Monday Random Thoughts

- I really missed posting here.

- I think I enjoy the friends I have made on the blog as much as the friends I have made in my guild.

- I don't think I will be posting as often as I used to, but I do intend to drop a small post here and there from now on.

- "Small" being the swing word word here.

- Small for me is not the same as small for someone else.

- I plan to level my hunter first.

- Marksman.

- Not because MM will be OP at the start because we get our main artifact abilities first but because MM, to me at least, seems like the best leveling spec.

- That used to go to BM.

- But with limited pet survival as it is and the loss of the glyphs that helped with a pet ability to survive, added to the loss of the misdirection glyph, MM just seems better.

- For those interested here is the MM hunters best choices for a leveling spec.

- Again, my opinion only, feel free to disagree.

- Level 15 Talent: Lone Wolf

- The other two options, while they give you a pet, are not as good as they would be if the pet had any chance at surviving.  So you are best off with lone wolf.  You have the tools to survive without a pet.  If you play correctly, and choose the right talent next.

- Level 30 Talent:  Black Arrow.

- If you kill a mob fast enough the cooldown resets, even if you don't, you will only 4 seconds without a pet out.  And the black arrow pet can survive WAY better than the actual pet.  So this is a no brainer.

- Level 45 Talent: Post Haste.

- Speed boost.  'Nuff said.

- Level 60 Talent: Patient Sniper.

- You can go Explosive Shot if you want to AoE your way though quests and are good with the timing, but Patient Sniper is a set it and forget it ability that you do not have to worry about. I feel the added focus helps and reduced debuff time does not hurt, so it is good to go with.

- Level 75 Talent: Binding Shot.

- Since it was added I think Binding Shot was always the best in its row whatever it was against, nothing changes here.

- Level 90 Talent: Barrage.

- Even with the recent buff to crows and volley they do not seem worth it.  However, for leveling both are viable options.  Not kidding. If you want to test one, play with it a little. If not, barrage will do the job.

- Level 100 Talent: Piecing Shot.

- Actually I could say "anything not named Sidewinders".  Sidewinders is dreadful for leveling as it leaves you with no on demand always there instants and possibly waiting on abilities.  Not a good combo if you want to keep leveling at a nice pace.  One thing that always made hunters the best leveling class in the game was instants.  Without sidewinders you have both arcane and multi and as they generate focus and don't spend it you can fire forever without having to worry about resources.  With shared tags now, you want to hit the world, even if someone else is fighting it. And to do so you absolutely NEED arcane and multi.

- Just a reminder.  This setup is not very good for DPS and should not be what you use while in dungeons if you want to contribute your fair share.

- But for leveling, I think this is the way to go.

- After I level my hunter I am going to level my druid, a lot sooner than I normally would an alt.

- I want to get a leg up on it because I know I will not be raiding as a hunter unless something changes in the next 24 hours, or shortly after, balance wise.

- And I do like druid tanking and druid healing.

- Not exactly fond of feral, I hate that wait for energy design, it is slow and boring.

- Partly why I hate the sidewinders MM design too, the wait on proc design is boring and adds nothing to the game, fun wise.

- Balance is give or take.  It is leaps and bounds better and more enjoyable now with that stupid cycle crap, but I am still not really big on playing balance.

- I've cleared out any left over quests not done from my quest log.

- I've cleared out all the old mats and things I will not need from my bags.

- I have a couple of stacks of food and potions and a stack of flasks, which I am 100% sure I will not even use half of.

- I am guessing the total leveling experience should take no more than 5 flasks at most, maybe 4.

- BTW, alchemy, mine are 2 hours, so that means 8-10 hours to level.

- Yes, I plan to level in one sitting.

- I always do.

- Well, except for cataclysm where I made the mistake of going to the underwater zone first.

- By the time I was done I was so dizzy and sick and had to lay down and ending up sleeping for hours.

- Funny part is, I still came within 5 hours of realm first.

- Someone dinged realm first and 4 hours and 40 minutes later I dinged max level.

- That basically means if I had not spelt for 17 hours I would have been realm first by a full 12 hours before anyone else.

- Wow, my main server has some slow levelers. lol

- Or at least did for cataclysm.

- I would not be surprised if they, like myself, did the first zone and needed to take a break.

- I hope blizzard never does an underwater zone again.

- Some people love it but I hated it with a passion.

- Oddly enough, I liked it on my druid.

- Seal form maybe?

- Not sure, but it was the only character I did not feel ill on when I went there.

- What "seems" to be my final count on max levels is as follows.

- I still have many 90s left behind but I got a fair amount to 100 thanks to invasions.

- 6 Hunters.

- 4 Druids.

- 2 DKs.

- 2 Priests

- 2 DHs.

- 2 Mages.

- 1 of every other class.

- I still have a few others are 90 that I did not get around to.

- Not like it is really a big deal.

- I do not see me playing many alts with how restrictive being behind on an artifact weapon will be.

- This will be the most alt unfriendly expansion ever.

- Unless they do something to massively increase alts leveling of artifacts.

- Which I believe they will do.

- Not massively, but some.

- Hopefully it will be enough to be worst leveling alts.

- But knowing blizzard, they are always a day late and a dollar short.

- The will probably give us some awesome alt catch up mechanic 2 months before the next expansion comes out.

- Gee, thanks for nothing blizzard.

- Here is to hoping to do something 2 months in and not 2 months before it is over.

- Cheers.

- You can do it blizzard.  I know you can.

- Don't let the grumpy one down.

- Again.

- So what did you like about warlords?

- I loved the leveling.

-Think it was the best it had ever been.

- So why did I have so few alts before this invasion let me level a ton easy?

- Because I dreaded what was at 100 for us.

- So I never even bothered leveling them.

- These invasions have been fun for alts on servers I did not have much on to begin with.

- Selling the gear was a great way to make a few bits of coin.

- On a few low levels I just popped into one or two invasions.

- Not really for the levels, for the gear to sell for gold.

- Got enough on those lowbies to get them bags.

-Which is all I ever really wanted.

- I like to actually level them, and will some day when I am bored, but at least now I will have some bag space.

- That is the single most important thing to me in the game.

- I still say if blizzard really wanted to make money from me, offer more bag slots in the blizzard store.

- I would buy it for every active player I use.

- Add five more bag slots on my main?

- Yes, thank you.

- Add a second row of bag slots in my bank?

- Sure thing, thank you.

- Make my starting bag twice the size?

- Hell yes, take my money.

- I am the worlds biggest sucker for bag space.

- I would gladly spend real money to get more.

- Back to leveling in Legion.

- What zone will you do first?

- Honestly I really do not care for me.

- Being things scale now all zones are the same in terms of which you "should" do first.

- And as I always get loremaster on day one doing all the quests I will do so again and do them all.

- So for me the order really does not matter much.

- HOWEVER!

- I will not finish any single zone until I am max level.

- Why you ask?

- The end of zone rewards are the best of the bunch, gear wise.

- The zones, quests and yes rewards from doing said quests scale based on your level.

- So I am going to save completing the best quests until I am max level.

- Won't really be a huge boost to power and anything I get will be replaced in a dungeon but it will be something to start off with.

- And anything to start off with will be good.

- You know those first day, heck, first week dungeons will be a nightmare to do.

- New bosses for everyone, new mechanics for them to learn, I see a wipe fest coming on.

- And god forbid we get a disc priest as our healer.

- I have never ever even considered kicking someone based on the spec they play, and I would not start a kick, but if one popped up, I would hit yet without even a seconds thought.

- Disc priests are not healers, they are a support class.

- Fantastic for raids, actually beyond fantastic for raids.

- If you have someone that knows what they are doing a disc priest in raids are amazing beyond the meaning of the word amazing.

- But in a five man, when everything is on their shoulders?

- Expect a lot of deaths.

- I have run with some mythic skilled players and they could not hack it.

- When we over geared them.

- How do you think most will do at a minimum gear level?

- Very poorly, to say the least.

- Word to the wise on how to run with a disc priest on day one.

- Have them blanket the entire group before the pulls.

- Let them drink after every pull.

- Do that and you will be fine.

- Get one raging chain pulling tank with a disc priest and expect to wipe a lot.

- Get one go go go damage dealer that pulls for the tank and expect to wipe a lot.

- Respect the design that disc "can" be awesome if given the time to do so and play it slow and steady, and you will have a smooth run.

- But you know as well as I do no pug is going to do that.

- So I expect a lot of disc priests to get kicked.

- The reason they will give is "bad healer".

- But the real reason should be "I don't understand how the class works so I would rather kick them than let them drink and get attonement on everyone first."

- Poor disc has been destroyed, just like so many other classes.

- I want to give fire mage a shot.

- I know they fixed a lot.

- I know if felt smoother.

- But I am just stuck in the past and remembering the nightmare it was with the luck based proc system.

- Even if it is not really like that any more.

- Just the thought of it is a turn off to me.

- I'll give it a real try this expansion.

