Monday, June 1, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- I actually played a lot this weekend.

- No underlining reasoning to read into that.

- Why I played as actually quite simple.

- I had a new hunter at 100 to play with.

- I think I have really realized something.

- Without valor gear for gearing up alts I have no desire to play them.

- But I still like my hunters.

- I finished off nagrand and finally managed to get to 610 so I could do heroics.

- I had proving ground gold since the day I hit 100, but not the item level.

- Sorry, but if you can manage a proving grounds gold in 580 gear when it only scales down to 610, they really should just disregard the darn item level requirement.

- Either way, once I managed 610 I started my legendary quest line for it.

- Did all 5 dungeons, needless to say, even on a 610 hunter I rocked the place.

- Playing BM to get a feel for it being I know I will have to switch soon.

- I was pulling between 22K-25K on bosses at a 610 item level.

- No, that is not bragging, that is just saying that dungeon bosses die so damn fast when you are doing those numbers so they do not have a chance to fall to more reasonable numbers that reflect what your actual DPS really is.

- I think I understand now why I get these people telling me "I can pull 35K" and then in a raid they are barely scratching the surface of 20K.

- They are probably using their dungeon numbers.

- There is no way in hell my hunter can pull 25K at a 610 item level with no gems and no enchants.

- Not happening, I am just not that good, nor do I think anyone is.

- But on a short fight, that is exactly what my hunter did.

- As far as dungeons goes I had mostly smooth runs, even if I did waste the better part of 6 hours to do 5 dungeons.

- Yes, 6 hours to do five dungeons.

- This is the #1 reason they need to add valor back to the game.

- It gave people the motivation to run dungeons, which in turn made dungeons easier by having better people there, and more importantly, the faster queue times that come with more people doing them.

- I had one group that did not bow down to the uber geared like you sometimes see.

- It was cool to see them kick the guy.

- We zoned in and this priest just started pulling, it was everbloom by the way.

- The tank kept having to scramble to get the mobs the priest pulled and then the priest would run further and pull more.

- Apparently this group works on the same philosophy that I do.

- Your gear does not matter, your numbers do not matter, even people with great gear and great numbers can be bad players.

- So they kicked the 70K DPS priest and we replaced him with a priest damage dealer doing only 6K.

- Yes 6K is dreadful, even for a fresh 100 that faked their way in.

- But the run was a much more enjoyable and pleasant run.

- Bad players come in all shapes and sizes, and the 70K priest was a bad player, glad the group agreed.

- Heck, they started the kick, and he was gone before I ever even got a chance to click yes to the kick.

- So it seems everyone wanted to be done with him.

- Otherwise no real drama in my 5 runs.

- A few good groups, a few slower, but still good, groups, and no other drama.

- I like that, I like the nice quiet life.

- If I can do content and have fun doing it and be completely free of unneeded drama I would be a very happy elf.

- I won something off the last boss in each run.

- Woohoo?

- Oh, you mean you always get something off the last boss.

- In that case, I won nothing.

- Surprise surprise, you do know who you are reading right now right.

- But even if I did not win much I more importantly won enough, with the ring, to get to 615 and thus the LFR item level.

- I ran all the HM LFRs.

- Again, no drama really.

- A few go go go go morons that deserved a slap to the back of the head but that is about it.

- I won a few pieces, but of course with my luck they were the same pieces I had won from the dungeons, so minor upgrades.

- I did manage to get my item level up to 627 with some lucky 610 salvage pieces that replaced really low stuff, a couple of 615 mission pieces and one piece reasonable priced courtesy of he auction house.

- Not enough to get to the BRF ones, so I stopped there.

- I got a total of 22 stones now.

- I thought they said they increased the drop of these things as a catch up mechanic?

- Sorry, I do not see it.

- I have 5 characters past that stage and getting 22 is like a normal week when it first came out.

- 22 is not even a good week when it first came out.

- I remember getting 22 off 4 bosses one week when it first came out.

- So how exactly did they "increase" the drop rate?

- Sorry, I do not see it.

- Then again, it is just my luck right?

- I also did my one random heroic on my new hunter.

- Because I really need the garrison resources.

- I got UBRS which is cool because I had the millhouse quest from my inn.

- We had a group that wanted to do leeroy and they did it well.

- We not only managed to snag leeroy, but we finished the entire dungeon before leeroy came down.

