What If: Sargeras is The Good Guy?

This post is purely speculation for the sake of fun.  Reading into things what might not actually be there.  A tin foil hat theory that maybe we have been looking at things the wrong way.  The main idea of it is that we have been deceived and the true enemies are the Titans.

For as long as I have been looking into warcraft lore it has always been said that the real big bad of the entire series is Sargeras.  That the battle against him would be the last battle, the end of warcraft as we know it.  He is the largest threat we can and will ever face.

For a long time now I have been entertaining the idea that what we know is wrong.  That the life we lead is not really our own, but we are being groomed as an army, and army for the Titans.  Every step of the way, every thing we have done, was us being built into the ultimate army in service of our makers, the Titans.

It reminds me of the story from Wrath of the Lich King some.  We never thought anything of it when Arthas came taunting us while we leveled up.  We never even considered that he had a greater plan when we fought him, or more accurately, his subordinates along the way.  In truth, to anyone that does not follow the lore they might not have noticed the underlining story in wrath and that was that we were not "fighting" our way to the Lich King, we were being groomed by him to become his next, and greatest, lieutenants.  Battle tested by the best he could send our way.

He taunted us, he challenged us, he sent waves of enemies after us, but he never engaged us.  He could have beaten any of us one on one at any given point, that is beyond contention, but he did not want us dead, he wanted us stronger.  In those early days when we were weaker when we first stepped foot into Northrend, we would have been a push over.  But did he kill us?  No, he let us live to face another challenge.

When all was said and done and we met him face to face, when he allowed us to do so, we lost.  He toyed with us the entire fight.  We kept thinking we were getting the best of him but we were not.  He was just pressing us harder and harder, pushing us to our limits as fighters, warriors, all so he could see if we were indeed worthy.

When he decides that he has had enough playing around and that we had proved ourselves worthy, he kills us.  No long drawn out channeled spell.  No big effort on his part.  He just wishes us dead and we died, instantly, without him ever breaking a sweat.

The idea was that he was now going to revive us and we would be under his servitude.  We would be the leaders of his greater, and now unbeatable, army.  If the greatest Azeroth had to offer could be killed in an instant with no effort at all by him, what would it look like for the rest of the denizens of Azeroth if those heroes were raised on the side of the Lich King.  Not good at all.

We ended up winning the battle with a little bit of luck, or make that a lot of luck.  We were dead, we did lose, the Lich King was the most powerful enemy we had ever faced and remains so even up to this day.  Even Deathwing, the unmaker of worlds needed a long, very long, cast time to destroy the world whereas Arthas simply wished us dead and we died.  We were lucky, never doubt that.

It is that story, and in my opinion the best writing we have ever seen in the warcraft MMO, that made me think that perhaps Sargeras is the good guy.  Because not everything always is as it appears.  Is blizzard the type to develop such a great bait and switch like that?  Keep us thinking that Sargeras is the bad guy only to find out that he is our one and only true savior.  I doubt it.  Most blizzard writing is not that deep or involved, at least not since the days of the Lich King.  But that is where I let my imagination run away with me.

We thought we had the Lich King on the run, but he was playing with us.  We never held the upper hand, we never had him running from us, we never had a prayer of beating him, even when he let us just waltz into his throne room.  He has control the entire way.  He manipulated every step we took, all in an effort to make us stronger.  To make us better fighters.  All so we would be more of a force to be reckoned with when he revived us as his lieutenants.

This is how I see what the Titans are doing.  The Titans might not be these benevolent beings that gave us life, that shaped the world as we know it, that set things in motion so we could live our own lives.

What if the Titans, and everything we have experienced, are all planned out to make us stronger so we would be a more formidable army at their service.  Just because we do not know of the great "Army of the Titans" doesn't mean that there is not one.  There is very little we know of the Titans and most of what we know is speculation at least and tainted at best.

We believe that they could not kill the old gods so they imprisoned them beneath the crust of the ground.  What proof do we have of that?  None.  What if they were completely capable of killing them, but they didn't for a reason.  They wanted them under the ground, they wanted them whispering the murmurs into the minds of man, driving them insane.  What if they wanted them there trying to corrupt us so it would weed out those weak of mind.  That those whispers in our ears were a test to see who was weak of mind, to see who could resist the madness, to make sure the strong get stronger being able to resist such pressure from the old golds and the weak get eliminated.

The old gods could be a tool, just like we are to the Titans.  Who is the say the old gods were not placed on Azeroth by the titans for this exact reason.  None of us were there at the beginning.  All we have is speculation.  Perhaps the old gods whispers of madness in our ears is no different than Arthas sending enemies our way to strengthen our fighting skills, except it is a design of the Titans to strengthen our mental skills.

The Titans are all about "order", or at least that is what we are lead to believe.  Perhaps it is an order like the military.  We are being trained to fight for them.  That is why there is such a strict adherence to order demanded by the land and the watchers.  If we are not developing as they want us to, we will be eliminated.

Perhaps we misunderstood what Algalon was on about when we ran into him in Ulduar.  We believed that we accidentally set it off by killing Loken and he, after seeing us and what we could do, decided not to start the reorganization of Azeroth.  Perhaps the reason killing Loken set off Algalon was because the Titans believed that their army was revolting and when Alaglon saw that we were not actually revolting and we were still following the path of the titans, he let us live and did not reorganize Azeroth.

He was a safeguard so if the Titans army, namely us, were to revolt, he would reset the world so a new army can be raised from the beginning, one that would not turn on their masters and makers.  Once Algalon noticed we were in fact no threat to the masters plan he let us continue on.

The Titans, to our belief, have placed life on countless planets never to return.  We believe they are benevolent being offering life, free will, our own being.  But perhaps it is not as it seems.  They are placing life all over the universe trying to find the perfect situation where they can develop their army.  An obedient, powerful army.

Maybe Sargeras noticed this.  He noticed that the Titans were trying to develop an army of slaves basically.  Strengthened by design to be powerful of both mind and body and obedient to their makers, the Titans.  Sargeras needed to do whatever he could to fight for the right of free will.  He enlisted whichever being he could get to work with him in whatever way he could woo them to do so.  He, and his new followers, went and started to destroy all the worlds the Titans had made with designs of being a soldier factory of sorts.

With whom Sargeras works with it is easy to think of him as the bad guy.  Working with demons does not usually give off the feeling that this is a good guy we are looking at, but perhaps it is just a means to an end for him.  Not everything is always as it appears.  The humanoids, as we know them, the people most similar to us, are all children of the Titans.  We are all subjects of the Titans, we are organized to be as the Titans wanted us to be.

We are wild cards, we are the army of the Titans whether we notice it or not.  Sargeras could not ask us to help him, could not woo us to help him, could not persuade us to help him, because if he did, the watchers that the Titans left in place, for just such a reason, if we deviated from the path the Titans set for us, would just reorganized Azeroth, wiping us from existence for the sole offense of drifting from the makers plans and having free will.

The day could come where it finally dawns on us, that we are nothing more than pawns in a much greater plan.  That it is the Titans in fact that are the true evil in the universe.  Twisting the old gods to their service and using them to make us stronger.  Sargeras knew what the Titans were doing, he was once one of them, he knew that creating a perfect order to the universe meant that every living being would have to bend to the Titans will and that there would be no individuality left in the universe.  Every being alive would have to walk lock step in tune with the will of the Titans or be wiped out.

Sargeras is fighting for our right to feel will.  He sides with those we perceive as evil because those were the only beings he could get to work with him, the only ones not pressed under the thumb of the Titans, the only ones that have the free will to join him.  They work with him because they want to do so, not because they were designed to do so, which is how we walk with the Titans, by design.

In the future, when we develop more free will, us, the beings that the Titans were developing to be their perfect warriors of mind and body, will fight against our makers and they will rain down upon us with a vengeance we never even imagined could come from them, because we are not listening to their plan, we are not following their rule, and we must be wiped out and Azeroth will need to be reorganized, so they can start over and make a better race, a stronger race, a more obedient race that understands their place, as soldiers of the Titans.

To defeat the Titans we will need to save Sargeras from the Twisting Nether and work with him because for as evil as he might seem, he is the good guy.  Always had been, always will be.  He was fighting for our right to free will, for our right to not just be servants of the Titans.

Far fetched?  Sure.  Possible?  Absolutely.

We only know what we are told.  Do you believe everything you are told?  If so, perhaps you are exactly what the Titans want.  But if you do not believe everything you have been told, the Titans will remove you from the equation.  There is no free will allowed in the Titans universe.  Only order.  Complete order that follows the Titan design.   Sounds pretty evil to me and I guess that means the guy fighting against it, Sargeras, is the good guy then.

Tin Foil Hat: What if Those Aren't Duped, They Are Blizzard.

Keeping with the topic from yesterday about the recent flood of duped items appearing for sale around the game instead of just the few we usually see here and there I want to delve into the tin foil hat zone.

Please keep in mind there is absolutely no proof of anything blizzard may or may not be doing, it is pure speculation.  It is made up from the minds of people that make things up just to talk about.  I was first approached by this tin foil hat idea in the days before the wow tokens was released and then received follow up messages from said person, while also looking on my server for comparisons to what he was speaking of, and it made me think, what if it he is right.

