Monday, May 4, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- I read something I thought was funny so I will share.

- Based on the size of all humanoids native to Draenor it seems Orcs are the Gnomes of Draenor.

- Everything makes so much more sense now.

- Look at the size of everything else, orges, gron, what have you, compared to all of them, Orc are made for punting.

- That really makes sense and that really explains a lot.

- No wonder they are so angry all the time and when they finally come to a place where they are not tiny compared to everyone else the feel the need to overcompensate by being aggressive.

- So what can this mean for the Gnomes?

- Do you think there is a future expansion where they get so angry and fed up of being punted around like the Orcs that they become violent like the Orcs?

- Food for thought my friend.

- Fear the mini horde, the mecha horde, come on there has to be some awesome name for a gnome horde out there.

- I played again this weekend and did some soloing and leveling.

- Nothing to report from soloing, but I did manage to get another character to 100.

- Getting a character to max level used to be an exciting thing.

- Not so much any more.

- At least not for me.

- It means another character I will never get a chance to gear up.

- It means another character I will feel I have to do the garrison on, at least some.

- It means another character I feel I have to pay attention to instead of just playing it sometimes when I felt like it and slowly building it up.

- To gear your followers efficiently, you need to be on it often.

- Profession cooldowns are no longer just for special stuff, it is for everything, so I need to do them daily.

- A new 100 just feels like work.

- But I am working it a different way.

- I am working on trying not to care about doing everything on it.

- That is harder work than anything else.

- Each new 100 reminds me how much I really miss valor.

- I loved being able to pop on an alt, do a few dungeons, maybe an LFR or two, a few quests here and there, and earn some valor.

- Then slowly gear them up.

- Now, I can not even get into a dungeon because the wait times are too long as there is no incentive for people to actually do them.

- Justice and valor were great motivators for people to do repeated content that was "dated".

- Not to mention, with no incentive, as in no valor, there is little reason I would want to do them anyway.

- But I need to do them to start the legendary line.

- Queued up for skyreach when I hit 100, figured I would start the process.

- Saw a 1 hour 15 minute time and said screw it.

- You have got to be kidding me.

- I pay 15 a month to "play" the game, not to "wait" to play the game.

- I understand some wait time, but that is just out of line.

- Every time you queue up for a dungeon and the wait time is over an hour blizzard should refund you your subscription for the month.

- If they had to do that, I am SURE they would find a way to fix it.

- Now they just do not care.

- BTW, the character that hit 100 was a DK, blood of course, is there any other type?

- I was a 584 item level, which is pretty high actually when you consider I hit 100 in spires and had yet to step into nagrand.

- Heck, I had yet to even finish spires when I hit 100.

- Went into the tank challenge and one shot it.

- I had never one shot it on any of my tanks I don't think.

- Always one shot DPS, but tank? This was different for me.

- My druid, warrior and paladin all had interesting challenges with theirs, they all wiped at least once while noticing what was different.

- Yes, all the tank challenges were different.

- Or so it seemed to me.

- Thanks to that I actually enjoyed the tank challenges.

- But even if I was well under the minimum it scales down to for the proving ground I had no problem with it on my DK unlike with the other tanks.

- Which was surprising, I was expecting at least one fail.

- I chalk that up to DKs having insane healing.

- I would not be surprised if I out healed that horrible panda monk healer.

- She is dreadful I tell you.

- I did have some moments I thought I was done for, as in low health was flashing in red on my screen.

- But with a soul reaper death strike combo I went from low health to full health with a shield instantly.

- Can someone say OP?

- Hey, I do not mind, glad I got it done so easy.

- For shits and giggles I decided to try the DPS one in my tank spec and 584 gear.

- Needless to say it was a breeze.

- One thing I did learn is during the DPS trail you can not deathgrip mobs.

- How unfair is that?

- I went to grip the healer to I could both interrupt him and kill him with some other stuff, and he would not budge.

- Never knew that you could not move the mobs in the DPS challenge.

- You learn something new every day.

- Either way the DPS challenge, even well under geared and in the wrong spec for it, was a push over.

- As I said, it is more about handling the mechanics and less about doing DPS.

- And being this is my 9th (I think) 100 that is doing it, I have the pattern down pat.

- So there is no learning curve for the DPS one any longer.