- We had to wait for him after the run was done.

- And it is not like we had "spectacular" numbers blowing things up.

- Just some solid ones.

- Apparently.

- Was a very nice run with 2 new followers, so I was happy.

- I went and tamed gara on my new hunter, figured why the hell, it is beast mastery.

- I read about how long, involved and difficult it was.

- I found it interesting, but not really all that difficult.

- It was more just wasting time running around collecting thing from mobs you could mostly one shot as a level 100.

- The end phase was a little harder.

- But remember, harder does not mean more difficult.

- I attacked one of the spirit things to summon the boss, who summoned instantly, and it took me what felt like a year and a day to down the thing.

- Over 2M health at my item level, this is going to take a while, and it did.

- I was expecting some epic battle with the boss if the trash I needed to clear to summon him had 2M health.

- I was wrong, so very wrong.

- The boss had 600K health and melted like a stick of butter left out on a hot summers day.

- Excuse me blizzard, I think you made a mistake.

- The trash should have had 600K health and the boss 2M health, not the other way around.

- Blizzard and math, they just do not get along.

- One day they need to hire someone that knows what all those strange looking number like things mean, because apparently no one that works there does.

- How did this go live with the trash having more than 3 times the life of the boss?

- It just makes no sense.

- As I said, it was not difficult in any way.

- Just stand in one place and pew pew.

- Worked for both the trash and the boss.

- But hunters should still be happy, we get new skins for our pets every expansion, what class can say they get that type of coolness.

- I'll tell you who, none.

- But I did expect the final fight to be more like the warlock one for green fire and less like a target dummy.

- I had a weird week in game, some good luck and some bad luck.

- We had a dreadful week in heroic.

- Sure we do not raid long, only for 2 hours, but that is usually good for 6 or 7 bosses at least.

- We only managed 3 this week.

- We wiped 6 times on hanz and frans too.

- Do you believe that?

- It was one of those nights were everything that could go wrong went wrong.

- Tank DCed three times.

- The entire raid lagged out once.

- Some stupid mistakes caused another couple of wipes.

- And we wasted more than half our night on one boss that we were one shotting for the last few months.

- I am sure it happens to everyone where you just have one of those nights.

- Our normal night went a little better, but we still suffered a couple if wipes, thanks to me.

- Yes, I own up to my mistakes.

- We did not have a second tank so I was going to tank on my druid.

- Then just as we were about to pull the first boss a tank that is gearing up logged on.

- So I switched to heals, so I can try to get some gear on my druid, as it still needs it.

- Up to 668, so I am almost ready to tank heroic.

- Odd as it might sound, I've been tanking heroic for a long time.

- I guess that is why the call 670 to tank heroic a "suggestion".

- Was funny to say I am almost ready to tank heroics even if I have already done so.

- Back to the story, the other tank came in, I healed, and then on trash to the next boss the DC monster attacked.

- He never came back, so I switch back to tank.

- We one shot flamebender and moved to kromog.

- First pull we wiped because I could not get aggro off the other tank.

- Every time I taunted he would get the boss back almost instantly.

- I've tanked with him before and never had any aggro problems like that.

- Second attempt I compensated and taunted on cooldown to make sure he did not pull it back off of me and we did just fine.

- We ended up wiping at 0%.

- Tough luck wipe, hate those ones.

- 0% just makes me want to cry.

- Seeing a grown bear cry is not a happy moment.

- Then I looked at recount and saw myself doing 8K DPS.

- 8K DPS?

- Even as a tank that is dreadful.

- Oh crap, I never switched back to my tanking gear.

- Well, that explains the aggro issue right there.

- Funny thing is the healers said I was still easy to heal, they never noticed me as being more squishy than normal for a bear.

- Next attempt we down him and moved on of course, but that was a big oops on my part.

- Been a long time since I screwed up that big.

- After the fight when someone was going over the logs and seeing how everyone did I said "I bet I ranked #1 in the world on flamebender tanking in healing gear."

- That got a chuckle.

- At least we one shot it we me in healing gear.

- Guess it goes to prove one thing, or two actually, that tanking is more about using your abilities at the right time as long as you have he natural health for it and that healers can really cover up a lot of mistakes.

- If even one of them said I was squishy I might have noticed sooner.

- But they all said, you seemed fine to me.

- I did mange to win something that was not a ring this week, a helm, so my druid how has a two piece set.

