Monday Random Thoughts

- I've still only been logging in for only raid nights.

- But this week I logged in earlier because of brewfest.

- Lots of new toys to grab for my toy box.

- Sadly I forgot about pirates day and that means I missed picking up the things that are now toys right now.

- If I end up needing 3 (what I could have got) more toys for 200 I will be very sad.

- But you know my luck, that is what will happen and I will have to wait until next year.

- So I log in a little earlier on raid night and do some Brewfest stuff.

- Two days I actually logged in just to do them and logged back out afterwards.

- So brewfest got me back a "little" bit more if you think of it that way.

- I got the kodo in one baggie, thought I needed it but apparently I did not.

- Maybe I got it last year and forgot.

- I knew I needed it for the longest time.

- I was glad when they added account wide mounts.

- Had gotten the ram before that on my shaman and my warrior but never my main, the hunter.

- Same for the headless horseman.

- Got it on my priest, my warrior and my shaman before but never on my main.

- So account wide mounts helped me there, for my main.

- With my mains luck I would have never got it.

- Heck my mage got the kodo this time around.

- My mage is the only other character that is doing brewfest this year.

- He is the only one I do those things on because he can port everywhere making life easier.

- And being just doing all the opening quests you can get close to 200 I figured doing it on a second character will help assure I get all the toys.

- Being I am not logging in every day I figured I might need an extra character.

- But brewfest lasts a long time so that is good.

- I think blizzard needs to do one of two things with the holiday mounts.

- 1) Make them tradable.

- 2) Give them a sell price.

- Don't tell me that I am the only person that hates having to throw it away and type delete.

- There is just something that feels so wrong with that.

- I would love to give it to someone in guild that needs it, for free.

- But I can see why they do not make it tradable.

- So give it a 20 gold sell price, that seems like a fair price.

- Would be better than having to throw it away.

- In my opinion at least.

- Does anyone else think they increased the drop rate of the mounts?

- I got the kodo without even farming the boss.

- Many years I was doing it every day on multiple characters and never got it.

- Some times well over 20 characters, daily, for the long event.

- And in all that time in all those years I got a total of 2 rams and 1 kodo.

- This year I have done it 5 times on my hunter and twice on my mage and already have 1 kodo.

- A guild mate with 7 characters, who is doing it on all character to farm brewfest tokens to stock up on pets to sell later has gotten 12 kodos and 3 rams so far.

- Excuse me?

- And the number of people in guild saying they got their first ever mount from the event is astounding.

- It seems like everyone is getting them this year.

- Just a large flow of luck going around now or did they increase the drop rate?

- I think I know the truth.

- I broke the game.

- Yeap, I admit it, I am sorry.

- The other week the corrupted nest guardian dropped and I won the roll.

- Me, the unluckiest person in the world, won the roll.

- Even with 18 other people rolling, I won the roll.

- I went on to get the four piece set in one week.

- Yes, you heard that right, I won 4 tier pieces in the same week.

- I hate, hate, hate the feast or famine design of getting gear.

- You win nothing for months and months on end and then win everything at once.

- It was over 2 raid log outs but during a one week span.

- It started with a tier piece someone passed to me, as the second highest roller, because I was wearing a 670 piece and he said I could use it more.

- Then I won 1 piece on a roll, straight out.

- Then I won 1 piece on a roll even being the forth highest roller.

- How that happened was 2 warrior hunter shaman monk pieces dropped.

- The top roller was just rolling for an upgrade but they already had one.

- We have a guild rule, that people that do not have it at all get first shot, you can not roll "just" for the chance at a gem slot or warforged unless no one needs it at all.

- So it moved to the second and third person getting it.

- Then the third person, after I awarded it to them used a coin and won the tier piece.

- So they passed it to the forth highest roll, meaning me.

- My luck was rolling in full swing.

- And for the forth piece I won it on a coin roll, do you believe that?

- And it was warforged too.

- Well, there goes all my luck.

- I will have to wait a few months for another feast week.

- But at least I have the four piece set now.

- And boy will that takes some getting used to.

- I absolutely love the instant aimed shots, it is how the rotation should be.

- But I ended up focus starved instantly.

- And I seem to have the habit of hitting aimed shot and not doing anything else after.

- My mind is trained for it to take time to cast.

- So I am waiting for it to cast even if it already has went off as it is now instant.

- It is going to take some getting used to.

- But this is what I always refer to as "a good problem".

- I would rather have the problem of having to adjust to a new rotation than have the problem of not having gear.

