords seems like.

- The addition of garrisons and a story they could have added as a content patch in 5.5 but they decided to make an entire expansion out of a what if scenario that should have seen its climax in a 5 man dungeon, that is all warlords is.

- And as my source tells me the only reason warlords is not out yet is the art work.

- So just like cataclysms ill advised leveling redesign they decided to call "content" and charge us for it as an expansion selling point they are doing the art redesign and calling it "content" and charging us for it as if it were an expansion selling point.

- How about they just update the art work as they go, add it when they add patches, and not try to tell us it is some sort of selling point.

- It is not.

- And now it is holding up the release of the new expansion which now makes it completely worthless.

- I would have rathered be playing warlords right now with old character models, which we should be, than sitting and waiting until possiblely december for some art updates.

- Hey blizzard, just update the art and add it when it is updated, release the content for us now.

- Stop holding back the expansion for art.

- Please.

- A great deal of players don't really care about the art updates anyway and even the ones that do just want to know it is coming and even they would rather be playing new content while waiting than just sitting around waiting.

- It is really not needed to hold up an entire expansion because you want to make blood elves look less gay, gnomes look less spooky, and humans look less blocky.

- But I know why they are waiting on it.

- Like I said, all warlords has going for it is garrisons.

- Not easy to sell an expansion for one thing.

- So they need that art so they can say it has garrisons and art.

- Let me rephrase that, they have garrisons and updated artwork that should have been updated 5 or more years ago at no charge and not as a selling point of an expansion.

- So we will wait, the longest we have ever waited, for an expansion that possibly has less new content that cataclysm did.

- Holy shit I did not even think that was possible.

- So warlords will be garrisons only and cataclysm was... ~crickets~

- Okay, so it will still have more new content than cataclysm did, but it will be close to as bad as cataclysm was.

- Anyone ever notice how powerful the legendary cloak is?

- And I am not talking the in game use of it, I am talking how people look at it.

- It is powerful enough to sway peoples opinions of a player and their abilties.

- Someone asked in trade what would you rather take with you a 520 player with the legendary or a 560 player without it.

- The people almost unanimously agreed that the 520 player would be the better player because they had it.

- The reasoning was a 520 player capable of getting it proved they know how to play their class but the 560 player could have been carried.

- I guess I can somewhat understand that but from my own experience I can not, will not, agree with that line of thought.

- So me, for this example, is better on my rogue at 524 with the cloak who has not stepped into normal except for the occasional boss to try and get daggers where it was really being carried because I suck at playing it but it is better than my druid at 558 without the cloak who has done all of SoO?

- Sure the tank cloak is not as important as the damage dealer one, but the fact still remains, I will take skill as a marker over a cloak any day.

- Just because I got the cloak on my rogue at a low item level does not mean I am good at my rogue, it just means I stuck without it until I figured out how to do it.

- It shows I had dedication and the determination to figure out how to manage to get it done, that is it.

- Even if I am extremely proud of doing it at a low item level on a character I am not good it, it does not validate me as a good player.

- It does not mean I am a good player on it.

- It does not mean I know how to play the class because I was able to do it at a low item level.

- Yet if you listen to people in trade they would take me on my rogue having never done normal for a pug before they would take someone else that has heroic kills without it?

- Wow, people amaze me.

- The power of the cloak goes well beyond what it can do in game.

- It even overpowers people looking at it from the outside.

- People see it and think it means the person is good.

- I did the final quest on a rogue with a 520 item level and two 502 daggers.

- I must be the best rogue ever.

- I have the cloak, that is proof, just ask trade.

- Speaking of cloaks my tanks still do not have one.

- I wanted to do the final quest on each one so I can get a full feel of it.

- Did the ranged one multiple times now, the melee one with my rogue that is the greatest rogue in the world as far as trade is concerned and the healing one but never got around to the tank one.

- I reached critical mass with LFR and my head was about to explode so I had to quit going for it.

- My DK actually had some sigils from doing the early ones.

- My warrior never even stepped into any raid this expansion.

- My paladin never even stepped into any raid this expansion.

- My druid has been sitting at the PvP part for the better half of forever and might stay there for all I know.

- And then there is my monk who was the furthest along.

- Been so long since I played it I do not recall if I was collecting secrets or runestones however.

- Yeah, it has been that long.

- The only reason my monk is so far along is because it is, by far, the one I can DPS best in while in my tank gear.

- I can cat in my druid, but I do not like it.

- I can frost in my tank gear for my DK, but it is not exactly what I could refer to as good.

- And my warrior and paladin can not, under any circumstances, DPS in their tank gear, so they don't have any progress.