- Once you learn the pattern, the mechanics if you will, they are always the same.

- At least the tank challenge was fun and exciting on all my tanks.

- From the healer refusing the heal my druid, to the healer standing in fire refusing to heal herself on my warrior, it was different for each and that made it fun.

- But I guess same old same old is not a bad thing.

- Even more so when it is something boring and repetitive like the proving grounds.

- Remind me again, why do we need proving grounds to queue for dungeons?

- Under geared, wrong spec, and I could not play a DPS DK even in my dreams because I have never really tried to, and I managed to do it.

- It doesn't actually "prove" anything other than "woohoo I can recognize a pattern I've already done 8 times before".

- Never liked the idea of needing the proving grounds to queue for dungeons.

- Made no sense when they mentioned it and I did not like it then, and it still makes no sense now and I still do not like it.

- I am sure there is some jerk in the blizzard head office still breaking his arm from patting himself on the back for this "awesome" idea.

- I wonder if anyone there had the guts to tell him it was a stupid idea and it did nothing to help dungeons in any way, shape or form.

- Can someone please explain how the hell to AoE as marksman?

- I know marksman's AoE is poor but there is a difference between poor and what I do, dreadful.

- Decided to give marksman a try for fun on heroic kormog being it is mostly a single target fight and we have a lot of decent AoE in my group for hands as is.

- I was rocking the boss at 79K when the first hands phase came, when the first hands phase was over I was a 33K.

- Back on boss I managed to get back to 50K, second hands came I was down to 29K after it.

- Got back up to 44K before the third hands, was 27K after it was done and ended the fight at 34K.

- See what I mean?

- I just suck at AoE, not normal poor marksman AoE but dreadful.

- The only thing I have going for me is kill shot sniping on hands, otherwise I feel useless.

- I know I am doing something wrong.

- I mean we got it down so it was "enough" but I am still not happy with my performance.

- I really believe if I could actually figure out a better way to do hands as marksman 50K should be what I do, not 34K.

- I just feel like a noob that just purchased the game when it comes to AoEing as MM.

- Guess I need some practice because I have to do being something dreadful wrong.

- Speaking of doing something wrong there was a funny comment in trade the other day.

- People were talking about gold making this expansion and some guy said, "I have 4 100s, I must be doing something wrong because combined I have never seen 10K".

- I had to laugh because I do not even think that is possible this expansion, even more so with alts.

- If you have a lot of alts as long as you are doing garrison missions there is no way you can't make gold.

- Last sunday when I logged on I looked to see what my server total was and this sunday I did the same.

- I made 29K in a week, a week I have not really been playing much.

- I logged on a total of 5 of the 7 days, 2 of those 5 days I was on for less than 30 minutes, only went through my characters to do missions on all of them twice, did not sell anything on the AH, nor buy anything, and soloed ICC, DS, TotFW, and Ulduar that week for mounts as well and did not go out of my way to kill everything, just what I had to.

- Missed firelands.  Oops, knew I forgot something.

- So yes, if he has four characters, even if he is not all that active, even if he is not soloing, even if he does not cycle through them all every single day but only some, he should be making 10K a week, or damn near close to it.

- Someone said what I would have said.

- If you have four alts with fully functional garrisons and can not make gold this expansion you most definitely are doing something wrong, such as spending too much gold.

- I think that might be the key.

- If he is buying all his gems, enchants, potions, flasks, food, and maybe BoEs to gear those 4 characters then yes, he will be broke all the time.

- Even making gold hand over fist this expansion if you go and buy everything instead of being self sufficient you will always be broke.

- Not sure about your server but gems are usually 3-5K per on my server.

- So of course you will not see your gold going up if you are forever spending it.

- And that would be my guess, because there is no way someone with 4 level 100s can not be making 10K a week.

- You would have to actively try not to make gold to not make 10K a week with 4 alts.

- Or you really built your garrison ineffectively.

- Level 3 Inn for gold missions and recruiting treasure hunters.

- Level 3 barracks to have 25 active followers.

- Level 3 salvage yard for boxes filled with gold.

- Level 3 bunker / mill until you can easily get every character to 675 and have a nice stash built up for the treasure hunters you recruit later on.

- And then pound out that gold baby.

- One of my characters on saturday, one of the two days I cycled through all of them, sent away for over 3800 in gold missions.