- So you might think that being I finally won something I would be happy and playing a lot again.

- Happy yes, playing a lot again, no.

- The game needs a lot more than a better loot system.

- I will get back into the game again, I am sure, but giving me some loot one in a blue moon is not going to make me all excited about the game again.

- Boredom, that will get me playing again.

- As weird as it sounds.

- When I am bored on day I will fall back on something old and familiar.

- Something comfortable.

- Something I know well that I can get lost for a few hours.

- That will get me back.

- But thanks for the bait loot blizzard.

- Too bad it was long over due.

- You need a better loot system next expansion or it might be worse than this one.

- Seriously.

- Hopefully me breaking the game by having luck did not screw over the people that are normally lucky.

- If so, I am sorry, things will turn back to normal soon I am sure.

- I can never stay lucky for more than one week every 3 or 4 months.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Still really not playing lately.

- I log in for raid and that is about it.

- But this week I also logged in to do my four mythic dungeons.

- Can't say no to a heroic cache can I?

- Of course it worked out to be wasted time, like always.

- I got a 710 pair of hands.

- No thank you, I will keep my tier.

- But I'll hold on to them in case I end up needing them as an off piece at some point.

- I have 14 slots in my bags currently filled with pieces I am holding on to because I "might" need them at some point.

- Hoard much?

- I think getting those gloves really sends home one of the main points about what I dislike about this expansion.

- The reward does not equal the effort.

- I did the four dungeons in hopes to get something good and as I have only downed 6 heroic bosses thus far and have no heroic pieces yet it seemed I should almost definitely get an upgrade and I didn't.

- Well, that is on my main, my druid has heroic pieces, lucky furball that it is.

- So often we do things and get nothing for it and that gets frustrating.

- I don't know about you, but that is a colossal turnoff for me.

- It is like me only managing getting my four piece from last tier just the other week.

- Sure I had the normal previously, but the heroic is what matters to me.

- I am a normal mode raider, normal is now heroic.

- So the only gear that matters to me is heroic gear.

- I was killing at least 2 tier bosses from nearly the start of BRF and never saw a heroic piece, not even one, when it was current.

- Where is the reward for the effort?

- This is one of the biggest problems with warlords if you ask me.

- There is no real reason to play it because there is no reward for the effort put into it.

- They ask you to put effort into the game and they do not have a satisfactory reward system in place for anything you do.

- This random crap needs to go.

- It is not rewarding unless you are lucky.

- And even if you are lucky, it loses its luster really fast.

- Lets say you are lucky, you get your four piece in the first week or two, then what?

- You could go for ones that are warforged or with a gem slot, sure, but you got what you wanted, the basic pieces at least, so where is the motivation to keep going.

- This is why valor needs to come back.

- Make people work for their gear and not luck into it.

- If it takes 2 and a half weeks to save up valor for 1 piece then lucky or not lucky, every 2 and a half weeks, if you put in the effort, you get a piece.

- Now that is how you design a good effort equals reward system.

- The lucky people are not done gearing nearly instantly, so it keeps them playing.

- The unlucky people know that as long as they put in the effort they will get something so it gives incentive to play.

- Sounds win / win to me.

- It keeps people playing longer, and happier, as there is a reward at the end.

- Too bad blizzard is hung up on their poor reward systems as their idea of good game play.

- Chalk this up to one of the many reasons warlords is bleeding subs.

- But back to those mythics.

- I did one with guild so needless to say, no problem.

- I pugged the other three early sunday morning.

- Had a solid group with a beastly tank.

- A great tank in a mythic makes the run so much smoother.

- We had some deaths, but no big deal really.

- I don't drop group because of a few death or even a few wipes.

- Shit happens, no biggie.

- In the first dungeon 3 of the 4 fights we did it was only me, the tank and one other DPS left standing when the boss died.

- One boss it was like that from the halfway point.

- I hate being a hunter at those moments.

- Hybrids have all the luck, they can heal themselves.

- Me, I have one tiny healing pot to use and I use it and am now at the whim of what happens after that is done.

- I really think they should change pots, at least the healing pots, to a 30 second cooldown even in battle.

- And remove all hybrid healing.

- Let everyone live and die based on if they have a healing pot or not if that happens.

- Then you would know who came prepared or not.

- I never leave my garrison without healing pots.

- Just like I used to never go out without bandages.

- I miss bandages.

- Because they could be used multiple times in a fight.

- Do you know how many PvP battles were won on the strength of some smart bandaging?