- I mean, if I ever want to play ranged again and do respectable DPS I'll have no choice but to be a fire mage.

- And I see ranged will be a huge issue next expansion.

- With so many ranged specs being bottom of the pack and the most played class in the game losing one of its ranged specs and being poor DPS in the other two, I think finding ranged for a raid to be hard.

- Funny thing is, you know what held my raid team back this expansion mostly?

- No melee.

- Nope, not shitting.

- I would see in trade all the time "looking for ranged, on xxx" but for my guild we would have 15 people, 2 tanks, 3 healers and 10 ranged.

- Usually 1 lock, 2 mages, 1 boomkin, and 6 hunters.

- Over all on most bosses it did not hurt at all, but there were a few we needed melee and we had none most of the time.

- Admittedly we had, had being past tense here, some of the best melee in the world.

- According to the log sites at least, DPS wise.

- The #1 warrior, the #3 feral druid, and 4 other really competent players, even if they were not ranking.

- Another feral, a monk, another warrior and a death knight.

- But one feral went away to collage, the other had to go heals, the monk got a job that interfered with raid time as did one of the warriors, the other warrior just quit outright and the death knight became a tank because we could not find a replacement.

- And there you go, one mythic team, dismantled by real life and all our melee gone in one sweep.

- I am not kidding, we lost all the melee over the course of 1 month, and went from about to step into mythic (we were on heroic archie at the time) to stuck doing heroics for the rest of the expansion.

-Only made it 4 deep mythic myself.

- Because we lost our 20 and we could not recruit any more.

- Oh, we tried, but thanks to flex anyone we recruited thought showing up was "optional".

- Sorry, if you are a raider showing up is not "optional" even if it is flex.

- And the ones that did show up were either one of two things, or both.

- A) dreadful DPS, as in sub 30K over a 720 item level, or B) somehow managed to stand in everything, even things that we did not know where there.

- I'll be the first to admit melee can be daunting, I hate it myself, but we could not find one single decent melee as a replacement to what we lost.

- For months we tried and for months we never found one.

- We never got back to 20 regulars.

- I miss 10 man mythic.

- "I used to be a mythic raider, until I took an arrow to the knee"

- The arrow was 20 man mythic, in case you did not get the idea.

- I really hope raiding will be better for us next expansion.

- Either that or I have three options.

- One being to accept the fact I no longer raid mythic.

- Or two, change guilds to fill in where I am needed in an already running mythic guild.

- Or three, recruit like crazy and hope for the best.

- Option 3 is not really an option however.

- I no longer have the time, nor the desire, to run multiple runs of the same thing each week to "test" people out.

- I want to have my cake and eat it too, which probably will not happen.

- I want to recruit people that are already good raiders to start with.

- I do not want to teach during progression.

- That is what the saturday night alt runs are for.

- Am I wrong for not wanting to start all over again after so many years?

- Eh, maybe I am just being selfish.

- But so many years of training people to raid and experiencing some minor successes here and there, has worn me down.

- I have reached selfish stage.

- I just want to raid with people that know how to raid.

- I don't want to teach any more.

- But who am I kidding, I will end up doing it anyway.

- As someone once told me, "you can't change who you are"

- And I am always one that looks at a person and sees the potential of what they can be.

- So I will go back to teaching them.

- And I will be grumpy about doing it.

- But in the end, I will smile when I see them do well.

- Perhaps, for me, that is the bigger reward than the mythic kills.

- We do play the game for fun after all.

- And while kills are fun, helping someone get good enough to enjoy their first kills can be just as satisfying.

- I have high hopes for Legion.

- Even if I am worried about a lot of the little things.

- Did I mention I am still extremely bitter about not getting a beta invite?

- I wrote some good guides from being on the warlords beta.

- Those guides were even picked up and used on ask Mr. Robot.

- I supplied solid feedback, found and reported bugs, and over all did a solid job as both a tester and a reviewer along with my guides.

- And I did not get a beta invite.

- Yeah, I am very bitter about that.

- Blizzard did me wrong.

- I think on the strength of my guides alone I should have got and invite.

-I think that was part of the reason I left.

- I felt slighted.

- Well, on a happier note, my next post will most like be titled Ding 110.

- Have fun leveling people, and be sure to explore everywhere.

- There are wonders to be found in the world of Azeroth.

- And I expect to enjoy finding all of them.

- See you on the broken shores.

- Have an excellent day.

Random Thoughts - Blade and Soul Edition

- Figured I would do my thoughts on Blade and Soul in a random thoughts format.

- Because only having played it a few hours I do not have enough information to write about.

- But I do have some thoughts about it thus far.

- And I am enjoying it enough to write about it.

- I play a lot of games, or test them for a bit here and there at least to see what I like.

- I only write about the ones I can see me wanting to play again, and this one I do.

- I might even play tonight instead of just my normal weekend warrior thing which is how I usually play other games.

- First lets get the "bad" stuff out of the way.

- Being I wanted to be a summoner and the only race that can be a summoner is the cutesy race I decided to make mine a female.

- When creating the character I kept clicking on the "male" option and it would not change.

- It was after 5 or 6 attempts that I slapped myself upside the head and say "Grumpy, that is the male version".

- So in terms of choice, a female or a male that looks female, I decided on a female.

- Hey, if I am going to look female might as well be female right?

- One problem, I only have a few female names I like to use.

- I tried one server for new players, taken.

- Tried the other server for new players, taken.

- Tried a few other servers, taken, taken, taken.

- Blah, switch names and tried again on the new servers than some others, all taken.

- Tired a different spelling, slightly, all taken.

- Come on now, give me a freaking break.

- I was at the point I was almost going to say forget it and not even create a character.

- Seriously, if I can not even get a name I want on any server, why play?

- Sure a name is not that important over all, but it sure is frustrating when you waste 30 minutes trying to find a freaking name even.

- Even more so when you are not being picky and you will go on any server with that name and none of the names you want can be used on any server.

- Still do not understand why no MMO has used my idea yet of last names.

- So if a dozen people want to be John, they all can.

- One would be John Smith, another John Jones, and so forth.

- But names are something silly to complain about in the long run, however if it almost made me say screw it and I really do not care I am sure the people that are really attached to their names would never even sign up for a free game.

- Being there is no "cash" invested in a free game, they might not make it past character creation if they try a dozen servers and their name is unavailable on all of them.

- They would have nothing invested in the game, so why even sign up?

- So the name issue can hurt a free game, but I got around it.

- I added the word "Lady" to the front of the name and got in no problem.

- So now I am royalty.

- Complaint number two is the same complaint I have about every other MMO I think I have ever played, gold sellers.

- In the grand scheme of things, at least on my server, this is one of the things WoW is so much better than any other game at.

- And I am talking leaps and bounds better, entire different universe better, amazingly advanced better.

- I rarely see seller spam.

- But in this game, being it is both new and free, the pace of gold selling posts is break neck fast.

- If anyone posts anything in chat your chances of seeing it are slim to none.

- The screen never stopped moving, it was post after post after post.

- It is both annoying and very distracting, even more so when trying to learn the game.

- After I played a little I tuned it out, but starting out when I was trying to see messages from the system as I did things  and it was impossible.

- That really ends the complaints, so to speak.

- Now to the game so far.

- It is visually very nice in a slightly cartoonish way.

- And if you know me you know I actually prefer the cartoonish visuals over the "real life" ones.

- They lend them selves to standing the test of time a hell of a lot better in my opinion and you can just look at warcraft for an example.

- I still love their visuals and they are miles away from trying to be realistic.

- So that bodes well for the game in my opinion.

- Games that try to hard to look "real" tend to look dated within a couple of years of release whereas the art here is something I can see lasting for a long time.

- And as the game has been out in other areas for 4 years and still looks good on first impression here, to me, that shows the art stands the test of time.

- Look at any other "realistic" game from 4 years ago and see how dated their art looks now.

- I was not a fan of the race that I ended up with, as it was the only race that could be a summoner, because it was the cutesy race.

- I am not a big fan of that, but after playing it a while I didn't even notice I was playing the "silly" race any more.

- I forgot I was playing the cutesy race for two reasons really.

- The game play was so new and interesting to me that I forgot I was playing the "silly" race.

- The character creator was so great I forgot I was playing the "small" race.

- While I could not make her as tall as I wanted to it did allow me to make her rather tall for a small race, enough so that the size of the race, at least to me, was no longer an issue.

- Now the character just seems like the standard humanoid shape and size, maybe of a teenager, but still normal.

- Or as normal as you can get with cat ears and a big bushy tail.

- I took the smallest ears I could find, it just so happened the smallest ears came with one of the largest tails.

- Oddly enough, I've grown quite fond of the tail.

- The character creation options completely and totally blew me out of the water.

- I thought I would be stuck playing a small race I did not want to play and not only was I allowed to change it, I was allowed to change it enough that I am happy with it and do not feel "stuck" with something I did not like.