- I have not been on it to collect yet as I did not log on that character sunday, but that is a nice head start for next week with one character sitting on 3800 gold the next time I log into it.

- In... one... day.

- One character, one day, 3800 gold, and that character only has 4 treasure hunters.

- Can you imagine what you can do with more treasure hunters and more alts.

- So not having 10K combined on 4 100s at this point in the expansion is kind of funny, at least the way he said it.

- "I must be doing something wrong" comes off as no shit Sherlock.

- I found it funny.

- But knowing you are doing something wrong is the first step to fixing it.

- It is the person that does not know they are doing something wrong that will never get better.

- I whispered him some tips.

- Now lets see if he follows them.

- The alt I hit 100 with was at 118K when it hit 100, after I bought some blue prints and started building some buildings it is down to 101K already and I still do not have everything to level 3.

- When you first hit 100 that seems like a huge chuck of gold to spend, over all it will be a lot more and already was more because I had already spent gold on it.

- But knowing the gold making tool it turns into it is well worth the investment.

- It might cost me 30K to build it fully, but it will return 10 fold on its investment even if I only log into it once or twice a week for the rest of the expansion.

- I am starting to think "garrisons" are the wrong name for these forts we have.

- They should be called ATMs.

- Or cash machines for those that do not know what an ATM is.

- Because that is what they are.

- Have a great day.

19 comments:

  1. You got something wrong for the tank challenge btw.

    I checked, did multiple tries to confirm it, the healer in the tank challenge does NOT take damage from the fire puddle if it spawn under her.

    No damage, no damage taken debuf, no nothing, so if something killed your healer it was mobs hitting her.

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    1. I thought so too, but I was wrong. The healer did in fact die to the fire when doing it with my warrior. On my paladin the same thing happened first attempt and she took no damage. But that first time she died to fire on my warrior. It was the only time I saw that happen and perhaps it was a bug, but I am absolutely 100% certain she died to fire. There was only one mob left up, I was attacking it, she died. Now, unless she killed herself, she was standing in fire, because nothing else was alive or attacking her.

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    2. What about the dot from the virmens?. she could still have that on her and died from it?

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    3. I guess that is entirely possible. Is there a vermin wave at the end? I think the last phase has some. I do know that no mobs where on her. I figured the fight was done, just kill this last guy, and then boom, fight over I lost. I got it the second time when I camped the fire guy and shockwaved the second he spawned so he never even threw one bit of fire.

      Perhaps because it worked out that way, the time with no fire was a breeze and the time I let it go because it was not bothering me I died is why I contribute it to having to have been the fire. That is the only difference between the run I passed and the run I failed.

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  2. I've all but given up trying to get my warlock through the DPS proving grounds. Sure it should be easy, but it is still a dps race for me. Or maybe I am bad at timing the interrupts. Warlocks have 1 stun, plus our 1 second-long cast fear. If you run Demo, you have the felguards axe toss, to make a second stun. "here's my password and $10 for you to finish it for me..."

    Tank was infinitely easier on the druid. I found that using the treant's on the lava casters made all the difference. I could have them entertain him while I dealt with the adds, making it trivial to complete.

    My third, my healer, is still stuck at 92, but that's simply because (like you) leveling another alt is tedious. With heirloom cloak and +xp potion I am only at the second quest hub and already outleveling the zone. "I really should complete this area to get the plans for my garrison, but really want to move on..".

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    1. Warlocks can talent into "Shadowfury" AOE stun that is instant cast (just set the target reticule on the ground and POW!). As affliction you can DOT the other two up and get ready for the healer to interrupt. You can also use the Fel Puppy or Eyeball as a pet (both have a stun/silence).

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    2. My lock is the last remaining class I have to step into warlords, it is still 90. So can't say much for that challenge from that perspective. Perhaps listen to Savvy, they seem to have more of an idea that might help.

      My druid was taking boat loads of damage when she did it. My warrior seemed to take almost none and probably could have done it without a healer. It is funny how the challenge was different for me based on the tank I was using.

      I level by getting all the followers and then moving to the next zone, if I am able, which on alts thanks to rested I am always able. It just means I am always 100 before even getting close to nagrand now.