- A hell of a lot.

- Sure they had the downside of being able of being interrupted, but if you were not interrupted you could heal nicely and get another shot to heal a minute later.

- Either way, back to the dungeons.

- Had another hunter in the group with me and I was quadrupling his damage.

- His item level was not far off from mine, maybe 5 or 6 item levels less.

- But he made, what I am guessing, were two huge mistakes.

- One was gearing.

- He had, what looked like, the highest item level gear he could find on.

- This meant no tier set from last tier.

- I did not mention the gearing issue to him.

- It would have been too long of a conversation to have while fighting and I did not know if he actively raided last tier to even have the 670 tier pieces.

- But bottom line is you would be better to have the 670 tier set than have a mix and match of 685 and 700 pieces in those tier slots.

- I did mention spec.

- That was his second mistake.

- He was survival.

- Told him MM was best, BM was pretty damn good too.

- So anything but survival would good.

- He had MM as his offspec it seemed.

- I stayed with the group for the second mythic run.

- He doubled his DPS in MM, and he was not even doing MM right.

- Yes, that shows how horrible survival is.

- Even doing MM wrong doubles your DPS.

- After looking at the boss numbers I saw he had 5 aimed shots during that fight.

- I told him the basic idea.

- Albeit, this is not the perfect way to explain it to someone, but good enough for a quick explanation.

- If you are at least 50% focus and chim is more than 1 second from coming off cooldown, hit aimed shot.

- Simple rule, won't get you top DPS, but will give the basic idea that you need to hit aimed and hit it a lot if you want to do well as MM.

- I would get more into it with him if I had time, but that line would have to do for some quick mid dungeon explaining.

- He did much better after that.

- He went from only hitting it when it proced to hitting it all the time and his numbers shot up.

- I must say, I love helping people.

- I'm glad he did not think I was a dick for giving him tips.

- Many times in random groups if you give people tips or try to help them they think you are an elitist jerk.

- I was just trying to help him be better.

- Nothing wrong with that in my mind.

- Hey, that is how I learned.

- A hunter took me under his wing and showed me the ways, so to speak.

- Also reading a hell of a lot in places like the warcraft hunters union and the like helped a bunch.

- He added me to real id, said he wanted to know if he could ask me more questions later.

- I said I would be glad to help.

- You know what?

- Something like that, a simple interaction with someone in game, actually made me want to start logging back in more.

- I did not of course.

- After I was done with my third mythic, which was all I needed to complete the quest, I logged off.

- But interactions like that, decent groups, even if we did die a few times, like the ones I had, showed me how much fun the game could be again.

- Too bad so much bad has gone around that tainted me.

- I left group, opened my box, saw I got nothing of use, and logged off.

- BTW, I thought we got an extra roll coin from doing this as well.

- I know they lowered it from 5 to 4 mythic dungeons, but there was no coin either.

- I could swear there was a coin last time I did it.

- Oh well, what the hell does it matter, it is not like I win anything with the freaking coin anyway.

- Bought my shaman into a normal the other day to heal.

- Did 7 bosses, rolled 7 coins, got nothing.

- At a 672 item level anything that dropped would have been an upgrade.

- You would have thought that with 7 rolls I would have won at least 1 or 2 things.

- No such luck.

- I did win loot however, for my offspec.

- I am switching from elemental back to my original main spec of enhancement.

- So I got an agility back and an agility neck on raid rolls as no one else needed them.

- So no one rolled against me and that means I won, even with a 20 and a 7.

- Woot.

- Now I need a ring, some trinkets and some weapons and I will be ready to roll.

- I healed like crap really.

- During the boss fights the other healers were stealing everything.

- A very well geared and skilled disc priest meant that there was little if nothing for me to heal.

- I think I healed for between 18K-22K each fight.

- Those are highmaul numbers.

- But I don't think I did that bad, I was just healing a normal with a 710 disc healer.

- That meant there was never anything for me to heal on boss fights.

- On trash I ruled.

- I destroyed the disc priest.

- Have to love shaman burst healing.

- That was my first time healing HFC.

- It was a little fun.

- Still hate the warlords healing model however and would not want to heal it on a regular basis, that is for sure.

- Part of the reason I have not healed this expansion is I don't enjoy doing it, and I used to.

- All that is left that I like is my hunter.

- And it looks like next expansion they are taking that away too.

- I won't be able to have a pet as MM.

- Boo hiss hiss boo.

- I know they want to have it as the petless raid spec, but when I am out questing I want my pet damn it.

