Tuesday Random Thoughts

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

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

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

- Made it more enjoyable playing.

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

- Hey, whatever floats your boat right?

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

- I decided to level archaeology on an alt.

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

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

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

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

- But it is my luck..

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

- I decided on my druid to level archaeology on.

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

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

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

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

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

- I made it to a little over 600.

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

- What a coincidence huh?

- Needless to say I planned it like that.

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

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

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

- But it was not a total waste.

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

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

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

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

- I experienced that myself.

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

- I killed it, got the great greytusk mount.

- Awesome.

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

- Not even looking for mounts and getting them.

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

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

- You have got to be kidding me.

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

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

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

- Three mount.

- Not looking for them.

- Just because I was on late at night.

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

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

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

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

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

- I sense a post in that all by itself.

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

- I did mythic dungeons this weekend.

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

- Even did some old raids.

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

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

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

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

- Who am I kidding, of course you do.

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

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

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

- He asks in guild if any healers are on.

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

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

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

- Then someone in voice chat speaks up.

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

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

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

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

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

- And then I notice something.

- The second monk is in DPS spec.

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

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

- Excuse me.

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

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

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

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

- I said, yes, trust me.

- We will do it like challenge modes.

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

- And we had no problems.

- We destroyed the place on mythic with no healers.

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

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

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

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

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

- Did he really think we would not notice?

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Good luck with your love rocket.

- Have a great day.

I Healed My First Warlords Challenge Mode, and I Liked It

Last expansion I did all the challenge modes on my hunter and I helped other people by either tanking or healing for them on other classes, even if I never completed all of them on either a tank or a healer.  This expansion my hunter was my only character I had any challenge mode experience on.  Until last night.

In a spur of the moment sort of thing someone in guild wanted to know if anyone was up for challenge modes.  Of course I was.  I am always up for things like that.  So when all the people that wanted to go raised their proverbial hands we had one tank and four damage dealers.

Of the four damage dealers I was the only one that had any real healing experience so even if I wanted to go on my hunter I offered to heal.  I did warn them I had not healed a single challenge mode this expansion and I am very out of practice when it comes to healing having healed so rarely this expansion at all.  But I would be willing to give it a try.

So we headed to the dungeon of choice, iron docks, as the leader of the group, the only one there with any real challenge mode experience, said that would be the easiest one being we had two complete rookies on DPS and me as a rookie healer.

The group make up was a tank and healer, of course, with one melee and two ranged.  Quite honestly I hate healing melee in a "challenge" type setting because they take more damage no matter how good they are or how hard they try.  It is just the nature of the beast.  But I was ready to give it the old college try, so to speak.

We finished the dungeon missing gold by 4 minutes and 19 seconds.  Boo.  But we could have done gold, really we could have.  We had one wipe on trash where just a little too much was pulled.  It was early on, we should have reset, but at that point I did not know if I would be capable of healing this so we were still in the "testing" phase.  We had to lose about 3 minutes, if I were to guess, due to that wipe.

So if you wanted to look at it that way we missed gold by one minute and 19 seconds and missing gold became 100% my fault.  While the over pull could have been avoided, I could have healed better and kept us from wiping.  But the real issue was I did not bring enough food.  Toward the end of the dungeon we waited a few seconds here and there for me to naturally regenerate some mana.  Easily we lost close to 2 minutes to that happening.  Not to mention the two players that died during the run which I needed to spend time reviving and they spent time eating and rebuffing.

So yes, we really honestly could have done gold.  In hindsight I did not need as much mana as I waited for.  I never was less than 50%, I was just worried as I did not know how I would handle things so I wanted to be at 100% whenever I had the chance to get back up.  I had absolutely zero confidence in my skills.  Even if it seemed as if the group was confident in me.

I would not be surprised if we had come close to realm best time if we had not wiped and I had bought mana food and I did not lose two people I had to revive along the way.  My realm does not have great realm first times mind you.  I think the next time we are there we could easily cut 10 minutes off the time we did it on.  Or at least 5 without that wipe and those 2 deaths along with my waiting on mana, that is for certain.  We can do an 18 minute run, no doubt.