What if all these items we are seeing for sale lately are not the product of dupers, or not completely, and instead they are items that blizzard themselves are selling in game in an effort to get people to buy gold in the form of the wow token?

Strap on your tin foil hat as I bring you down the road I was recently taken down and maybe when all is said and done you too, like me, might think, even for a moment, maybe this guy is on to something.

Lets call my informant Bob, just because I like to use Bob as my name of choice for any and all topics.  Bob told me a few days before the wow tokens were to be released that I should look for some good deals on the auction house.  I asked him why and he said that people will be selling like crazy to take advantage of the buyers who never had gold that will now have it at hand.

This actually made perfect sense.  Say you had a high priced item that was not selling.  Now many people who might have wanted to buy it will have the capability of getting the cash to buy it.  As long as it was in the 20K range, as that is what the US token was expected to get and it seems to be the round about number it has stayed at, slightly higher actually.

I said to him that was a good pick up, to notice something like that.  Good gold makers pick up on future trends like that before they happen.  That is how they get ahead of the pack and make lots of money.  He said, it was not just a good pick up, he knows it for a fact, that I should take a close look at the market in the weeks after the token is released and be prepared for things I never expected to see being there.

Now is when we enter the tin foil hat zone.

He said to look for mythic BoE items that sell for exactly what the wow token sells for.  Knowing my server I knew the chances of that were slim to none.  Mythic BoEs were selling for 80K minimum before the wow token came out.  But over the years he never lead me wrong and this time was no different.

By the Saturday after the wow tokens were released mythic BoEs were all over my server, dozens, maybe even more, all warforged, every last one of them, on the auction house for 20-25K each.

I am not shitting here.  He nailed in on the head.  Not only were mythic BoEs selling on the auction house for the price of a wow token, but they were all better than the average BoE.  Every last one of them was warforged.

I asked him about it and he said that is blizzard releasing them on the servers and selling them themselves.  They are trying to entice people to buy more tokens so they listed items that they knew people would want at a price that made buying a wow token to get it seem worth while.

Could he be on to something here?

Like I said, on my server mythic BoEs were always 80K minimum.  Warforged or with a gem slot, depending on the piece you could be looking at upwards of 150K for it on the AH and here we were not just days after the token was released with massive amounts of BoEs, all warforged, for 20K.

One might think that someone was just selling their "stash" now.  But there are a few reasons I have to believe that is not true.  One being the fact they were all warforged.  What are the odds that there are 18 sets of mail boots on the auction house and every last one of them is 706? 

I farmed mythic trash, friends have farmed mythic trash, none of us has ever seen a warforged drop from trash.  Sure it is one small sampling, but where are all the normal versions?  Even if some people got really luck with some warforged drops, where are all the listing for the normal version?  For that many warforged ones to drop there has to be 10 times as many normal ones, wouldn't you think?

The second reason I disbelieve this is that one of the pieces I look for, the agility neck piece as it is BiS for me suddenly appeared, as in 22 of them suddenly appeared, all 706 on the auction house and all for 25K.

That BoE does not drop from trash, it drops from a boss kill.  And there was, at the time, only one guild on my server that had killed a few bosses on mythic and only 2 others that might be capable of it.  Yes, bad server, lets move along. 

So I ask you this, what is more likely, this one guild had been lucky enough that every single person in the raid was setting their specialization to get agility loot and had been winning them each week, every one was warforged, and then after the token was released they all decided to sell them on the auction house for 125K less than they could reasonably get for them or blizzard released the items themselves to try and spur people to buy wow tokens?

Lets not forget that there were also over 20 intellect necks, 20 spirit necks, 20 strength necks and 20 bonus armor necks also on the AH.  All were warforged too.  That one guild that had been downing the bosses must have been really lucky.

So the tin foil hat seems to lean really far to the side that blizzard released them.  I duper would not have undercut them from 150K to 20K.  At least I don't think they would, but how would I know.  I don't do that stuff.  But what I do know is that my friend called it.  The same one that has in the past told me some other interesting information that came to be true.

Was he really that good at guessing what would happen or did he have some inside information that blizzard would be releasing items to spur sales of the wow token?

Put on your tin foil hat and you decide.  There might be absolutely zero proof of it, but looking at my server alone there seems to be some reasonable thought that it "could" be true.  Or maybe the only reason I am starting to believe it is because my hat is on too tight.  What do you think?

What If: Blizzard Had Subscription Packs?

I was reading through some posts on the forums and got to the no flying post in which I love reading the debates.  It really is a circular argument that has been going on for a while, not much new has been added to it in ages, you either want flying back or you don't, simple as that.  So no one really said anything specific that made me think of this idea but none the less something popped into my mind that I think would be interesting to see what people would think about.

Lets say, for example, if blizzard offered different levels of their monthly subscription service and one of them included flying as a perk.  Would you be willing to pay for flying?

What we pay now would be called the silver package.  For our $15 a month we would get access to everything we currently have.

Now lets makes one package higher for $20 a month and one lower for $10 a month.  Not going to add a lot or remove a lot, just going to keep it super simple.

Gold: $20 a month

All current access we have in game.
Flying.

Silver: $15 a month

Game as it currently is.

Bronze: $10 a month

No access to "top" end game experiences. (mythic and arena)
Full access to all else.

Now I am sure there could be more differences between the different levels of subscription and I can see a hell of a lot of the player base, most likely well over 80%, that would be happy with the lower $10 per month package as most players never step into mythic or arena.  But how many of us would be baited by the flying in draenor to pay $20 a month.

I know I would be willing to pay an extra $5 a month for the ability to fly.  Maybe not just that but with some other small bonuses too, like being able to get the "first dungeon" bonus twice per day or other little things like that.

So I have three questions for you, the reader.

1) As listed, would you upgrade, downgrade, or stay the same?

2) What would you need as a perk to get you to pay $5 a month more?

3) How much would you sacrifice to save $5 a month?

What if: 30 Days Game Time: How Much Would It Be Worth?

With the recent revelation that blizzard is toying around with the idea of allowing a game time item to be purchasable with real cash that could be sold in game for gold, presumably through the auction house and trade window as an actual item, has made me think what it would be worth to buy and sell for.

A topic like this is likely to have a large range of answers that are very dependent on the person themselves.  Do they have disposable income, are they willing to spend that disposable income on a game, are they good at making gold in game or not, there are many factors that will go into it.  My personal opinion on the matter might match some and might not match most, because each one of us is an individual with different circumstances in life and different feeling toward spending our hard earned cash on or in a game.

For the purpose of this what if post we will work under some made up, because we really do not know, numbers, rules and situations. 

We will work under the idea that the game time token will sell for slightly more than purchasing time for yourself like it does in other games that have been using this model for many years.  Lets say if 30 days cost 15 dollars in the US than the game time token will sell for 20. 

We will also work under the presumption that blizzard has completely fixed the ability to dupe items so that would be a non factor and we will figure this based on it being an item like all other items in game.  Completely tradable and not limited.

I am going to give my opinion on this three times.  The reason for that is because I actually have three different opinions.  Yes, I do, and yes you can have more than one opinion.  It all depends on what angle you are looking at it from.  The buyer, the seller, or the person that will not take part of it in any way.  So my three opinions on what it is worth differ based on which angle I look at it.

What if you could buy game time, how much would you pay?

If I were the one doing the buying I would want it at a reasonable price.  While I do have the ability to make gold and I do have a nice little stash of gold going, I am capable of paying for my own game time with cash.  So for me to use in game resources it would have to be so cheap that I could not say no.

I would say that if the price of 30 days game time were to be 10,000 or less I would be interested in it.  I would most likely even switch from spending real money to in game money only.  Even without playing the auction house and just playing the game like normal I think that gathering 10,000 per month should be reasonably easy for any active player.  So much so to the point where it would be, at worst, a net wash on my part.  Even on the slowest months, not trying to make any gold and not being very actice, I would say I can make 10,000, so I get that month for free, so to speak.  I just have to give up the gold I made for the month and with the stash I have that does not really seem like it would be a huge price to pay at all.

Anything more than 10,000 and I would have absolutely no interest in buying it with in game gold.  Heck, even the 10,000 number might still be a coin flip depending on how I feel on that day, but that is the highest I could see me ever paying for game time with in game gold.

What if you could sell game time, how much would you sell it for?

Looking at it from this direction, as the person spending real cash, I would never in a million years spend 20 dollars of real life money to get only 10,000 gold in game.  In my personal opinion you would need to be extremely desperate for gold and have way too much spending cash in the real world to waste it on making such a small amount like 10,000.

So what would get me to open my wallet and buy some game time tokens to sell in game.  Well, being I do not need gold I will have to play like there is something I want to buy and I need to gold.  So first off I would need the desire to spend the gold, which I am sure blizzard will add so people like myself have a reason to buy game time to sell in game.  Now lets assume that there was something I wanted to buy, what do I think would be a reasonable selling price.

For me to open my wallet and spend 20 dollars I think we would need to see the 30 day game time tokens selling for at least 100,000 gold and even then I would only spend real life cash if I were in desperate need, or felt like I was in desperate need of whatever it is I was selling them to gather to gold to buy.

