Monday, December 28, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- Been doing the holiday quests on anywhere from 6-12 characters a day.

- Still no minion of grumpus.

- If ever there were a mount I should have gotten on the first try don't you think this one is it?

- Should call it minion of grumpy.

- I did get the scroll toy from the older dailies on the 6th try, so that was nice.

- I also managed to snag a bunch of the new pets.

- Took me a bunch of tries to get the first one, then got a second a few snow piles later.

- Then I spent a little time on my druid flying and looting to snag 3 more.

- Then on my shaman, who I call my lucky character, I looted one and only one snow pile, it had a pet.

- Then yesterday on my horde hunter I grabbed a pile it had one.

- Then grabbed a second pile it had one.

- Hard to believe it took me over 30 snow piles to get the first one.

- Seems you are either lucky or you are not lucky.

- As far as my mount goes, still not lucky.

- But the game did give me a christmas day gift.

- My rogue took his weekly trek to the black temple in search of his second warglaive.

- To my shock I saw orange, was it the one I needed or was it my third main hand.

- It was, it was what I needed.

- Ding, achievement, and it was a wonderful chistmas gift for my rogue.

- I can not wait for BC time walkers again.

- I am so going to bust out those bad boys.

- On a whim out of boredom I decided to try for healing proving grounds gold on my shaman.

- Had never tried on my shaman.

- Did it on the first try.

- But I'll admit it got a little hairy in that last round.

- The DPS really sucks in the proving grounds doesn't it?

- Takes them forever to down things and they stand in everything.

- I'd think healing a few 5 mans would teach people that is how the game is played.

- Congratulations to blizzard for making it really realistic.

- I hit hero at the end just so they would down things faster.

- It worked.

- I was surprised I did it on one try actually.

- And glad.

- Being I was not actually "trying" for it, if I had not managed it I doubt I would have given it a second attempt.

- Being it felt like I had my grove on I felt it was time to challenge myself some.

- And try the proving grounds on my warlock.

- After all the horror stories I have heard, even from skilled locks, on how difficult it was on a lock I was a bit nervous.

- But first things first, I had to level a lock.

- Warlock was the only class I did not have at 100.

- It was time to fix that.

- I did not want to use the "trick" for speed leveling.

- See, I am weird, I actually like to quest.

- For the "trick" to speed leveling I'll give you the quick version.

- Go fly around and do all the bonus objectives.

- Do not complete them, only get them to near completion.

- Then after you did as many as you can manage, which in truth you should be able to do all of them, even nagrand, you pop one of those elixirs that increase experience gain by 300%.

- If you are on rested experience and have the 300% experience thing, you just go and complete all the bonus objectives now.

- Ding, ding, ding all the way up to 100 nice and fast.

- But I did not do that, I leveled the old fashion way, by questing.

- I might do that on one of my level 90 hunters.

- He is sitting at 588 item level as I recall, and my lock was only 589 when it hit 100, so the gear would be fine for the speed leveling route.

- I have 3 more hunters in the 580 or so range I might end up doing that with.

- But my lock needed to work his way up.

- Not to mention, I wanted to get a feel for the class, and playing it is the best way to do that right.

- As I said I was 589 when I hit 100.

- I did cheat a little.

- I crated myself a weapon and upgraded it some, to 675, because that is easy.

- I also made one of those level 100 heirloom trinkets.

- But no other crafted things at all.

- Just gear I got while leveling.

- I went into the proving grounds ready for a challenge.

- I've heard how hard it was on a lock.

- Bronze was a breeze, I started to feel a little cocky, like silver was going to be easy.

- I will admit that I had done this on so many characters already.

- I knew what the rounds were.

- I knew what skills I would need to handle everything.

- I was set up with an interrupt for sacrifice.

- I had my gates where I knew I would need to move.

- My teleport where I would need to move.

- I do not think any one person had ever stepped into a proving grounds more prepared than I was.

- I was dead set on doing this today no matter how long it took me.

- And from all the reading about it I knew what was in store of me.

- There was one problem however.

- When you over prepare to the extent I did, you take all the fun out of it.

- I blew through silver like it was a joke.

- Never even came close to missing any round.

- Did not even need to use my teleport, or my personal transport.

- I had given advice to so many locks on how to do it, it felt like I had done it already.

- So there was absolutely zero challenge to it.

- I one shot it and moved on to gold.

- I figured if silver was that easy maybe I can do gold.

- Yeah... right.

- I got destroyed on gold.

- Silver was only easy because I over prepared for it.

- I was so not ready for gold.

- Not by a long shot.

- Oh well, I managed silver and I was happy with that.

- I really was afraid I would fail it at least a few times before I got it.

- Even as prepared as I was.

- Now to the gearing up phase.

- I sent all the baleful gear for cloth I had over to my lock.

- I sent the 5 empowered apexis fragments over.