- Woot.

- And there was more druid luck to report.

- I am still using my tanking cloak when healing as I have not managed to snag a healing cloak or even just a straight intellect one.

- So when I finished my highmaul mission, which was only a 655 as I tanked highmaul on my warrior and not my druid, I decided to switch my specialization over to restoration.

- I figured every item in my tanking set, outside of legs, does not need a 655 and at least I might get something for my healing set this way.

- And even if I got legs, it would still be an upgrade to both as those switch stats.

- I got the healing cloak.

- How awesome is that?

- Want more, it had a gem slot too.

- Want even more, it was warforged too.

- I hit the trifecta in that cache.

- Not only did I get a piece I needed but it was warforged with a gem slot.

- Could not ask for more really.

- Funny how winning something you actually need, even if the item level is way below what you are currently doing, is great just because you actually needed it.

- Blizzard needs to not be such tightwads with gear like that.

- Still no weapon for my hunter and how long has this expansion been out?

- Sorry, it should not be that hard to get gear.

- It ruins the fun when you start feeling like "I am doing this for nothing".

- There always needs to be a feeling like you are getting some return on your time investment.

- And this expansion isn't really feeling it.

- Unless you are talking gold.

- I check my gold Friday night before I logged off.

- I checked it again Sunday night before I logged off.

- 22K gold made this weekend.

- I did not do any soloing, I did not do any auction house work, I did not even cycle through all my characters like a mad man, I just did garrison missions on the character I happened to be playing on at the moment.

- I guess if you consider gold a good return for your time investment, this expansion rocks.

- But if gold was always easy to get for you, it is a little lackluster.

- At least from my perspective.

- But at least I am having fun gearing up another hunter.

- At least to LFR level.

- Wish I could go further, but without valor gear, that is where it ends for alts.

- Not going to spend gold gearing alts, that does not work for me, even if it could be done that way.

- An alt is an alt and I do not invest anything other things time playing them into them, unless I have to.

- I miss actually enjoying playing other classes.

- I liked cycling through them and doing stuff to earn valor and buying them a piece of gear here and there.

- Now without a reasonable way to gear them up to raid ready I don't.

- Not even in the slightest.

- This expansion should be retitled, "death of the alts".

- Hopefully next expansion is called, "sorry about that, we fired the guy that came up with warlords gearing".

- Have a great day.

12 comments:

  1. That priest made a fatal error if you are going to do that Que with your own over-geared healer. Then they can't boot you and the healer just can heal you thru whatever. As long as things die an the dungeon and no players are dying I don't really care whats happening makes my life as a tank easier.

    Also if you have a max FF14 character you should head back in there you will love the valor system they have going on they have like 3 ways to get the gear not even counting the raids you would be in valor gear heaven hehehe

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    1. No one was dying, we were handling it, but still, people like that should be kicked as soon as you are able to do so.

      Have not tried yet this expansion, but last expansion I could solo most heroics near the start and all of them as the expansion went on. Yet I always waited for the tank to pull. Just because I "can" solo it doesn't mean I "should". I try to be respectful of my fellow players.


      I am only 47 there on my highest one, but maybe I will pop on this weekend and finish off 50 for the expansion. That is how gearing should work. There is no reason to make gear come from one place only. Blizzard used to know that.

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    2. We will have to agree to disagree on the fast dungeon pulling I view it as not respecting my time if you need to dilly dally around at this point in an expansion then you are either new or stupid.

      If you are trying to learn your roll there's a time and a place for that IMO and that's in a group with friends don't suffer your incompetence at your job roll on other people. That's not being prepared.

      FF14 they have other barriers to their context mainly the main story it's Final Fantasy so they make you go through the main quest to unlock things so be prepared for that we came back to 4 patches of major story content we've been plowing away at it and are through a whole patch! i'm sure you can go faster with two people it slows down as we wait for the other to get thru a cut scene

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    3. We can agree do disagree as we often do.

      But can I at least get you to agree that at the least the priest could have waited for the tank to zone in before he started pulling like a mad man.

      It is not like he was pulling and killing. He was just pulling. If he was pulling and killing I am sure the group would not have minded, he was just pulling more and more and not making any effort to clear them. He was a bad player. There are no ifs, ands or buts about that. You can be fine with it, but that does not change that fact.