If they wanted me to open my wallet freely and be willing to drop a hundred dollars here and there on game time tokens to sell we would need to see the gold selling price in the 250,000 to 300,000 range before I felt comfortable spending real life money in game for gold.

Being we are playing the what if make believe game here I am going to take this one step further.  What type of selling numbers would I need to see to get me to open my wallet and start spending some serious bucks, as in hundreds?

I would need to see the game time cards selling for over 1,000,000 each.  Much over if possible.  Even if I did not need the gold for anything, I could see myself spending two or three hundred dollars to sell game time and I would stash the money so if I ever needed it than it would be there.  If they were selling for 1,000,000 each, yes, I could most definitely see myself spending money I did not even need or want to spend because it would be such a good deal and it would be worth it, in my opinion at least.

What do you believe will be the actual pricing?

This is the third and last part.  What I believe the actual pricing you can expect to see on your local auction house for these things if they went into the game as described.

The price I would be willing to buy at is so low, it will never get that low and the price I would be willing to sell it is so extremely out of line that I know I am being a jerk for saying I would want 1M for it, so they will never go that high.

What it comes down to is what can we expect it to actually fetch in game and I think we already have the answer to that.  Take a look at the auction house for the "hot" items.  On my server it is the 670 back and waist on the auction house.  Something we all have easy access too if we wanted to do a few trash runs and something everyone needs, even to a lesser extent than game time.  See what the highs and lows for those items are and that is what I figure the range would be.

The reason I say look at your server is because each server has a different economy.  Some might not have many heroic BoEs on the AH, some might have more, some might only have normal, some might have mythic.  You need to judge it on the hot item, the things selling well with good turn over that are in demand.

On my server that would mean that the game time items would sell from 18K - 35K, and you know what, that seems about right.  I can see 30 days game time easily selling for that amount.  For someone like me it is not worth buying at that price, and it is not worth selling at that price.  And if it is too high for me to want to buy and too low for me to want to sell, I think it is in a good place for everyone.

That is my opinion only of course, so what is yours?  What price would get you to buy it, sell it and what do you think it might average?  What if.. of course.

What If Your Class Was Removed?

After talking about blizzard removing things yesterday I started to think what wouldn't they remove.  Almost anything is fair game.  They can remove or redesign zones, remove raids, dungeons, gear, titles, achievements, mounts, pets, mobs, you name it.  They could even remove entire races if they choose to and just leave your race as the "last survivors" if they wanted to because that is what some races are to begin with.  But what about your class?

What if tomorrow you woke up and logged on to your favorite warcraft news source or random internet blog to hear about the recent hub bub going on with the game to see announcements about your class being removed?

Lets say for some reason blizzard did not like the idea of 11 classes and wanted to move backwards to a nice even number like ten and it was your class that they decided to put on the chopping block.  Outside of the clear outrage you would see on the forums, and many blogs like mine, over the removal of your favorite class with no warning, it very well might be the first time that anyone would agree rage quitting the game is actually the right answer.

While some of us have many alts and might even like to play them most people consider themselves a particular class.  I am a hunter, that is what I am.  There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.  I like the play style, I like having a pet, I like being the loner sort of class that is capable of doing many things on its own. So even if I have all classes at max level and multiples of many of them at max level I am a hunter first and foremost.  So this post, for me at least, is about the hunter class being removed from the game.  For you, make it about whatever class is your true love in the game, the one you like to play best and the one that you most closely identify yourself with.

This is a what if in all scenes of the words because when you think of things they could remove this would be as far as possible of anything that could happen because it never will.  But to continue with the what if, what if you do not rage quit.  Which would be, quite honestly, the result most people that play that class as a main would do. So no rage quitting allowed.  Now to the question posed to me, change the class to the one that best suits you for your answer.

What if the hunter class was removed?

I first started playing a hunter when I tested it out in BC mainly because it was what was highlighted on my screen.  I wish there were some sort of deeper thought put into it but it was highlighted and when I read the desorption I liked it, really that was all that was involved in choosing the play a hunter.  It was a ranged class, which if you have ever played any fantasy game ever in the history of gaming you would know is the best class to be, and it had a pet that could take the hits for you while you beat down a mob.  So hunter it was for me.  It sounded good.

As the years went by I made a lot of other classes, even had a few more classes to play around with before my hunter was max level.  Mostly support characters made with the intention of helping my hunter.  Like someone to make gear for me, someone to make bags for me, you get the idea.

So I was an alt-a-holic before I ever actually became one.  With that I learned to play with many different styles and it became clear in no time at all that hunter was the only class I ever waned to be.  So if I could not be a hunter, while I could still find some joy in the game otherwise, I really would not get that into it.  But being I am not allowed to quit in this what if now that the hunter class is being removed I have to consider other options.

For me it is not as hard as you might think.  I have always had my main, a hunter, and two additional mains, for a few expansions now.  I've worked with the three main system and I am used to it.  One main for tanking and one main for healing along with my over all main, the hunter of course.  Those other mains usually ended up being a druid for tanking and a priest for healing.  For a short time in cataclysm I was mostly healing on my shaman and mostly tanking on my warrior, but in time I went back to my druid and priest combo for my tank and healer mains as it was.

I have dabbled in the other damage dealers and all their specs.  I do not like any of the other ranged classes.  I could sink my teeth into a warlock, or one might assume, as it does have a pet to tank and it does (or very soon did) have some ability to do damage while moving but I just never felt comfortable with a lock.  I could play a mage because they can do what I love to do with my hunter better than any of the other classes I have played and that is kite.  Mages are quite good at that.  But no, they did not feel right either and always feel way to squishy.

Nearly all the damage dealers have something I like about them, but they just are not for me.  I am sure everyone that has a main can sympathize with me there.  No matter how we try, no matter what we like, an alt will always be an alt.

And that is where my problem would lie.  I am an average at absolute best healer.  Sure I am healing heroic, sure I can heal most things, but when it comes to cutting edge stuff I will never touch that with a ten foot pole.  As far as tanking goes I do that a slight bit better than I do with healing.  I am a very serviceable tank.  Given a little time playing with it to into a grove with it I believe I could meet my potential as a tank, at least a hell of a lot easier than I can as a healer.

Over all however, I am a damage dealer, that is what I like to do.  When I am on my hunter and I pug I usually just tell the raid leader.  I know the fights, just point at what you want me to kill and I will kill it.  I do not need any explanation.  And that is the truth.  It is how I play.  I study the fights and what is relevant to me first to do my job to the best of my ability.  I rarely if ever go into a fight not knowing what I want to do and how I want to do it.  I plan out my cooldowns before the first pull.  I plan out my movements before the first pull.  I take pride in being the best bringer of death that I could possibly be.  My job is the be the best killer I am capable of being and I try my best.  It is the fun of the class for me.

So that means while I would still have a main tank and a main healer neither of those would be my new main.  I would need a new damage dealer.  Not a main as a tank or not a main as a healer, my main will need to be just as my hunter is, a dealer of death.  So which damage dealer would I choose?

The obvious choice would be to choose one where I can double dip.  One I can tank and DPS on, or one I can heal and DPS on.  Or even better yet, one and I can tank, heal and DPS on like a druid, monk or a paladin.

I'll rule out the monk because although I did have a short stint as a main tank on my monk this expansion, which included tanking for some of our earliest clears of ToT I abandoned it shortly after SoO came out because I was just not feeling it any longer.  I've never tested monk healing so that would be worth a shot at some point maybe and I can say that I like monk DPS even if it is melee but not enough to main it.

Now on to the druid.  No thank you.  I am not fond of the kitty toolkit.  I played around with it once this expansion and gave it a true effort to play it and I did manage to get it working.  Even the advanced rotation.  However, while fighting I oft times found myself losing track, not because of lack of skill on my part, but because I was not enjoying it and started to zone out.  There is too much to keep track of as a cat and if I am going to get bored at doing it that quickly it will only hurt my game play because a bored player is a bad player that makes mistakes.  And I was starting to make mistakes.  Balance just never floated my boat, all 2.3 seconds I tried playing it for on the various occasions I did attempt to play one.  No thank you.  At least being a druid healer I could get into but that would not solve the issue where I need a damage dealer.

For the paladin the answer is a lot easier.  I do not like paladin healing and I do not like the peaks and valley feeling to the DPS rotation.  So paladin is not even an option I would consider.  It is tank or nothing.

Now for the ones that can heal and DPS only which would be shaman and priest.  Although I have used both as my main healer over the years and I really love both shaman and priest healing I am not keen on the damage dealer part of if.  I can not stand shadow.  Talk about boring, that one is up there.  For elemental it is better than shadow at least but still takes place in the category of lacking buttons and waiting on procs does not make for compelling game play when you only have a couple of buttons to begin with.  Enhancement is what my shaman always was.  It was not a healer to start oddly enough, it was melee DPS.  I hate melee DPS but I really like the enhancement rotation.  It has always had some issues with gaps in the rotation and that bugs me, but I could deal with it.  I would give it a try, but I do not see me considering this as my main DPS spec to start with, just something I could try.