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    3. Out of my own experience, lock is the hardest of them all. They have low damage at low gear levels, unlike hunter for example, they have been stripped of their previously useful tools and, most of all, they lack in mobility. This is why on a tank, at low gear levels, silver dps and even gold seems easy enough: they have all the tools, easily interrupt, can move with the mobs and do damage uninterrupted. On a lock it takes planning with your stuns and interrupts and even then doesn't have the burst and easy CC of a hunter (you can lay a trap before the mob spawns).

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    5. I don't think I ever laid a trap on my hunter doing it, even when I first hit 100 and was 580 when I did gold. But I guess it could have its place, just isn't really need.

      No CC is needed, no real movement is needed. Only 1 interrupt, 2 if you are slow with DPS. At least on silver.

      I think the key is planning and being ready for it more than anything else. I am sure I will have my lock leave mists some day, when I do I will report how it was for me.

      So far out of the ones I have done the shadow priest was the only one I did not one shot it on and that is because I forgot to switch a talent, when I did I got it on the second try.

      After shadow priest the hardest was any melee class really. Ranged is just miles easier. Stand in one place and nuke for the most part.

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    6. I did gold too on the first try of it with my hunter that I hardly ever play at very low ilvl. And I used trap so I don'r bother interrupting since I could easily burst mobs down after. Movement is required: monkeys, spining shields. Hunter is by far the easiest dps.

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    7. Also, did I mention I had never even tried dps before? Not even in mop. I am a tank person, but now I needed to do silver for dungeons. Seeing it was so easy, I tried gold too. So I did not know the pattern. Maybe you are used to hunter and don't realize the advantage it has anymore, but to me, who does not dps for anything above dungeon level, I can see how good it is with gimmicky fights where you need to act fast: interrupt, movement, burst.
      So maybe you don't 'need' to do a whole lot if you already know what to do, but I say you can do the dps hunter one gold even on a noob dps like me, unlike the others.

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    8. Oh - spinning orange balls. You can't tell me you don't need movement for that. Think of the circle monekeys and imagine you can't stop to cast because you have to move, you can't stay close because you don't have anything to slow it anymore, you can only put a few crappy dots on it and hope for the best, while you try to stop the healer from casting or whatever.
      Imagine last sha, I tried to kite he balls into it and realized it didn't work. I had to stop to read the shield because what I was doing wasn't working. And I still had time to kill the thing.
      My honey is a lock, sure, maining it in a raid for years, after endless 30+ and all that, so it was easy enough (though mentioned that silver seemed easier than bronze iirc).
      Sure, if you know the pattern by heart, if you know your class extremely well, it may seem like you don't need to do much, like you already know where to sit and what to cast and when. But imagine someone more casual. Someone who hasn't done it before that now has to do it if he wants to do a dungeon. Imagine him having not even realizing his big guardian pet has an axe throw somewhere in the spell book that he can use as an interrupt. Imagine having to actually move from crap and use the balls because dps is really low. I was doing 7k on my demo lock at the start of the expansion when i dinged, while 15k on my hunter at the same item level. At 610 with buffs/bl, hunter was bursting down end dungeon bosses with 25k dps without knowing priorities, just pressing what seems to cause the most damage. You don't think that helps? being able to move while never stopping from doing damage? Having high damage? You don't even need to interrupt healers on the hunter, I actually missed a cast on one and still dpsed it from 100 again before he did his next cast. And even though hunter AoE is not stellar, have you actually seen affliction lock aoe? Not sure if they buffed it now, but iirc it only had seed and talent cataclysm you could have totally not specced into. With a lock you actually have to know, you actually have to plan ahead, you can't wing it like you can with a hunter. Gold hunter is easier than silver lock.
      And back to the casual player. So he tries several times. Wipes. Maybe he goes and reads about it more, gets tips,goes back. Which means he gets better, so not a bad thing. But maybe he gives up, feeling it is hopeless. And doesn't do dungeons because he can't. I doubt this could ever happen to a hunter. I haven't actually checked the forums, but I think there's a lot more locks out there who can't do their silver than hunters. Are lock players worse than hunters in general? I think not. And one thing I know is that my raid leader didn't want to take any lock to the raid at the start of the expansion, they were all backups because their damage was poor.

