Garrisons: It is Time to Ditch the Bunker / Mill

Remember the caveat emptor that the PTR is the PTR and things are subject to change but we always look to the PTR for early indications of what we might want to get ready for with the next patch.  Best case scenario the next patch is still a few months away so you have time to work on things.  But that also leaves the door open for change on the PTR.  With that said, lets move to the topic at hand.

Note:  If they change it that the dwarven bunker /war mill can give you ship fleet upgrades than please disregard this post, forget you were ever here.  This post is written with the idea that the bunker / mill will continue to only give follower upgrades.

We have been told that the maximum follower item level will remain at 675 in 6.2 from this twitter post.

With that said it is time I change my suggestion that people have the dwarven bunker / war mill in their garrison.  This was one of the two main buildings for getting follower upgrades.  Between this and the salvage yard giving follower upgrades I would hazard a guess that most people are somewhere in a position like I am at the moment with multiple stacks of follower upgrades and 40 followers or more sitting at 675 item level.

If we are not going to be getting any new followers and the follower item level is not going to be increased, the value of the dwarven bunker / war mill has greatly decreased.  Unless you are still collecting the pieces to buy for transmog or really really like getting a free coin to roll with, and we do not know yet if it will give the new coin so beware, there really is no reason to have the dwarven bunker any longer.  If, and only if, the dwarven bunker / war mill does not give the new coin than its value is basically nil.

So I suggest it is time to ditch the dwarven bunker / war mill.  The only reasons I can currently see to keep it is if you are still trying to collect the transmog gear or if you are a new, or newish, 100 and still want to gear up your followers.

Remember, the old follower missions will remain which means there will still be highmaul missions and blackrock foundry missions which could serve as a nice way to gear up an alt, albeit slowly and requiring luck, but a solid way none the less.  Not to mention doing missions for gold will always be nice and higher geared followers means better missions and more success at them.

Outside of those reasons it is now time to take a look at what other level three buildings there are out there that could be an option.

If everyone read my guides here from the beta and took my suggestions I am going to guess you all have the barracks.  If you do not then that is worth considering.  The barracks allows you to have 25 active followers which means you can send more out on missions.  This means more treasure hunters to make you gold, more scavengers to make gather you resources, more people to get you salvage boxes or other goodies that you can sell.  So the barracks is the best option to replace your dwarven bunker / wall mill if you did not already have one.

The stables would be my choice for the small increased mount speed, the protection from being stunned or dismount while riding and the bonus that you can interact with items while remaining mounted.

If you happen to be a gather this ability is priceless in my opinion.  For the time I had the stables while I was collecting the 8 free mounts, 6 from quests and 2 from achievements, this was my favorite feature as an herbalist.  I always stopped to gather every time being I did not get dismounted but since I replaced the stables with the bunker I have not stopped to gather a single herb in the world, not worth stopping if I am going to get dismounted.  So this is the leading candidate to be my second large building.  I like being able to interact with items while mounted.

But do not discount the mage tower / spirit lodge.  It sure has its uses.  In the past patch they added work orders to the tower / lodge so that you can get mission rush orders from it.  This is great for completing missions faster.  Getting the gear missions done instantly, getting that gold faster, getting your treasure hunters on one missions, finishing it, putting them on another, finishing it, etc over and over.  That way you can end up getting the maximum effect from your followers.

Add that nice little bonus recently added to the tower / lodge that was not a part of its original release and the portals you can have all over draenor and you might just have a winner of a choice here.  I have the tower on my tank and I have ports to nargand which was right near the highmual raid and to gorgrond which was right near the blackrock foundry raid so hoping that they keep up with what seems to be the idea we might see them adding a port to tanaan that is right near the new raid.

There is also another beautiful thing with those portals if you happen to be the raid leader.  If you have a portal to the area right near the raid, people can visit your garrison and use your portal to get to the raid faster.  A great little bonus for groups without a lock or even for groups with them, so the lock can get there faster.  So the mage tower / spirit lodge is not only a very viable replacement for the bunker / mill but it might be the best one for you.

The last large building that remains is exactly as it was when I first described it, a complete waste of time.  You can build the gearworks if you wish, it will give you many fun toys that you can use out and about in the world and who does not love having a robot chicken fight with you or a rocket pack so you can "sort of" fly around draenor some.  But outside of the "fun" factor the gearworks holds absolutely no practical purpose like the stables or the tower / lodge do as a replacement for the bunker.

Do you think it is time to ditch the bunker / mill?  I sure do and it is my suggestion that people do so.

I will most likely be going with the stables on gathering characters and the tower / lodge with non gathering characters.  A simple either or decision for me as those are the only two options I see now for a second large building, of course with the barracks staying our first.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I decided to see if I can get that "feeling" again and played wow this weekend.

- First time in ages I actually played on a weekend.

- Outside of just logging in for a normal run we do so players can gear up.

- Had a few returning player join us and a few people on alts.

- Managed 6 bosses, only wiped on maidens and one shot everything else, so it was not a bad night.

- I tanked it and actually snagged 3 pieces plus one piece for my offspec.

- Not a bad night at all.

- Had one person with us that had not raided since cataclysm.

- Had another that had not raided since wrath.

- Both in the 630 item level ranged.

- They did not did so badly.

- Or course not up to par for a BRF normal but enough that they did not make it harder than it needed to be.

- That is what these gear up runs are for.

- Next week we have two new, or old, people joining us that had quit back in the never ending SoO run.

- Will be nice to see more return.

- We have another player that was a big part of the raid team back in cataclysm and was around a little in mists that has started playing again.

- I expect to see him sign up for a saturday normal run sooner or later and that would be nice.

- He is melee, we are short on melee.

- As in most nights the heroic team runs with none, or maybe one if we are lucky.

- Do you know how annoying flamebender is with no melee?

- Not impossible, we manage it on heroic, but it does make the fight a tad more difficult than it should be really.

- With melee the fight is super easy, with none it needs a lot of coordination.

- Somehow I feel happy downing it with no melee, kind of feels like a bit more of an accomplishment.

- But for fights like that I would not mind seeing a few more melee in the mix.

- Our heroic run this week actually had 16 people show up for it.

- Amazing.

- Three or four of them can really get better, but over all it is getting us closer to the chance that one day we might see mythic.

- I swear having mythic as 20 people only really bothers me.

- I hate that it effectively locked me out of it unless I change the way I like playing.

- What ever happened to blizzards philosophy of choice?

- I prefer smaller groups personally.

- On to what I did this weekend.

- Leveled one of my characters a little, up to 97 now.

- I love warlords leveling, it is close to if not the best leveling they have ever done.

- Did some mount soloing on my hunter, druid and rogue.

- No mounts, of course.

- I hit all the usual suspects, firelands, ICC, DS, Thone, you know the route.

- Not exactly sure why I was soloing on my rogue.

- I guess it was just to see if I could do it.

- I did, no wipes and no issues.

- Did some fishing and snagged a few more of nats lucky coins.

- Better than the last time I tried when I spent over an hour and only got one.

- Got 10 in one hour this time.

- Seems more reasonable if you ask me.

- Queued up for a random dungeon on my hunter, just for the hell of it, twice.

- Twice I got tired of waiting and gave up.

- This is exactly why I miss flying.

- With flying I would fly around and do some archeology, pick some herbs, go rare hunting, or just enjoy the sights.

- Without flying I sit in my garrison and my brain rots seeing trade chat.

- So I hate queue times.

- An hour for a 5 man dungeon is unacceptable.

- Blame no valor and justice for that, another thing I dislike about this expansion.

- Over all I did a lot of stuff and all it did is remind me about everything wrong with the expansion.

- The only thing I can honestly say I enjoyed was raiding on my druid.

- Doing the normal with people returning was fun.

- Actually winning something I needed was different and enjoyable.

- I also did the LFR on it, in healing spec as I refuse to tank LFR.

- At least as a healer my queue pops before I finish my garrison duties, otherwise I would have never done LFR with it either.

- I play the game to play, not to wait in queue.

- Selfish?  Absolutely.