Now for the tank and damage dealer category.  I could consider a death knight but I am not overly fond of either unholy or frost.  I have played them, I have played them okay as well.  So I am sure if I put my mind into it I could even get good with them but I do not want to.  They suffer from the number one thing I hate about damage dealers, being in melee range.  Unless you are the tank I do not believe there is any reason anyone should ever be in striking distance of the mob.  Simple as that.  Now I do understand my choices are getting quite limited.  I've already ruled out both pure ranged classes and all ranged specs from classes that can do damage and something else, so I am getting short on options here.  But DKs are not it.  I would give the enhancement another try way before even considering a DK.

Warrior, ah the warrior.  I have had a warrior as my main tank before and gladiator stance does really seem promising.    I love the idea of being a sword and board damage dealer.  Just the idea alone is enough to get me to test it out.  From all I have read, have not tried it yet, it seems like gladiator is also a very fun style of combat.  So it is quite possible I might find myself being a warrior tank and damage dealer, basically while still a tank.  That is an interesting idea.  This would most likely be the first alt I would bring up just to try it.  At least as it stands now, it is the most promising alt.

So were are we now.  There is only one class left and I saved it for last for multiple reasons.  It is the class I like the least.  It is a pure class which means it can not do anything else.  It has a history of being a great PvP class but I am not a PvPer.  And last but not least it is a melee class, which as I mentioned, I really dislike.  But when all is said and done, and I do not believe I am about to type these words, if hunters were removed from the game I would main a rogue.

Yes.  I said it.  I feel dirty now.  It is my arch nemesis the rogue.  Not only as the exact counter to hunters in PvP but many I like about hunters, rogues don't have.  However, with that said, many things I do like about hunters, rogues do have. 

They have a misdirect of sorts, they have a better stealth, they have a way to drop aggro, they have lots of control, they have more defensive cooldowns and they are kind of sucking in the self heals department just like hunters plus they can get around pretty nice with things like sprint and shadowstep.  They are a lot like hunters and a lot not like them at the same time.  As I like to joke sometimes rogues are hunters that were not smart enough to stay at ranged and got hit in the head one to many times.

When all is said and done, if I were forced to pick a new main it would end up being a rogue.  I might not be good at one now but they are one of, if not the, easiest classes in the game, so I am sure if I tried getting the most out of one it would not be too hard when compared to other classes.  I can pull around 200K-240K at a 544 item level with a lovely 502 weapon but I can not tell you if that is good or not.  But one thing I do know is that if I played it more than once every few months I would be doing better. 

Also one thing that is in the rogues favor, sort of like how gladiator is in the warriors favor, is that they changed one of things about rogues I had hated to the most, outside of the fact they are melee of course.  Combo points.  Now that they are on me and not on my target which means I will not feel as useless as I always did when there was a time I had to switch targets.  I always felt bad that I wanted to land a finisher on the target I was on before switching.  Now that I no longer need to worry about that, and with rogues excellent movement abilities, target switching should no longer be an issue that holds me back from enjoying the class. 

As an added bonus a rogue brings some decent raid utility, does fair numbers, is one of the least played classes and is a beast even for a complete noob like me to play in PvP.  So maybe I might actually enjoy PvPing when I am not running around with the free kill sign around my neck that I usually feel like I am wearing when I am on a hunter because everyone always comes after me first, even before healers.  And if someone puts that sign on me as a rogue, cloak, vanish, reset.  Yeah, I think I can really dig that.

So what if your class was removed and you were not allowed to quit, you had to pick something, what would you pick?

What If: The Faction Divide Without Orcs

It is a relatively known fact that the coming of the Orcs is what created the faction divide.  Not saying there were not some opposition between races before that point because there surely was but it was the coming of the orcs that inspired the rise of the horde and created the azeroth we know it which an orc vs human world with each representing their respective faction.

What if the orcs never came to azeroth?  What do you believe the world would look like and do you believe there still would have been a faction divide?

We hear a lot of hate with the story telling of blizzard being so orc centric now for the third expansion in a row and who can blame them, it is getting tired now, really tired.  But to call it horde favoritism, while correct at face value, is not to look back at the full picture as if this was a world without orcs.  At least in my vision of this what if world would look like without them.

If you think things show horde favoritism now just want until you see what my vision of the world would be without orcs.

Everything said here has absolutely no basis in lore and is just me voicing opinions or making guesses on what I believe might have, or could have, happened if the world never had orcs enter the picture.

The alliance, and particularly their human leadership was pretty much divided before the time of orcs.  It was the invasion that made them combine the seven kingdoms into one under the banner of a human alliance.  It is also that invasion that made them seek out an alliance, if you will, that saw them joining forced with other non human kingdoms.

Without the orcs and by association without the invasion there would have been no reason for the kingdoms of humans to join together and most defiantly no reason for them to join ranks with non humans.

However conflict has a way of happening and it would happen sooner or later.  I could see all the human kingdoms joining together because of it and I could see the dwarves and gnomes joining with the human, it just seems like a natural fit.   So I could see at least that part of the alliance as we know it banding together.  Where I see the difference coming is with the night elves.  I do not see them joining with the humans, dwarves and gnomes.  Not only are the predominantly on another continent but they really do not seem to fit as well with them.

Not to mention that the night elves seem to be more in tune with the tauren and troll races on their own continent.  When push came to shove, in my vision of a world without orcs I could see the alliance being the humans, dwarves and gnomes and the horde being the night elves, tauren and troll.  The tag line would need to be changed to Night Elves vs. Humans.

As time went by and more races were "introduced" that is where we would begin to see a major faction imbalance.  People might say horde favoritism now but do not kid yourself, if we were in a world without orcs it might seem even more so like horde favoritism.

Without the orcs we would not have original faction balance, or would we?  The last race that had not chosen a side are the forsaken.  I can not believe that the human would side with them, even if they were losing a war and I can not believe the night elves would side with them because they would go against their feelings for nature and what is natural and comes from the earth that is embraced by all members of the horde faction, night elf, tauren and troll alike.

So the beginning factions are now broken up as three on each side and the forsaken being left on the outside looking in.  They would just grow to be the main antagonist of the series.  This would allow the game to move forward with a central bad guy "faction" instead of having to label either the alliance (good guys) or the horde (bad guys) as such as it stands currently.

When BC came about the races would have joined different sides, or so I would be lead to believe.  Blood elves might have issue with both the humans and the night elves but I can see them looking to join with someone and as such they would get the padnaren treatment of being allowed to choose which side they want to be with.  Being blood elves held some animosity against their brothers the night elves and some had contempt for the humans it would be a case of them choosing the lesser of two evils.  So blood elves would be allowed to choose the side they wish to fight for.

The draenei however would side with the horde.  It was the night elves that helped them, it was the night elves that became their friends, shares somewhat similar beliefs and made them feel welcome so as such it would be the night elves that they join with.  It would also allow them to be with the tauren which they share more in common with than they do any of the humans, dwarves or gnomes.

Orcs, while we meet them in outland would not be joining any faction as a playable race and if they did they would join one it would be the non playable forsaken as part of the bad guys, which is really where they belong, even more so the outland orcs.

So this basically would now put the horde up one faction as they get the draenei and both factions split the blood elves.

Come wrath it might be best to talk a little bit about classes.  Even if both the tauren and the tolls were shamanistic there would have been no shamans in the original game.  With no orcs in the game that means no shaman even if lore shows that shamanism was almost dead in the orc culture and did exist in both in the tauren and troll culture but because they would not want to give the horde 2 classes that the alliance did not have there would be no shaman in game at all, at least at the start.  That does not mean that there would be no faction specific classes however.  As it stands only the horde would have druids and only the alliance would have paladins.

With the BC expansion horde ended up getting a paladin class in the draenei so for that entire expansion would see the horde with one more class than the alliance had as well as one more race.  And people complain about horde favoritism now, what do you think they would have said then?

Well, something apparently because in my what if vision when wrath came blizzard tried to balance out the class imbalance.  Death knights would be introduced as an alliance only class and not a hero class.  It would start at level 1 like all others and only humans would be able to be death knights.  Now there is balance again.  Alliance had lost their class when they had to share the paladin with the horde through the draenei and now have their class back in the form of the death knight.

With no new races this expansion and blizzard balancing out the class imbalance we move to cataclysm where they introduced worgen and goblin as races and we get to see a hell of a lot more horde favoritism.  Worgen would end up joining the horde instead of the alliance because, once again, it was the night elves that convinced them to join their efforts and not the humans.  The night elves had always been the diplomats among the alliance races and without them they are not really expanding.

In regards to the goblins I doubt human arrogance or prejudices would allow those tiny green devils to beak bread with their people so when they sought out a faction to join it would only make sense they would join the faction that had a diplomatic leadership that would see the advantage of having another race within their fold, even more so one with great inventions like the goblins.

This would now place the horde a whole 3 factions ahead of the alliance and balance between races would be a long forgotten thing.  It was just not going to happen.  The opening up of more races being able to play more classes helped the alliance some as all three of their races could now be death knights, their special class but now 4 races could be druids, the hordes special class.  More races could be the hordes special class than there were alliance races to begin with, if you do not count the blood elves which they both had.

In cataclysm we would also see the introduction of the shaman class because it would be needed for story telling purposes and both sides would get it.

When mists came and the pandaren entered the picture it is hard to say or even guess which way they could go.  I would guess they might end up the same way they did now and be a split faction just like the blood elves were in my what if scenario.  Both sides would gain the monk class, just as they do now.