      Yes, if you are trying to learn your roll there is a time and a place for that. Guess what it is called? A dungeon. ;)

      Remember, not everyone (read as most) has the support network you or I do. If I want to learn to tank on a new class I can pull together a group easily. So I am spoiled, but I respect that not everyone has the benefits I do.

      I last played FF14 only a couple of weeks ago. So unless they added something then I am up to date. Only have the story from the last few levels to do. Have all my skills and such up to the point I last played.

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    4. If he was just pulling and not killing he wasn't doing what I was talking about. This is a MMO friends are readily available to make join a guild don't waste my time.

      hehe on FF oh you have no idea how much quest they added. the story continues after you finish the get to level 50 storyline they added it in with each patch there is still time to complete it but all of the expansion is supposedly locked behind being done with it.

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    5. "This is a MMO friends are readily available to make join a guild don't waste my time."

      This is a pretty inconsiderate, insensitive, and selfish way to view the topic at hand. Regardless of how the group decides to tackle the content, Pull and Pray, Tank Pulls, Marked Pulls, etc an extra 30 seconds to nail down the groups methodology is not an unreasonable request.

      If "your" time is so valuable, then I would suggest you get the friends to go dungeoning with you. Part of the LFD system is to give people who don't have those social networks or prefer not to cultivate them access to the dungeons. Its your preferences and demands that are outside of the norm and the onus is on you, not them.

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    6. @Tiggi

      He was just chain pulling, tagging and moving to the next. Making no effort to kill them. Getting a bunch on him, running to the tank, then running to get more.

      If an over powered player wants to do that, at least kill them. That is what I would do at least.

      I guess I need to get to work on FF if I want to finish it before the expansion comes out. lol

      @ Thuggs

      I agree. If you want speed runs, make your own group, but when using a random group, you should try to work as a team. It is meant for people that do not have the in game network that some of us do.

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  2. -Got exalted with Arakkoa Outcasts finally... the rep grinds are just boring...

    -Bought their apexis mount... I hate the new Talbuk models, but I'm trying to get to 200 mounts, so a mount is a mount...

    -The old ones in Outlands are so much cooler looking.

    -It's annoying that profession mounts and stuff don't count quite right. Most of my toons show 197, except my DK shows 199 and Lock shows 198, and the achiev shows 198... so I don't know how many more mounts I actually need...

    -Council of Exarchs is getting close, but not close enough to just grind it out. Should probably focus on the apexis dailies for that faction.

    -I tore down my barn and built a Trading Post to unlock the other faction. Not sure when I'll get to work on that though... At least I can spend excess resources on stuff now.

    -Got to 40 followers as well, so I'm tempted to tear down the Inn... but not sure what to replace it with... Could do a lumber mill just to clean up those achievs... Otherwise it's the Sanctum, which means doing PvP...

    -I'd be more interested in doing PvP if I didn't have to grind different gear... plus the new season will start with 6.2 in a few weeks...

    -Got the 300 rare missions achiev finally as well

    -Finished the King of the Monsters achiev that I had been working on

    -Got a couple of old raid achievs as well

    -Got some 30 slot bags and cleaned up by bank some

    -Used up some old raid tokens that I had lying around

    -One more Heroic Firelands clear and I'll get Exalted with Hyjal finally

    -So a lot of 'clean up' this week

    -Popped over to Timeless Isle on my way to Pandaria and helped some people kill Yu'lon. They actually thanked me. It felt weird...

    -Killed Sha of Anger as well... I pulled it solo but a couple other players jumped in and there were about 5 or so of us by the end. The mind controls are still annoying... but it was fun for a couple of minutes.

    -Killed Oondosta as well while on Dino Island farming bones. Couple of other players jumped in as usual.

    -Up to 8500 bones, so getting there.

    -So even the old world bosses have more people doing them than the WoD ones...

    -Solo'd Dragon Soul up to Spine. Super easy, but then Spine is just annoying, so I went on to do other things after getting thrown off a couple times

    -I had more fun by going back and doing old content than I did doing current content... it's sad...

    -Also, it's crazy that I'm doing end of expansion stuff (alts, achievs, reps, soloing, etc) and we are still on the first raid tier...

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    1. Congrats on the outcasts. I got my main to exalted with the grind and 2 others from mission rewards only. Love those mission reward things. Working on a third exalted just from mission rewards. 2 more and I got it.

      Yeah, mount are weird. I think I show 264 or something, but it says I only have 247 or something like that. Not sure exact numbers. But I have way more than it says I have.