- Why shouldn't I be, I am paying 15 bucks a month for this, I should not have to wait an hour to actually play the game I am paying for.

- Simple really.

- Hard to judge my healing in LFR but it was the first time I have healed on my druid all expansion.

- I miss the exploding mushroom.

- I asked a guild healer who happens to be one hell of a good druid healer for some advice.

- My numbers were low, really low.

- Even at 650 healing gear it should have been better.

- I was pulling between 13K-16K on fights.

- I know I know, LFR means nothing, but it is great to use as a tool to learn to get better and that is what I was there for.

- He told me to switch to DoC and how to work it in.

- Gave me some tips and tricks along with it.

- And then boom, never under 20K healing again in any of them.

- Even healed one boss with using only DoC, my shrooms and keeping rejuvination and lifeblood on the tank, no other heals what so ever, and I rocked it with 42% of healing on the fight.

- Big difference from doing so little.

- Amazing what DoC does in the LFR.

- As he said, it is a smart heal.

- There are so few heals needed in LFR, so if I use it as my main healing basically and just use things I know will be effective healing and not all over heal, as I did, then you will do better in LFR.

- He said you can do that on normal and heroic as well, depending on your healing crew.

- And the beauty is you stay near full mana the entire fight.

- Not like I was having mana issues.

- Seems druids, when compared to my priest and shaman, do not even know what mana issues mean.

- I enjoy that style of play so much better than the starving for mana model.

- There is no fun trying to do your job and not having to tools for it.

- Would be like a hunter running out of arrows, a warrior misplacing his axe half way through the fight.

- It just does not happen, so healers should never run out of mana either.

- Healing should be about keeping people alive and making the right choices who to heal.

- Adding the additional layer of watching mana is no fun for me.

- I am sure people that main healers love the mana game because it can really separate the good healers from the bad ones.

- But for me, on an alt, it is not fun.

- Can I do it?  Sure, but that doesn't mean I like it.

- Hey, we all dance to our own tune, nothing wrong with that.

- So for me, it seems druids are my favorite healers at the moment as they have fewer mana issues.

- In the end we all play the game to have fun playing right?

- I miss flying, I miss valor, I miss a reason to do a daily dungeon, I miss scenarios, I miss dailies, there is a lot I miss.

- A lot that I used to think was fun, all gone.

- And I am left with a shell of a game, not even half of what it used to be.

- And I guess that is why it has not been that fun for me lately.

-  I did not have a bad time this weekend playing wow again but it was not really enough to get me back into it.

- Amazing how a simple thing like flying would help.

- All my characters I do not do random content on any longer because I do not feel like waiting in queue without flying to give me something to do.

- I queue when I get on the character, if it has not popped by the time I finish my garrison duties I drop.

- Simple as that.

- Flying used to keep me on the character.

- I would go out, even if only aimlessly, and fly around looking for something to do while in queue.

- Now, I just switch characters or log off completely.

- The biggest reason they removed flying was to revitalize world PvP.

- Or so they said.

- I ask you, have you seen any world PvP on your server?

- I haven't.

- You want to know why?

- Because without flying and compelling content in the world, no one is out there to do world PvP with.

- Unless you consider ganking a lower level world PvP.

- Where if you do, your opinion does not matter, sorry.

- Flying would really be a huge boon to the game.

- And more out of garrison content too of course.

- Have a great day.

Celestalon Asks "Is the act of clicking the ring the fun part to you?"

In the continued hubbub over the legendary ring and its not so legendary raid cooldown usage, not to mention the trolls in non orginized groups that we know will come along with it, Celestalon, the same man that said "hunters seem fine" after playing what was the worst spec in the game by 50% at the time, asked "Is the act of clicking the ring the fun part to you?" in response to people that wanted the on use ability to be under their own control.

We already know back from his hunters are fine comment that Celestalon does not deviate from the company line.  The company said hunters were fine so of course he had to say hunters were fine.  He could not say the truth, he is a company man and the company is always right.

However it seems this time around Celestalon has thrown out a little piece of bait, something the grumpy one plans to nibble on.  Maybe this is his way of leading the conversation.  He can not say "yes this legendary ring idea is a horrible idea" because he is a company man and never would admit their wrong doings to the player base but he did open the door and lead us to how we can get this changed, maybe, by asking us, what do we like about it.

His whole question was "Honest question: Is the act of clicking the ring the fun part to you? Or the buff you get, the gameplay impact, & coordination?"

I am going to take the opportunity offered to me, and everyone in the warcraft community, to answer his question. I will break it down into parts.  I wish to try to convey how I feel about having the power in my own hands and to do so I don't think an answer of 140 characters would suffice.

Is the act of clicking the ring the fun part to you?

Yes, unequivocally yes.

I am still using the lucky double sided coin because I have had no luck with trinkets.  Even the heroic BRF trinkets I did manage to snag are actually worse than the 665 lucky double sided coin.  But the lucky double sided coin also has one additional reason I love it.  I can click on it to use it.  It is currently lovingly bound to the 7 key thank you very much and I love hitting it every time I do.

Every time you click on that button you can feel the power of the burn phase about to happen.  It is like you are screaming at the mob at the top of your lungs "feel the pain mo**er fu**er."

It is a surge or power, knowing that you can do more at that time.  That is why powerful on use trinkets are so awesome.  That is why people loved being engineers before the ability to put an on use on their gloves was removed.  It is an awesome feeling to be able to call down from the gods and released their power on your prey.

Is the art of clicking the ring the fun part for you?  Not just yes but a hell yes.  That was just a silly question.

Or the buff you get

The buff is always nice.  All buffs are nice.  Whoever says buffs are not nice is delusional.  But what the buff is has never been really that important.  How long the buff is has never been really that important.  Just the fact that the buff alone gives you power, power you did not have before that betters you and what you are capable of doing is nice.

Do I like the buff?  Yes, 25% increased damage as it is designed is nothing to sneeze at, that is for sure.  Would I like it if it were 25% agility, 25% multistrike, 25% critical strike, what have you?  Yes.  It boosts my ability.  Heck, even a 25% haste that is mostly useless to my class is still something I would like because it was something I did not have before.

The buff is good, yes, but what the buff is does not really matter.  The fact it makes us stronger is what matters, it is all that matters.

the gameplay impact

That is the main part of it. It is huge, huge beyond anyones definition.  As the ring is designed it is no longer how it impacts "my" game play but the groups game play.  I want it to work with my game play and I am sure a great deal of other people do as well.

So only one tank gets to benefit from the use of it?  Wouldn't it have a better game play impact if both tanks got that extra cooldown?  Now one tank could "steal" it when the other tank needed it.  Maybe he is not as skilled and gets scared and uses it to save himself when he did not need to (like I know I probably would, oops), but the other tank who is more skilled gets in a position that he needs it and now he does not have it.  That is just wrong.  It is his ring, he worked for it, he has as much right to that cooldown as the tank that used it.  So why does he get screwed, does the raid as a whole get screwed, when he possible dies and you have to waste a battle resurrection on him.  If only the ring he worked for, the ring he earned, his ring, was capable of being used when he wanted to.

Same goes for a healer.  Lets say healer one uses it with their tranquility but it turns out it was not really needed, then on big cooldown time number two when it is needed it is not available for the shaman with their totem and ascendance.  Didn't that shaman work for the ring?  Didn't that shaman earn that ring?  Shouldn't that shaman have the use of that ring for when they believe it is best fit?

Now to the damage dealers, the role I primarily play.  You are aware some classes work on two minute cooldowns, some on three minute cooldowns, some on other time length ones?

If a class works on a two minute cooldown and you blow the ring on the pull and then on cooldown throughout the fight it will line up nicely, for the most part, with their abilities.  What about the feral druid and his three minute berserk?  What about me on my hunter with my five minute stampede?

There is no way to make it work for everyone (So why make it work perfectly for no one?).  Part of the beauty and the skill of cooldown usage in how and when you use them.  It shows the skill of the individual player.  Can I squeeze in 3 or 4 2 minute trinkets?  If I can only do three maybe I should wait and not do the second on as soon as it comes off cooldown.  Maybe I can save it for a burn phase?  Maybe I can save it to have it up when I hit my second stampede at the end burn phase?  That would never work if it was hit every 2 minutes like it will be if it is a group wide cooldown.