So all things being said and done, at least in my mind, this is how the factions would look if the orcs never existed as a playable race in warcraft.

Alliance :  Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Pandaren and Blood Elf
Horde : Night Elf, Tauren, Troll, Draenei, Worgen, Goblin, Pandaran and Blood Elf

Alliance Only Class : Death Knight
Horde Only Class : Druid

As you can see, horde would be better off without the orcs.  The perceived favoritism would be much more warranted.  As annoying as it might be to be entering a third orc-centric expansion we have to think, at least in my mind, that it is the orcs that actually keep things balanced.

How do you see the faction divide splitting up the races if not for the orcs?  Or do you think there would be no factions at all and everyone would be one in the same?

Personally the most interesting thing of this what if scenario in my mind is not the absence of the orcs and how the alliance and horde divide would be leaning toward the horde, but the fact that the forsaken would become a non player "bad guy" throughout the entire series.  Now that is a what if story for another day and that could be fun to wonder what would happen if they unleashed their might on all the races.

What If: Blizzard Stopped Trying to Balance PvP

Whether you are into player vs player or you never touch it everyone seems to share the same opinion in some way, that the game is always screwing over one aspect for another aspect.  I would be willing to bet that any player that knows their class can give at least 10 cases where their class was screwed over for a change made to help PvP balance and the same goes the other way.  I am sure any player that likes PvP can say that their class has taken a hit because of something that needed to be done for PvE.

It is not a small task to try and balance both of them so they both work at least kinda sorta well in both aspects of the game.  No matter what your main focus of the game is it is fairly certain that you would agree with the statement that balancing for one always ends up screwing over the other.

If blizzard were ever forced to pick a side it would only make sense that PvE is the side they pick to balance.  After all warcraft is a PvE game.  It is not, has not ever been, and will never be a PvP focused game.

I am sure some would argue that fact but I could easily dismiss their argument with a few simple facts that prove warcraft is a PvE focused game.  Quests offer PvE gear not PvP gear, so quests are PvE content.  World drops, random greens, even white and grey items you get off mobs in the world are all PvE focused.  Dungeons, raids, scenarios, basically any type of group content that does not take place in an arena or battleground is PvE focused and if the game was meant for PvP why would they waste the incredible amount of time it takes to create that type of instanced content if it were not the focus of the game.  And then there are those battlegrounds and arenas. 

If anything that is the nail in the coffin to the argument that warcraft is a PvP game.  If it were a PvP game they would not have went out of their way to remove it from the world and place it somewhere that only the people that wanted to do it would be involved with it.  If the game was meant to be PvP focused they would have added major objectives in the world for PvPers to aim for instead of sticking them away from everyone else in their private little world where they will only fight with others that wish to fight.

So if they were ever going to abandon part of the game in terms of balance and decide to balance for one aspect only it makes sense that it would be PvE that the game gets balanced for.

But wait, there is a bit of a double edged sword here.  While warcraft is a PvE game and that can not be argued, PvP has a much wider player base that PvE.  PvE really does not "matter" until the end game whereas you can PvP from the moment you hit 15 and enjoy it just as much as someone enjoys raiding at max level.  In my opinion, that just makes PvP a much better designed part of the game and I would love to get into that more in a post some day about what PvE can learn from PvP.

In what is outdated information, but all I have to latch on to, I will paraphrase the last solid numbers I heard quoted from a developer.  7% of players participate in organized raiding (including LFR) at least once a week and 30% of players participate in battlegrounds at least once a week.

Now those numbers are old and I am sure the 7% PvE number has went up for various reasons such as the need to raid and raid a lot to get the cloak and blizzard removing any way to gear your character outside of raiding.  This had to push a great deal of people into at least the LFR.  But, and this is completely a guess with no facts to back it up, I would believe that more people still PvP at least once a week than raid at least once a week.

But, what if blizzard stopped trying to balance for both and just focused on one, that one being PvE?

If history shows us anything it is that in PvP people are more likely to reroll to a flavor of the month class.  PvE players seem to get attached to their class and associate themselves with it more and are less likely to change.  Now this does not mean there are no PvPers that feel attached to their classes and there are no PvEer that would not switch at a moments notice because they want to play a stronger class.  But just the over all broad strokes show that PvPers are much more likely to switch to the power class.

So with that said, if the game was not balanced for PvP then the PvPers would just choose whatever class happens to translate best and is the most powerful.  At least that is my opinion of what would happen.  Over the years I have met and known many PvPers that are really into it and they switch classes whenever one is more powerful, heck they have even been known to switch factions, which means most of those serious PvPers I know are now horde.

Looking at those numbers I mentioned earlier we see that more people PvP than PvE over all but that is because the PvE numbers are counted for max level only and the PvP ones are for any level.  PvP content is better content as it spans the entire life of the game.  No doubt about that.  It is also easier to design for because you do not need to do anything beside give people a place to fight.  So while older raids become useless once new ones come out older battlegrounds are still as important to a PvPer at 15 as they are at 90.

So, being we see that PvP is popular at any level we already know, as an absolute fact, that PvPers have no real problem that would keep them from playing when it comes to things not being balanced.  Balance is always created around max level and this means classes at lower levels are never balanced.  If you do not believe me, roll a hunter or a disc priest and enter a low level battleground.  If you want to talk about OP you can talk only after you have done so.  Each of those classes have a wide range of levels where they are so over powered that when you see them you might as well just roll over and play dead because you are going to be dead soon.

This shows us, at least to some small extent, that PvPers are willing to accept certain classes or specs being over powered.  Sure they might complain, but they deal with it.  It is not like you ever hear a PvEer complaining that at level 60 he can not pull his weight in molten core and that mages are too over powered for the raid because at low levels people do not legitimately raid but they do legitimately PvP.  And they do legitimately PvP with all that low level imbalance there.

So we have that prior knowledge that PvPers can deal with mismatched balance because they already do it all the time.  My belief is, and it is only an opinion of course, that at max level it would work the same way.  PvPers would just figure out which classes are the most powerful and if they wanted to win they would switch to that class.  It is really that simple.

I think it would be a bad idea for blizzard to not try and balance both but being they refuse to do it the right way, or at least a decent way (there are many ways that I will go over some day but they won't do them) it would be interesting to see what might happen if they just stopped trying.

I decided to ask what would happen if they stopped balancing for PvP because I believe it would not hurt the game as much as if they stopped balancing for PvE.  In the end they will lose some players but they would lose a hell of a lot more than if they stopped balancing for PvE, and after all, this is a PvE game.

Do you think that the game would be hurt really badly and people would quit in large numbers if they stopped balancing (attempting to) for PvP or do you think like I do, that the PvPers would all just roll the flavor of the month and keep moving along.  What are the possible side effects of just designing balance for only PvE that you can think of?

What If: We Lose in Warlords?

While thinking about what to expect the next expansion many things come to mind.  First off we will be seeing Gul'dan whom I have been, not so secretly, asking to be our big baddie for about 4 or 5 years now because I love the fact he is pure evil and not like all the others we face.  He is not corrupted.  He is not seeking a greater good.  He does not have an agenda.  He is just evil for the sake of being evil and I think that is what a true villain needs to be.  Sadly I do not see him being as big as I had wished him to be but that does not mean I am not glad we are going to be seeing my favorite bad guy.

So we do not know yet how the expansion will end, of course we do not, but it will come and we will find out.  Sometimes it is easy to see who the big bad guy will be.  It was easy to figure it out in BC, in wrath and in cataclysm without it even needing to be said and while we were told it would be garrosh in mists it was the road to getting there that told the story.  Blizzard is not very good at keeping secrets so we will find out who the big bad guy is for warlords before we even have a release date for it, I am almost sure of that.

But I would like to offer a what if scenario for a moment.  What if blizzard was good at keeping secrets and what if they had the ultimate surprise up their sleeves, something that would be OMGWTF awe inspiring.

What if we lose in warlords?

I am not talking about losing to the iron horde, I am talking about losing to the alternate universe's burning legion.

Here is how I see next expansion happening for my what if scenario.

We fight back the iron horde from out lands and keep them from entering again by bringing the fight to them.  This much we know is true so far but it is past that point that I go on a tangent we know blizzard would never have the balls to do so I will do it, just for fun.

After we start fighting the iron horde and taking out their leaders to make sure there is no threat to us our appearance there raises the interest of some very powerful beings.  Beings we know of as the burning legion.  We know that they have made contact, just look at Gul'dan for proof of that.  So it is only logically that they are keeping an eye on what is going on, seeing if the seed they planted is growing or dying.

When they come back to check on their crop of orc killers to find that not only has this massive army been dismantled but all its leaders are dead or dethroned, all except Gul'dan of course, who informs them of the encroachment of these creatures from another world.  This, of course, will require a swift and forceful response because these so called creatures have dismantled the army that the burning legion was making to carry out it whims as the front line fodder in their effort to take over new worlds.  The disturbance will need to be dealt with and swiftly.

In the second tier of raiding and story telling we will meet some of those legion members and fight our way through the camps they have begun to set up on the world.  We will get to meet, and kill, some of the most famous names we have ever had the pleasure to cross blades with but in a new and interestingly different way.  This burning legion is not the same burning legion we beat back, it is a stronger burning legion, one that resides in a reality where no one interferes with what they do and we interlopers must die and they have the power to make that happen.