- In truth the character I am playing does not even look like the race it is intended to be and if it were not for the ears and the tail you would never even notice and I really liked that.

- Your opinion could surely vary.

- You might still hate the tail but I say, love the tail, it will grow on you.

- No pun intended.

- The main quest line quests are all, so far it seems, voice acted.

- And while the voice acting is not great, it is fair.

- You can skip them but I have been listening to them all.

- The voice actors really can not be the ones to blame for me calling it only a fair performance, that probably is more because of the writing.

- The story moves along nicely enough but they seemed to have over used the "I'm to scared, you handle this" vehicle to send you on missions.

- Because of that all the voice acting feels the same, as they are all playing the same character, just with a different skin.

- I am sure the voice actors could have done better had they had something better to work with than playing the same old song and dance each quest.

- The other quests are not voice acted, but I am reading them all, as I do my first time playing through a game.

- It is all standard fare for a game like this really, nothing earth shattering and more importantly nothing different from anything you might have already done hundreds if not thousands of times.

- Kill four of these, collected six of those, talk to this person at that place.

- If you played one MMO you have played this one, in terms of the questing it seems.

- The pace seems fast enough and I've learned from games before to pick up all the quests before you head out somewhere, this game is no different.

- Collect all the quests before you go into any cave or what not.

- Speaking of going into caves, there are these swirls between zoning (I am guessing) and they are near seamless.

- The most it takes is one second, for me, to move from one zone to the next.

- I jump every time I zone through so my character is stuck in a mid air jump for a second each time I zone.

- Call it silly, but I bet there are still people that jump going into the raids in WoW, I know I still do.

- Like there is going to be some guy on the other side to trip you or something.

- Who the hell knows why I, and many others, still do that.

- I can tell from watching other players a hell of a lot of people do exactly that, so it is not just me.

- The weapon (and gear) leveling system is different from anything I have seen before and I really like it thus far.

- However as an experienced gamer I figured out how to use it before I got the quest to teach me how to use it.

- This means I have a quest stuck in my quest book that tells me to upgrade a piece of gear.

- I wish the quest would realize I did it already and let me complete it, I will put in a bug report on this because I believe if you already figured it out you really do not need the tutorial quest on how to do it.

- You feed special items you get and/or other weapons into your weapon to level it.

- Every few levels you have to get a specific piece to upgrade it more, but up until that point you can feed anything to it really.

- It is kind of interesting.

- Different at least.

- What I believe, do not quote me on this yet as I just started, is that you will be able to transmog your weapon into the appearance of any weapon you fed to it to upgrade it.

- If it does indeed work that way I say that is pretty darn cool.

- The characters you run across are sometimes comical, as it seems they were intended to be, and you can see their thought bubbles, many of which make for a humorous side story all it own.

- Some give you a little back ground on the character or situation as well, sort of things you might know if you were reading a book, but would never know if you only had the information from the conversation to work with.

- This adds a little more depth to the characters as I see it.

- It seems like the game is trying for the "fun" approach to it and even if it does seem a tad bit childish and created for a younger crowd from time to time, I have been liking it.

- You do not seem to spend too long in any one place, which makes for a nice pace.

- I did happen to get lucky with the wheel spins in the first major town I went to.

- Some quest rewards gave me spins at a wheel and the second one I did gave me a full 8 piece set of soul shards (at least I think that is what they were called).

- It allowed me to equip all 8 giving me the stat boost from those 8 and the 3, 5 and 8 set bonus, right off the bat.

- So I feel a little on the OP side right now starting out that strong.

- But as it seems, I don't think I really am.

- Further spins got me two five piece collections and five three piece collections, meaning even if I was not lucky getting all 8 at once I think they want us to get our first 8 piece here as they gave me so many pieces.

- I got weapons from spinning for 4 different classes, but not the one I need to feed weapons so I can upgrade her weapons, sadly.

- Word to the wise however, do not those those other weapons away however, you can still feed them to your own weapon to upgrade it later and you do not even need to unlock them first.

- At this point I do not know if I will get more spins at the wheel ever again or if I will have to try to get my weapon upgrade piece from somewhere else.

- (Note, before I posted this I did some research and found that killing that one elite mob over near said wheel drops 5 of those rolls each time and you can kill it as often as you like, so I will get my upgrade that way it seems.)

- (Will leave the rest of the comments as they were because they were my first impression before I did research and this is about those impressions.)

- As it seems, I do not think they will make it so I can not upgrade my weapon so I will run across it sooner or later.

- Basically because you will use that weapon forever really as you upgrade it as you go so I doubt they will leave me with a starting level weapon.

- I looked all over the " cash shop" and I really could not see anything that I would call pay to win.

- Pay to boost, maybe.

- There are experience boosts which last a short time, buff foods which last a short time and are not huge buffs, this 5%, and other stuff of the ilk.

- There is nothing really powerful that I saw yet.

- And for experience boosts, it seems like they might be something you could consider if you are leveling a second character but surely not a first.

- I am already out leveling the quests I am doing and I am not grinding mobs or doing anything to level faster.

- Not sure if I am happy doing gray quests this soon as I out paced it, but it is what it is, and I will keep doing what I am as I want to see the whole story my first time through.

- I am just going from quest to quest and only killing the quest mobs or things that attack me otherwise.

- So leveling will not be a problem and there is absolutely no reason to speed it along, at least as I see it, on your first time through.

- I say enjoy the leveling, read the quests, get into the story and don't worry about rushing to max level.

- Speed leveling is for alts.

- Now to combat and how it feels.

- Pretty darn awesome thus far in my opinion.

- As someone that was a key binder to begin with it did not take much getting used to but I think that playing this, at least the entry parts, could really help many wow players that do not bind learn to bind.

- So I would suggest anyone that wants to learn to key bind, give it a try, it is free and it adds a little at a time to let you get used to it.

- I love that the left and right mouse do abilities.

- You have your standard builder and spender there for a summoner and the rest are cooldown based.

- Not sure if other classes are like this but so far I really like it.

- It reminds me of a cross between diablo and standard MMOs.

- I am level 10 and have about a dozen abilities so far.

- My builder and spender, some damage abilities, some defensive abilities, and some pet abilities.

- It uses a wide range of default key binds that should actually be very comfortable for many players.

- I know it was for me but some people will surely need to adjust to using things like Z, X, C and V more often.

- I greatly dislike the fixed camera angle but being I use a trackball mouse it does make moving a pleasure for me and I quickly realized I did not dislike it at much as I thought I would.

- You can hit Alt to free move your mouse, which I do often, but sometimes find myself forgetting and go to move my mouse to click on something lit up on my screen and it does not work quite as I intended.

- It is something you will need to get used to but only a minor annoyance right now for me after playing so many games that have free mouse movement.

- Looking at the future I do not see rotations in game as being overly complex.

- With builders and spenders and everything else on a cooldown it seems like your started rotation would be something like 1, build, spend, repeat 3 times, 2, build, spend, repeat 3 times, 1, and so on.

- Maybe I will be wrong but I am a long way from getting to the point of figuring out how to do max DPS, that is just the initial impression I get.

- If that is the case, I would be pleasantly surprised and this game would immediately jump up a few spots in my mind as an alternate game to play.

- I don't want any complexity, or at least not a great deal of it, for a game I might play once in a while.

- I want mindless fun, and at the moment, that is exactly what the game feels like.

- Now to my pet.

- When I first got my pet and they show the cut scene with it looking all sweet and cutesy I momentarily regretted my choice in classes.

- It seemed, at first, like this was aimed at the 10 year old female gamer.

- I am a hunter, I just wanted a class with a pet and I get this.

- But once that passed and I got out in the world and learned to use my cat I can say one thing, she is one hell of a bad ass.

- She looks all cute and sweet and innocent, but she will claw your eyes out in a second if you mess with her.

- For a game designed without the holy trinity, meaning no tanks and no healers, fluffy sure as hell can tank with the best of them.

- I think I've been hit a total of two times since I started playing and one of them was me walking into a mob.

- Fluffy is not as innocent as she looks, not even close.

- And you know why she is licking her paws all the time?

- It is not to clean herself, it is to lick all the blood off them.

- She has a thirst for blood.

- I am really liking my summoner, or as I call it, my caster hunter.

- The game has a lot of the overly sexualized stuff you expect to find in any asian import but not nearly as much as I have seen in others of the same ilk and not so much it was a turn off to playing it, they keep it pretty mild.

- I get some people like that style, I don't personally, I just want to play a game and kill stuff with my trusty side kick, and this game is giving me that so I am happy with it.

- So after initial impressions I can say with absolute 100% certainty that will be buying the membership, not sure for how long, but it seems with it from what I have seen thus far.

- Remember, I am only level 10, so my opinions can surely change as I experience more of the game like dungeons, PvP, grinding, and max level, but for now, it is fun to play and I will play again, for sure.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Not much of a WoW week even if I did do a fair deal of things.

- Another year has passed and once more I am left unloved.