- And I will be forced to play melee as survival.

- And do not let anyone tell you for even a second that you will not be forced into melee.

- You know survival will be the #1 spec for hunters.

- They need to make it so, that way they can be justified in making the change.

- If survival does crap DPS than changing it becomes useless, it would still be the spec no one plays, even if they wanted to play melee, because it would be crap DPS.

- That means it will have to do great DPS and blizzard has a "great" track record with doing things like that.

- Which means survival, at least for the first tier, will be way the hell over powered.

- So all you ranged hunters, enjoy melee.

- I suggest rolling a melee class now to start getting used to it.

- Because if you want to be the best that you can be as a hunter, you will need to be survival.

- I hate melee, it is why I love being a hunter, so I do not have to be in melee.

- But blizzard is taking that away from me as well now.

- And I absolutely HATE blizzard for doing that.

- Remember the blizzard motto.

- If players like it, you have to either nerf it or remove it.

- I still do not understand why they do that.

- But knowing I will be melee soon I rolled on a two hander agility weapon that no one needed in the raid last week.

- Hey, I'll need it soon enough and it was better than sharding it.

- Everyone has enough crystals to build the fortress of solitude stashed up already so who really needs one more.

- So more clutter to take up bag space in terms of another piece of gear I "might" use.

- I was thinking I want a survival ability where they leap into the air and slam down on the person.

- Hey, they are using a spear, wouldn't that look freaking cool?

- It should add a root when you land on them, 3 seconds sounds good right?

- I know they are doing a scorpion type move with them already.

- Heard that somewhere, not sure where.

- I want the leap attack as a gap closer, that would rock.

- Not a targeted on the ground effect like heroic leap, but a leap on to the person effect, so if they move, you move with them as you are targeting them, not the ground.

- I could see doing SV solo, would want to test it out.

- I just do not want to raid in melee.

- I hate melee.

- Honestly, anyone in melee that is not the tank must have taken too many blows to the head.

- That big bad baddie is there, wouldn't the smart person want to be as far away from him as possible?

- Well, no one ever said melee were smart.

- Tanks make sense.

- They are danger seekers, they push themselves to the limit, they like the challenge of face to face (or face to foot for some bosses) combat to the death.

- But melee, why the hell would they be there.

- They are damage dealers, they are chicken shits that let someone else take the beating while they attack from behind.

- So it makes no sense for them to be that close.

- Speaking of large mobs.

- You know when you are on a rogue and you pickpocket a mob that has nothing it would say "this mob has no pockets to pick"?

- I would love for it to say "you can not reach this mobs pockets" for the large mobs and bosses instead of the no pockets to pick line.

- A little humor goes a long way.

- For me anyway.

- Can you just imagine a rogue jumping up and down in stealth trying to reach a large mobs pockets so he can pick them?

- Even better, a gnome rogue?

- I will leave you with that image in mind.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- It's been a couple of weeks since I posted.

- Figured I would post today even if I have not yet returned to playing.

- I log in only to raid but at least that has been going well.

- Got three pieces of the new tier so far, need one more.

- Also managed to finally get the heroic four piece from last tier this past week.

- How sad it is that it took me this long to get last tiers tier set?

- Lets hope that 4th piece does not elude me for months and months on end.

- Just like heroic pieces eluded me for so long last tier.

- Or I will be stuck using last tiers for a very long time.

- I actually thought I would get the new tier set quickly after taking forever to get the last one done.

- It is murphys law.

- As soon as I finished the last tier and spent all that effort into getting it, it would not be needed any more.

- That is how my luck works.

- I had a feast week.

- Got the tier piece from BRF I needed, and 2 tier pieces from the raid this week.

- The only tier boss I did not kill this week on my hunter was gorefiend.

- If I were still into the game and not only logging in to raid with guild I would be pugging tonight to get a gorefiend kill.

- Heck, could even do a xhul kill as well, I could always use a coin even if I already killed it.

- Have the 3 pieces off the other bosses, so those two are on my must kill list each week now.

- I could talk about more but I have not been keeping up on the game.

- I have also not done anything other than raid.

- I did kill two of the new rares while flying around assembling for the raid.

- Did I mention how absolutely freaking awesome it is to finally have flying?

- Seriously, why was this not added during release.

- It should have been.

- Should have had it as needing loremaster, explorer and treasure hunter at launch and been done with it.

- I really hope blizzard does not screw up next expansion as badly as they did this one.

- Warlords will forever be known as a "How to destroy your game" tutorial.