We finish off the second tier of raiding by defeating the high commanders of the burning legion and seemingly dispelling them from the area.  This tier also ends with Gul'dan as the big bad guy of tier 2 because he was the one helping the legion get here sooner all thanks to the information he has learned from capturing and torturing people from our reality that knew about the portals and how they were originally created.  He was able to create them himself and he needed to be stopped as he was using them to call reinforcements from many different worlds to his side in an effort to keep us not only at bay, but on his world, until the leaders of the legion could come and claim our heads as their prize.

After we defeat him and close all the gates to the many different worlds he created we begin to pack our bags as the war is over.  Or at least we thought it was until names like Kil'jaeden, Archimonde and Sargeras show up to free Gul'dan and give him more power, absolute power, to open as many gates as he possibly can for a full scale invasion from all forces all over the galaxy.  No one has ever resisted them in this alternate universe like we have here and they will have none of that now on this world because all worlds belong to the legion or they burn.

Mountains of creatures from different planets come into the world and we are forced to fight them off with every last breath while trying not to let any into the gates to our world.  The massive flow of minions of the legion coming through the portal and the raw power Gul'dan is channeling begins to start to cause the world under his feet to tremble and crack.  The world will not survive, it will become as the one we know, broken and torn, at the foot of this epic battle.

Our job, as the heroes we are, faced with a challenge we can not win, is to keep the legions forces at arms distance from our portal to our world as long as we can and get as many survivors as we can off draenor in the last raid.  We go from zone to zone to hot spots of battling to save what few survivors are left on this planet that is being torn apart.  Draenor is a dead world now, the legion could not control it the way that they have controlled it before so they are destroying it in the process.

In their efforts they are not only killing every living being on the planet but they are making a push to come to our world because they wish to enslave us, the people that were able to stand up against them, the only true opposition they have ever had.  They want to make us part of them, assimilable us, because we would be great foot soldiers for them.

The last raid is us attempting to stop them from doing just that.  The first few fights are generals in the legion army and evacuating as many people as we can, leading heroes we knew from our past and some we just met to our world, people like Durotan, Y'rel and many other civilians and heroes of draenor.

As the time comes closer to full world destruction the bigger foes start pushing us backwards where we have to kill them before they can kill us and the people we are escorting off this dying planet and bringing to our reality.  This is the first raid where we are not moving forward to a boss, we are moving backward to escape through the portal before it closes.  Any wipe means azeroth, our azeroth, falls at the hands of the alternate universe burning legion.

Just when we think we have it all in our hands we come across a challenge, one we would have never imagined in a million years, one that couldn't possibly be true.  Gul'dan opens a gate and then disappears through it but his running does not surprise us even one iota as much as the surprise we get when we see ourselves walk through the gate and the battle begins.  We must face ourselves, our alternate reality selves, our empowered by the legion opposite selves.

People always wondered about azeroth in this alternate world, well, azeroth in this alternate world has been a legion stronghold for years.  Now we know and now we need to fight them, fight us, the alternate us.

After defeating them we think the coast is clear and we are tasked with closing the gates to our own alternate reality world before we head back to our world.  In a fight that will be completely random each week we end up fighting some of the greatest warriors from our past in their alternate reality legion infused versions.  The longer the fight goes the more heroes of our alternate world we need to kill meaning the group needs to work on destroying the gate and defeating people whom in our own histories are people we look up to with great respect and great honor.

Then the last battle comes, a battle against the big three, all at once, summoning minions, making advances, and we have to hold them back for however long the portal takes to close.  It would not be a set time, it would be some sort of mechanic, the further away from the gate we are the faster it closes, if we let the bosses or minions come closer the fights takes longer.

If we lose this fight our azeroth is destroyed and we see the legion marching through unopposed because all the worlds greatest heroes, the only ones that could have stopped them, were crushed under foot in the alternate universe azeroth.  In an interactive twist that has never been added to the game, once this last raid patch is released, legion forces will be pouring out of the dark portal and continue to do so until the some guild on the server downs it in mythic.  And then, each time someone wipes on the last fight in mythic, a small pack will come out even after that point.  So there will always be a part of the raid in the real game, interaction.  A wipe from any one on the server means mobs in the real world.

If we succeed the gate is destroyed and our world is saved with no way for them to come through to our world, at least not now, but we are left with knowing two things.  One is that we need to be on the lookout not only for our burning legion but a much stronger and much more advanced burning legion from an alternate reality and two being the knowledge that we have finally met our match and we can not win if ever faced with those numbers on our own soil.

We end the expansion knowing we might have saved ourselves but our interference destroyed a world and alerted another threat of our existence. In the end, we won a few battle but we lost the war, only escaping eradication but not even close to being able to call our venture to the lands of an alternate world a victory.  We leave it knowing how truly weak we are.  We leave it having lost the war for the first time ever.

How would you envision the next expansion if you could do anything you want, what if you designed the rest of the next expansion past what we already know?

Oh, some added lore for fun.

Durotan becomes the new horde warchief.  Y'rel becomes the new leader of her people and Velen steps down to begin building the army of light with Anduin and Baine.

What If: Return of the Buckler

With a new expansion coming there will be new things added to the game.  Oddly enough more often than you would realize many of the new things added to the game are actually old things that were in the game before but were removed or changed into something else.

For example a warriors heroic leap was in the game but there were mechanic issues with it so it was removed.  Hunters original resource was focus but they could not make it work so they switched them to mana.  Things like that, things that were tested and removed but found their way back into the game.

What if some other things that were once in the game found their way back into the game.

The idea that has popped into my mind has to do with the buckler, but there are many other things that were removed that could some day return, perhaps when this what if article is done you could add a few removed things you would like to see returned, but I am going to think about adding the buckler back into the game.

Back in the original game hunters and rogues could use a buckler, which is like a shield.  It was removed from the game and any remaining bucklers in the game were relabeled as shields but both hunters and rogues were able to equip one.

Being there is no longer a ranged weapon slot the idea of a hunter using a buckler is really something we can not roll with.  That along with the fact hunters do not have a melee spec.  But rogues on the other hand use melee and melee weapons so them using a buckler is not exactly out of the question should they return.

What if the buckler returned and gave rogues an option to tank?

Unlike most tank classes that will, as the expansion goes on, eventually move up to the point where they can "cap" some defensive stats or become so high in them that it makes them in game super heroes.  Kind of like how I can solo the celestials on my druid now just for fun or when guild mates finish their legendary line and need to kill all four I will just go and pull with only me and them and not worry if others join in or not.  While I'll be the first to admit that is amazingly fun and exciting to do it really should not happen in a current content, even for something like the cesestials.  A rogue with a buckler can be the first class to reach true balance as a tank to the point they would not be able to do things like that.

The rogue could be left as is, no real need to even redesign the class what so ever.  Just add something to abilities that acts differently while a rogue has a buckler equip.  When a rogue keeps their poisons up, keeps their finishing moves rolling, keeps their buffs up, keeps their debuffs or DoTs rolling, they now also add something passively to the rogues defensive capabilities.

Lets say that with a buckler equip they automatically gain the ability all tanks need to not be able to get crit plus a base amount of dodge and parry.  No block however as bucklers are smaller and should not be able to take a full hit but block could work too I guess, if you feel that strongly about it.

Then when the rogue puts up a buff like slice and dice, while a buckler is equip, it would give 20% dodge and 20% parry.  Keeping it rolling would keep those numbers up.  While poisons are ticking on a target with a buckler equip they gain another 10% dodge and 10% parry.  Then from that point on their finishing moves offer short buffs.  Maybe an envenom with a buckler equip would give 2% dodge per combo point used for 6 seconds or a rupture with a buckler equip would give 2% parry per combo point used for 6 seconds.  Things like that.

It could be designed to work exactly as they intend it too.  If they want rogues to have a maximum of 60% dodge and 60% parry at any given point they could make it so.  If they decided that 60% was too much they could just adjust how things work.  Effectively they could set it up that rogues would have exactly what they want them to have and no more.  Unlike other tanks that get stronger as they get more gear a rogue tank will always be what it is with a buckler equip and excellence of execution.

Now this would not make for a rogue being a great main tank but it would make for a rogue being an exception off tank for those moments when one might be needed.  They could effectively fill a roll in the game there really is no class that can fill right now.  A part time tank and a full time damage dealer, all with the switching of an off hand weapon to a buckler.  While the plate classes can do it to some extent, they are all left at a disadvantage while playing off tank.  A rogue could be designed with the intention of being an off tank while wearing a buckler.  I think it would add something really exciting to the game.

The possibilities are there and all it would require is the buckler to make its way back into the game the same way heroic leap did and hunters using focus as a resource did.

What if something you liked that was removed came back?  What would you like to make a return, and what could you see it changing if it did return?

Remember, anything can come back.  Who would have every thought something as huge as a complete change to resources would come back but it did for a hunter so nothing is impossible.

What if: There Was No Global Cooldown.