- The love rocket has not found itself added to my collection of mounts I will probably never use but for some reason still compulsively try to attain.

- I would say I put in a solid 200 attempts this year.

- More than some years past but much less than others.

- Mostly because I have the fewest max level characters I've had since wrath.

- Each expansion I always got more to max, this expansion I got fewer.

- All because of garrisons.

- I like them and all, but I hate that leveling means they are waiting for me to build them up.

- So I just do not level characters any more.

- Blizzard killed my favorite thing to do in my off time.

- Leveling.

- Leveling low levels feel blah now and leveling to max seems almost like a penalty now.

- So I do not do either really any more.

- Or I do them, just at a massively reduced rate.

- But on to the things I still enjoy doing.

- Like grinding, I like grinding.

- There is one grind I was putting off until one day when I was bored.

- This weekend I was really bored, so I figured I would get my saberon claws finally.

- I was at 600 and needed to get to 5000 for the achievement.

- Took roughly 3 hours, could have taken a lot less if I rushed it.

- Quick and easy way to grind is tank pet, legendary ring, artillery strike.

- Round up a huge pack of saberon, really huge, as many as you can get on you, dismount (must be on ground mount for this to work best), spin, misdirect and barrage them all to your pet.

- Hit shell on your pet, because you are using a turtle right, they are awesome you know.

- Hit ring, hit misdirect again, hit artillery strike.

- If need be hit artillery strike a second time, but remember to misdirect first.

- Ring will pop and everything will die except maybe 1 or 2 which are easily finished off.

- I have looted over 200 claws in one pull a few times.

- Sad part is pulls like this are hard to come by as there are not enough packed tightly together and the one center area I used for each big pull seemed to have the slowest respawn.

- So I stuck to doing smaller packs of 7-10 most times.

- Still went by quickly and I got my achievement, and enough claws to purchase both mounts in the process.

- So now I have the title "of the jungle".

- I now need to make a character named George so I can be George of the Jungle.

- How could I resist.

- Was thinking dwarf warrior.

- Then considered human warrior as I can make a human look more george-ish.

- Then I thought a worgen warrior, who I could make look george-ish while in human form but in battle he would get all animal like, fitting the jungle theme.

- And of course he would have to be a fury warrior so I can be George of the Jungle the furry fury.

- It is puntastic isn't it?

- Was thinking maybe a druid too because a bear, which is what I would be, does kind of fit the "of the Jungle" title does it not?

- Either way I have 50 character so until I decide which one to delete there will be no new geroge's entering this world, dwarf, human or worgen.

- Raid night was a disaster this week.

- No one showed.

- And some of the few people that did show were, shall we say, not the top of the class.

- So I decided to pug, something I damn near never do with a guild group.

- Took over 45 minutes to fill, did one pull on Soc and we wiped at 50% and three people dropped.

- Waited another 20 minutes to fill and we pulled again.

- This time we had a hunter who had huntard in his name and lived up to it.

- He had better gear than I, much better, and did half the numbers, but that was no big deal because even at half the numbers it was still more than enough for the fight.

- His issue was he got targeted by everything and did not know how to move.

- Let the fire go right through the group instead of going to the side, which we survived because the group as a whole was smart enough to move from him.

- Then when trying to run from a ghost he put pack on and stunned the entire raid causing an eventual wipe.

- But that was only second in terms to the warrior who "knew" exactly what went wrong and was glad to tell everyone.

- Except he did not mention the mistakes by the self titled huntard dropping fire in the wrong place or the fact pack-ed the raid to death.

- Nope, it was all the tanks fault.

- Not exactly sure why that is, but the lowest DPS apparently was the "best" player in the raid and he has the fix, have the tanks switch jobs.

- He ended up leaving the raid, as a couple others, as we waited to refill.

- The other tank agreed it was a tank issue, in part, and they switched their roles.

- Next attempt after 20 or so minutes more, we wiped, this time to the tank screwing things up.

- Yes, it absolutely 100% was the tank and I am near sure he was trolling us because for someone in his gear, with the two healers he bought with him in their gear, there is no way he did not know that trapping the casters was a bad idea.

- But he trapped all the casters and they went on to, in mere seconds, decimate the entire raid in a matter of seconds.

- Well, you see something new every day, at least I do.

- I can not say I have ever seen that happen before and I have probably wiped on that boss 100 times between the original progression on it months ago and all the pugs I was in for it.

- It seems like it is always adds, sure, but not 12 casters all at once.

- So then the tank rages that the tank sucks and we wiped because of him and rage quits and the two healers that came with him follow of course.

- Ah, excuse me?

- You were the tank in the construct, you wiped us, so you are raging because you suck?

- Clearly you do see something new every day.

- I have never seen someone rage quit because they sucked.

- Either way, by that time we had some guild mates pop on, we bought in a guild tank, a guild healer, and being so many damage dealers left, we just went with a smaller group.

- We ended up having only a few pugs now, instead of the larger group I was trying with.

- This allowed me to pick and choose.

- Had a mythic geared friend as melee who I knew I could trust with interrupts, pugged another mythic geared player 749, and filled it out with a pug tank that said he was on an alt but knew the fights even if he could not do construct.

- I put my guild tank in construct and then 30 minutes after the last wipe we pulled for our 4th attempt.

- It was a nice clean kill, as it should be.

- With mostly all guild and two stellar damage dealing pugs and giving the pug tank the easy job it went down like nothing.

- In the end, it was mostly guild.

- In all honestly we would have never downed it without them as we had no melee at the time in guild, so they were absolutely required and I thank them for coming.

- As much as I hate to say it, some fights as just so much easier with melee, that is one of them.

- I think we are the only guild in the world that is not looking for ranged, we are dying for quality melee.

- I see guilds spam in chat all wanting ranged.

- I never see ranged as the problem, I always have tons of them around.

- Then again, I seem to be a hunter magnet, they all come to me to ask questions and stay.

- So we always end up with a lot of hunters or ranged in general as if they switch from a hunter they usually switch to another ranged class.

- But the moral of this story, I hate pugs and that is why.

- No, not the wipes, I can deal with the wipes.

- It is waiting 45 minutes to start a group, it is losing people after each wipe and having to wait again to get more.

- Despise it.

- Even on the worst night we should have gotten two or three bosses down.

- But we only got one and called it a night.

- It felt like a complete waste of 2 hours of my life.

- Pugging is just not for me.

- Not unless the quality of people and players of the game greatly increases.

- We need the people to not leave after every wipe.

- And we need players who can play their class.

- Not much to ask is it?

- I guess it is a lot to ask, oh well, I will continue to shy away from pugs I guess.

- But the silver lining, at least for me, was I got to be on my hunter.

- Did not win anything, but I still would rather be on my hunter.

- I think I bring more to the group on my hunter, game play wise.

- I also think I bring more to the group as a raid leader being on my hunter.

- I see more and can call for more from ranged than from tanking.

- Some tanks are awesome at raid leading, I am not one of them.

- Not that I am awesome from ranged either, but I am better than crap when at ranged.

- After my grinding I decided I needed something new for a bit.

- Downloaded blade and soul.

- Was going to list a lot of stuff here about it but this is already getting kind of long so I will save it for a post of its own.

- Bottom line is thus far I am not feeling as if blade and soul is pay to win, which is nice.

- And I am enjoying the crap out of it.

- In the end, isn't that the most important thing?

- And as you could guess if you know anything about the game, I rolled a summoner.

- Pet class all the way.

- Tomorrow I will do a Blade and Soul random thoughts to give some of my opinions about my first few hours of game play.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Anyone have any love rocket love?

- Not me.

- I admit after the first few days of running all my characters through it I've been slacking.

- Doing all my tanks and healers but rarely all my DPS characters.

- So I would say I am averaging 7 a day.

- I did get the heartbreaker toy finally yesterday.

- So one more for the toy box but my mount collection is not feeling the love rocket love.

- Joined a nice pug this weekend.

- We wiped a few times here and there and I had to drop because I had a previous engagement before we downed a boss I really needed, which sucks, but I added the leader to my battle tag so maybe I will run with them again.

- This is why I like "guild groups" in the group finder.

- They usually need just a few people and wipes are not a killer.

- Also it is a lot easier to fill the holes if you are only grabbing a few people than grabbing a full pug.

- Never took long to replace the one or two that left after a wipe.

- They were not more progressed than my guild, end heroic, but that works for me.

- At least now when I am stuck tanking I can join them if they need a DPS, or skip it if they don't.

- I think they liked me even if I did not get on their voice chat.

- I would have to download a different voice chat client as I do not have the one they use.

- I am however proud to announce I got my first weapon drop since the opening weeks of the expansion when I got the normal weapon off brackenspore the first week highmaul opened.

- That was the last weapon I saw all expansion.

- Thank god for crafted weapons or I would have surely quit.

- Or been using a baleful one I guess.

- They need to ditch RNG in loot.

- I speak only for myself, but killing the same boss over and over hoping for loot is NOT fun.

- Never has been, never will be.