I really loved the idea that my gear did not matter at all.  It was scaled down.  So the fact I did not have my tier set meant nothing.  The fact that I had a couple of 670 pieces on meant nothing.  It was all about spell selection and the skill of movement, reaction and planning.  I like that it pressed me to do better than I thought I could do being out of practice on a healer.  I am extremely happy with silver on my first attempt.  I think that is probably the best anyone could wish for when you were in the group I was in with two people that had never stepped into a challenge mode, one person that had not healed one, and the other two that had only done as high as silver before.

The melee would go from full to 10% it seemed every few pulls, if not every single one of them.  But he never died, and he also worked on protecting himself.  When he got low like that he stepped off for a second and let me get the heals he needed on him instead of pushing it and possibly dying.  I say it was very smart play on his part.  He could have stayed in the fight and lasted another 3 or 4 seconds an died, or he could have stepped back, let me heal him and lose those 3 or 4 second but be alive for the next 20 seconds it took to finish the mobs.  He made the right choice, lose 4 seconds of DPS up time to gain 20 seconds and not was 10 seconds afterward to revive them.  That was the right choice.

One of the range was a nightmare and I think replacing him and adding another, more raid aware, damage dealer would have really helped.  I was forced to heal him as if he were a tank.  He was always standing in something.  He was always getting hit by every avoidable mechanic, he was wildly pulling more packs and I think he was even the one that was responsible for the over pull early in the run.

Removing him and getting a better damage dealer in that slot would have done wonders.  I would have probably never lost the two people I lost during the run because one person was just taking so much damage demanding my attention to be split nearly 100% of the time.  I would have not needed to spend as much mana on the expensive fast heals because I would be able to keep up with the less expensive ones if I was not forced to spam people with heals to keep them alive in situations when they really should not have been taking any damage to begin with.  Speaking of mana, I would not have needed to worry about mana if I were not having so much more to heal.  All that avoidable damage wastes mana that should never need to be spent. I honestly believe if that one ranged was as good at avoiding stuff as the other was, meaning they only needed minimal upkeep, I could have kept both the tank and the melee up just fine without ever needing mana the entire run.  I am sure of that.

Over all I was proud of how well I did.  Of how well the whole group did, yes even the one standing in junk, because we still made silver with tons of time to spare.  When it was over I did not think "cool I helped the guild out", even if I did think that as well, but I thought "I had fun healing this, maybe I should make a challenge mode set, this was fun".

I actually want to heal some more challenge modes now.  I was to spam some dungeons and try to collect best in slot challenge mode gear.  I want to see how far I can push it.  I want to see if I can be a challenge mode gold healer.  Unlike last expansion when you could actually over gear challenge modes with gems and such (and I did like that in all honesty) this time around there is none of that.  You are really testing your ability and your ability only.  Well, yours and the ability of your group too of course.

I am sure in a poor group I would have not had fun.  I am sure if there was a wipe fest I would have not had fun.  I am sure that having a tank that knew his class and could help himself which allowed me to help others made it a fun run.  So I am not sure I would do these in random groups.  But I would gladly heal again for guild and not just to help the guild out, but because I kind of liked it.  As long as I have a solid tank to heal behind at least.

So Many Legendary Items, Only One Real Problem

Legion is just in the alpha stage still but a flurry of new legendary items have been added.  Some of them have amazingly powerful while some of them seem borderline useless or completely situational.  It would be wrong to assume this is how the legendary items will go live but I still wonder what impact they might have on game play.

You already see people saying "they will not be mandatory" but anyone that plays the game knows they absolutely will be mandatory, at least for anyone that actually wants to play their character to the best of their ability.  Sure you can clear mythic in 700 item level, but if you could get to 730 before you do, who wouldn't?  Everyone wants a boost.  Especially when they will be extremely powerful as these will be and even more so because anyone can get these, from the most casual of casual players to the most die hard progression raider.  So disregard anyone that says "they will not be mandatory", they do not understand how truly mandatory these will be.  And that is my own problem with them.

If you look over a list of some of these legendary items you will see how insanely powerful some of them are.  Even if they are toned down some before release you would have to believe they will still be something that will have an effect on raiding.  Enough so that people will indeed want them.

So lets look at the much bigger picture.  Whoever gets lucky enough to have them drop will have the advantage in progression.  Be it for world first, server first or even being just a normal guild pushing through normal.  You can't say that if they are that powerful it they will not help a raid team down bosses.  And going for a first, or even just normal kills and making them easier, will be helped a great deal by the power of these items.