      Funny that the old world bosses have more interest than the current ones. Blizzard should learn from that. lol

      People were doing end of expansion stuff 1 week into this expansion.

      As weird as it sounds, I was back to soloing old raids on the second weekend after release. That is unheard of. But it shows the extreme lack of content in warlords.

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  3. Do PG on a lock at 580. On one of the less popular specs.
    I remember talking about this a while back and actually had to search for the post to see what you replied because I didn't at the time.
    I mentioned there that a more casual player would maybe have a harder time doing it, not even knowing where the interrupt is, because you have to actually drag it from your book onto your pet bar and bind it to use it, which is not exactly obvious. You accused me of saying casual = bad, which is not true. I call casual someone who isn't invested in WoW as much time, someone who plays it "by the ear" and doesn't read things, not even the dungeon journal. Someone who plays for a couple of months at the start of every expansion maybe a couple of hours a week. I think the term casual has been so overused that people forget what casual is.
    For example, someone commented on BlizzardWatch that they are a casual player in Diablo and gotten to 400 paragon on season 2 (which was really short). That is NOT casual. I got to around 50 paragon and I still don't consider myself a casual player.
    My time in FF14 is casual. In 3 months I managed to get around level 10 or 15 on one char/spec.
    WoW casual would mean someone who's taking 2-4 months to get from 90-100 or even more, because of time constraints, maybe even jumping to other characters because they need more variation, whatever.
    I myself asked my honey where is my interrupt on my demo lock, I'm pretty casual on my lock. Yes, I'm casual on that class. I wouldn't say I'm bad, I actually looked up some stats and rotation which is beyond casual, but I actually never felt the need for an interrupt after that time.
    People jump to conclusion too fast. Saying casual = bad is just as bad as accusing someone of saying it when they didn't. Contrary to what you probably think of me, I'm actually not a snob, I don't belittle people with less time to invest and I don't believe in "skill" (I think it's a combination of applied knowledge + progressive practice + reflexes + awareness, yes I consider awareness a real life quality, not a learned one).

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    1. before* that time
      WTB edit button

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    2. I did not mean to offend, but as I read it, it came off as you were equating casual to bad. I try to never equate casual to mean bad or hardcore to mean good. I have seen a great many excellent casual players and have met my fair share of hardcore players that suck.

      I have not done a lock yet, it is the last class to step into this expansion for me. It is currently just sitting in its garrison building supplies at the moment.

      I do intend to do it as soon as I hit 100 just as I did with the others. I also expect it to be extremely hard because I know many very skilled players that have said it is hardest on a lock.

      With that all said, I still expect to get silver. Most likely not on the first try based on what I heard like I did with each other class, but I do completely expect to get silver within a few tries. If I don't, guess what, I will keep trying until I do.

      Casual in the sense you say, would have problems with it. Absolutely, and a lot of problems at that. I agree. Most players, heck even some players I know that fit a more aggressive play style, would have problems with it too because they do not "think it out" right. But anyone that does think it out and work at it logically, casual or not, I think could get it done, in time.

      The pure casual by your definition will never be able to do it on a class like a lock, but will eventually get it right on a hunter which can easily out DPS the heal if need be. Some classes are harder than others. That is blizzard fault designing it the same for everyone.

      I've been playing diablo, casual like, since it came out, and I do not even have 200 paragon levels. lol So no, 400 in season too is about as hardcore as hardcore gets.

      I guess everyone has a different definition of casual. That guy sure proves it because I'd be hard pressed to see anyone say 400 in a season is casual.

      You have a AoE stun (alt 3 for me) as a lock and depending on your pet an interrupt from them as well (8 for me).

      But just like you, I had to go searching for them. Like when they removed health funnel from all specs. I asked so many locks I know, "how the hell do I heal my pet now?" Hey, we all have those moments.

      I've also always disliked people that judge someones skill level by their progression. For example, I just had a player leave my guild for another guild. He is an outstanding player, very good, easily mythic capable. He did not leave us to go to a more progressed guild, he left us for a less progressed guild because he has friends there and it fits it timing better. He will most likely never see a heroic boss down again and might not even see many normal ones either. But that does not change the fact he is a very good player.

      I get a kick out of reading the forums and seeing people judge others by their progression. That is probably a worse way to judge someone than item level. lol

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