- But, for example, killing the boss to unlock the loot table and collecting a currency to buy what you unlocked would be freaking awesome.

- Then you would earn your gear.

- In two ways.

- One by beating the boss, thus unlocking the ability to buy stuff that drops from it.

- Two by earning enough currency, whatever that currency might be, to buy stuff you have unlocked.

- Leaps and bounds better than the luck system.

- Now mind you the weapon was not the one I wanted off manny, but it was the one of soc which was still an upgrade.

- Got the chest piece off heroic manny this week, which was nice.

- But needed to take off a 736 chest piece to put it on.

- However, that allowed me to put on 725 shoulders instead of my 711 normal tier ones and enjoy the crit that those 725 shoulders had.

- So going down from 736 to 720 and up from 711 to 725 might seem like a minor loss in stats.

- But if I told you my critical strike, which is my best stat for me, went up over 4% would you now consider it worth it.

- I really wanted the heroic archie gloves for my off spot as they have a ton of crit on them but alas no pugs that could kill him for me this week.

- I have normal tier on those so the heroic archie ones would be a major upgrade in both agility and giving my my best stats at the same time.

- The only heroic tier I have a chest, head and legs.

- So I mix and match whatever works best most of the time.

- I have a bag nearly filled with "off pieces" and possible upgrades.

- And upgrades that are item level only, so I don't wear them.

- And trinkets, I have so many trinkets I play around with on a fight to fight basis.

- Outside of my heroic warfored blademaster I really do not have one perfect second trinket.

- But in reality, I do not think there is one perfect one.

- Some work better on some bosses, some work better when doing normal, some work better for dungeons, some work better on demons, you get the idea.

- I switch my second trinket like I switch my talents, on a fight by fight basis it seems.

- I wonder, is this good design or just a waste of 8 bag spaces carrying all these trinkets.

- Or maybe it is just me because I have a horrible time making up my mind.

- Went back for a fun run of some old content this week with guild.

- We finally did the last three bosses we never got to on heroic (now mythic) in siege.

- We brought a bunch of new people who had never done it.

- Made it more fun.

- One of the new people, even after being warned got smashed by garrosh in the transition phase.

- Saw that coming a mile away.

- He is one of those "horrible at mechanics" guys that signs up for every raid and I have to try to be gentle in declining him.

- I don't not want to hurt his feelings, he signs up and he shows up.

- Now we just need to get him to be better.

- But I had it to about "here" with him.

- No no, not for that, we did not need him to kill last expansion content.

- But in the real raid I seem to keep having to call him out.

- And I try not to do that.

- I whisper, I make blanket statements explaining an ability to the whole raid so they can listen, and they still mess it up.

- So I finally got to the point I just called him out "if you keep messing up these mechanics you are going to stop getting invites".

- I don't think I was being mean.

- I have whispered him a lot.

- I have overly explained part of the fight I knew he had issues with before the pull, even if we have been killing these fights for months.

- I have given him weeks worth of attempts to get better.

- Doing normal and heroic with him each week.

- And he still messes things up.

- Flex or not, some people are just not mean to be raiders.

- And sure we can carry him through all of normal and even most of heroic without it hurting us but that is not the issue.

- The issue is if he is going to keep playing that poorly he has no right even being in a raid.

- Sorry, you do not need to be "good" to be a raider, but you need to at least listen to simple instruction.

- I say things like "this is not a DPS race, even if you have to stop your DPS, just do the mechanics right" and he still messes up.

- I am not asking for top players.

- But I am asking to at least run out of the group when you have doomfire on you.

- Hell, even if you run the wrong way at least you would be running with it.

- But no, he stands in the group and do not move and gets eaten alive by the doomfire.

- After six weeks of killing archie on normal with us (hell no I would not bring him to heroic) he still does not get it.

- Sure we still kill it without him but it is a matter of principle.

- So I told him, next time doomfire hits him because he stands still I will remove him from group mid fight.

- No excuses.

- Am I being too harsh?

- I don't think so.

- I believe that some people are just not raiders.

- It really is that simple.

- Enough ranting, more good vibes.

- May the light of elune bless you and the love rocket join your ranks.

- Have a great day.

Tuesday Random Thoughts

- Random thoughts are a day late because I had off work yesterday, so I played instead of writing.

- I finished getting my stash in Diablo so I decided to get back to some warcraft.

- It was a nice break for a month playing less.

- Made it more enjoyable playing.

- Breaks are needed and it seems as I get older, and the game gets older, I need more and more breaks to keep the game enjoyable.

- Hey, whatever floats your boat right?

- I stayed on really late Sunday night because I was not working Monday.

- I decided to level archaeology on an alt.

- Why would I choose to level archaeology on an alt one might ask.

- Because my hunter is well over 700 tol'vir solves so far and still has not got the bug mount or the claw pet.

- I figure maybe having another character do it might stir up some luck.

- I honestly do not see how it is impossible to have over 100 solves of every tol'vir artifact and still not have those two.

- But it is my luck..

- So I hung out on voice chat and BSed with whomever was on at the time while I did some digging.

- I decided on my druid to level archaeology on.

- Instant flight form means less time mounting up moving from place to place.

- Not to mention I have the mage tower fully leveled on my druid.

- So I can use my garrison hearth and my shipyard compass to get back to my garrison and use my mage tower to get to the "far" places.

- I set up the ports to Nagrand, Frostfire and Spires.

- With all that and the mole machine to Gorgrond, I was set for hopping around from dig site to dig site.

- I made it to a little over 600.

- Which just so happens to be exactly what you need to be able to trade in restored artifacts for tol'vir fragments.

- What a coincidence huh?

- Needless to say I planned it like that.

- I had a total of 60 restored artifacts when I started turning it in.

- I managed to make 6 common finds and one rare find.

- Sadly the rare find was a, now useless, BoA ring.

- But it was not a total waste.

- I managed to snag three new mounts while doing this.

- I always said to a guild mate to plays late at night that I was so jealous of him.

- He always got all the rare mounts, all the rare pets, all the hard to find stuff.

- All because he was on when everyone else was sleeping.

- I experienced that myself.

- When I went to a dig site in Frostfire there was a rare boar there at the dig site.

- I killed it, got the great greytusk mount.

- Awesome.

- So this is what it is like playing late at night.

- Not even looking for mounts and getting them.

- I then had a dig site in Shadowmoon, not to long after.

- And there is the pathrunner just outside of the dig site I landed on.

- You have got to be kidding me.

- I kill it and walk away with the swift breezestrider mount.

- About 30 minutes later while flying through Nagrand, on the way to a dig site mind you, I see luk'hok.

- I swoop down and kill him and gladly collect my mottled meadowstomper mount.

- Three mount.

- Not looking for them.

- Just because I was on late at night.

- And this is exactly why I get so jealous sometimes when my friend has every rare mount in the game usually within the first week of release.

- He said he must see all of them, even poundfist, a few times a week.

- And now later in the expansion they can sit up for a long time before someone runs into them.

- He always said "if things like that could be traded everyone in the guild would have them."

- Which makes me question, should things like that be capable of being traded?

- I sense a post in that all by itself.

- I see some definite pluses an minuses to the idea.

- I did mythic dungeons this weekend.

- Did raids this weekend my my main and on two different alts.

- Even did some old raids.

- Killed the lich king 5 more times with nothing to show for it except 25 minutes wasted.

- But I had a lot of fun just wasting time.

- All because I took that time off made it fun.

- Do you want to hear a funny story before I end this random thoughts?

- Who am I kidding, of course you do.

- And even if you don't, here goes.

- A guild tank, an incredible DK, asks if anyone want in on a mythic.

- I say yet, another guild hunter says yet and a monk DPS says yes.

- He asks in guild if any healers are on.

- He asks in voice chat if any healers are on.

- We are talking about needing a healer and I offer to switch to a healer, the monk who has healing gear but never healed offers to switch to healer.

- The tank finally says, we will just pug one.

- Then someone in voice chat speaks up.

- "I have a monk that could do it, but his gear sucks."

- The tank says not to worry, we are a powerful group, we can carry a low healer.

- We decide on grimrail depot as no one in the group has done that one this week.

- We zone in and kill the trash, no problems.

- He kill the first boss, both monks die but otherwise no problems.

- And then I notice something.

- The second monk is in DPS spec.

- I asked, where you trying to heal in your DPS spec.

- He said "I don't have a healing spec."

- Excuse me.

- For 5 minutes we were talking about needing a healer, maybe one of us switching to a healer and then finally saying we would pug a healer when you volunteered.

- How do you not have a healing spec when you said you would come heal?

- Either way, I say, lets just continue along, we can do this.

- "with no healer?" the other hunter exclaims.

- I said, yes, trust me.

- We will do it like challenge modes.

- Huge trash pulls, potions on the trash, and we should have no problems.

- And we had no problems.

- We destroyed the place on mythic with no healers.

- Well, the tank did say we would carry him, so I guess we did.