Have you ever been on a character and you are waiting to use an ability and waiting on the global cooldown.  It seems like it is taking forever.  While playing on a leveling hunter and using that 2 second steady shot I feel like I can get up and make a coffee in the time it takes to cast it compared to my 90.  Heck, even the difference between a 1.7 second cast and a 1.6 second cast seems like a year and a day.  While it is only a second or fraction thereof, like the time of a global, it seems like forever.

I am a button spammer, somewhat reformed, and I like to just spam my keys while I am waiting for the abilities.  Kind of annoying for some classes, extremely annoying for others, and I swear I am never going to roll a male goblin again because his voice makes me want to kill someone annoying.

It made me wonder what life would be like without the global cooldown.  Button spammers of the world would jump in joy world wide, or would they?  What if there were no such thing as a global cooldown.

For the sake of this what if there will actually still be a global cooldown.  There has to be for mechanics reasons otherwise you could just put all your spells in one macro and hit everything at once.  So we will call the "no global cooldown" actually a 0.1 second global cooldown. 

Basically this would mean you can still only do one ability at a time and your performance would be limited to how fast your fingers can move, how good your connection is, how you manage your resources and of course, the skill factor. 

For this what if there will also be one more change.  There are no longer be any spells that are "off the global cooldown" or any spells that "do not trigger a global cooldown".  So nothing can be macroed.  Each ability needs to be hit on its own.  Now lets get to the what if.

Which classes would benefit the most from that what if scenario?

I did not need to spend too long to figure out my opinion on which classes would benefit the most from this no global what if.  It was actually quite obvious in my opinion.  Being classes would now be limited by their resources more than anything else the classes with a way to constantly refill their resources would benefit the most.

Enter warriors, hunters and bear tanks.  All three of these have ability that charge up their resources and abilities that use their resources.  In the world of what if warriors and hunters are the gods of DPS and warrior and druid tanks are masters of their world.

One of the biggest draw backs to a no global world would be that you would run out of resources sooner.  Those classes would then reflect that and adjust their rotations to make the best out of it instead of needing to wait for resources.

Energy users, as in rogue and feral druids, would actually be a lot more fluid but even with the global cooldown as it is many times their rotation comes down to waiting until they have the energy to do what they need to do.  A no global world would really just be a quality of life adjustment for them.  It would allow for tighter burst during high energy phases because they are not restricted by the global but all other times their rotation would most likely remain unchanged because they are lining things up or waiting on their resource.

Mana users are the ones that would basically be up shits creek in my opinion when it comes to changes like this.  No globals would mean that they could burn through their mana pool really fast so they would need to learn to behave themselves or become the wrath version of an arcane mage.  Burn everything, wait on mana to regenerate, burn everything, wait on mana to regenerate.

As the other tanks go, paladins would be close up there with warriors as mana is not really an issue for them but death knights and monks would go mostly unchanged as their abilities are already limited by resource generation.  While having no global would help them, it would help them only in the sense that it does the energy users.  To some extend, but then they would be back to waiting on resources.

Healers, oh poor healers.  You think you oom fast now if you spam instants?  You can only imagine how fast you will oom when not restricted by a global to slow you down on those instant heals.  While the very skilled healers will be able to compensate and benefit greatly from the no global world, most healers would just oom themselves 30 seconds into a fight because of a lack of self discipline.  If anything, a no global healer, would be the absolute hardest class in the game to play because you would need to use your abilities smarter instead of just spamming abilities like all other classes will do in the no global world.  Finding a good healer in the no global world will be like finding a needle in a haystack.

In a world with no global cooldowns the warriors,and bear tanks would rule and hunters would be not very far behind but the mana users would be screwed.  Everyone else would fall neatly in the middle.  At least as I see it, what is your take?

How would the no global world effect PvP?

Well, no one is going to "kill you in one global" any more being there is no real global.  But if you thought that people could burn you fast before imagine what they can do now.

The classes that would benefit the most here are the mana classes, in my opinion.  Sure they would burn through mana really fast but that is what PvP is about.  Unlike in a PvE environment where your mana pool needs to last you 5, 8, 10 or more minutes, if burning thought all your mana in 30 seconds means you win the arena, then it is worth burning through all your mana in 30 seconds.

A mana user can effectively cast 10 instants in one second if their fingers and connection where fast enough.  Or perhaps a mage can slow and spam even a soft hitting instant in massive amounts before you can get anywhere close to them.

Imagine a disc priest covering your entire 5 man arena team with bubbles in half a second instead of 5 seconds if their skill and connection allowed?  Or a melee vs melee fight where whomever hits the disarm first wins because in a matter of one second they could disarm and land 9 blows.

This would once again mean that rage machines are beastly.  So warriors rule PvE and PvP in this no global world.  Bear tanks too of course.  But the other resource generating class, hunters, would be left in the dust.  For as much as they would be hugely powerful in PvE with no global in PvE being their focus regeneration tool has a cast time, unlike warriors and bears that can spam theirs 10 times a second, and only generates a small amount of focus, they would not be able to match the burst that other classes would have.  So they come from being up there with warriors in PvE to also rans in PvP.

Now back to tanks in PvP.  Already mentioned warriors and druids, our rage monsters, would be gods among those who walk the battlefield but while no global would not really help death knights and monks as they are restricted by their resources it would help paladins.

Paladin tanks rarely if ever have to worry about mana which means mana will not hold them back like it does other mana users.  Or would it?  Not exactly sure if spamming abilities might actually cause mana issues, but lets play pretend, being that is what we are doing anyway, and say it doesn't.  Could you imagine 3 holy power every 0.3 seconds?  Yeah, that is sick.  In PvE and PvP but it would mean so much more in PvP.

How would questing be effected by the no global world?

I believe that every class would benefit, some greatly, from the no global world when it came to questing.  The fact that you can spam 10 abilities in a second and nothing in the modern questing world would last much longer than that; for most classes questing will become even more trivial than it already is.

Some classes, as mentioned already, that are limited by their own resources, predominantly energy users, would maybe pick up a tiny bit of speed to questing here and there, but over all it would be mostly the same experience for them as they wait on resources.

Hunters would be in the same boat as energy users here.  Being they never really had much issue questing, and most mobs will die before even doing one or two focus regeneration abilities, the fact that they have unlimited resources would never matter as nothing would live long enough for them to take advantage of it.

Mana users might reign supreme here because they can build up a big hit and then spam a flurry of instants.  Even while instants generally hit for less, these are quest mobs, so they should die in short time.  You regenerate mana fast enough out of battle that you can go hog wild while questing so nothing lives all that long.  Imagine interrupts, slows, crowd control, all on the fly in 0.1 seconds between cast times.  A really good caster can have a bang up time having fun with questing and no globals.

But while mana users might seem to reign supreme, we have to look back to our new friends of the no global world for the example of who I believe would be the tops in questing like they have been in everything else so far.  Warrior and bear tanks.   With tank abilities, and effectively unlimited rage and abilities like frenzied regeneration rage tanks could really pull entire zones. 

Thanks to vengeance and said rage generation at insane intervals, this could be really fun.  I would love to just play with it for a while to see what it would be like.  Imagine your bear doing 10 mangles a second for rage while rolling frenzied regeneration to remain at full health all the time and building vengeance.  It would bring the slang "that's sick" to an entirely new level when talking about what the rage monsters could do.  That's beyond sick.

How do you think the classes would do with no global cooldown?  Which classes would rise to the top and which would be left in the dust.  What is your opinion?

As I see it, what is currently the weakest class, in my opinion, warriors would be the best class in the no global world.  What about you, what do you think?

What if: LFR Was Replaced by LFD 2.0

As the game stands how we recognize the LFD to mean a 5 man dungeon usually from the start of the expansion with low starter gear and the LFR to mean a 25 man raid that is now the new standard for the gearing up process.

I often complain about the LFR for various reasons but one of the most prevalent reasons why I no longer run it is because of the people in it.  Maybe some people do not mind a jerk here and there but I've about had as much of these assholes (excuse my language) as I can take.  Even if it is a good group with just a few "go go go" jerks and a few "I am gods gift" morons sprinkled with your regular AFK LFR heroes I just do not want to deal with them any longer.

The LFR has worn out its welcome as far as I am concerned.  Now, with no valor gear the only way to gear alts this coming patch is through the LFR.  So like it or not if I want to have alts at least at a minimal level of gear that I can bring them in to raid once in a while I have to subject myself to the horrible nightmare that is the LFR for gear.  There is no longer any way around it.  I can no longer just get whatever valor gear there is and work with that to get me up there a little until I get into an alt run for the real raid.  Blizzard has damned me to hell and made it so if I want gear I have to burn in the pits of anguish, otherwise known as the LFR.

So it had me thinking, what if there were no LFR but LFD 2.0.

All LFR wings would be 5 man dungeons instead of 25 man raids.  Designed to be done just like dungeons with one tank one healer and three damage dealers.

Lets look at some of the pros and cons as they might be.

Pro's for LFD 2.0:

• 5 man randoms usually have better people when compared to 25 man randoms.
• They would be easier for the masses.
• You could remove raid tier as it is no longer a raid.
• People still get to see the content.
• Premade groups would be easier to assemble.
• Tanks and healers could get baggies.
• They would fit better into the "bite sized" content people like.

Con's for LFR 2.0:

• Unlike LFD you can only loot bosses once a week which could confuse some.
• Some raid mechanics can not work with 5 people.
• Some like to raid and they would lose that "epic" group feeling.