- I just can not tank for random people, sorry, not doing it.

- If I had a tanking partner I might do it but not braving those waters solo.

- My monk was moving along so slowly with the quest too.

- I was doing one LFR each week, and it was not even one with a guaranteed drop.

- So it was taking forever.

- I was doing the 3rd ToT and using a coin on the second boss, every single week, to try and get the pet.

- All my alts do their legendary quest line that way.

- Third ToT only.

- My lock did it to catch up on sigils when it started, that one and that one only.

- Now my lock is locked, excuse the pun, at the PvP part like 4 other characters of mine because I can not get wins and gave up.

- It only did all the others once on my lock.

- Funny story with it, one run and one only, through SoO LFR and ended up with the 4 piece set.

- My mage does that one and that one only.

- I have another priest and another hunter that were working their way there, doing that one only.

- So I have killed that boss so many times, used a coin as many of those times as possible, and I still do not have the pet.

- And people wonder why I hate RNG.

- My rogue did almost the entire legendary quest line in that one wing basically, as did many other characters.

- If I added up all my kills on that boss over all my characters for LFR (more if you add normal and heroic but those do not drop the same pet as LFR but I never got that one either) I would not be surprised if I have over 200 kills on it and maybe 150 if not more coins.

- Maybe I should count, I would not be surprised if that number were closer to 100 and it just feels like 200.

- If I had ever got the darn pet even if it were 200, once I have it, it would not feel as if it were that horrible.

- Ever notice that while waiting for something it seems like hell, the hell of 200 kills, but once you get it, that hell is all but forgotten.

- If anything it becomes one of those "that one took me forever to get" and the 200 times to took you to kill it grows each year, to 250, to 300, until wow 8.0 when you will be telling people you killed it 1000 times to get that pet.

- It is human nature, we all do it, we all know we do it, we all keep doing it.

- It is not really lying, it is how the mind works.

- I think it is kind of funny.

- Like when I was trying to get the pet from garnia on the timeless island.

- I kept track of each kill.  Kept my character parked there.  Switched on a timer just to kill it.

- I know that it took 94 times before I got it, or was it 96.

- See, I already forgot.

- And in a year it will be "about 100" and who knows in two years it might be "over 100".

- Amazing how the human mind thinks.

- Just like the human mind thinks my rogue with the legendary and a low item level is proof that I am a great rogue.

- Sometimes people scare me.

- Sometimes warcraft people scare me more.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I played for about 2 hours this week.

- My raid team has seems to have fallen apart, call it burn out.

- So no raiding and me only logging in for raiding meant no reason to log in.

- I logged on to help out a friend with his raid team and came in for 2 bosses.

- And I cleaned out my mail boxes of things that were about to expire.

- My alt hunter got a warforged bow.

- My main still does not have one.

- That really sums up my luck.

- What really killed off my desire to play is no valor gear.

- Some people might think nothing of it but it was huge for the game, at least for me.

- Even if my main(s) do not need any valor gear I still would like to have it available.

- It is a great motivator to play.

- My alts, even more so the ones I do not want to pug with because I am not that good at them, used to gear up with valor.

- Now being it is "raid or die" and the only way for them to get gear is in that nightmare cesspool of a joke they call looking for raid or to pug and for an anti-social person like myself that is not really an option there is no reason to play alts.

- In time past this would be the time I start gearing alts, learning to play them, getting better at them, and then bringing them into a raid.

- But being I can not gear them up, I am not playing them, which means no reason to play.

- And then we hear that warlords is not coming out until "on or before december 20th"

- Are you fucking kidding me blizzard.

- I mean really?

- It should be out now, as in right this moment, not in december.

- When someone like myself who has always found a reason to play, who want to play, can not find anything worth doing in game you really have completely lost it blizzard.

- I have not even bought the expansion yet.

- Normally I jump on that stuff.

- Not even the free 90 is something that interests me.

- WTF would I want another 90 for?

- Another character I can't gear up because I would have to go into the LFR to do so.

- And I would have to finish the legendary line again if I wanted to feel effective.

- Which means LFR is not a option, it is something I will have to do.

- And there is no quick catch up system for other gear because there is no valor.

- And even if there were, I would still not be able to get the cloak without LFR now and a damage dealer without a cloak is worthless this late in the expansion.

- At least for the type of raiding I want to be doing.

- It is raid, raid, raid, raid, raid.

- I love to raid and I am sick of it.

- Does that tell you something blizzard?

- I've been wasting my time on diablo lately.

- Two weeks ago I did not even have 1 level 60.