- He died a few more times, but no one else did.

- It was fun and because of it I can say for sure that with 4 decent DPS and one DK tank with their amazing self heals, you do not need a healer for mythic dungeons.

- Grimrail has to be the most brutal of dungeons and if we could do it with only 3 DPS and a tank basically, then with 4 it would be a breeze for any group.

- I just thought it was funny someone offering up to come and as healer when they could not heal.

- Did he really think we would not notice?

- And he, my friends, is the average warcraft player.

- Doesn't really have a clue what is going on most of the time.

- Speaking of not having a clue, in case you did not notice the holiday boss is up.

- So make sure to get your runs in to try and get the love rocket.

- I did all my characters yesterday and had no luck.

- Darn, was hoping my weekend luck with mounts would have continued, but oh well.

- Good luck with your love rocket.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I am still playing diablo because I have not achieved the needed achievements yet for the stash.

- The level 45 solo rift with no set pieces seems to be a larger issue than I had anticipated.

- I played this weekend trying to assemble the set I wanted to use and got most of the pieces.

- I could not kill stuff fast enough.

- Bah humbug.

- So I either need to grind some better gear for it, grind some paragon level or try another conquest all together.

- Seeing the one to complete a level 55 with 6 different set seems interesting.

- Might be easier than a 45 with no set items.

- The hardest part is assembling all the pieces for 2 more sets as I will need to roll another class.

- Should not be an issue if you have friends you play with that are already geared.

- Roll the same class as them.

- Get rifting.

- Have them throw you all the tier gear they get that they no longer need.

- I am going to try the 55 with 6 different sets next weekend.

- I have only used 2 of the demon hunter ones thus far so have 2 more to try it with.

- But I have faith I can do it.

- Did not play much warcraft again this weekend.

- Not much really to do.

- Tanked a full run of normal and half heroic.

- Did not get any hunter time for the third week in a row.

- I guess that is partly why I have no motivation to play lately.

- Burn out, boredom, and not being able to play the class I want to play.

- I am thinking of "buying" a mythic run just to get something to do.

- I just wonder what would be the sense in "buying" a run when I would be one of the best players in the run.

- Shouldn't they be paying me.

- A guild mate has started joining a weekly pug that runs mythic Friday nights.

- She too is a hunter, and greatly out gears me.

- She says they all love her because he is always near the top of the charts and she knows the fights and is good at avoiding damage.

- I train my hunters well.

- Thank you very much.

- But I admit she picked 90% of it up on her own.

- Good players are good player.

- Thing is, she is a hot commodity because of her quality of play.

- And in my normal mode / heroic mode guild she is probably 6th or 7th down the line in terms of numbers.

- Makes me wonder what the issue with my raid team is.

- If she can down mythic with a pug and be top DPS, how the hell can my guild still be stuck clearing heroic?

- Oh wait, I know why.

- That retarded 20 man minimum.

- Blizzard really needs to remove that and bring 10 man back.

- It keeps good people that want to progress from being able to.

- It keeps guild that want to keep playing playing.

- It helps steam the boredom because we know we can't move forward anywhere.

- Sure I can pug, but I should not have to.

- There should be a 10 man version of mythic.

- Heck, mythic should be flex too for all I care.

- I do not take this "we need a set number so we can tune it tightly" argument seriously.

- It is a game, not a sport.

- Just because the top 0.01% want to compete for world first and want to level playing field should not matter.

- Every player with aspirations, and ability, to get world first could quit the game right now and it would be like a droplet of water being removed from the ocean.

- No one would care.

- The game should not be designed around them.

- Give guilds, a lot of guilds, guilds much better than mine, the chance to start raiding mythic again by allowing smaller groups.

- Someone in guild said we should merge with another heroic guild that is stuck and pick the top players and do mythic.

- I said, if they want to join here they are welcome too.

- But I do not feel like developing a raid team that works well together and then next expansion comes and we go our separate ways again.

- I would rather build a team than build something just to pass the time.

- And more too it, if I were actually serious about mythic I would have switched servers already.

- We have one guild on my server that is 5/13 mythic.

- They have been 5/13 mythic for as long as I can recall.

- The best of the best are all assembled there.

- They have tried to poach from my guild and many others.

- But we, they, are all happy where they are.

- And there is one mythic guild and more than a handful of heroic guilds that would all be raiding mythic instead of all fighting over trying to get a few good players.

- More so, a few good players that do not exist.

- They have to do what I do.

- Create players.

- Like that hunter that is pugging mythics in her free time.

- One person in guild that just came back asked me a few weeks ago which is better BM or MM.

- I said MM.

- I invited him to come along on a heroic run and see.

- She, with 10 items higher than me would play BM, I with only one decent trinket and still using the crated weapon would play MM.

- What the numbers and see what happens.

- First boss, a AoE fight and me with the single target spec, destroyed.

- Second fight, single target, destroyed.

- Third fight, mixed, destroyed.

- Forth fight, cleave and single, destroyed.

- Fifth fight, I went down first so of course I destroyed.

- Before the 6th fight he said, does she beat you on any fights in here.

- I said no.

- He said, she must suck.

- I said, nope, she is actually pretty damn good, playing over 96% on every fight, she is a fantastic player.

- MM is just better, simple as that.

- Percentage wise she beat me on some of those fights even if on the meters she could not come close to me on any of them.

- Don't judge a book my their cover.

- There is a lot more to doing well that just raw numbers.

- But when it comes to raw numbers, and considering only them, they are easier to compare.

- MM is better right now.

- But you never know what tomorrow will bring.

- Blizzard loves to change things on a whim don't they.

- There was a trick we used on the iskar trash, been using it forever, makes the pulls super easy and no one every gets disoriented.

- Been using it since HFC came out.

- Guess what?

- Did not work this week.

- Why patch a fix to the way we handled trash to avoid a mechanic when there so many things that are actually needed to be fixed in the game.

- I mean... really.

- I wonder who decides that it is important to fix the way some guilds cheese trash and it is no important to fix actual issues with fights, or classes, or balance.

- How about scaling the fights better for smaller groups, it is still horrible.

- How about fixing the bug that decided to choose me, as the tank, for heartseeker when there were 17 other people alive it could have chosen.

- I mean... really.

- We managed, told the off tank to taunt, ran away, came back and taunted back.

- But don't tell me that is not a bug.

- I would think fixing that should come before fixing a way people are making trash easier.

- But no, this is blizzard, no rhyme or reason.

- Either way, they do what they do, and we still play it.

- Because even with all the junk we love it.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I had some sad new this weekend about a fellow player.

- We have all hear stories about people we, or others, have played with that passed on.

- We have all heard, and in some cases personally experienced, how people get older and their abilities diminish and they play less or can do less.

- It is part of life, and real life always has an impact on our entertainment.

- His wife came online last night to let the officers know why we have not seen him all week.

- She too is a player.

- He came down with an extremely rare illness.

- Doctors were able to save his life, but he lost his arm.

- I saw my eyes are tearing up a little writing about it.

- Some may say this is only a game, and it is, but the relationships you make while playing it can be very real if you let them be.

- I've known him since 2008.

- He was my PvP partner since wrath, a really solid player with a high ranking that always tried to help me get better when I had the itch to try PvP.

- He was a semi consistent raider.

- When he was not away for military duty.

- And more importantly, he has been someone I am glad to call a friend for a long time.

- While I am saddened to lose my PvP partner and a solid raider I am near heart broken to know that my friend lost so much more.

- And not just his arm.

- The game he loved to play he may never be able to play.

- When he woke up one of the first things he told his wife was to go online and tell us not to kick him from the guild.

- My god I would never even think of it and if someone even thought for a second of suggesting it I would kick them first.

- He was, is, family.

- He is welcome to stay as long as he likes.

- I just hope that some day he can find something he can do in game that allows him to still have som joy with it.

- I will gladly help him level next expansion.

- I might never be able to help him PvP but I am sure I can drag him along for some raiding.

- He will always remain a member of the guild.

- He will always remain a friend.

- And I am just glad he is alive right now.

- I was thinking what class it might be best for him to play, so he can still play some.

- Demo warlock or BM hunter make the most sense.

- Being will have to become a clicker and movement might be an issue having a pet that does solid damage and can tank could make it easier on him.

- I've one question for the people that read here.

- Is there a way in game, or with an addon, to add a click to move functionality like they have in diablo?

- That would make one handed play a lot easier.

- And maybe it can bring a smile to his face.

- That would mean a lot to him I am sure.

- One of the officers said a funny comment that sort of softened the mood when we were all feeling down.

- They said, "I bet even with 1 arm he would still be a better raider than half the people that sign up for raid night."

- It is funny because it is true.

- On to other random thoughts, short and sweet version, as that was really the only thing on my mind right now.

- Got 1 achievement left on diablo to get my stash.

- Do the level 45 rift solo with no set pieces.

- Attempted it with some random stuff and could not even kill anything.

- Building a set now for a fire build that should do the job.