- I might have to reconsider saying I still think cataclysm was worse.

- In the grand scheme of things, game play wise, cataclysm was 10 times better than warlords.

- It had flying, it had valor gear, it had great dungeons (with guild) with some difficulty at launch, it had good raids and it had dailies.

- And it introduced reforging at the end of the expansion which was awesome, but of course because people liked it blizzard needed to remove it.

- With the exception of good raids, which could easily be debatable, warlords has none of those things.

- I almost feel lost logging in when I log on to raid.

- I still log on an hour before start time.

- I've always been like that.

- Need to get my stuff in order.

- But I have mail expiring in mail boxes.

- I have characters stopped dead in their legendary quest line progress.

- I have alts I would like to play still not leveled.

- There is no much I want to do in the game.

- But I just have no desire to do it.

- I really used to love this game.

- Now I am not so sure any more.

- Warlords really is ax example of "how to destroy your game".

- At least from my standpoint.

- I'll make a post about what I have been up to otherwise later.

- So what have you been up to?

- Have a great day.

An Ode to Flying, Oh, the Places You'll Go

Soon flying will be upon us and for a while I was thinking of writing a post about what I plan to do when we get flying but instead I figured I would do something else.  I could write about things I have been putting off for a while now while I waited.  Things like leveling more characters, exploring some more, doing some archaeology, doing more pet battles, you know the things that flying makes more enjoyable.

But I am sure many people have written stuff like that and I like to be different so I present to you, for your amusement hopefully, a poem if you will, stolen in tone and more than a few words from the great Dr. Suess in this story, Oh, the Places You'll Go.

Please enjoy.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have ideas from your questbook.
You'll use mounts and not shoes,
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

No flight masters passenger as you look over 'em with care.
To some you will say, "I don't need you down there."
With your head full of plans on a mount and not feet,
Looking for pets to capture to make part of your fleet.

And you may not find any pets
you'll want to bring right home.
At least not right away as it goes
so you'll head to the next zone.

It's opener here
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people that fly
no more footsy for you.

And then things start to happen,
archaeology found orge stew?
I'd suggest you don't eat it.
But I guess that's something you knew.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the grounded gang, in the air you will lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you'll be atop all the rest.

Except when you land.
Because, not all stops will be planned.

Because you never know what you'll see
trust me that is true
the rare mob here
and a missed treasure too
yes it can happen to you.

You can get all hung up
collecting what you had missed.
but you know you'll fly on.
one more pet off your list.

You'll come down from the air
for a dig sight here or there.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll find a pristine celfhoof hair.

But when you hit a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
with flying is easily done.

You will come to a place where the map is not clear
Some trees have some danglers just dangling there.
Flying through them you could scrape your elbow or chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it is when you have flying you'll find,
for a high flying flier you made up your mind.

You can get so confused
so many places to race
dodging rylaks at a break-necking pace
and landing at that rep grinding space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
But it is YOUR useless Place...

...for people just waiting.
on the top of a hill you go
or out far to sea you can go
or landing on a branch you can go
in the fog, rain, sun or the snow
or flying around for the queue to pop Yes or No
or exploring while you watch the queue timer grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for that blue wild pet
or waiting around for the raid to start
or waiting, for the rare to spawn
or to get to the next dig sight
or to reach heights you have not met
or to get invited to that pug
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape
with all that flying and soaring
You'll find the bright places
where the game is not boring.

With your mounts wings flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are places to visit and pet battles to be won.
And the magical things you dig up like an orc disco ball
it will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be as famous, as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you fly around on TV.

Except when they don't
Because, gnomes making tvs, they won't.

I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Flying around by yourself
'cause you need time for just you.

All Alone!
even if others are there or not,
because in the air you feel freedom
and you'll like that a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll hunt down creatures that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between gorgrond and tanaan,
that can scare you so much you won't know what your planning.

But on you will go
to face the beasties most foul.
On you will go
to sneak up on that pet with a prowl.
On you will go
casting your chrominus' howl.
Onward to many
a legendary battle,
though your tush may get sore
at least your mount has a saddle.

On and on you will fly
And I know you'll fly far
and face up to your challenges
whatever they are.

You'll get caught up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get caught up with all there is to do
avoiding those many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you fly
Fly with great care and great tact
and remember that Life is
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your dismount button with the one on your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL FLY OVER MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your flying mount is waiting.
So...get on your way!

Note:  Reposted September 1st, because now we are finally getting flying.