I go back to what I said originally when I first read this idea for the legendary ring, it is my ring and I want to use it the way I want to use it.  I do not want someone else having control over my cooldowns. 

How would you feel if someone hit your cooldown at a bad time?  Blew your berserk in a phase where you can not attack the boss.  Blew your arcane power when you knew that for the next 10 seconds you could not stand still.  Blew your shield wall 10 seconds before you pull.  Blew your tranquility on the last trash pack before the boss.

None of that is fun, and someone else using my ring when it is not most beneficial to me would not be fun either.  Not for me and not for many others.

coordination

There is enough coordination that goes on in a raid.  There is time warp, there are healer rotations, there are healer cooldowns on tanks, there are positioning requirements, group requirements, target priorities, interrupt rotations, movement coordination, and so much more.

Let me ask you an honest question Celestalon, do you really think adding MY ring to what I need to coordinate for a raid would be more fun that letting me have the power at my beck and call?

I think I have given a very good argument for why my ring should be my cooldown and my cooldown alone.  Be it in the role of a damage dealer, tank or healer.  I would rather have control over my own "feel the pain mo**er fu**er" button thank you very much.  How about you?

Stop With the Welfare Talk, Please

Reading the forums and hearing one person after another talk about the "welfare" legendary is starting to get annoying and makes me really feel bad for the future of humanity as a whole.  If this is what the schools around the world teach our children there is no hope for the future of this world.  When a simple word with a simple meaning can be used so wrongly by so many and even after they have been told countless times they are using the wrong word they still keep using it to mean something it doesn't shows this generation can not learn.

Don't get me wrong, we all use words wrong, I do all the time.  But when told I am using it wrong I try to not make the same mistake again.  This is just not one of those cases of making a mistake.  The term welfare is simple enough.  It is just people being stupid, nothing more, and that is a sad state of affairs.

I believe every single person on every single forum that uses the term welfare epics or welfare legendary should be banned.  They should be banned for no other reason than they are the people in the community that show what is wrong with it.  If they all unsubscribed right now and never came back none of us would miss them, they are the cancer at the heart of the community slowly eating away at it.

The most recent occurrence of this was in a tread I read about the legendary rings on use bonus, one that I completely agree with.  It does not feel legendary. 

So as a public service announcement I am going to explain "welfare" in terms of warcraft for the uneducated masses like some in that thread that kept saying "it is a welfare legendary, it is not supposed to feel legendary".

Lets start with some basic facts and then I will try to explain them to people who do not understand the usage of the word welfare.

Fact: The ring is not welfare gear.
Fact: Warglaive of Azzinoth is welfare gear.

Now get ready for the fan boys to come to the defense of a classic burning crusade legendary saying you had to "work" hard to get it.  See the key word here is "work".  For something to be welfare it needs to be given to someone.  It means they do not work for it.

There are many definitions of welfare, such as the "health" or "well being" of a person, but the definition we are going to use for the term of welfare is something given to someone without effort of their own.  As in the welfare system, giving to those in need, as in those that are not working.  I believe this to be the way people are intending to use the term, wrongly, in warcraft, so it is the definition I am going to use to explain the two above mentioned facts.

The case for the warglaives being welfare gear:

Lets say you are sitting at home eating your bon bons while watching dr phil and a package arrives at the door.  You are doing nothing, nothing of consequence, nothing to "earn" you anything other than some added weight from sitting on your butt eating.  In that box is a brand spanking new state of the art gaming computer.  You just managed to get a 5,000 computer for doing nothing, nothing that you would not have been doing anyway, like sitting on your butt watching dr phil.

This computer is a welfare computer.

You were doing what you would be doing anyway which is nothing, it was given to you for nothing, even if you were not going to get  it you still would have sat on your butt eating bon bons watching dr phil.  This is the definition of welfare.  Getting something for nothing.

Now, lets translate that into warcraft.

You are raiding with your guild each week, killing bosses each week.  Even after you killed a boss 5, 10, or even 20 times, you still go back and kill it each week.  It is what you do, you raid, you have fun doing so and you continue to do so.  Then the warglaives drop.  Congrats on your welfare gear.

See, you were doing something you were going to do anyway.  You where not there specifically for that.  You were going to kill that boss anyway this week, even if it had absolute zero chance of dropping said item.  So it is not like going back now and farming for it on an alt.  Now you are going back specifically for it, you are working for it.  But then, when it was current content, you were killing to boss because it was current content, that dropping was just a bonus, a welfare gift to someone in the raid for doing what they were going to do anyway and that is kill current raid tier bosses.

So the person that sits on their butt anyway and got the computer and the person who killed the boss they were going to kill anyway and got the glaives are the same person, a welfare recipient.

The case for the ring not being welfare:

Lets say you work at mcdonalds flipping burgers.  Not exactly a high skill job, it is not something that requires a lot of training or intelligence or even hand eye coordination.

But it is honest work.  Each week you put in your hours, each week you earn a salary, each week you put away whatever you can to save up for something you want to buy.  Some time down the road, be it weeks or months or even years (mcdonalds does not pay much after all) and there comes a knock on the door with a brand new state of the art gaming computer.

That bad boy is the one you have been saving up for.  You worked, even if it was easy work, every day for a long time to save up for it.  This new computer is most definitely well earned.  It is not welfare, you worked your ass off for it flipping burgers.  You earned it.

In terms of our game, warcraft, the ring is like that.  Even if you do it in LFR, the warcraft version of a job at mcdonalds, you are still going into it week after week, collecting your pay in terms of stones or runes or what have you.  Little by little you save up all these pieces until you have earned enough pieces to get the item you want, in this case a shiny new ring.

That ring is one you worked hard for.  Sure it might not have been in a high skill raiding environment, it is not something that requires a lot of training or intelligence or even hand eye coordination.   But you did it.  You put in the time, you earned your pay and by process you earned that ring.  You worked for it.  It is not welfare.  It was not just "given" to you.  You earned it.

Can you see now why it bugs me when people use the word welfare in terms of gear you work for?

If you put in effort, be it flipping burgers or running the LFR, as easy or menial as you might consider it, you are working for something.  By definition if you are working for something you earned it, it is not welfare.

Please use the word correctly people.

Next time you question if something in game is welfare or not use this simple way to decide.  If it took any work to get it, even minimal, it is not welfare.  If you got it while doing something you were going to do otherwise anyway, like sit on the couch eating bon bons it is welfare.

Last example to send you off.

If I was killing some mobs for a quest and the lucky double sided coin dropped, it is welfare because I was killing those mobs anyway.  If I saw one on the AH for 50K and worked to make 50K and bought it, it is not. Getting it for doing nothing special means it is welfare, working to buy it or earn it is not.  See, simple.  So why do so many people continue to use the word wrong?

Should Legendary Progress Be Account Wide?

With all the talk of 6.2 coming up and the additions and changes that are coming along with it we have seen little to no information on if there will be a catch up system for the legendary quest line like there was in mists, with the exception of the notice that garrison follower missions will be giving a few more stones and runes than they currently do when you get the quest.

Just like in mists the first time through the legendary quest line works out kind of smoothly if you are an active player.  Even the time sinks in mists, like the 6 weeks of collecting valor, were no big deal when it was current.  But once it is no longer current that 6 weeks of collecting valor was nothing but an arbitrary gate for no reason other than slowing you down without a real reason for doing so.  They lowered it to three later, but that was still an unnecessary gate for no reason other than to slow you down.

As I mentioned, if you were doing it while current as it came out, things like that are fine, it fits the times, but once something moves to the past it becomes an annoyance to anyone trying to catch up.  It is waiting for the sake of waiting be it six weeks or three, it is still nothing more than wasted time.

For the people that came along late to the legendary line they were forced to run old content to get drops and it was not until SoO came out that they decided to offer those previous drops in more than just their original locations.  This was a step in the right direction but still not perfect.  I still believe it would have been better if anything could drop from anywhere, but the past is the past, and we now wonder if blizzard has learned anything.