- When I was originally playing I did the first few levels of difficulty and then quickly released, is this all there is?

- I did not want to do it again harder once more, give me something new if you want me to keep playing.

- I came back because the expansion is coming back soon, see, something new will get me playing.

- So I needed to finish off my demon hunter so they were 60 and could level in the new expansion.

- A hunter, who would have guessed right?

- Now I have all 5 classes at 60 and I am at 84 paragon level.

- I have reached critical mass once again in that game.

- I am bored off my ass.

- The reason I originally stopped playing was, why would I want to do the same thing over and over and over again.

- It is not really appealing.

- There is a gentle hint about the raid raid raid mentality for blizzard there.

- At least diablo had the perfect loot design for that type of game.

- I could get stuff and give it to someone else, or they could give me something.

- The old drop rates were dismal to put it kindly, at least loot 2.0 drops more stuff at a reasonable rate.

- So while I found some awesome pieces, only 2, back when I played, neither of them were for my class so the only good things I ever found where useless.

- But not useless with the old system, because we could trade.

- How freaking awesome was that?

- So that legendary monk fist weapon I could effectively trade to get myself a bow.

- Cool beans.

- If I could not find the piece I needed I could grind the gold and buy it and sell off the stuff I did not need.

- People would help me out giving me things I needed, I would help them out giving them things they needed.

- So at least there was some reason to keep going.

- I could always get upgrades, but with them removing trading completely, where is the motivation to play?

- I can agree with removing the real money auction house.

- I can even see the reason for removing the gold auction house.

- But why remove trading?

- Yesterday I got a nice belt to drop, it was not an upgrade however.

- Someone in guild said, nice belt.

- I said, I don't need it, would loose to much toughness for a minor damage increase.

- He said, it would be a huge upgrade for me all around.

- I said, wish I could give it to you.

- And that is the problem with no trading allowed.

- As it is that belt has no use for me.

- It will get disenchanted to a material that also is of no use to me.

- Why the hell can I not just give it to someone that can use it?

- I mean seriously,  WTF is wrong with blizzard? 

- Do they not want people to actually enjoy anything?

- In the end diablo goes back to a standard game.

- When the expansion comes out, which I already ordered, I will play to the end and probably quit again.

- Where is the motivation to play?

- Once I beat the end boss the game is done.

- Trying to get better gear is surely not a motivating factor.

- It is a single player game, once you beat the last boss it is over.

- Even if I wanted to get into the minor multiplayer aspects of it, which are not needed at all for anything because it is a single player game, gearing up so we could kill things faster is the only reason to keep going solo.

- Even with the increase drop rate there are hundreds of different legendary items, with thousands of combinations of stats on them, with millions of variations of what stats they will be.

- So with my bad luck to begin with finding a piece of gear I need would be like hitting the lottery.

- At least before hand I could have worked on making gold to buy the item I could not get to drop.

- Now I just need to kill stuff over and over and hope for a 1 in 1,563,855,234 chance that the thing I kill will drop the perfect item I am looking for?

- With my luck?

- You have got to be fucking kidding me.

- Trading needs to be added back to diablo or a better loot system needs to be designed.

- Their loot 2.0 does not do the job.

- Maybe they can take a page from the warcraft book and actually make bosses have drop lists so you can farm the bosses for the pieces you want.

- Having everything be random and from everything means the odds of getting what you want slim to none.

- Keep it that it can drop from anywhere, but also things to something specific with a higher drop chance to people at least have something to aim for.

- It is called motivation and keeping people motivated to play is a good thing if you want them to keep playing right?

- And no trading means, where is the motivation.

- But maybe warcraft can take something from diablo.

- I like the paragon system.

- It is like leveling after you are leveled.

- Even if drilling the same crap over and over again gets boring really fast, as least you still see yourself moving forward with it.

- And gaining some power as well.

- So it is like leveling after leveling is done.

- Not a bad idea.

- Not sure if it will work in warcraft however.

- One thing has become certain to me about blizzard.

- No matter what the game is, they will screw it up.

- They make great games and they screw them up worse than anyone else could.

- I might just ditch blizzard products completely.

- I'll get back to posting soon, for the people that might actually want to read my rambling, just have not felt like there was anything worth writing about lately.

- But I do have a post for the "on or before december 20th" thing.

- Make no doubt about it, I have a lot to say on that matter.

- But if you want the TL;DR version of it, it is really simple.

- I feel like I've been taken advantage of.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I am still working on taking a sort of break from the game.

- I log in to raid only.

- Not much of that going on either.

