Monday, June 8, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- I finally got something to drop from my old raid soloing this weekend.

- Not a mount, but the legendary weapon from sunwell.

- That baby is even going to get put to good use soon too.

- With the timewalker dungeons coming out that will actually (or should) be best in slot for level 70.

- So I will get to use it at the appropriate level.

- Think I finally found a good use for timewalker dungeons, the ability to use old legendary items.

- I wonder if there are any best in slot lists for at level.

- Would not surprise me if someone already did them.

- But from what I hear it would really be over kill.

- They seem to be tuned for "fresh" 70s and 80s to do them, so if you are best in slot 70 or 80 you could easily solo them.

- Heck, I was soloing most level 80 dungeons before even ToC came out.

- So I think that is one best in slot list that would be over kill.

- Extreme over kill.

- But it will still be fun to use my new (old) legendary.

- I have a funny dungeon story to tell.

- Been doing my one daily dungeon on my horde hunter some days as it is still screaming in need of garrison resources.

- I get into skyreach, the group is rather week, bosses taking forever to go down.

- I am doing tops at 16K and that is more than double the second person, but we are not wiping, it is going fine, just taking a while.

- No complaints from me, I like smooth runs even if they might take a bit longer.

- First boss I get my dancing buff, second boss goes down fine, third boss take a long time and I did not even know it was possible for that many birds to spawn.

- On the way to the last boss one of the damage dealers says something I find quite funny.

- Not funny ha ha but funny as it shows my luck.

- Him: "Hunter, are you not gearing up on purpose?"

- Me: "This is a fresh 100 alt."

- Him: "No it is not, you have the 680 ring but no other gear."

- Me: "It only takes one day to get the 680 ring."

- Him: "No it doesn't."

- Me: "It did for me."

- So what did I find funny from this exchange?

- The fact it shows my luck, been through highmaul twice now, did all my dungeons for the ring and some others, and still can't get gear.

- Just my luck, so bad even someone else notices it.

- But the kicker was something I completely missed but a guild mate said to me when I told him the story.

- He said, "People in this game are amazing.  I've heard them criticize low damage dealers before but never the top damage dealer for having bad gear.  He should just be happy you were doing well in bad gear."

- I never thought of it that way.

- After he said that I thought, why would you complain the top damage dealer did not have good gear.

- If I were him and I saw the top damage dealer in 620 gear and he was beating me by 9K when I have 650 gear I most definitely would not open my mouth.

- Yes, I looked at his gear after he said something about mine.

- I should have asked him, how did you manage to have all 650 or better gear and still NOT have the 680 ring.

- Seriously, unless you do not want to get it or have been avoiding heroics, which can't be the case as we are in a heroic.

- I should have turned it on him and asked "Are you purposely not trying to get the legendary ring?"

- Me not having gear is bad luck, him not having the legendary ring quest started is choice.

- My friend was right, people in this game are amazing.

- And I do not mean amazing in a nice way.

- Up to 47 stones after two weeks, not so bad really, but kind of average.

- I still get from 1 to 6 per boss, just as I did the times before.

- Where is this increase they said they were giving people on alts?

- They should have increased it to 3 to 8 per boss.

- Not a lot more, but at least then it would have been noticeable.

- Heck, I would settle for just 1 cluster per boss.

- I'd be at 70 now if that were the case.

- More actually because of 2 missions for a total of 6 and a few form work orders.

- I should be at 80 right now, not 47, if they did actually increase the drop rate.

- Remember the new catch phrase.

- Blizzard lies.

- It will be more popular that "it will cost a raid tier" and it will be more honest than that too.

- Remember, blizzard lies, the truthful catch phrase.

- I am sure their marketing department will love it.

- "We are releasing the most content filled patch in the history of the game", was said in reference to 6.2, blizzard lies.

- "Flying will be added later after release, maybe with the first content patch.", blizzard lies.

- Nearly everything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

- I am not a fan of salt and I have been having too much salt listening to everything they have to say.