Currently there seems to be no indication that you will be able to get stones in BRF instead of just HM or runes in HM instead of just BRF and of course we do not know if they will be dropping either of them in the new raid, hellfire citadel.

The only note we have heard is that once you have completed a step of the legendary quest line the collection process will be sped up on your alts.  I have multiple alts doing it and personally have seen absolutely zero proof of that, but your mileage might vary, drops are still luck based and my luck is most definitely not representative of the entire player base.  All I am saying is to me I get the same amount of stones or runes I always did and see no marked increase in drops.

Reading on the forums I see many people changing mains and going back to get the legendary caught up on another character, or wanting to do it on an alt but not really in the mood to run HM when they are already BRF geared and raiding BRF, so they have no desire to move backwards to catch up. (this is why I think all pieces should drop from all raids, would fix everything if you ask me, no one like to raid old content for pieces they need for current content)

It got me wondering, just as a question, but what would people think of the idea that once you unlocked the legendary ring, at any stage, that the ring would be available for purchase on any of the characters on your account?

If you think about it, in theory at least, all the process of collecting pieces is nothing more than a time sink.  There is no inherent fun to the quest line, and whatever fun there might have been was lived through with the main character you did it on and doing it a second time is nothing more than a boring grind, an annoying grind, or a complete waste of time, depending on the type of player you are.  So maybe once you did it, it should count for all your characters?  What do you think?

My personal opinion is that would be pushing it a little too far.  What would I suggest as a catch up?  I am glad you asked, here goes.

First off, remove the apexis crystal requirements completely.

It served its purpose for those of us that where there on launch day and wanted to get it done as soon as possible.  I remember, fondly even, grinding my little heart out collecting them and getting my ring ASAP.  I know of others that waited the 5 days for 5 dailies before they got the crystals they needed.

In truth waiting 5 days was not so long of a wait at all.  In the grand scheme of things 5 days is nothing.  But that is why it should be removed.  It is nothing more than another arbitrary time sink for no real reason, equivalent to the valor collecting in last expansions quest line. 

Once that stage of the ring collection was outdated the need to have such an arbitrary collection process was also outdated and should have been removed.  Cutting the collection process shorter by 5 days will not kill blizzard, and for those people that do think it is a grind (not sure how any would but to each their own) removing it is a nice gesture for catching up.

Second, have all items drop from all raids.  Meaning that you can collect stones and runes in HM, BRF and HC.  Yes, have all bosses in all raids drop all the older items.  This would be a real boon to people catching up.

Third, increase the drop rate.  Not saying to give people everything in one week, but they can increase the drop rate of stones to be a minimum of 3 or 4 and the drop rate of runes to be a minimum of 15 instead of 9.  Just a little boost to speed it along some.

All in all it is still just nothing more than waste of time, in the minds of many, to redo what you have already done, but I am a believer that while things should be quicker on alts, I don't always believe they should be completely skipped.  So I think the three steps I mentioned would make the catch up for the legendary ring more than acceptable.

Yet it seems, from reading around, that many people in the community would be more than happy with just having to complete it on one character and then all your characters have access to it.  Is that an option you would embrace? 

Personally I would not say no to it if they offered it, but I do think even an alt should have to do something to get it beside just spending some gold to buy it.  What do you think?

Monday Random Thoughts

- I am really starting to know what it feels like to play really small amounts of time.

- I have gotten spoiled by having so many alts and playing daily usually.

- Being I have been only logging in for raids and little else otherwise I am really eating through my stash of supplies.

- I had thousands of herbs, ore, leather, fur, crystals, you name it.

- But I am actually running low.

- Down to just 800 fireweed from having nearly 8,000 when I took my break.

- Between flasks and potions you really go through a lot.

- It makes me understand why some people show up without that stuff.

- But I still always say a raider should show up ready, no excuses.

- But being we are a casual guild, and I see how fast you burn through that stuff, I can see why people don't.

- I was so spoiled that I had everything I could ever need that I completely forgot this stuff does not grow on trees.

- Well, they are herbs, so they do kind of grow, from the ground that is.

- You know what I mean...

- I've gotten to the point where I am going to start buying my stuff, if I do not start logging in more often that is so I can gather herbs in my many gardens.

- At the moment I have absolutely zero intention to start logging in more often.

- The 6.2 announcements have shown nothing so far to interest me into coming back now.

- Or then for that matter.

- I'll keep up this logging in for raids only thing for a while longer.

- When I start missing the game I will go back.

- But I will tell you what I do not miss.

- I do not miss my horribly bad luck.

- I got the highmaul mission again on my hunter and finished it, guess what I got?

- A F'N neck again.

- That makes 6 necks in my last 7 boxes.

- At least I had one different thing last time to break the streak.

- Lets see if this neck streak can go 5 in a row again.

- I honestly think this has nothing to do with my bad luck.

- It has everything to do with blizzards dreadful coding.

- With a loot table that includes 18 (I think) things that cache could hold for me there is no way in a million attempts I should ever have gotten the same item 5 in a row.

- Now you have two options you can believe.

- Option one, my luck really is that bad.

- Option two, blizzards coding really is that bad.

- Even I, with all the bad luck I had, will admit my luck is not that bad.

- So all we are left with is blizzards coding is really that bad.

- Or is it?

- I think blizzard actually has the game look at what you have when deciding its random roll and its random roll is really not all that random but targeted.

- If it knows you need something it lowers the chances of you getting it.

- If you do not need something you will be more likely to get it.

- I think it is by design blizzard does that.

- I think there is absolutely noting random about that.

- Blizzard wants to keep you coming back, so they can't let random take over completely.

- You might get what you want, then they lose their hook.

- I think blizzard needs to ditch their carrot on a stick approach to gaming.

- Because this horse no longer wants the carrot.

- This horse is sick and tired of chasing the carrot.

- And that is why this horse is playing other games instead.

- Speaking of other games FF 14 is one of the ones I have been playing.

- My first month is almost over and my main class is level 46 now.

- I have 2 others in the 20s and I have dabbled in every profession some.

- Even managed to get fishing over 20.

- I like how they do fishing.

- Heck, I like how they do gathering as a whole, very well done.

- Being I only play on weekends I always have rested.

- And I am at a wall now.

- My next story line quest requires me to be 49.

- So I have 3 levels to make and am now farting around trying to find quests.

- Either I missed something or they do not have enough quests to level characters.

- Figuring I have been doing everything with rested I would hate to see what it would be like if I had not.

- I would really be stressing for experience.

- At least I have opened up some of the beast tribe reputations, so that gives me 6 quests a day I can do for some experience.

- Might have to start doing the dungeons and other daily things instead of working just on quests like I have been.

- I've been playing it like a solo player game except for when a quest sends me into a dungeon.

- I was amazed with how great people in dungeons are.

- When I would zone in someone would ask "who is new" and then explain all boss fights.

- That rarely happens in warcraft, or more like never happens.

- Everyone expects people to know everything from the second they start.

- But my happiness with only seeing nice players ended eventually, as I knew it would.

- It was only a matter of time before I ran into an asshat and I did this weekend.

- One of the storyline quests put me in one of the, best described as, leveling mini raids.

- I zone in and say I am new but watched the video.

- The tank says, cool, it is pretty simple really once you know it, or something along those lines.

- The other damage dealer says he didn't look anything up but it is his first time too.

- So the tank gives a short explanation just to follow him for transitions.

- The healer, enter the asshat, says, storyline mode is srs bsns.

- Right off the bat you knew the healer was an asshat because only an moron would use srs bsns as an insult.

- I said, doesn't hurt to have a clue what you are walking into.

- The tank agreed, so true, he said.

- The healer said the fight was super easy and it would not be a problem, don't worry about it.

- We wiped on the first attempt.

- The healer seemed genuinely surprised.

- The other DPS that did not know what to do died.

- I, as the only person that can revive, spent the time reviving him and the adds stayed up too long and we wiped.