- And I clicked on everything.

- Did not get much luck with upgrades.

- Not one worth using the empowered pieces on.

- So I guess I will hold on to them for now, no use using them on something I know I just want to replace.

- But enough to get me to a 643 item level.

- I did all the dungeons, then did all the starter LFRs for stones once I got to that phase.

- Doing around 26K - 30K in the LFR as destro, was at 659 when I did that, not sure how locks scale, but does that sound good?

- I think it is okay.

- Heck, in some pugs I am in, even a heroic archie one I was in this weekend with a 720 minimum item level, there were people doing that, or less.

- So it has to be okay at least.

- Can't wait to see what I can do once I get gear.

- Or at least some gear with mastery.

- I ended day one at 100 at 665 item level thanks to lucky drops from dungeons and LFR that got my the exact things I needed.

- And now a lock will enter the mix.

- I actually had fun playing the lock.

- Even if I do hate casters.

- The need to remove that stand still while casting bull crap.

- It adds nothing to game play at all.

- It is a general annoyance and nothing more.

- But one thing that was nice was being on a fresh 100 that was capable of soloing things with ease.

- When I went to T2 I had none of that land and wait for people when I saw rares.

- It was land and start pounding away.

- Even at a low item level nothing could stop me.

- Perhaps warlock could be my class of choice come legion.

- We know hunters are out of the question really as they removed the hunter class.

- So I have to find something else and need a back up in case the make believe fake hunter class doesn't do it for me.

- Being able to have a tank is awesome.

- I like questing that way, it is part of the reason I always said hunters were the best questing class.

- Sic your pet on stuff while you go clicking, collecting and doing what ever you have to.

- It sure makes doing stuff more fun.

- At least that is my opinion, I am sure others think differently.

- Oh, I mentioned earlier a heroic archie I was in this weekend.

- We did not down it, but oh well, I can not be picky, I do not have AotC so I take what groups I can get.

- But what got me in this group was I still do not understand why it broke up.

- First wipe was 48%.

- Second wipe was 31%.

- Third wipe was 20%.

- Forth wipe was 18%.

- Fifth wipe was 5%.

- Sixth wipe was 3%.

- Group broke up.

- WTF???

- We were getting there, each attempt was better, each attempt we were removing some of the bad players and were lucky enough to replace them with better ones.

- I guess I will get my first kill another day.

- You know what amazes me most?

- The group had a strict 720 item level requirement.

- I was, still am, under 720, but with stuff in my bags I am 721 so I did sneak in.

- So I am guessing either everyone else did the same or people really suck at this game.

- I was top DPS on every attempt, if you do not count the mage that never switched to adds.

- He beat me numbers wise, he did not beat me on doing what you are supposed to do.

- He was 89-90% on boss, every attempt.

- I think my best attempt I was a 39% on boss, because I spent the whole freaking fights soloing all the adds it felt like.

- But if I, someone who does not have AotC (which means I suck, right) can do the fight right, never screw up mechanics, top the charts while doing all that, what the hell are the rest of these people doing there.

- There were people complaining that they do this ever week and never wiped this many times.

- I want to know who is carrying their 730 item level 30K DPS butt, so they can take me instead.

- I might actually help the group and not hurt it by making it harder than it needs to be.

- Everyone in the group had AotC besides me.

- Why was I the only one, it seemed, switching to adds, following mechanics, and still pulling decent numbers.

- These people should have been running circles around me.

- In a way, I was hoping they would.

- Once, just once, I would like to get a group of equally skilled players in a pug.

- I would pay to find a group like that, just so I can enjoy myself and not have to feel like I am doing everything on my own.

- It sucks to feel like that.

- And this is why I can't see me getting AotC any time soon.

- Raiding this expansion has been brutal to my guild.

- We would normally be done with a raid on normal by this time and doing heroics.

- Now we are not done with normal (heroic) and could not do heroic even if we wanted to (thanks to it being 20 man).

- Of all the things I hate about warlords, the thing I hate the most is the way they destroyed raiding for the casual guild this expansion.

- But hey, over all I had a good weekend getting a lot done.

- Just need to put the bad pug people out of my head.

- How can so many people that are such bad players all have AotC.

- Makes me a sad elf.

- Hope you had a good holiday weekend.

- Have a great day.

7 comments:

  1. Glad you are having some fun with your lock. Like you, I went into PG with mine several months ago way over-prepared and knocked out silver on my second try. (Did not even attempt gold though.) And they are extremely fun to solo with -- my void lord holds aggro much better than my hunter pets I think -- although I would like a tad more control over it. My lock is a fierce little no-nonsense gnome, who clearly gives off the vibe that she is kicking ass and taking names so do not mess with her.