- I think I have gotten to the point I would rather them not tell us anything at all instead of continually lying to us.

- We are better off not knowing, than hearing lies.

- So my warrior is on the last boss in the second highmaul LFR.

- Tank goes down, 30 seconds pass, no one revives him.

- Second tank goes down, I taunt, and being I am a gladiator, I start rolling the cooldowns I am capable of.

- One minute passes, no tanks revived.

- Two minutes pass, no tanks revived.

- Hey people, if the healers can not keep two actual tanks up I am not going to last long here as a DPS fake tanking, revive the damn tanks.

- Both tanks finally come up and we beat the boss nice and easy as it should be in LFR.

- So, the question is, do all damage dealers with a battle resurrection completely ignore what is going on around them?

- We had 2 locks, 4 DKs and 2 druids.  That is 8 people, a third of the raid, that were capable of bring up the tanks and no one noticed for a full 2 minutes that there were no tanks?

- I find it hard that anyone could be that oblivious.

- I think it has something to do with the "someone else will do it" mentality.

- Every one of them thought someone else would do it.

- Reminds me of one BRF run a couple of months ago when I was first tanking and not on my hunter that night.

- On the trash before operator we kill the last guy before the gates open and are getting pounded by bombs.

- I said on voice chat, range, kill the cannons.

- It might sound hard to believe, but no one ever noticed they were there before.

- I am usually there on my hunter and I always kill them, they go down quick, but I never thought they went down so quick I am the only person that noticed they were even there.

- I was stunned that people just didn't notice it, they got so used to someone else doing it.

- I think that is what the battle rez thing comes from.

- People get so used to other people doing it, they do not even think to do it.

- In the end I got a nice little ego boost out of it however, in both cases.

- I did so well downing the cannons that no one noticed they were there.  Go me.

- I tanked in gladiator stance and survived, even if it was only LFR.  Go me.

- Sometimes small victories are all I have to enjoy, so I will take what little I can get.

- A little victory is better than none at all.

- My rogue, damn him, now has his two best in slot trinkets from BRF from missions, he has never even been in there.

- I think the game is telling me I need to play my rogue.

- Every time I do a mission, I get a piece of gear I need.

- Maybe because it has no gear otherwise, but you would have to think I would double up sooner or later.

- And when it does get a repeat it will have speed, or leech or indestructible on it, making it a minor, extremely minor, upgrade or be warforged or with a gem slot to make it a solid upgrade.

- In cataclysm my shaman was my lucky character, maybe this expansion it is time for my rogue.

- Should I attempt to start playing my rogue?

- It is melee, which I am not exactly fond of playing, but I do like feeling like I am moving forward, and maybe this might be my character to do it.

- Now if only I could start the legendary quest line on it.

- Nope, still has not done the dungeons in months.

- As that guy from my random said, there is no way to get it started in one day, it takes a long time.

- See, my rogue is proof. ;)

- I guess that showed me.

- I must have lied about doing all the dungeons in one day on my hunter, that is completely impossible.

- Impossible if it is me playing a rogue that is.

- I always queue up for them, but they never pop before I move to the next character.

- Unlike with my hunter, which I find things to do because I love playing hunters, when I am done with my garrison on my rogue if my queue has not popped, I am done playing my rogue.

- Really that simple.

- If there were still flying in game I would stay on my rogue and fly around while waiting, but that is another story all together.

- So it is not my fault my rogue isn't geared, it is blizzard fault for the long queue times.

- Yeah, that's the ticket.

- Always blame someone else.

- I think I can get a hang of this.

- Tricks of the trade to the mage then throw on a mob.

- Mage pulled, mage pulled.

- He he he.

- Blame someone else.

- Speaking of that, when Watcher does the live stream, who do you think he will blame?

- "Someone must have hacked my computer and said those snide twitter remarks, I never said them."

- A line like that will be coming soon to a live stream near you.