- Couldn't get a team of A players if I wanted to, so have not even attempting heroics.

- Even doing normals I am having a hard time filling teams lately.

- Guess I am not the only person burnt out.

- The person that was in charge of the second 10 man is taking some time off.

- Two damage dealers and two healers from the main team are taking time off.

- Many others are taking time off.

- This is the worst I have ever seen it at the end of an expansion.

- Blame 3 tiers of raiding each week.

- LFR, flex and normal/heroic.

- You do not need to do anything other than the normal/heroic lock out.

- But I do not have that option.

- Peope end up feeling compelled to do at least 2 versions.

- My two are flex and normal/heroic.

- Next expansion we will have four lock outs for each raid.

- After they did that with ToC didn't they say they would never do that again?

- As the raid leader I need to run the guild flex runs for new players and alts and such to help gear them up and teach them.

- So no matter what I am stuck doing at least 2, next expansion, at least 3.

- Raiding is starting to make me want to cry.

- I am really beginning to hate raiding.

- Not just dislike it, hate it, actively hate it, as in if I never raided again I would not mind.

- And that has more to do with the people that want to raid than it does the raiding itself.

- So many bad people who feel their are entitled to raid.

- No, you are not.

- Just because blizzard has this incredibly retarded idea that they should push everyone into raiding it doesn't mean everyone should be raiding.

- Blizzard needs to stop telling people that "everyone can raid".

- Sorry, they can't.

- Please blizzard, abandon this everyone can raid mentality.

- People pop on vent and keep asking, have invites went out yet.

- What am I supposed to say, yes but we do not want you there.

- I am not that type of jerk, I can't say that.

- Not saying I am not a jerk, I sure can be sometimes, I am just not that type of jerk.

- I do say that sometimes for normal, saying, you are not ready for normals.

- And people, to show how clueless they are, say "I have a 558 item level which is more than enough for normal".

- Gear means nothing more than potential.  If you do not know how to use it you could have an 800 item level and I still would not bring you.

- I must say this line in guild chat every single day at least once just to try and beat the idea through peoples heads.

- I don't care what your item level is, I care what you can do with the item level you have.

- I would rather take someone with a 520 item level that knows how to play than someone with a 558 item level that doesn't.

- And they push and push and push asking for invites.

- I sometimes just have to come right out and be a dick.

- No, you can not come to normal, once you can prove you have learned how to play your class and listen to instruction maybe I will invite you, but every week I say stop DPS on nazgrim and you keep tunneling him.

- Until you learn how to play you are not getting an invite to a normal, sorry.

- And it is that entitlement from people that is making me hate raiding.

- "But I have a better item level and you carry other people with less."

- No, we do not.  We help alts of people that can play gear up.  We help new players catching up.  We help people we see learning.  We help people that in turn will help us.  We DO NOT carry people.  We let people that know how to play play and we let people that want to learn learn.  There is a difference.

- Speaking of helping people that came back we recently had a healer return to the game so we figured we would drag them along as a third healer for a normal.

- They did great but sadly no gear dropped for them.

- But with a few green pieces and mix and match of various levels of crap, they were still pulling respectable numbers in a group that had two already geared healers.

- I was quite impressed.

- Now this person, while you might call it carrying, will be more then welcome to come along, because they can do their job well, they just need the gear.

- I read about the healing changes.

- There was good and bad in my opinion.

- Lets start with the good.

- More focused on actual "healing" instead of just spamming spells.

- That is how it should be from the beginning, let the tank take the bulk of the damage and the raid take occasional damage that needs to be patched up.

- But they will need to stop their raid design the way it is if they want that style to work.

- People did not start spamming their biggest AoE spells because they wanted to, they had to.

- Don't blame the players for AoE heal after AoE heal when every single fight is designed for insane AoE damage 24/7.

- And we are not talking minor damage that can be patched up as you go, like it should be, we are talking massive damage.

- It is two of three ticks of AoE and someone is dead without a heal.

- If they want the patch up design to work that AoE, even if left on healed as it happened, should just get people low and the healers job would be to pick people up over time before the next one hits.

- But todays design is spam heal them with AoE heals or they are dead.

- So an entire new design to raid encounters will be needed if they want the new style of healing to work.

- Lets go back to the new healer from this week I mentioned.

- He died on nearly every fight.

- Not to his inability to move from bad or anything that was his own fault.

- His health pool could not take the simple standard AoE damage doing out that someone geared appropriately could handle.

- That is why people spam AoE healing blizzard, because they have to.

- So do not dare blame the player for doing something you designed.

- If you did not want them spamming AoE you should have never made fights that AoE damage was all the rage.