      You seem to hang onto the idea that you don't need damage, you don't need movement, you don't need anything and it's just a puzzle waiting to be solved. But can you honestly say that high damage, mobility and other qualities don't trivialize some of the puzzle solving? Yes, dps gold on a tank seemed easier to me than silver on a lock at the same crappy iLvl. I can interrupt whenever I want, I have stun on a short cooldown, I can burst crap down if I want to, I can stick on the monkey on any moving target, there's nothing special about doing dps PG on a tank actually, even if people still seem excited about it and like to tell people how easy it must be.

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    9. Hunters are the easiest because they can attack while moving, that is what makes gold easier on them. For silver that advantage is nil as there is little to no movement needed. Being we are talking silver here, throw out the hunter part completely. They have zero advantage.

      Shields. Minimal movement, usually none. Nothing that counts as actual movement to ranged but a melee would have to move from one to the other. So melee need to move here. Actually melee need to move a lot, from mob to mob.

      Balls. You stand on him. As soon as he starts the cast he does not move. Step through him, continue what you are doing. There is really little sustained movement needed. You lose less than 1 global stepping through him or lose nothing if you cast an instant while doing it. I know you and I do not always agree and maybe this is one of those times, but I do not call that movement, I call it taking a step the adjust yourself. That type of minimal movement is what is called a patchwork fight. IE: No movement.

      Circle monkeys are just from gold on, we are talking silver here. So no monkeys.

      Casual does not mean bad. Please do not think that. Seems you are suffering from what other people like to. Just because someone is more casual does not mean they can not pick up the pattern. They can.

      The actual challenge of silver is picking up the pattern, not putting out top DPS. That is the point I try to make. It has nothing to do with someones skill to DPS, it has to do with someone pattern recognition.

      You are also making it seem like doing it on a tank is easier because you have so many stuns and interrupts etc. I still hold to what I said, none of that, as in absolutely zero of that is needed. It is not "easier" on a tank because of it because a tank would never need to use any of those things. So what does a tank have that a DPS doesn't being they do not need all those? They have less DPS. Which means, as I said, it is not a DPS race. Not silver. Never had been, never will be.

      If you want to talk gold I can agree with a lot of what you said, but we are talking silver. No stuns, burst, etc is needed. One interrupt on rare occasion is all that is needed.

      You are using a great argument for gold, which I agree with, against silver. Gold and silver are not alike in any way shape or form. So you can not argue what you need for gold when talking about silver.

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  3. - I finished the legendary finally last week, so that's done. The Garona quest was really clunky...

    - I've been doing some soloing as well. No real fruits to my labor other than knocking out some achievs.

    - Can't get myself to level alts. Two are slowly lvling by sitting in their garrisons (up to 97 now). As Grumpy said, I don't want more chores...

    - Yeah, gems are outrageously expensive. I just use the cheap gems. The +15 isn't worth 3K...

    - Finally started going back to Isle of Giants to farm bones. Way too much competition out there... CRZ sucks...

    - Spent some time camping warbringers as well. Hard to find a spot that wasn't already being camped. CRZ sucks... and so does waiting around for respawns...

    - Trying to "optimize" my followers but it's rather complex... I have 36 since I haven't really been recruiting from the inn and 32 are 675. I started recruiting treasure hunters finally just because... I don't need the gold, but don't need the other traits so...

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    1. Congrats on getting the ring.

      I hate CRZ, it should be removed. There is no reason for it other than to inconvenience people that way to go back and do things.

      I tried to optimize my followers and gave up. Impossible. I wish there was a way to choose which ability to roll too. It would make optimizing so much easier.

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  4. Regarding Kromog hc and MM: I was able to do 33 k with 675 ilvl with a 651 weapon at the end of febuary. Granted, we were 19 people, so I just used Barrage and continued with a single target rotation on my hand. The point of MM is not in its AoE, but its high single target burst and good execute, which means it has a place on Kromog if you have other good AoE dps.

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    1. That means you did better than I. I was 679 with a 675 weapon and only managed 1K more. The weapon alone should have made more of a difference. I am doing something wrong really.

      I guess I just need to not try to do my "normal" thing and just keep single target and kill shot snipes. Thanks, makes me not feel as bad knowing I am not the only one that felt off AoEing on that one.

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    2. Yeah, Multishot is so bad on MM you could just go ahead and take it off your action bars :)

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