- I finished the field photography achievement this weekend.

- There are two things I learned this weekend from doing that.

- Flight really does rule, the game is way way way way better with it.

- And the game really needs invisible shoulders, or a hide shoulders option.

- I am not a selfie person, but really those shoulders get in the way.

- I might have only been doing it for achievement sake but I wanted the pictures to look nice and those shoulders got in the way every step of the way.

- I like the mail shoulders that drop from the salvage yard.

- Tried to mog into them but it would not let me.

- Why blizzard?

- Oh yeah, forgot about that, can't have people being happy.

- Why can't we have nice things blizzard?

- Have a great day.

17 comments:

  1. Battle rez, don't get me started. I have this argument with my DPS (lock) honey every now and then. Not only does honey not use the raid frames, but rezing is a miracle. Honey's theory is that lock rez takes the longest, and by that time somebody else should rez. And if everybody that could have rezed is dead, it's a wipe anyway. This pisses me off to no end. Especially since we have had situations in the past where a quick rez would have saved a CM for example.
    Pretty sure most dpses have no raid awareness, hope others will do it or convince themselves that it is a waste anyway. I get angry every time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And by raid awareness I mean dps hardly ever notice tanks are down till they get oneshot by the boss. This happens at Mythic level too, just mind boggling.

      Delete
    2. I am a weird one when it comes to things like that. I use my healbot for many of my characters, not just for healers.

      For a hunter, misdirect, masters call, roar of sacrifice, all make for nice instant click abilities. On my paladin having all my hands set up as well as sacred shield, lay on hands, heals, etc, works wonders. I used to love seeing it light up the healer had grabbed some add aggro from behind and a right click on their name and all the mobs were on me in a second hanks to righteous defense. Oh how I miss that.

      I use healbot for all my characters in one way or another. I can't live without it, it is not only a time saver, as there is no need to target someone, but it makes me (I think) a better player over all.

      Perhaps, as it is easy to implement and easy to use, you can teach your significant other to bind right click to heal bot and the next time all she has to do is right click on their name and its done. It is how I broke out of my "someone else will do it" mode.

      Then to step it up, in time, mouse over macros, even better. But that seems to be a little harder, so to speak. Healbot is super easy. Install, add spell name, go. Nice and easy.

      Delete
    3. DOH! Healbot for your hunter, what a great idea! Can't believe I had not thought of it. Been messing around for years with unsatisfactory macros that use focus target and mouseovers, but they are hard to implement when you get a crowd of people in a boss fight. And focus for MD gets cumbersome when you have tank switching.

      Grumpy, you are genius, I am going to set up my hunter HB tonight. Thanks!

      Delete
    4. I still use a macro for misdirect focus and make my tank the focus, but having the healbot there is a great way to get to the off tank easy enough and you might be amazed but masters call, sometimes, can be a life saver for not only you but when used on someone else.

      Glad I could give you an idea to help. I use healbot for so many things. It's not just for healing.

      Delete
    5. Honey doesn't use addons because reasons, aside from Auctionator (controlling the glyph market is hard work). Nope, not even DBM. I have given up a long time ago trying to understand why someone would gimp themselves like that. It's a lost cause.

      Delete
    6. As they say, to each their own. I don't think I could ever play without them. I've been so spoiled. It is not even a matter of it makes me a "better" player. It is that it makes things easier which in tun makes things more enjoyable. I can not image how long it would take me to do all my garrisons without the master plan addon. Things like that are just must have for me.

      Delete
  2. When I que in as DPS, I have the default raid frames set up (I use the default raid frames for guild raiding and it suits me fine, but I am an add-on minimalist using only DBM, Skada and Quartz). I will close all groups that aren't mine and the tanks will be displayed on the left of that party. Regardless of whether I play a Druid, DK, Warlock or Hunter (I always bring a moth pet or Quillen pet and use it in LFR), I am always aware if a tank goes down. I will B-Rez if I don't already see the B-Rez icon show up in their frame.