- I would really welcome the return of real healing where there was a tank healer and a raid healer and the tank took most of the damage and the AoE damage was rare and did not need constant attention because the healer had time to patch them up before the next pulse of AoE.

- If you do not want people spamming AoE healing spells blizzard, do not design the fights that spamming AoE healing spells is the only way to keep people up.

- Common sense blizzard.

- Oh, forgot, you have none of that.

- There are two changes I dislike.

- Smart heals are not so smart any more.

- Well let me clue you in on something blizzard, people are not stupid, only your designers are.

- If smart heals do not work well people will not use them.

- Better players will use what is the best tool for the job.

- If something like dropping a healing tide totem will not heal the people that need it and instead heal people missing 0.3% of their life all the time guess what?

- People will not use it.

- So if you are going to design smart heals to not be effective you are basically designing an ability that good players will not use and bad players will get confused with because they would effectively just be bloat.  A healing spell that no one uses.

- Why design an ability to be a bad choice?

- Remove it completely or let it be good, do not turn it into something that will just confuse people.

- Smart heals need to remain smart.

- If you want to do something with them change how much they heal for, change how often the heal them, change the cooldown, change the smart heal, do not make the smart heals stupid.

- Bad change blizzard, bad change.

- Adding cast times to heals?

- WTF are you smoking at that office over there?

- Have you played this game in, well, the last two expansions?

- When can you stand still for more than 10 seconds?

- Instants are needed.

- In my opinion there should be more instants, not less.

- How many times have you heard a healer say I wish I had more instants, I spend this entire fight running?

- A lot, I am sure of it.

- When have you ever heard, boy I wish there were a cast time on this spell that land locked me.

- Never, I am sure of it.

- They better be redesigning raids completely.

- Can you imagine doing some of the fights we do now with no instant heals?

- I am sure it could be done, but who in their right mind would want to do it?

- And people like being able to do things on the move.

- You feel helpless when moving, more so as a healer.

- When you are forced to move and if someone dies because you can not do anything because you have no instants that adds unneeded pressure on the role.

- No blizzard, just no, leave instants alone.

- Stop fucking with PvE because of PvP.

- Yes, healing is a problem in PvP, we all realize that, but this is not the way to fix it.

- I have gotten spoiled by hunters being able to do everything on the move.

- It has become so bad I do not want to play any other DPS class any more.

- I can not see how casters deal with it.

- I don't even remember what it was like when I used to have to deal with it, or when I even had to stance dance.

- If they ever land locked hunters again I would quit.

- I was spoiled and I do not want to take a step backwards.

- That is what they are asking healers to do, take a step backward to when things were designed worse.

- Sometimes reverting changes is a good thing.

- This is not one of those cases.

- And what is the deal with removing abilities like heal and healing wave?

- While I agree healers have way to many buttons those were never a problem and they actually served a purpose.

- Even more so if you are going back to the days of spot healing.

- Nothing works better for a spot heal than a small inexpensive heal.

- So you are going back to the sort of healing design in raids for that those spells were designed for and then removing the perfect heal for it?

- Really, what are they smoking in the office there.

- I always used things like healing wave as a judge on when my mana regeneration was at the perfect level.

- When it was mana neutral I was at the perfect regeneration.

- I used healing wave and things like it to heal all the time.

- Maybe not often, but they had their places and I always used them in those places.

- Sure, I could have used another spell and over healed, but that is not the way I learned to heal.

- I used the appropriate heal to get them up and not waste mana so when I needed that mana later on it would be there.

- If I used greater healing wave those dozens times during the fight instead of healing wave when the time came where I needed the mana I would be out but by using the right heal, healing wave, I would still have mana.

- It is something I refer to as being a good healer.  Not wasting mana on a more expensive heal that is no necessary.

- Sure you can say that is old thinking, out dated, not needed now, but they are going back to designing healing that way and guess what, I a ready for it because that is always how I healed.

- But now I will not have the tool that was perfect for that style of healing because?

- Because why?  It worked?  And that is why it needs to be removed?

- There was a time it made sense to do something that costs basically no mana and still gave someone a heal they could use.

- If the change to the healing model is to give out spot heals like that and not be doing huge AoE that requires people to spam AoE heals wouldn't it make sense to keep the abilties that are perfectly designed for that type of healing?

- Oh wait, there is that common sense thing again.

- Common sense is not all that common.

- I like the change in healing idea, I hate the way they are going about it.

- So I do not tank any more because of the LFR community and lack of moderation on the part of blizzard has made me want to stay away from it.