    My two candidates for replacement main in Legion are my lock (destro, don't have a secondary on her) and my druid (heals/boomkin). With the exception of boomkin, these are the two classes/specs that seem they will have the fewest major changes in Legion, so that means I can spend some time now getting more proficient with them and be able to carry that over to Legion. (And I think the boomkin changes will be a great improvement, so that will not be a big issue.)

    And yes, the whole stand still to do damage mechanic really seems pointless to me, too. I remember when Blizz announced that they would be removing most instants -- and thus most shoot-while-moving casts -- they explained that in WoD it would not matter since they were taking that into account in the raid design. Then they gave us trash gauntlets and bosses like Iron Reaver. Go figure.

    But even for the non-instant casts, standing still seems to make no sense. If anything, I think casting effectively while moving takes more skill than standing still to cast. When you are moving, your brain has to contend with two separate goals simultaneously -- moving to gain tactical advantage or get out of bad stuff PLUS maintaining a high-damage rotation and managing procs.

    Sorry to babble on so long. Good luck with your lock! And Happy New Year.

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    1. I think expecting it to be so hard and over preparing for it made it a lot easier than it really is. Gold destroyed me however. I was so unprepared for that, being I am not particularly skilled with a lock. Stupid banana throwing monkeys.

      I feel the same as far as control. I do not like that I do not have the same control over my pets as a lock as I do on my hunter. If they improved the minion system I could get into it more. But it holds aggro like a champ.

      Lock and druid are also my front runners. Lock because of the soloing aspect and druid, because, well, I have had a druid as my second main for at least part of the last 4 expansions, so I am well versed with it. Lock is destor /afflic and druid is guardian / resto.

      I think a better design is like the MM hunter design. Make it that you can cast while moving, but you get a buff if you stand still. So it would be 2%-5% better to stand still when you can, but you are not screwed completely when you need to move. Like doing my heroics the other day with the tank on the run through the whole thing, my lock DPS on trash was trash. He kept moving so that meant I could not do a damn thing. I would have liked to be able to attack while moving.

      Happy new years.

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  2. Grumpy,

    I'm maining a destro lock in WoD. Your DPS seems pretty good for your ilvl. I think I was lower at that ilvl.

    But I'm having serious doubts about continuing to main a warlock in Legion. Warlocks already lack mobility, but if I am going to have to relearn how to play anyway, I might try to learn something that does more than zero DPS while moving. And I'm not happy with the announced changes to destro. I'll level my warlock and give it a shot, but it doesn't look good unless they reverse some of the changes they've announced.

    Example: Destro currently has two main DPS cooldowns, Dark Soul:Instability and Summon Doomguard/Infernal. The former gives you 20 seconds of increased Crit, to pump out as much damage as you possibly can, and it rewards you for timing your cooldowns and being smart about how you play. The latter is a button that you press during Bloodlust. As part of Blizzard's attempt to simplify the baseline abilities of the spec, they are removing the fun cooldown and expanding the role of the boring one.

    In my opinion, hunters and warlocks are both getting screwed by the announced Legion changes, so I'm at a loss as to what my main will be.

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    1. I guess they are taking apart most specs but of course we always feel it worst for our own.

      I am not looking forward to legion, not even in the slightest. I do not agree with the approach they are taking to dismantling the classes.

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  3. ... Could it be? "Public face" hunter who honestly dislikes what they are doing to the class in Legion and considers it an actual possibility that hunters might in fact end up fundamentally ruined for some long-time players?

    Sad as it is, I'm still kinda relieved to see that at least someone shares my concern.

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    1. I do not consider it a possibility that it will be ruined for long time player, I know it for a fact.

      I was in a mythic dungeon a week or two ago with some pugs and we were on the third boss is arch, the demon guy that goes in the air, and all hell broke lose. The entire group died except me. The boss went up at around 20% health so I knew if I could somehow survive I could finish this solo. And I did just that. I killed the big imps first, picked off the little imps as need be, and I kited the big guy around waiting for the boss. When the boss landed I finished the boss off while kiting.

      When it was over I said to a guild mate on vent how exciting it was doing that, it made me so happy to be a hunter because that is what is great about being a hunter. Then I added, too bad nearly ever ability I used to do that is being removed next expansion.

      And that is why I say I "know" it will fundamentally ruin hunters for long time players. Because the all those things that make us hunters are gone.

      Legion will be a sad day, a very sad day, in the history of the game for hunters. It will be the day we are no longer hunters.

      But lets end this comment with something funny I said after I did that. At least I thought it was funny.

      Tank: Wow, I bet there are only a handful of hunters that could have done that.
      DPS: I would have sworn he would just hit feign death.
      Me: Feign death is only a last resort, a real hunter goes down fighting if there is a chance and I saw a chance.

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    2. Now I want to write a post about that dungeon. Maybe to help explain what it means to be a hunter, and what we are losing, so the newer generation understand why some long time hunters are very sad right now.

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