- Being there are only 2 damage dealers it was a hard decision for me.

- Try to down the adds first alone, or revive so I have help but leave them without being attacked for a few seconds.

- Not sure if I made the right decision or the wrong one, but it would have been a wipe either way.

- We wiped a few more times and mr srs bsns finally realized, even if he did not say it, that knowing what you are doing does help, and if everyone knew we would have an easier time.

- I know he realized it because after 3 wipes in a row do to lack of healing, the smart ass stopped talking smack.

- Maybe if he knew what he was doing we might not have wiped as much.

- I should have been a smart ass and said, maybe if you watched the video we would not be wiping.

- It was not the tanks fault, garuda was being tanked in the right place.

- It was not the damage dealers fault, except for the first attempt we were both on adds and they went down fast.

- It was the healers fault for not understanding when the big AoE was coming.

- And we wiped to that big AoE multiple times.

- Because mr srs bsns who doesn't think knowing what to do helps anyone didn't know what to do.

- The first time we did not wipe to the big AoE, which I would like to thank myself in part for as I healed as well in that pahse to make sure we were all topped off as it was apparent that mr srs bsns was not up to the task, we downed it.

- He just could not heal us through it.

- If only he had watched a video and listened to the person say "this is the big AoE part of the fight and the healer has to make sure everyone is topped off or it will be a wipe" we might have done it sooner.

- Goes to show you that just like in warcraft, the person with the biggest mouth is usually the worst player.

- The healer had the biggest mouth and he is want made it take 7 or 8 wipes instead of just one or two for me and the other DPS that had never done it to get a feel for it.

- We learned.

- Apparently faster than the person with the big mouth did.

- "Its story mode, there are no mechanics, just kill the thing."

- Yeah right.

- And then make yourself look like a fool because we keep wiping because you do not know the mechanics that aren't even there.

- Have to love asshats, they make fun of themselves and don't even know it.

- Amazing how the worst part of MMOs are the other people in it.

- That was the first time I ran into a jerk in FF 14 however.

- It will not be the last as I approach max level.

- Once I reach 50 I expect everyone to automatically assume I know everything.

- I know nothing.

- That is why I plan to quit after I hit 50.

- Or at least not progress into raiding.

- I have no patience for other people any more.

- Wow has ruined me for all other games.

- And the fights here, as this was a leveling dungeon, seem to be harder mechanic wise than anything warcraft has to offer.

- The last thing I want to deal with is any sort of difficulty in random grouping.

- Random and difficulty do not go well together.

- Otherwise I kind of like the game, it has been a fun distraction.

- I just hope if or when I go back to warcraft I do so because I want to, not because I got bored of what I was playing to pass the time and am looking for something else to do.

- Otherwise the break would lose all of its meaning.

- I want to want to come back when I want to come back.

- I have not given up on warcraft, but I can't help but feel warcraft has given up on me.

- Only time will tell.

- Have a great day.

What is Up With the Legendary Ring Proc?

When they first data mined the legendary ring proc I read it and immediately wanted to make a post about it but I held my tongue.  I knew it had to be some horrible joke, or at least I hoped so.  As it turns out I was both right and wrong.  It was not a joke which made me wrong, but they did not intend to released what was data mined, which I was right about.  I knew, hoped really, that it would never get released like that.

Just for the fun of it, I want to complain about that removed proc before I complain about the proc it was changed into.  I enjoy picking on blizzards horrible ideas sometimes.

For those that do not know what the legendary proc was supposed to be based on the original data mined information I will gladly regale you and we can laugh how bad of an idea it was together. 

The proc would no longer be "your" proc.  It would become a raid wide proc that added up all people in the raid with the same type of ring and then randomly gave one of those people the proc, but a much bigger version of it.  For example, if you had 6 agility users in your raid with the agility ring that would mean someone would get a 60% increase to all damage they, and they alone, do for 12 seconds.  6 users of the agility ring at 10% each is how it worked out.

Every 12 seconds it would switch to another person wearing that same type of ring randomly.  So someone in the raid would always have a 60% boost to their damage done at all times for a length of 12 seconds.

In theory that is pretty awesome really.  Instead of a proc every minute or two it would be constantly there, so to speak, but who had it would be completely random.  For a guild group with all solid players in it, this would actually be pretty damn awesome if you ask me.

Now, I will ask you the question, what exact about that did I dislike?  Dislike enough to call it a horrible idea.

Main part that made this idea dreadful was the random element to it.  I hate anything random and would hate this even more.  I am sick and tired and fed up with random.  I do not want more random in the game.

Lets say with my luck, and we all know it is poor at best most of the time, I would never end up with the buff as it bounced around the other 5 agility users in my raid and left me with nothing.  No, hell no, no thank you, go screw yourself with a hot poker blizzard.  Stop adding more random crap into the game.

The add to that the fact that the ring would be mandatory, not like that is a big deal, it is not hard to get, but for someone that comes back to the game in 6 months maybe catching up will not be instant, and it will not be instant I am sure of that.  So lets say you come back to the game 6 months from now and you want to get into a pug.  Sorry, you do not have the ring so we can not invite you.

At least with the legendary cape the only person that was hurt by you not having it if you were late to the game getting it was you yourself.  Now, with a ring proc that benefits the entire raid, you not having the legendary ring hurts the entire raid, not just yourself.  No blizzard, bad blizzard, do I have to hit you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.  You can not add stuff like that into the game.

Then there is the whole idea that it is "my" ring.  I want something from it.  I want a benefit of having it.  Sure I could very well get it randomly while in a group, but outside of that it is just another ring, nothing special about it.  If I get a legendary ring I want the "legendary" feeling all the time for myself.  I do not mind that if I have it it helps others, that is cool, but I should still always have some sort of proc for myself and not have to wait for luck to get it.  It is my ring after all, shouldn't I be guaranteed to benefit from it.

So, needless to say, when they announced that was not going to be the proc on the legendary ring I was very happy.  But I was still a little concerned.  Concerned because how the hell did someone actually come up with an insane idea that like and worse yet, how the hell did a horrible idea like that get so far that it actually made it into the game before they decided that was not the way they wanted to go.

It is really concerning because it shows that no one at blizzard has any clue what they are doing.  I am sure during the idea phase, the development phase, the coding phase, the implementation phase, there has to be more than a hand full of people it passed through and none of them even considered some of the issues a proc like that would raise?  That is why it worry's me.  No one at blizzard is looking out for the players.  No one at blizzard is taking into account the full picture and what some people, like myself, might view as an issue with a proc like this.  I am sure others had different issues than the few I mentioned too.

I am guessing wiser heads prevailed in the end, thank elune for that, but how did a horrible idea like that get so far into development before someone noticed it was a horrible idea?

So after they said they would not be using that dreadful idea for a legendary proc, I waited to see what the new announced proc would be.  Now we know what that one is.

It counts all the rings in the raid and make them work in unison as an on use ability. It works on a blanket number for everyone that does not go up with the more of that type of the same rings you have in a raid, better than random who gets it in my opinion. 

I do like the idea for my raid team, I do not like the idea for pugging and feel bad for people that are late to getting it, just coming back to the game, or switched characters and are now playing catch up.  I also feel bad for classes that the on use cooldown does not line up well with because they have absolutely zero control over when it is used, and that is the problem I see.

See, this ring, unlike the other that adds all rings together, is a blanket 25% damage increase for all ring users, thank elune no random on this one. But this one has one huge drawback which is as soon as someone in the raid uses the on use function of it, it puts everyone's ring on cooldown because they will all share a cooldown.  All players get the benefit, don't get me wrong, but once one person uses it, everyone is using it.  Like it or not.  I am going to side with not here.

The problem I see with this is that I want to use my on use trinkets when I need the on use.  My on use might not be the same as the other people in my raid.  Maybe I am waiting a few seconds for all my procs, maybe I am saving it because I know I will only get 3 on uses in the fight and I can time the three uses better for when I am on an important target.  Maybe I know I can only get one more use in and I am holding it to use it when stampede is off cooldown for maximum potential out of it.