    But awareness and common sense aren't common. Your most casual player doesn't care about people outside his/her. There are still warlocks that use the soulstone on themselves or place it on a healer (not a bad idea, but it removes the ability to use it on demand like a battle res). There are still huntards (it's going to happen because more people play hunters than any other class, period and it has almost always been this way) that bring a pet they like because of what it looks like instead of buffs, utility and still don't know that there are pets that can battle res and Bloodlust/heroism (although that last one is a good thing or they would pop it everytime to pad the meters like all those awful, selfish arcane mages that refuse to move out of fire so they can top the meters).

    But guess what, Blizzard listened. They listened to the most popular class in the game and so are the tops in DPS (all 3 specs are still viable at present in single target and this doesn't look to change considerably; the survival guys will be reduced, but they have the easiest rotation of the 3 specs).

    So the name of the game is 2 tanks, 3-5 healers (for 10-25 man content) and the rest hunters. Why bring anyone else because the hunter can bring battle res, lust/heroism, and buffs for every class based on pet or lonewolf. Cloth/int drops? That's for the Priests and healers since you don't need warlocks or Mages. Leather? Give it to the druid or monks. Plate? Give it to the Warriors, DK's or Palis. Mail? Unless it's intellect, give it to the hunters. Oh yeah, there isn't intellect mail anymore (it has agility too). Shaman's are ass out unless they are healing, but they are still ass out because you have all those hunters to feed.

    I used to love playing a hunter. But the gross proliferation of hunters stopped me. And there are so many bad hunters out there. You have the "GO GO GO" types that will pull without permission (they won't even misdirect). The ones that roll on all gear. The ones that don't know how to feign death and run away from the mobs/adds forcing the tank to gather them up. The ones that stand by themselves at extreme range when they are supposed to stack making it harder on the healer. I could go on, but the reason we tolerate them is because even with crap gear, their DPS is through the roof.

    The absolute worst ones are the arrogant bastards that think they are above doing anything outside DPS. But that is extended to all classes that don't know what they bring to the table. And it especially goes to idiots that don't battle res a tank when they have the ability to (even in LFR). Repeat after me: "LFR without wipes = success." Don't expect anything more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever we get a new warlock in our raids I still have to train them not to put the soulstone on themselves. It is amazing how many still do that. One time in a dungeon I asked a warlock to revive the healer and they said locks do not have a battle rez. Goes to show you that unless you look outside the game people do not even know these things. Sometimes it is not that they lack common sense, it is that no one ever taught that things changed.

      Sure, it is odd for it to be this far gone from when it was added for anyone not to know but if you are mostly a solo player it is understandable why you wouldn't I guess. Not everyone spends as much time reading up on the game as you or I might. I really blame blizzard for this, in part, for not teaching in game.

      Or maybe they have a raid leader like me. I tell people that they should never rez anyone unless I say so. So maybe they are just followers and won't use it until told to.

      There are reasons, but I agree. The vast majority of players do lack the basic common sense you might expect anyone to have.

      I like the all hunter raid idea. Best that way, but it is nice to have a token lock for summon purposes and a token mage for mana cakes. Not to mention, there are some fights where melee are needed. We have no (one most times) melee and I can tell you flamebender is an entirely different fight with no melee. So some token melee are a good thing too. Or go with a few monk healers because they can heal in melee and count as melee for mechanic purposes.

      There are bad people of all classes, you might just notice it more with hunters than other classes as you play one. In truth I see the elemental shaman being the biggest go go go and pulling person in mixed random content lately. If anything it seems, to me, the quality of hunters I have run into lately has gotten better. They are usually the ones that know the mechanics, know the buffs, know their utility, and know how to actually DPS over 50% of their potential. Something you can't say as easily for anyone else I run into. I love going into an LFR and seeing lots of hunters.