- Have 5 pieces of gear thus far with bonus fire damage bringing me close to 100% extra damage from fire abilities.

- That with my ancient manticore and ancient rucksack for increased sentries, increased sentry damage and increased cluster arrow damage I should be able to do it.

- But that will have to wait until next weekend as I am a weekend warrior only on diablo.

- Did manage to hit paragon 600 while doing rifts to upgrade gems.

- Can't believe my seasonal character has more than twice as many paragon points as my normal one.

- Funny part is, I think doing the one to do a solo 55 with 6 different sets would be easier at this point.

- 55 is a breeze now.

- The hard part would be getting two full sets on another character.

- Either way, I would have to say the extra stash slot is mine.

- I am glad because it was the only reason I was actually playing it.

- As far as wow goes, not much to say there.

- Random people still stuck at cataclysm time walkers.

- No surprise there.

- They kicked one of my guild mates from a random because, get this, he tried to explain how to do the fight after they wiped 3 times because it seemed no one else ever did them before.

- He got kicked because he knew the fight?

- Does that make any sense to you because it sure as hell makes no sense to me.

- I love the idea of someone willing to teach me how to do something I do not know.

- It is not even remotely reasonable to kick the person that is explaining the fight so you do not wipe again.

- The only thing worse than a bad player is a stupid player.

- And even worse was the fact they were bad and stupid based on what my guild mate said.

- Not willing to listen to how the fights were done.

- Not even attempting to follow mechanics.

- And doing dismal numbers, as he said he was over 65% of the DPS on the first boss and over 80% of the DPS on all the trash.

- It is standardized item level.

- Sure you can gear for best in slot, but he was just using his normal gear.

- So they were bad and stupid.

- Funny part is the cataclysm time walkers are not even half as hard as they were at release.

- These have to be all new players, because older players learned those fights when they were actually harder.

- At a 429 item level on day one.

- It was a nightmare in some groups.

- I remember the rock boss in deepholm and all of grim bartol as being horrible.

- The under water one with bad pulls or lack of focused fire and interrupts and CC could be horrible too.

- In low item levels with lesser skilled players that did not know the fights the cataclysm dungeons were, or could, be really really hard.

- With a guild group they were awesome.

- Amazing hearing some of these people saying how hard these are and here I am thinking how super easy they are.

- All about perception I guess.

- Well, I guess that is all for now, and please if anyone knows of a click to move addon or something in the game setting that will allow it, please let me know.

- I would be very grateful.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Did not play much WoW this past week.

- Got my archie kill one night in for an upgrade.

- Killed a few heroic bosses and once again wasted coins for nothing.

- And that is about it.

- I could have finished off my ring the week before if I bothered to farm valor.

- I decided against it.

- Getting that upgrade each week is the only thing keeping me going at the moment.

- So I have 3 more weeks before I need another motivator.

- Like I said, I could have finished it already if I wanted to.

- But decided I would just do it from kills only for fun.

- Not like I need it numbers wise.

- But bigger numbers are always better they say.

- Speaking of bigger numbers Diablos season 5 started just in time to serve as a nice distraction for the time being for me.

- And the numbers there seem insane.

- I am doing more damage than I have ever done in normal.

- I am gaining more paragon levels than I have ever done in normal.

- I am getting more legendary items than I ever did in normal.

- I am pushing faster times than I ever did on normal.

- I am pushing higher levels than I have ever done on normal.

- So yeah, lots of big numbers coming out of seasons, at least for me.

- I never did seasons before, this is my first.

- Why is that you say?

- They offered an additional stash slot if you did certain achievements in a season.

- I am doing it only for the stash space, no other reason really.

- Bag space is always the #1 thing in any game that actually concerns me and this got me to play the season.

- Sad part is I am just not skilled enough to get it.

- At least I do not believe so.

- Everything that is needed before the conquests parts I believe I can do, but the conquests seem out of my reach.

- Mastering a dungeon was hard enough, took me like 14 tries.

- But that is a piece of cake compared to the conquests I need to do 2 of.

- One of them I can see getting, the loot 50M gold streak, but that is about it.

- I guess doing the greater rift 45 with no tier pieces is the second most accessible one.

- But for someone that is A) not very good and B) never really spends enough time playing to pump up big paragons levels, it seems a little out of reach.

- But hey, I needed something to do so I figured I would try.

- It is for bag space after all, how could I not try.

- I love bag space and would do anything for it.

- You know those free to play games, or pay to win games as some people call them?

- I might not spend money on them to win, but if they offer increased bag space I will, and do, buy it in a heart beat.

- It is the single most important piece of any game I play.

- I stopped playing fallout 4 because I just got tired of the bag space limits.

- Before I stopped I started using the PC code for unlimited carry weight.

- But by then I was already gone.

- I was burnt out on the running back and forth of it.

- It was nice not having to worry about bag space any more.

- Maybe I will go back to it some day, I really did enjoy fallout 4 for a change of pace.

- And if I do go back I do intend to use the limited carry weight code.

- But I most definitely am not a first person shooter type of gamer.

- I like story driven games with set progression paths.

- And the occasional slaughter fest for fun sort of game.

- Which is where Diablo fits in.

- I saw people complaining on the forums about bots in Diablo and wondered what they are talking about.

- I did not even know you could have addons never the less some program to do other things.

- I am such a noob at diablo it seems.

- But I figure over all it is a single player game, who the hell cares.

- They say as long as there are leader boards it is competitive and bots ruin the competition.

- Ok I guess, if you really want to compete in a single player game that has no actual real objective in it other than just to slaughter things for fun.

- To each their own.

- I have never used, nor will I use a bot in diablo, but I did use the unlimited carry code in fallout 4 and if they had one like that is diablo I would use it there too.

- It is not cheating to do something like that in a single player game.

-The only person you are cheating is yourself.

- If you choose to cheat yourself, it is you and you alone that has to deal with the consequences of your cheating.

- Like the fun of getting stronger as you go and working your way up.

- If you skip that, you are skipping the entire game.

- So cheating only cheats yourself out of what otherwise is the entire concept of a game like this.

- And not to mention, if you get that uptight over leader boards for a single player game, you really need to readjust your priorities.

- Seeing people rage about cheating in diablo actually made me want to bot.

- It goes back to the same thing like I say for warcraft.

- How does my paragon level (gear in wow terms) effect your game play?

- I'll give you a hint, it doesn't.

- One person made the perfect response, in my opinion, to someone complaining about bots.

- He said he has worked so hard to get to paragon 900 already playing 14 hours a day that is he going to quit because he hates seeing people using bots with more.

- So the OP said the users of such programs should be banned, basically, because they have more paragon levels to him.

- The guy responded, and this was great, that he believes the OP should be banned because he has to work and can only play at most 4 hours a day so it is unfair to him that the OP should be playing 14 hours a day and getting more levels then him.

- So being he is playing more than him, and has more paragon levels than him, he should be banned too.

- It might sound silly, but he is right.

- The only problem this guy had with someone using a bot was that they had more levels than him, because they are on more often with the program.

- So the poster replied to the OP that he has the same problem with him playing 14 hours a day when he can't, so he should be banned too.

- I got a laugh out of it.

- I can see getting all bent about cheating like that in warcraft.

- It is an MMO, many items and crafting materials can be traded, it can give someone some sort of advantage.

- But that thought process does not work for a game like this.

- There is nothing to be gained by cheating like this except paragon levels.

- And a person still needs to be skilled, to some extent, to take full advantage of said levels.

- And again, the only person it effects is them.

- I made it to greater rift 51 solo so far, that is my max.

- Have not tried 52 yet, but will next weekend.

- I am glad I was able to do it.

- If I cheated I would not have enjoyed it as much.

- But I am proud of myself for doing it.

- So the only person losing if I cheated would be me.

- If I cheated and became extra strong it would have not been such an accomplishment for me.

- So if I cheated it would only hurt myself.

- And in the grand scheme of things, I do not want to cheat myself out of the fun of doing it on my own.

- Well... unless it was an unlimited bag space cheat.

- I would use that in a heart beat.

- I will admit that.

- I love bag space.

- Have a great day.

Monday Random Thoughts

- For as much as the last week was a good pugging week for me, this one wasn't.

- After multiple attempts, and failures, to find a heroic archie group, I gave up and just did a normal.

- Figured what the heck, the only thing I need off archie is the neck but only if it has a gem slot and is warforged.

- For the outside chance of not only winning it, but it having not one but two rare upgrades, is it really worth putting myself through hell?

- I think not.

- If that were all I needed, maybe.

- I am weird that way.

- Went looking for gorefiend groups, took forever to find one.

- And it said, no hunters.

- Really?

- All I want to do is roll a coin, why no hunters.

- No really, why?

- Hunters are awesome on that fight.

- Mobile DPS for below, spot on target switching capability for the adds, high powered burst for feast if you save stampede.

- So I don't get it, but oh well, I will keep looking.

- Found another group, no hunters.

- Found a third, no hunters.