Bottom line here is that it is "my" ring blizzard, I do not want someone else using it whenever the hell they feel like it.  I want to use my cooldowns, including my on use abilities, when I want to use them.

Lets not even talk about the trolls in LFR and pugs that hit time warp as they drop group, or on trash, or whenever they know people will lose the benefit of it just to be jerks.  Now they can use the ring and screw up the entire raids 25% bonus.

Once again, no blizzard, bad blizzard, stop letting other people control my character.

My Ring.
My On Use.

I do not want to let someone else dictate when I use it.

What is up with blizzard and these horrible legendary procs?  Have they completely run out of ideas?

Just turn the ring into a 2 minute cooldown that is per person and you have a winner of an idea blizzard.  Everyone can use it when they want to.  No one can troll with it.  We all win.  That would make a legendary legendary. 

Letting Billy Joe hit it on cooldown to pad his numbers like he normally does blowing all cooldowns on useless trash mobs because he thinks it makes him look cool should never have access to my on use abilities and I don't like that you are giving it to him blizzard.

Now get off your butt and fix this once again.  It is better than it was with the first data minded information, but it is still not a legendary ring.  Not as long as you let Billy Joe decide when it is used.

Bad blizzard, go sit in the corner, you need a time out.  Next time maybe you will think before you implement.  You stay in time out until you understand that.

It is Easier to Gear Up Than Ever, So Why Do I Hate it So Much?

I keep saying I miss valor gear because it was such a nice and easy way to gear up.  But basically I am wrong.  I could not be more wrong actually.  It is easier to gear up now than it has ever been in the history of the game.  So why do I hate it so?

I guess it comes down to what we enjoy doing.  We all have things we like doing and things we do not like doing, it is a matter of opinion here, nothing right or wrong about it.  I like doing dungeons, I like collecting valor, I like saving up and seeing myself working toward a goal, be it that chest piece for 2250 valor or that trinket for 1600 valor or what have you.

I enjoy the concept of gearing up with valor.  I believe it helps me feel connected with the game, invested in the game.  I feel it is me doing something to "earn" the gear.  It also always made raiding more enjoyable for me.  With valor if you went through a bad luck streak at least every boss you killed gave you some valor points as a consolation prize.  Something that maybe you could save up and in time get yourself a piece of valor gear.  Now when you hit a bad luck streak it just feels like you are wasting your time killing something over and over with no benefit from doing so.  Valor gave farm bosses meaning, a purpose.

One thing about valor gear that many did not like is it took time.  For my alts that I did not raid with gearing them in all valor gear was a huge under taking as they needed all the pieces.  But that kept me playing the game.  It kept me running dungeons, raids, whatever I could get valor from, all in an effort to work toward getting that next piece.  So even the characters I am not playing I felt like I was advancing on, slowly but surely.  It had that wonderful feeling of moving forward even if sometimes it was a really slow process on alts.

Nothing about valor was quick.  Nothing about valor was easy.  It took time and dedication to get your valor gear, it was a long term goal, not a case of instant gratification.  That is why I always hated people that called valor gear welfare gear.  It was nothing even close to that.  Gear handed to you, for example from killing a boss, is more welfare than valor.  Valor gear was a long term goal you worked for, it was not an instant gratification gearing up system, which is what we have now.

So why did I like it so much?

You would think if I wanted easy gear that I would love the current gearing system where you can hit 100 and be 680 item level extremely quickly.  Even get damn near close to it on the day you hit 100.  All without ever stepping foot into an instanced raid.  Not even one single time.

With someone like myself that is gold capped and never had any problems making gold, which is the one restricting factor to gearing up in todays game, I should be loving gearing up now shouldn't I?  But I am not.  I do not enjoy just hitting 100 and basically being handed gear for being 100.  I miss valor as strange as it might sound.  I would rather work for my gear over time with valor than hit 100 and buy it off the auction house.  While I can do it, there is no fun in that for me.

For those that do not believe me, that you can hit 680 without even stepping into a raid, I figured I would end this post with a small how to.

For gearing up in this method you would need a couple of things.  First being a fair deal of gold and the items available on your local auction house of course and the second being a hell of a lot of garrison resources.

The reason for the garrison resources are because one of the pieces can not be purchased with gold but all other slots can.  The one piece you can not buy with gold are legs.  You can also get legs from dungeons of course and even with 630 legs you would still get close to a 680 item level.  You can, if lucky, get legs from Rukhmar the world boss at a 665 item level as well.  But as that requires a raid group and luck, I will keep the list to things you can do easily on day one as soon as you hit 100.  With enough garrison resources you can get the apexis legs to 655 on day one and 675 shortly after.

The list you see as follows will get your brand spanking new survival hunter to a 681 item level the day you hit 100.  Let me remind you this is NOT an ideal gear set up.  My item level is lower than this item level you can get one day one of 100 because some lower item level pieces are better than the ones here.  But this will give you a good start on the gearing process from the day you hit 100 with the exception of the legs.

So, I can get to the item level I already am on my hunter the day I hit 100 with a new hunter, and for someone that is gold capped it is no problem at all.  But given the option I would still rather have valor back and have gearing take time.  Am I weird?  Don't answer that, I know I am.

Weapon:
Shreadirons Shredder of the Savage, Item level 675.
Source: crafting.

Head:
Plume Adorned Headdress, Item level 665.
Source: world drop.

Neck:
Darklight Necklace, Item level 700.
Source: mythic BRF zone drop.

Shoulder:
Dunestalker's Mantle, Item level 665.
Source: world drop.

Back:
Magic-Breaker Cape, Item level 685.
Source: mythic HM zone drop.

Chest:
Wayfaring Tunic of the Savage, Item level 685.
Source: crafting.

Wrists:
Bracers of Callous Disregard, Item level 700
Source: mythic BFR zone drop.

Hands:
Grips of Vicious Mauling, Item level 685.
Source: mythic HM 1st boss drop.

Waist:
Belt of Inebriated Sorrows, Item level 685.
Source: mythic HM zone drop.

Legs:
Ethereal Crystal-Leaf Legguards, Item level 675.
Source: apexis crystals.

Feet:
Treads of the Veteran Smith, Item level 700.
Source: mythic BRF zone drop. 

Ring 1:
Timeless Solium Band of the Assassin, Item level 680.
Source: legendary quest line.

Ring 2:
Knobbly Ancient's Tendril, Item level 665.
Source: world drop.

Trinket 1:
Stone of Fire, Item level 685.
Source: crafting.

Trinket 2:
Lucky Double-Sided Coin, Item level 665.
Source: world drop.

Average Item Level: 681

Some notes:

Two items are best in slot for a survival hunter, the neck and the boots.
Six items can even be warforged and have a gem slot for even more stats.
Only three items are from crafting for maximum benefit.
Only one item you can not get one day one, the legs, but they can be substituted as you work toward them, as mentioned.

So, I wonder, if it really is so easy to gear up this expansion, why do I hate gearing this expansion so much and wish valor was back?  Maybe because I like the feel of working toward something and spending gold does not hold that feeling for me.  Not when I can get to a 681 item level on the day I hit 100 thanks to gold.  There is no fun in that, for me at least, and we play the game for fun don't we?

Tuesday Random Thoughts

- I know, I missed monday, sorry.

- Was being bad and waited too long to do my taxes so had to play catch up.

- All done now.

- Speaking of playing, still not playing much warcraft.

- Or that much of anything else either.

- My warcraft break turned more into an MMO break.

- And the time I do decide to play has been on FF 14 instead.

- Still just logging in for raids, even if I don't really want to do that any more either.

- Anyone know a good add on for a sub rogue to track all those dots and buffs?

- Don't feel like making a ton of auras or adding new stuff to need to know.

- That is stuff you do when you are on the game a lot and are really enjoying it.

- I just want to fart around on it in a normal run.

- I am not on the game a lot right now and I am not enjoying it even when I am on.

- So not going to waste my time with setting up all that, just want something plug and play and ready to go.

- Figured I would give sub a try as it is so much higher than assassination right now.

- Two problems, one you already know, and that is I suck at my rogue to begin with.