- I will not heal any more because while the healing model will be better the heals won't.

- I don't like playing melee because of all the flashing lights and moving mobs and they are going to add more flashy lights, oh joy.

- I can't play a caster because I've been spoiled by a hunters movement.

- So all there is left for me is being a hunter.

- Please do not take that away from me too blizzard.

- You have ruined the rest of the game for me, all the other classes, raiding, leveling, farming, etc.

- Just leave hunters alone, they are all the game has left for me.

- Have a great day.

Boosting For Professions

With the preorder for warlords coming up soon and the free level 90 that comes attached with it a lot of people need to think about what character they want to boost.  There will also be an additional service that would allow people to purchases 90s as well.  There is no reason for us to debate if the selling of 90s is good or bad for the game, we have no say in the matter.  It is happening and it is the way of life now in the game, like it or not.

So when we accept that people will all be getting free 90s and can purchase additional ones it is time to move on.  Most people are debating about which class or race or faction they will go with but while it would be nice to get a specific class up I am looking at it completely different.  The reason for that is if the character you are boosting, free or paid, is level 60 or above you will also get both of your primary professions boosted with them.  Yes, all the way to skill level 600.

While I have said here before I do not think I would buy a free 90 I did say I would buy a free 90 with professions boosted.  To me the professions are more worth a boost than the leveling is.  So the question for myself, and many like me, is what professions to boost?

Word of advice to those looking at the free 90 and only the free 90.  Level it to 60 first so you get the profession boost as well.  It is too good of a deal to not take advantage of it.

Which professions would you power level with this system?

It depends on what type of player you are.  If you are like me on my main server where I have at least one of each profession maxed, therefore I am completely able to take advantage of all the benefits of making everything for myself and save gold, the idea of another profession being leveled is actually kind of easy.

What do you take when you have everything already?

A transmutation alchemist.  That is not a suggestion, it is a great option, that is the flat out truth.  If you do not need a particular profession the best profession to level for free is alchemy.  You will need to do the transmutation quest once you do get your instant 90 but it is worth it.

Why do I rank that as the highest value for the person that has everything?

It is simple.  It can be used to maximum effect to create required materials that are always needed throughout the entirety of the expansion.  The materials alchemy produces are not bound unlike leather workers and their bound leather, tailors and their bound cloth, blacksmiths and their bound ingots, etc.

Why is not being bound so important?  Lets say you want to make something that is added that requires 20 of "something".  If it requires a bound item it will take your 20 days to make it if you can only make one per day.  But if it is not a bound item then you can make it as fast as you are cable of making, or buying, 20 of those items.  This means with 2 alchemists you could make it in 10 days, with 4 you can make it in 5 days, and being it is a transmute master if you get lucky and get a proc you can make it even faster.   

Not only can you make it faster, you can make more to sell them so other people that want that gear faster can make it and they always sell for a much higher price whenever something new comes out that requires them because many people are willing to pay as much as is required to get something faster.

A transmute master can proc 2 or 3 or 4 or even 5 of the item you are using the materials to make one of.  This means you can make what you want to make for yourself faster.  You can make extras to sell when everyone else needs it faster.  You will occasionally get 5 items for the materials used to make one.  It makes sense to make them all the time.  As long as the materials to make one are less, or even equal, to the cost of one of those items, even buying them off the auction house to make one per day is worth it.  Each time you proc it is money in the bank.

If you have never felt the joy of having a give proc on something that sells for 1000 gold and only cost you 50 gold to make you do not know what you are missing.  5000 gold effectively from 50 gold.  Yes, that is a huge reason having additional transmutation alchemists is a good idea.

So now that we know what is the ideal profession to boost for the person that has everything, what is the second profession for them.

This answer is not as clear cut but can be broken down into one of three categories.  What are your intentions for that character will decide that.

If you plan to actively play that character:

Choose enchanting as your second profession.  With the personal loot system being all the rage and most likely being added to more things as it is being added to actual raiding and might end up being added to dungeons as well, it has almost made enchanting a required profession of any active player.

Why do I say this?  Because if things go directly into your bag and you are not an enchanter, you can not get those wonderful free enchanting materials.  When you do a scenario and get something in your baggie, it becomes vendor trash.  When you win something in LFR that you do not need, it becomes vendor trash.  Now, with the roll system, when something drops and everyone can roll on it then usually you can snag a few enchanting materials here and there which are helpful.  But once those items do not pop up for roll there will never be an option to disenchant it again.  So if you want to disenchant it you need to be an enchanter yourself.