      Fun story. A couple of weeks ago we did a guild LFR, has both tanks and all healer with just hunters. Have you ever done an LFR with the last place DPS (from our group) was over 40K? It was freaking awesome. We did not even need the other 6 DPS. They could have waited at the gate for all we cared. We were just there for fun.

      LFR without wipes is success. That is how it should be, in my opinion. I want my challenge in organized groups, not random content. LFR is the best it has ever been. Sadly there is no reason to run it without valor, so they did something right (tuning random raids) and did something wrong (removing the need to do them) all at the same time. Poor blizzard can't make a good decision if it jumped up and bit them in the ass.

      Delete
  3. The shoulders thing is one of my pet peeves. I would love to have the option to not show shoulders, like you can do for helm and cloak. I think hunters should appear nimble and agile, not weighed down with gigantic pieces of armor, so I always try to find transmog pieces that are fairly unobtrusive and as non-armor appearing as possible. But shoulders are always a problem.

    I thought there was finally a solution with the invisible blue 610 shoulders you get as salvage, but It turns out that is the one piece of the set you cannot use for transmog. A while back there was a question to Blizz about it -- can't remember if it was forums or tweet -- and their answer was basically "We don't allow transmog to invisible items, and we think shoulders should always be shown." Not exact words, but that was the tone. Which I thought at the time was just another of their crappy arrogant non-answers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My hunter has a transmog that does not even look like armor at all. Half the pieces are gone from the game so I can not do it on alt hunters, but the reason I did that is because of what you said. I do not believe a hunter should be wearing armor, at least not heavy stuff like they make. How exactly are we supposed to hunt with all that crap on?

      The only piece I have that does look like armor is my shoulders. I would love to have invisible ones. Those 610 salvage yard set shoulders would be awesome. I tried to mog into them as soon as I saw them and was upset that were we unable to.

      Delete
  4. I really think you set the bar too high here... I don't think the majority arn’t targeting them because they are just AFK. With how difficult it is to kick in LFR's and how long the queue times are I cant really blame them personally. The trash pools are fairly lengthy and reward no loot/cloth so why not walk off, and isnt that the ultimate end point of the “someone else will do it" mentality, going AFK completely?

    The biggest issue I see with the LFR's is not the ignored mechanics but the lazy recycling of the raids themselves. Gruul Hanz & Franz, Black Hand, Furnace all have target abilities that reset the encounter if the player is out side. I run lfr across three toons for the runes, and it takes forever. Blackrock foundry is a frustrating chore as it takes longer to get a ready check than it takes to down a boss. Why does the elevator has to go up and down 5 times for everyone to be starring at Blackhand?

    Long term lfr versions of raids need a large space in front of every boss where the group naturally congregates INSIDE the area of the fight. Bosses in lfr also can't meander around stumbling in to an afk'er starting the fight and locking half the raid out.

    Short term, the bar for kicking in lfr needs to be lowered, blizzard ended raid sized dailes because players were being rewarded for going afk. Well this is the same thing. Other games have a report the player feature to address this issue that with repeated offenses, it results in banns. A middle ground would be giving teeth to the ready check, if a tank or lfr raid leader initializes a ready check and a player fails to respond, then they are kicked from LFR.

    I really think you will see more people Battle rez’ing and targeting the turrets if you had full attendance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I swear I hate those abilities that target people not currently in the fight. It is an annoyance if the boss rests for something like this and nothing more. Bad coding on blizzards part. People are capable of trolling LFR with things like that and I support the removal of anything, at least in LFR format, that give people more ability to make life hell for others.

      I think it would be better if when the fight starts in LFR it teleports everyone in the raid to the battle area. That would be the best way to fix it, and easiest most likely.

      I've always been a big support of more moderation in game. I would like to see people that constantly get reported for being AFK in the LFR to be banned from using the queue system, any queue system account wide. One week for first offense, two weeks for second offense, four weeks for third offense, etc. In time it would fix itself. Even if people are AFKing, they at least would be doing a little something instead of nothing. Not great, but better than what they have now in terms of enforcement, which is nothing.