- Second problem is I have crap gear because this expansion has no alternate way of gearing up outside of raiding.

- Unless you want to count the crafted 3 decent pieces.

- Which are really decent as you can get the stats you want on them.

- Not even follower missions are decent gear unless you raid.

- Having to raid to gear up for raids does not make sense.

- Well, not to a logical person.

- Either way, was doing 19K unbuffed on a dummy as assassination in my crap gear.

- Figured I would be able to pull at least 23 or 24 as sub.

- Guess what I was doing?

-Lets just put it this way, I really am the worst rogue ever.

- 12K as sub.  Maybe I will just stick to assassination even if it is not the best spec if I ever do decide to play it.

- As I always say, you will be better playing a spec you know than a spec you don't.

- And lets face it, assassination is the easiest rotation in the game so it is perfect for a rarely played alt.

- Nothing to screw up.

- It is like an arcane mage in wrath.

- Well, not that easy as a one button rotation, but really close.

- Looked up rotations for my character on FF 14, if I ever make it to 50 I want to be prepared.

- Compared to wow their rotations seem like rocket science.

- I have been avoiding warcraft news for the most part but saw they announced 6.2 is coming.

- To the PTR at least.

- So of course I need to make a lot of grumpy comments about it.

- Would not feel like myself if I didn't.

- First thing I noticed was "No".

- Yes, just "No".

- As in "No" new dungeons.

- As in "No" gear catch up system.

- As in "No" altaholic relief for garrisons.

- As in "No" scenarios.

- As in "No" daily quest hubs.

- As in"No" flying.

- As in "No" balance in raiding for smaller groups.

- As in "No" valor gear, or valor.

- As in "No" incentive to come back for people that left.

- There are a lot more "No" things I saw, but lets just leave it at that and remove the word no and put that all in one sentence along with what they did say they were adding.

- "We are adding new dungeons, a gear catch up system, altaholic relief for garrisons, scenarios, daily quest hubs, flying, balance in raiding for small groups, valor gear and valor, and an incentive to come back for the people that left."

- Sounds like an awesome start to 6.2 if you ask me.

- Too bad those are all things I noticed a huge "No" hanging next to them.

- It is early, they can still add them, we can hold out hope right?

- Don't waste your time hoping.

- In beta we complained about no daily hubs and nothing to do at 100, did they add anything?

- In beta we complained about the problems with professions, did they fix them before release?

- In the beta we mentioned garrisons are awesome fun on one character but will be a burnout machine for people with alts, did they do anything to address that?

- We spoke, they ignored us.

- Big business at its finest ladies and gentlemen.

- They do not care one bit what we have to say.

- So I am aware it is super early and they might still add some, most or even all of that on the beta, but if I were you I would not hold my breath on that one.

- I am sure if they were adding any of those things that many people want they probably would lead with those things to shut people like me up from complaining they are not there.

- But they are sticking to "more of the same".

- What was announced?

- The new raid of course.

- But the new raid will be like the old ones.

- Harder than intended to be for small groups.

- So many fights are a laugh fest with unskilled players if you have 30 but hard as hell with fairly skilled players if you have only 10.

- Is blizzard addressing that?

- Of course they are not, they do not give a crap about small groups, doesn't the mythic change prove that?

- Speaking of mythic, it will still not be cross realm and it will still be 20 players strict.

- Which means once again I'll be stuck not being able to do the content I have been doing since they first added "heroic" level to the game.

- Gee, thanks blizzard, thanks for telling me that the only way I can ever raid at the level I want to is to change servers and leave the people I have been playing with for 7 years.

- Apparently you forget that those people are the only reason I am still paying for a subscription, and you want me to leave them so I can raid heroic (now mythic) again?

- Not a good business plan blizzard.

- Because if I leave them the next time I suffer from burnout and need a break I won't come back because I won't have my friends keeping in there like I do now.

- They are the reason I am still playing blizzard, not anything you have done lately.

- Do you really want me to leave them and then cancel my subscription the next time I need a break?

- But lets get back on topic, mythic dungeons are being added.

- Awesome, that sounds like it can be a fun way to gear up alts.

- Wait, it only drops 680 gear with a rare chance at a 700 piece off the last boss?

- If they were in game right at this very second that would be beyond awesome.

- But for next tier, when all the item levels will be higher, much higher?

- Screw that, what type of catch up mechanic is not only "hard to do" but drop gear that is worse than the previous tiers gear.

- Oh, and get this, it is on a weekly lock out.

- Blizzard, go fuck yourself with that idea.

- Mythic dungeons should drop comparable gear to at least heroic of the tier that is coming out in 6.2.

- And if it is going to drop shitty 680 gear is sure has hell better not have a weekly lock out.

- Does anyone at blizzard think before adding things or does someone just say "this sounds cool" and then someone else in another room, that did not even listen the idea say, "okay add it".

- They are adding a shipyard and navel missions to garrisons.

- Interesting, but still suffers from the same problem garrisons as a whole suffer from.

- Alt unfriendliness.

- Garrisons are an awesome things, I love them, do not get me wrong, but they are not very alt friendly.

- You would think the jukebox would have at least been account bound in 6.1 if they noticed this, but nnnnooooo.

- That would have made to much sense to make that account wide.

- So if they did not do something simple like that to work across all characters we knew that anything they added to garrisons all our alts would have to do if we wanted it.

- Well, that is it, that is all they are adding.

- Well, and the new zone.

- You know, the one that was supposed to be included at launch but they were too busy to put it in.

- Makes you wonder, what were they too busy doing?

- Seriously, I would like to know, what were they so busy doing that they could not get the entire world ready for release.

- Oh, and I have one more grumpy grump I just "have" to make along those lines.

- They said the navel stuff for garrisons are still in "early development".

- WTF have you been doing all this time.

- You doubled your staff, increased the price of the expansion, gave us limited content so far, and you are still working on stuff for 6.2 in only early development?

- With all the time you have had from siege and basically adding nothing so far this expansion you should be done with 7.0 already.

- It should have a release candidate in the works by now with all the staff and time you have had.

- You should be in the "early development" stage of 8.0 right now.

- Not in some tiny feature no one asked for and no one wanted for a patch that doesn't include any new content except for what will surely be a poorly tuned and buggy raid like all the others released so far this expansion.

- Do not call mythic dungeons new content, just don't.

- Increasing some health totals and damage numbers is not new content, it is finishing what they should have had finished on expansion release.

- Same goes for tanaan, it should have been included at release and that is where all our daily quest hub could have been.

- Should have been.

- So we have two basic options blizzard can try to do to draw people back.

- Add lots of stuff people asked for, like all the things I said are "No" things or add a new raid and nothing else really.

- They chose the new raid and nothing else really.

- I do not see this ending well.

- Prove me wrong blizzard.

- Flood us with a catch up gearing system that does not require raiding.

- Give us dungeons and scenarios and quest hubs.

- Give us flying for completing loremaster in tanaan.

- Give us something you so far said "No" to.

- I will be very happy to say I was wrong.

- Make me say it blizzard.

- Please.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Still taking my little break with warcraft.

- Only logging on to raid for the most part.

- I finally won two tier pieces, my first two tier pieces.

- Sadly they are normal mode ones.

- It is funny how replacing 2 685 pieces with 2 670 pieces is an upgrade.

- To any hunters out there with this question rolling around in their head, yes, it is worth putting the tier pieces on.

- Yes, even with losing 15 item levels it is worth putting the two piece on.

- Hey, people, don't make me have to slap you with the wake up stick.

- How something works is more important than item level.

- The two piece set works better at 670 than the two pieces otherwise as 685 do.

- Don't let item level fool you.

- If blizzard wanted to keep things in line using item level as a guide I have an idea.

- The 670 tier pieces are, of course, 670 when alone.

- But as soon as you have two equip, they are both 690.

- There, hope that explains it better.

- So I finally got 2 upgrades and they "appear" to be down grades.

- Does this make up for not getting any gear for many weeks?

- Hell no blizzard.

- Don't think because you threw me a bone in normal mode I am going to come back all happy.