I specially switched the professions on two of my characters I like to rare hunt with for fun and baggies to enchanting.  If I am going to be killing all those rare, might as well get some enchanting materials out of it.  With the personal loot system being an enchanter will be even more important for the flow of materials.

If you plan to occasional play that character:

If part of your occasional play is going to be dungeons and raids and such then enchanting remains a good idea.  If it is just going to be a character you do stuff with but nothing serious you could consider a gathering profession.  However, if they keep the design they added in mists, picking mining or herbalism is a complete waste being you can level them from 1 to max in the current top area but skinning is without a doubt a good idea.  At least until blizzard gets off their ass and fixes it like they did for mining and herbalism.

For the occasionally played character, that already has alchemy of course, there really is not a bright and shining example of what you should take.  However, even if mining is easy to level now, it still goes nicely with a transmute master as odd as that combination might sound.  But this only works if the way you occasionally play that character is to be outside doing things.  Being a gatherer when you do not go out to gather is a wasted profession slot.

Otherwise, consider a tailor, more bags and bags are always good.  Even more so if they make bound cloth again so instead of making one bag every 12 days you could make two.  And once you get yourself all decked out in the newest bags they will always sell.

If the character will only be a profession mule:

Well it already has alchemy the ultimate mule profession and exactly the reason I wrote this post to suggest adding it, the second profession really depends on you.  When it comes to mules you do not want anything that is a gathering profession, it will not be going anywhere.

For a character that is a mule it makes the most sense to have it making some other daily cooldown.  This means the three main crafting professions are the perfect match for a mule.  I suggest leather working over tailoring and blacksmith however.  Why?  Have you tried leveling a leather worker?  'nuff said.

Now, for the person without the support staff like I have on my main server where I can make everything on my own.  I too have a few of those characters so I can speak from experience there as well.  I have a level 90 hunter that I leveled with herbalism and skinning.  While it was great for leveling up and I made a fair deal of gold in the process at max level it really does not cut it when herbs and skins rarely go for over 40 gold a stack after the beginning of an expansion.  Sure they can be huge money makers at the get go, but late in the expansion they are near useless from a old making perspective.

When you have a character without a support staff the most important thing is building one.  No matter what the intention of your second character is.  When I go out on my hunter on the rare occasion I log into it and do some LFRs or what have you I dread getting a new piece of gear some times.  If you have a good day and win a few pieces getting all those gems and enchants can be quite pricy.

With that said, for support, the best professions to have are an enchanter and a jewel crafter.  This way you can take care of yourself which will save a fair deal of gold over the course of an expansion.  When you think that it could cost up to thousands of gold to fix your gems and enchants and you do not have a huge collection of characters to draw from and are not extremely active on that character so making gold does not really happen all that often being able to take care of yourself matters.  It matters a lot.

So while the conversation about the boost will continue, I look at it as boosting from 60 to 90, not from 1 to 90.  1 to 90 means nothing to me but 60 to 90 means professions to me and professions are important.  Even with the changes coming where there will be fewer gem slots and fewer enchants and maybe even removing the profession bonuses to raiding completely.  All that remains to be seen.

In the end however, there is one profession worth having multiples of and on that boosted character if you have everything already that is a transmute master.  And there is one profession that is always worth having no matter what, enchanting.

Maybe you could use your boost on an alchemist and enchanter.  If you ask me, there are worse ways to go.  So get leveling, stop at 60, and use your free boost on a profession enhanced character instead of just using it from level 1 to 90.  That would seem like such a waste when you can get some nice professions to go with it.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I actually did a little LFR this week and while it was not great it was nothing to complain about.

- Unless I wanted to complain about not winning anything.

- Seems rare when I win a piece of gear or a quest item.

- Did help with a normal run on one of my hunters this weekend.

- Got the trinket off shamans, warforged at that.

- My main hunter is still using a heroic ToT trinket because that one never drops.

- Because any one never drops.

- At this rate my alt hunter will out gear my main hunter if it wins another piece before my main hunter wins something.

- My alt hunter is only 1 item level behind.

- At least my alt hunter is not having DPS issues like my main hunter.

- Odd how that works sometimes.

- Maybe it brings something many people said to the front again.

- Luck is tied to a character.

- Like with loot, crits, procs, etc.

- My alt hunter just seems to not get into a funk.

- Ever, at least not this far.

- But then again he is not that old yet, not even 10 days /played, so he is still a baby.

- Maybe his bad luck streak just has not started yet.

- Played some diablo this weekend and boy have things changed.

- Legendary doesn't feel all that legendary now.

- I have a legendary in nearly every slot.

- They must have nerfed the ever living crap out of the game too.