I am sure there are more pros or cons that you can come up with, but what if they completely abandoned the LFR project and went back to using dungeons as the gearing up process.  But in a better way than ever before with updated dungeon gear with each new addition.  Each patch would release a new tier of dungeons that are mini versions of the raid with their gear as the catch up mechanic.

What if the LFR was replaced by LFD 2.0?  Would it replace all the problems that many people perceive the current LFR to have?

Difficulty?

- I often say the LFR is too hard for the masses it is made for.  While bosses go down most groups are filled with people that will never learn anything because the game can not create more difficulty to teach them without making it harder on the few that actually know what they are doing.  So I contend that making it easier is the better idea because the ones that do not want to learn will never learn anyway, so why have any difficulty there in an attempt to teach people that refuse to learn?

As a five man dungeon that becomes less of an issue.  As they will be easier to begin with because of five man design, some of the mechanics that actually cause problems for some, the ones that seem to never learn, would most likely be absent, so they can not screw them up.

Also, with the addition of flex, the argument that LFR can teach people no longer holds water.  While it is true a person that wants to learn to get better can use the LFR as a tool to get better the majority are there for quest items, reputation, gear and/or valor.  They are not there to get better.  That is now the place of flex, where you will be with a group that might actually teach you instead of a bunch of random people that all care only about themselves.

Wait time?

- Have you ever waited in queue for over an hour?  I have plenty of times.  I remember when the LFR first came out and the tanks actually had a wait time.  Myself and a tank buddy entered the queue together, one hour and 50 minutes later I said to him, we should be done with two LFRs already, not waiting for the first one, and I gave up and logged off.  It was also the last time I ever queued up as a tank with just another tank with me.  Now I will not tank the LFR unless there is a mostly full guild group there.

People only have a certain amount of time to play.  Even someone like myself who does play often I only have a certain amount of time to play.  It is partly why I no longer run the LFR.  I'll log on with the intention of doing one or two with an alt and do some auction house listings, some pet battle dailies, some rare hunting and maybe another quest or two.  If my queue does not pop, guess what?  I don't do the LFR.  I do not have an unlimited amount of time to sit around and wait.

Maybe, just maybe, if I could be assured a good group with decent people that will move at a fair pace I would wait it out but more often than not I will queue into a group were one of the tanks drop as soon as they zone in and after waiting 50 minutes I am now waiting again.  No thank you.

One of the worst parts of the LFR is the fact there is such a brutal wait time.  Would having five man versions of them alleviate that?  I think there is a possible chance of that actually happening, if the bribe bags are used correctly.

Being you can only get loot from LFD 2.0 once a week what real reason is there for a tank to queue more than once?  The baggies.  Make the baggies have a chance to drop a piece of loot that comes from that wing.  So while you can only get loot once a week, you can grind out as a tank to get a second piece or even a third or forth, if you are willing to put in the effort.  That is of course along with the goodies they already have a chance to get from baggies.

This would mean that, if done correctly, you have all but removed the wait time from the LFR by making them LFD 2.0.  My alt would never get through its first pet battle daily before the queue popped up and I don't know about you but if queue was that fast I would be much more likely to use the LFR (LFD 2.0) to gear my alts.  The excessive wait times of the LFR would not translate to the LFD 2.0.  I might even tank them if they were 5 man because it would remove the biggest reason I do not tank the LFR, the fact the other tank 99 out of 100 times is a complete jerk in one way or another.  If they even respond to you when you ask them if they want to take the boss first.

Community?

- I believe the 25 mans give the community a bad name.  No really.  Just look at some of the groups and the people that are in them.  I am not talking just the "go go go" jerks.  I am talking the whole bunch, the entire collection of the great unwashed, the undesirables.

Making groups has always been the best way to build community and just look at the success of the heroic scenarios.  I have not seen trade more active on my tiny server since the days of ICC with people looking for groups.  Looking for tanks or healers.  Admittedly I do not understand why anyone would need a tank or a healer for a heroic scenario but in lesser gear they could surely be helpful.  I've just gotten so used to going in my heroic scenarios with my 3 hunter team.  We rip through them like a fat kid at a cake shop.  We leave nothing behind and finish the stuff in record time.  Love capping valor in an hour.  But that is another story all together.

Making a group of 3 or 4 and getting the 1 or 2 you need from the random system is a lot easier than making a group for the LFR.  Heck, even getting all 5 for a dungeon is a lot easier than getting 25 for the LFR.  Even more so late in a patch like now.  If I can find even 3 or 4 people willing to do the LFR it is a miracle and my guild is a guild filled with alt-a-holics that all have characters that need stuff from the LFR but they just will not do it.  They would rather leave their alts under geared than to subject themselves to the hell that is the LFR and I don't blame them.

But with smaller groups like LFD 2.0 would bring, saying we have 4 and just need one more, the likelihood of getting that guild person to join us is better.  As is so much better I might as well just call it a sure thing.  We just need one for a 2.0 dungeon.  Me, me, me, I can see it already.  Full guild group.  I am in.

Whether it be making guild groups or trade groups, smaller groups mean the likelihood of more community and more people talking to each other to make said groups.  This is good for the game.

Toxic behavior?

- I would be hard pressed to believe there is any worse part of the LFR than the toxic behavior that seems to run rampant in them.  I could not even repeat some of the things I have heard in those groups or I would have to label this blog as adults only and it would still most likely offend someone that reads it.

Large groups bring out the worst in people.  As an old saying goes, a person is smart, people are stupid.  That is shown in a perfect example with the LFR.  I have seen people that were normally decent people get caught up in raid conversations that were bile being thrown back and forth and why is that?  Because they can and because blizzard does nothing about this sort of toxic behavior.

Before the LFR was ever introduced I made a post expressing my concerns on what could go wrong with it.  One of them was this, the toxic behavior thing.  I said, basically, you can not put 25 random people together and ask them to act civil to one another when there are no penalties for them becoming jerks.  Chalk another one up for the elf.  Sometimes it sucks being right.

LFD 2.0 would still have the chance of grabbing a jerk but that jerk would be less likely to act up without a huge captive audience.  9 times out of 10 a jerk in a five man the jerk will either find the fast path out with a boot to the ass or they will just shut the hell up and do their job because it will all be over in 15 minutes.

LFR 2.0 offers 2 things the LFR does not.  Smaller groups, were that one person has less of an audience to back him up and a quick run.  Most of the worst stuff in the LFR starts happening when people have waited for an hour to get in or waited for an hour while in there because tanks dropped or because there were wipes, or because there were any delays.  Smaller groups and quicker content means the chance of being exposed to toxic behavior is limited a great deal.  Not eliminated by any means, but limited a great deal.  For that one reason alone I would love to see the LFR wings turned into 5 mans.

End game?

The end game is different for everyone despite how hard blizzard is trying to push everyone into raiding, even more so the next patch with no valor gear.  For me my end game is normal modes, if I finish them I am happy.  Some of my readers are in the same boat as me with normal mode being our end game.  Some of my readers finish heroic modes, some of them fishing LFR and some of them never even enter LFR.  I even have a few readers that do not even do dungeons even if they have multiple 90s.  The end game is different for everyone.

Maybe it is time that blizzard starts to understand that and stops trying to push everyone into raiding.  LFD 2.0 would open the doors for a great many players where dungeons fit their play style, play time, and skill or dedication level much more appropriately.

With the addition of flex we will, hopefully, see a lot more pugging going on, so those former raiders or people that want to raid but play on off hours, could very well be served with having flex to run.  There is no longer a need for the LFR, at least not as much as there used to be.  But there is a huge open space for the vast majority of the players that do not want to raid that have absolutely nothing to do and no way to progress their character at all.  LFD 2.0 would allow them that.

Blizzard needs to understand that forcing people into content they do not like to do is bad for the game.  I was forced to PvP for my PvE legendary quest line.  I do not like to PvP and did not want to PvP.  I did it however because it was winning just two battlegrounds and once I was done with it I was done with it.  However, if I were forced to continually PvP to get my PvE gear I would quit the game so fast that the sound of me uninstalling the game would make a sonic boom.

This is exactly the place the vast majority of the player base is in.  They are not raiders, they do not want to raid, but they feel forced to raid if they ever want to feel any level of personal progression.  Dungeons 2.0 would be much more accessible to the masses and fit the type of bite sized quick and easy content they enjoy. 

Perhaps, to some small extent at least, the reason for so many lost subs is because blizzard is forgetting that the majority do not want to do the content blizzard is trying to force them into, just as much as I would not like to have to PvP all the time to get my PvE gear.

Let people have their end game.  Because now with no valor gear coming next patch, the end game for anyone that does not raid at all is going to be a year old soon.  Think about it.  If you do not raid, never raided and never had any intention to raid, your gearing process ended when the expansion came out.  463s from dungeons, 489s and 496s from valor and reputation.  Oh, and 1 522, isn't that nice.

They need to add something for those people that do not raid and turning the failed experiment of the LFR into LFD 2.0 might just give some of them something.

What if all wings of the LFR were changed into 5 man dungeons that you could only get loot from once a week called LFD 2.0?

What if indeed.  I think it would be a fantastic change for the game.