- Even if you did it in heroic I still would not come back all happy.

- Two pieces of gear do not make up for the total disaster of an expansion thus far.

- But I will admit, it felt nice to finally win something again.

- I had my new highmaul mission the last time I was on.

- I sent it out, 100% of course, and have not been back on to check it.

- Want to know why?

- Because the last thing I need is to see I won the neck for the 5th time in a row.

- See where I am getting at here blizzard?

- It is no longer "exciting" to log in.

- It is no longer "fun" to log in.

- I have a highmaul mission sitting there done.

- It could contain a piece I need.

- I just do not care.

- Because the game has beaten me.

- I no longer enjoy the process.

- I no longer enjoy getting spit in the face by the random number generator over and over.

- The game needs to be fixed.

- It is beyond broken in terms of how gear is attained.

- Week after week with no gear then I win three pieces in one night.

- One of which I will not use because it is a lower item level.

- I still have not won a piece on heroic, at all, outside of trash farming.

- And I keep getting the neck from my baggie after getting the ring multiple times before that.

- So, think about it, with no upgrades coming, where is the carrot.

- You want me to log in, you want me to keep playing, you need to dangle the carrot.

- RNG is not the carrot.

- RNG is the shotgun that will kill the game.

- At least for me.

- Admittedly the only thing I could get from the highmaul cache that I would need is the scales of doom.

- So the chances it would be something useful are slim, I understand that, but you would think it would at least not be another freaking neck.

- Would love the trinket with a gem slot, like it seems everyone is walking about with lately.

- The least, as in absolute least, blizzard can do to help the situation is add protection to the caches.

- So you can not get the same thing until you have cycled through everything available to you.

- Then it goes to random.

- Nah, why would blizzard do that.

- It would give me hope I'd get the scales mythic some day.

- I would get it last of course, but at least I "know" I would get it.

- And that my friends, is a carrot.

- Knowing you will get something is a carrot.

- I do so miss valor gear.

- Sure it never had a great piece like that for sale, but at least it gave me something to aim for.

- At least it gave me a reason to play alts because I could gear them up slowly if I worked at it.

- It did not leave everything to RNG and if you were lucky enough to get something.

- At least it gave me a reason to log in.

- Thanks blizzard for not giving me any reason to log in.

- Played FF 14 all weekend.

- Made it to 30 on one of my characters.

- Or should I say one of my classes to 30.

- You only need one character and that one character can play all classes.

- Just change your weapons and you change your class.

- Pretty cool idea.

- But I do have some gripes about FF 14 as well.

- As you might expect.

- It is giving hell to my color blindness.

- There are some areas I have to stare at the map instead of the zone because it is so dark I can not see where the path is.

- I walk into walls.

- I can't tell the difference between the wall and the way to walk.

- It is not fun, not even in the slightest.

- And they do the night thing where they highlight an area where the quest is.

- Doesn't help being I can not tell the difference between the highlight color and the background map color.

- I have to basically put my face right up to the screen and zoom in the map as far as it can go to see a tiny difference in the color.

- Is there a way to change that color?

- Please tell me there is a way to change that color?

- Why do all games hate people that are color blind?

- And bag space.

- I thought wow had issues, I was wrong.

- There are a million and one items and you need them all for crafting one thing or another.

- And being each "profession" as we know them are actually classes and you can be all classes that means you can do all "professions" so you need to keep all of that stuff if you want to level them all.

- And you know me, I do want to level them all.

- So that means a billions items I need to hold on to.

- Yet they only give you a limited amount of space.

- This is not final fantasy, at least not the final fantasy I know.

- What ever happened to the drop down lists where you could keep everything?

- Massive amounts of everything.

- That is the bag system it could of used, should have used.

- At least for the crafting materials.

- Got a retainer, it is like a bank with added functions.

- Mine is a cute little cat girl which just seems so wrong.

- I cat girl, in a maid outfit, that works for you and will do anything you want.

- And I just sold this game to a bunch of pervs all over the internet that stumbled across that line describing it.

- She will go on adventures for me.

- She will sell stuff on the auction house for me.

- She will even collect the gold from the sales for me so I do not have to.

- She will then relist the items for me.

- Or she will just work as more bag space for me.

- Which is exactly what I am using her for at the moment.

- I found one thing warcraft does a million better than FF 14, that is for sure.

- And that is stopping gold sellers.

- I can not remember when was the last time I got a gold selling whisper in warcraft.

- It has to be years, maybe even many years.

- I think I have more people blacklisted on FF 14 than I have mobs killed on my way to 30.

- I can not go 10 minutes without getting a whisper trying to sell me gold.

- Or friend request from a gold seller.

- And even in the cities they spam 24/7.

- And I do not mean once in a while, I mean they hit it over and over again every 2 seconds.

- Why does square do nothing about this?

- Blizzard, props to you, you do a bang up job on keeping my whispers gold farmer free, I never appreciated it as much as I do now.

- Looked into addons for FF 14.

- Did you know addons are illegal in FF 14?

- Things like DPS meters even.

- Nothing, not even super simple things.

- Guess I will never be healing in FF 14 because I can't imagine what life would be like without something like healbot or some mouse over macros.

- Did a few dungeons that were required because of the quest line for my character.

- I have no freaking idea what all those symbols by everyones name means.

- Not a clue.

- The dungeons themselves where easy enough and having experience in other games made me not feel like a noob, even if I did forever feel completely lost.

- And for the record, tab targeting there sucks just as bad as it does in warcraft.

- Have something two doors down and on another floor but two mobs right in front of you and you hit tab, guess which one it targets 100 times out of 100.

- One of those mobs two doors down and on another floor, always.

- Will any game every make a tab targeting system that actually works?

- As much as people say recount does not matter, I hated not having it.

- I could not see if I was pulling my weight.

- I was trying my best, had no complaints, things died fast enough, and oddly enough even if I had never done the fights being I was experienced I followed all mechanics but I still would like to see the numbers I was doing, so I can see myself get better.

- If I can not see the numbers how do I know if I am doing it right.

- How can I test if what works and what doesn't.

- Performance might not matter in a leveling dungeon, but it is a start to the learning process for me at least.

- Not sure I can get into a game that does not allow me to have addons.

- But it is serving as a fun distraction for the time being.

- And it is really deep and with lots to do.

- The completest in my will want max out all classes, but not sure if it will catch my interest long enough to do that.

- Not to mention, I can't see leveling the other classes as being fun being I will have done all the quests already on my main class.

- So I just grind to level them?

- Well, I guess that "could" work.

- I will need materials to level up those crafting classes, or as we call them professions.

- Maybe I will just grind the mobs that drop what I need to level the other classes.

- Kill two birds with one stone.

- But that is still a long way away.

- I plan to log into warcraft tonight, check my highmaul cache and cry when I get the neck again.

- Maybe I should consider doing FF 14 a bit more than just on weekends?

- Funny part is, even if I got my scales of doom from my cache, even if it were warforged, even if it had a gem slot, it would be a case of too little to late.

- Blizzard already lost me.

- I am just like someone in a relationship in real life.

- You might know the ones I am talking about.

- Where you know it is over but you just do not want to let go just yet.

- There is always a chance, but it is more just going through the motions at the moment.

- If I leave I can tell you FF 14 will not be the place I will go to get my mmo fix.

- I'd be lying if I said I was not enjoying it, I am.

- But I don't think it has the staying power for me.

- Not with the lack of bag space, no addons, and massive influx of gold spammers.

- Maybe if I get to max and find a raiding guild things might be different.

- But that will never happen.

- The community is nice and all but it lacks what warcraft has.

- There are no mmoc or wowhead sites for FF 14.

- There does not seem to be an active recruitment environment.

- But the game does seem alive.

- Everywhere I go there are people there.

- So it makes for a great pass time.

- While I hope my relationship with my main game can be fixed.

- I am just not holding out hope for that.

- Blizzard would need to add a content patch for warcraft, and add it soon, which adds back justice and valor and a few quest hubs.

- If it does not do that I don't think my relationship with it can be saved.

- Have a great day.