- I was blowing through stuff like there was no tomorrow.

- In the same gear I had from the last time I played 2 years ago.

- And the new gear is way better than the old gear.

- They must have changed stats on gear, a lot.

- I was still only in my 40s.

- I gave up after running it through the first time before ever finishing it the second.

- It occurred to me, why am I doing the same thing all over again.

- A friend of mine had given my some 60 gear so when I got to 60 I would have a few nice pieces.

- The gear that was dropping in my 40s was better than that 60 gear.

- And I am not talking legendary items.

- Getting back into the swing of things with my demon hunter something occurred to me that first occurred when I originally played it.

- They are getting all their hunter ideas from the demon hunter in diablo.

- Glaive toss and barrage come directly from diablo as does the upcoming bloa shot.

- Looking through my skilsl I started thinking, what other hunter abilities would I like my warcraft hunter to carry over from my diablo hunter.

- Because we know that is where they are likely getting the idea for almost every single hunter change in the last 2 expansions.

- Made me want my volley back.

- And an even better one, a set it and forget it one like in diablo.

- They started to add some glyphs that do things that diablo talents do like the one that changes what explosive trap does.

- I would not be surprised if we see more of those.

- Or maybe even an entire tier of talents that change one of our traps.

- Now that they are adding the paladin to diablo under the name of crusader do you think the witch doctor is coming to warcraft next?

- Monks came from over in diablo this expansion.

- I don't think the witch doctor will ever come over even if there is history for it in the game.

- There are a lot of troll witch doctors.

- Because witch doctors are already in game, they are called shaman.

- I often wonder if the diablo loot system is better than warcrafts.

- Let loot drop, even the best loot, like crazy from everywhere, not just raids.

- But with tons of random stats on it.

- Or keep it as it where the best designed loot drops so rarely it makes people want to quit.

- There is something that makes you feel better getting loot even if it is not the best loot for you.

- Maybe warcraft can steal that idea and let loot drop like candy, but let luck decide if it is great or not instead of keeping loot at arms reach where you just can not get it.

- It is all about that feeling I got when playing diablo this weekend every time a legendary dropped with its question mark.

- A moment of excitement because it might be something great.

- I clicked on it and waited for it excitedly and even when I did not get anything I could use at least I was happy that I got something good.

- And even if I could not use it, it was account bound so maybe another one of my characters could.

- Now that is better loot design, better than warcrafts by a mile.

- Warcraft can use a hell of a lot more of that "letting people feel excited about the game" thing.

- Making people happy is a good thing.  Isn't it?

- So much better than going months without getting anything.

- One thing I hate is that all this gear is account bound now.

- I want to sell these extras on the auction house and maybe buy one I need with the gold I made.

- Why hand out all this loot and change the design so we can not sell it or buy it.

- Makes no sense.

- Then again, from blizzard, makes no sense makes perfect sense.

- I guess they act the same with every game they make.

- I said to a friend once I noticed this, does blizzard really want me to quit every game it makes?

-  I love to grind, it is the type of player I am, it is part of what I like about diablo.

- But I have horrible luck.

- So I could grind, sell the bad luck items and buy the ones I need.

- But with account bound drops now, that is not going to happen.

- Makes me wonder if the person that designs these games like to kick puppies.

- Their basic design is "fuck the people with bad luck".

- No selling stuff to buy better stuff in diablo.

- No valor gear in warcraft.

- If you have bad luck you can kiss my ass.

- That is blizzards motto.

- Hey blizzard, how about making your games more enjoyable and adding bad luck nets back into your games instead of using horrible drops rates as a way of getting people to keep playing.

- I swear that is why blizzard loves to give the shaft to people with bad luck.

- They use it as a way to keep people playing.

- If they never give you loot they figure you will keep coming back until you get it.

- I personally think making your games better and more enjoyable would keep people coming back.

- But then again, that is just me.

- They run a billion dollar gaming company and I don't.

- Guess that makes them right.

- Doesn't mean I have to like it.

- I don't think I will get back into diablo.

- I don't need another game where I spend my entire time playing it thinking about my bad luck.

- I gave up on going out of my way to try and get specific drops for my main in warcraft.

- That is a huge change in the type of player I am and the way I have always played.

- I used to always go out of my way to get the best gear I could get because it mattered.

- Now I just do not care any more.

- And I am not about to get involved in farming for the luck of drops because I can no longer farm to sell for gold and buy what I need in diablo.

- Blizzard just really doesn't want people playing.

- I sometimes think that is the reason for decisions like this.

- Or maybe they just don't want people like me playing.

- Have a great day.