      Would love to see them do this with trade chat too. Don't ban from the game, just from posting in trade or general. One week, two weeks, four weeks, etc. It would really clean up the trolls in game really fast if there were ever any consequences to their actions.

      As for if we would see more battle rezing or turret switching if everyone were there and active, that would remain to be seen. Bad players, or selfish players if you will, will always be that way, in attendance or not.

      Delete
  5. Grumpy, I have a theory as to why you're not seeing as many Stones as you should be seeing. It might have to do with your main being Alliance and your Alt being Horde. Only guessing here as I haven't leveled up my Ally Hunter yet (my main - Hunter - is Horde), but my collection of Stones on my Horde alts seems to be on par with the projected increase they state we should see. So, there must be some kind of "disconnect" if the faction you are playing as your alt is opposite your main. So, the "disconnect" could very well be Blizzard didn't plan/think of that scenario. Either that or Blizzard just knows who you are, reads these posts and has you specifically "Blacklisted" (/tinfoilhat).

    Also, remember that part of the 680 ring attainment is the collection of 4968 Apexis Crystals. That might have been what he/she was referring to about not being able to complete in a day. I still say it can be completed in a day if you farm your crystals like crazy - but that would be the rare person and not the norm. Could just be that you had stockpiled the Apexis Crystals prior to that day that you farmed the other requirements too. Either way, he was wrong, but also correct (for the majority of players at least) - especially those that are leveling an alt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. While I think that is an excellent theory I am pretty sure it is just my bad luck not seeing the increased drops. I've ran some other alliance through it and they had the same luck as my horde hunter. No marked increase in stones.

      So it either comes down to blizzard lied, or I am really the unluckiest player in the game. I would not put it past being unlucky, as I usually am.

      Getting the 4968 (because 4967 would not be enough and 4969 would just be too many) is not as hard as it was on release. I had to grind a ton to get it on release with my main on release.

      On my horde hunter I hit 100 and did the apexis daily plus buying a missive for the same one so I get double for doing it twice at once and I did the garrison campaign, which gave me crystals as well.

      Then, that Saturday I did the same, the apexis daily, doubled up, and the new garrison campaign, and banged out all the dungeons. So effectively I got the ring in one day, the day I started going for it. Maybe you could say it took two days as I did some apexis work the day I hit 100. But with a couple more missive it could still be done in one day.

      Not to mention all my alts had their 4968 without ever doing one garrison campaign or apexis daily. Basically just from missions and works orders. But that was built over a long time.

      My alts, if anything, will have the 5K crystals before they hit 100. My second DK, 93 now, has over 3K just from work orders. My monk, at 94, has over 5K already, mostly from work orders and a mission or two. My lock, who just entered draenor a couple of weeks ago, already has almost 1K.

      So if you are taking your sweet time with an alt, you surely can do it the second you hit 100. You might even have the 5K already when you hit 100 like my monk already does.

      I agree the vast majority of players do not plan it out like I do. But with missives now and being able to double dip on the apexis daily, getting to 5K is nothing like the 10 hour grind I did on my main when the expansion was first released.

      Even for the most casual of casual players, it should not take more than 3 days of apexis dailies with a missive. Not exactly something that takes a long time like that guy suggested.

      Delete
  6. Have they indicated how scopes/enchants are going to scale for timewalker dungeons? Should I just add a level-appropriate scope to my legendary bow? I'm assuming so, but haven't read anything specific one way or the other.

    And grats on your bow, too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am glad I finally got it, thanks.

      I have not noticed them say anything but I did read one theory crafting thread on it where someone "expected" that level appropriate gems and enchants would win out and that any gear with the most gem slots would win out, regardless of secondary stats, as long as it had the most gem slots.

      I would not worry about BiS gear for the timewalker dungeons however. I would not be surprised if anyone with half way decent gear and skills could solo them as is, being they are not being scaled to be difficult.

      Delete