- Was there a memo put out that said do not invite any hunters to pugs any more and I missed it.

- I had seen one of the archie groups earlier that had that.

- Another fight it makes no sense to blackball hunters from.

- Saw a xhul that had that too.

- I always saw the occasional group not wanting hunters, but there were a lot this weekend.

- Wonder why that is.

- If you ask me, and I am not saying this just because I main a hunter, but I would take a hunter of nearly ever other class in nearly every single situation.

- The are ranged, they are mobile, they are good at target switching, good at handling special mechanics, they are the only ranged class with a taunt, they can kite, they can slow, and being they are both mobile and ranged they can easily avoid more damage that any other class.

- When it comes to a raid group, hunters are the absolute best class to have "too many" off.

- I would take a group with 6 hunters over one with 6 warriors, or 6 mages, or 6 rogues or 6 shadow priest, or 6 anything, you get the idea.

- So if you are going to have "too many" of one class the choice is a no brainer.

- You go for "too many" hunters.

- I finally got fed up with seeing no hunters I applied to one that had no hunters listed on it.

- I said, 786 ring, will do over 100K while making adds first priority, and you do not want me because I am a hunter.  Reconsider.

- I sat in there waiting for 3 minutes and got accepted.

- Just as they downed gorefiend.

- I said, thank you for the invite, but I wanted gorefiend, and left.

- Wish I had thought to do that 20 minutes earlier when I first saw that listing.

- Oh well, my timing is horrible, but I always knew that.

- Maybe a lot of the people that lead these pugs had some runs ins with bad hunters and now they shun them.

- They need to remember they are the #1 played class in the game.

- They are great soloers.

- They are great gatherer because of their pets keep mobs busy while they loot.

- The are the best questing class.

- And they have more tools that any other class in the game making them, when in the right hands, a very powerful tool.

- So being there are more hunters, the likelihood or running into a few bad apples is much greater.

- How many bad rogues have you seen in your pugs?

- I can tell you how many good ones I have seen, I can count them on one hand, and I pug often.

- Hunters are played by roughly 6 times as many players are rogues.

- So of course you will run across more bad hunters.

- I would say I have seen roughly 20 rogues recently in pugs, 2 were good, the rest sucked.

- I would say I have seen roughly 100 hunters, about half sucked.

- So that means I have seen about 50 bad hunters and 18 bad rogues.

- Does that mean, because I see more of them, hunters on average are worse than rogues?

- Hell no, look at the math.

- 90% of the rogues sucked, only 50% of the hunters did.

- So stop shunning hunters because you see more bad hunters out there.

- Of course you do, they are the most played class.

- Doesn't mean they are bad over all.

- Just that there are more of them.

- You can't just a book by its cover and you can't judge a player by their class.

- Speaking of can't judge a book by its cover, one raid leader of a heroic archie I was on really summed it up.

- We were on voice chat, because he wanted us there.

- He said, you can't judge someone my AotC, because you can buy it and buy it super cheap on many servers.

- You can't judge a player by their item level because getting to 720 is super easy.

- You can't judge a player by their ring any longer because you can buy upgrades.

- I sort of agree with him on most of that.

- Except the 720 item level thing.

- If you have bad luck, getting to 720 is near impossible.

- You read how much I raid, I just hit that.

- And I work my butt off to try to get gear, I just don't.

- So I would say, you can't judge a person by their item level either.

- My item level is low, my damage done, knowledge and execution of mechanics and damage taken are always near the best.

- One run I was in saw only someone 739 item level beat me.

- By 5K.

- And he funneled boss while I switched to adds and took the least damage myself in the entire raid.

- Can't judge a book by its cover, that is 100% true.

- Sad part is, how else do you judge people if not by kills, achievements, item level and the like?

- I wish there were a better way.

- Sadly there is not.

- I've also come to a conclusion that will have me make a blanket statement right here.

- Mind you, this is only in reference to the people I have seen.

- Anyone that wears the title "Proven Assailant" purchased it.

- I always say proving grounds is not about DPS, it is about mechanics, but that is in reference to getting bronze.

- Going for the proven assailant requires mechanics and DPS.

- And everyone I have ever had the pleasure to pug with that had that title could not fight their way out of a paper bag.

- I remember one run on the third boss I think, my pet beat a mage that has gear equal to me in total damage done.

- And no he did not die early, he lives the whole fight.

- The issue here is, I am MM and I use the lone wolf talent.

- That means I have no pet.

- I have no pet, and my pet beat him in damage done.

- For those not in the know that means stampede, a 5 minute cooldown that I used only once, did more damage in those few seconds it was there than he did in the entire fight.

- Some proven assailant he was huh?

- Lets get to some no raid random thoughts.

- I was thinking, why can't humans be druids?

- Worgen are humans.

- Worgen can be druids.

- Therefore shouldn't humans be capable of being druids?

- And don't say the curse allows them to be druids, that is beyond silly.

- Speaking of things beyond silly, when are rogues going to be available for all races.

- We already have warriors that way, hunters are joining them, so the only other physical class that has no magical abilities of any sort left is a rogue.

- There is no reason any race should not be able to be a rogue.

- Anyone can sneak around with daggers and stab someone in the back.

- Maybe gnomes would do it better than tauren, but they should still both be able to do it.

- I can understand why some races can not do some magical things.

- That makes sense.

- But the ability to pick up a dagger and stab someone with it needs absolutely no skill.

- If anything a hunter needs leaps and bounds more skill to create a bond with a create so it would willingly serve him.

- I can see some races not having that ability, yet all races will soon be able to do that.

- So all races have the, somewhat, magical ability to talk to animals, but not all of them can pick up daggers and be sneaky?

- Makes no sense.

- I rolled a character for season 5 on Diablo.

- This will be my first seasonal character.

- I only did it because I read somewhere that will be the only way to get the extra bag space.

- So I am doing it for bag space.

- It is amazing what people, like me, will do for more space to collect junk.

- I hit 70 and am at paragon level 102 now.

- Highest greater rift is 30 currently.

- I still have squat for gear, all rare pieces, 2 legendary items and one set piece on.

- Nice to see my no luck with drops is not confined to warcraft.

- That was sarcasm in case you missed it.

- I hate my luck, or lack thereof.

- I did get 3 potions already.

- On the main servers I only got 3 potions, ever, over all my characters.

- Already got three in the season.

- They must have adjusted how things drop in seasons.

- And must have adjusted experience gains.

- Because it might have been a while, but I don't recall getting to paragon level 100 in one sitting.

- From creation to paragon level 100 took 12 hours over this weekend.

- Sure a lot of time played, but I am sure nothing even remotely close to what it did originally.

- There has to be some experience boost going on with the seasons, I am sure of it.

- I did not cap out my valor this week, Diablo side tracked me this weekend.

- So I did not max out my ring as I was planning.

- Oh well, I do not think I am going to rush it this time around.

- Have to give myself something to do long term.

- Maybe level some alts and start working on their rings.

- It is a powerful item worth getting.

- It is something to think about.

- But right now, I am at a loss for what to do in game.

- But I do have good news from the guild front.

- Not sure what spurred it on but this weekend we had the return of 6 players.

- Yes, 6 players.

- Sadly three were tanks and we do not need 3 more tanks, but three were damage dealers and we are in desperate need for damage dealers.

- What are the odds of having ex raiders return this late in an expansion when the new one is nowhere near close?

- And then what are the odds of 6 of them coming back over one weekend.

- Three of those all within 5 minutes of each other.

- No, I am not kidding.

- It was awesome to see all these people return.

- It makes me actually want to run normal again to gear them up.

- Did a normal run for one returning member and as luck would have it, decked him out in a full 4 piece in one week.

- Three from normal and one from heroic.

- Sweetness, don't you think.

- At least with the returns we will finally have some people on the paladin, priest, warlock token.

- Our priest healer has been getting all of them as he is the only one in the raid that can use them.

- Allowed him to get some awesome tier pieces as he gets them all.

- And it seems they are the only ones that drop.

- Next expansion they have to lose the classes on tier pieces and just make them so anyone can roll on them.

- Nothing worse than seeing the 10th tier hands going to someone that hasn't needed them since the first when there are still a dozen people in the raid that do not even have them at all.

- They need to fix their loot drop system big time for legion.

- But right now I am not looking forward to the hell that is coming that is making me want to quit.

- I am looking forward to blowing through some normal runs for fun and to gear up some returning players.

- I needed this, I needed new life in the game.

- Returning friends did that.

- More than any content blizzard could add.

- It is the people I play with that keep me playing, it is not blizzard.

- It has not been blizzard since cataclysm.

- In truth, blizzard should be paying us, we should not be paying them.

- Because it is us, the players, that keep others playing.

- If we left, they would leave too.

- The people, the players, we are the best content blizzard has.

- We are what keep people playing, keep people engaged.

- Maybe blizzard should be paying us.

- Hey blizzard, send me an alpha invite please, thank you.

- Have a great day.