With that in mind, the fact they really will have a huge impact on raids blizzard has two routes they can go.  They can either design and balance the raids around people not having the legendary items and the groups that get lucky enough to get them will over power them and make them trivial so fast or they can design the raids around needing the legendary items.

Which do you think blizzard will choose?  Seeing how they handled the cape and the ring I am 100% certain that they will design and balance the raids to require the legendary items.  Not only because the have shown a history already with of design with legendary items in mind but because they are not going to do anything to adversely effect the top 0.001% of the game that might be aiming for world first.  If they do not design the raids to require the legendary items then whichever guild was lucky enough to snag the most of them while leveling will steamroll their way to world first.  So they have to design the raid around the legendary items being needed to down them.

Now... if the raids are designed around the legendary items being needed to down the content guess what that means?  It means they are mandatory for raiding.  At least if you want to down stuff before you over gear it by other means of drops, upgrades or what have you.

That is my one real problem with so many legendary items and them being so damn powerful.  Raids will need to be designed around needing them which means we will be forced to farm for them if we want to be the best we can be.  But really, even if raids were not designed and balanced around needing them we would still want them to make our characters better, this is true.  But there is a huge difference between farming your butt of to try to get an upgrade you want and having to farm your butt off to get an upgrade that you need.  I would rather want the legendary than need the legendary.

But hey, it is just alpha, they might even remove the legendary items all together before they release legion, who knows.  But I would not count on it.  Blizzard has a habit of swinging the pendulum too far in one direction or another.  We went from staying in our garrison all expansion to swinging the other way where we will be out in the world mindlessly killing everything all day every day until we get that ultra rare legendary drop that is mandatory if we want to be considered a "good" raider.

What do you think of all these legendary items being so powerful?  What do you think it will impact?

If There Were Only One Raid Difficulty...

With the four different levels of difficulty in raiding right now from the pure random pug friendly LFR to the highly coordinated group effort of mythic it made me wonder, what is the preferred method level of raiding of people if you could only have one.

The way I figure it most "raiders" raid two levels or raiding, not really all four.  You have your farm raid and your progression raid.  For some people they farm LFR and progress through normal, or others they farm normal and progresses through heroic and for yet others they farm heroic to progress through mythic.

Of course there are those that only do one.  I know a great many players that only do LFR.  I have some guild members that refuse to step into LFR but as they are not really raiders so they will only do normal.  Then there are the people that are "better" than normal, their word, not mine, and refuse to step into any raid that is not heroic.  If we are doing a normal run that night they take the night off.  All those people only do one level of raiding.

So while the choice is nice to have with 4 different levels of raiding I would say the majority of raiders, at least the ones I know or have spoken to, only raid 2 of those 4 levels of difficulty on a regular basis at most.

If I were to ask the question which 2 raid difficulties would you choose the answer would be simple for me personally.  My opinions are as follows.

LFR is not needed.  It no longer serves the purpose it was intended for and it should be either fixed or removed from the game.  If LFR still offered real tier gear I could see it having a place in the game.  If LFR was designed to teach people to be raiders I could see it having a place in the game.  If LFR was actively moderated by blizzard to keep it from getting toxic like it does often I could see it having a place in the game.  If LFR actually required people to participate and actually try, even if they do poorly, then I could see it having a place in the game.

The thing is, it does not teach anyone, it does not offer tier gear, it does not have moderators and there are too many people expecting to be carried by others for LFR to continue to exist.  It is not needed and should be removed because, we know for a fact, blizzard has no intention of fixing it.  So cutting down from 4 raid difficulties to 3 was easy for more.  Lose LFR.

Losing the second difficulty was an easy choice for me as well.  Mythic has no place in the game either.  Just look at the numbers.  LFR has the most people actively playing it in the game and I would choose to remove that, so why in hell would I keep the difficulty that the fewest, by large, are participating in.

It is not just about the numbers that use it, it is about the format itself.  It is a fixed size, something that in this day and age has played itself out, games need to be more dynamic.  And if it was going to be a fixed size it should be a fixed size that was more inclusive, like 10 or at max 15.  When they decided on 20 man as the base for mythic they effectively told over 95% of the heroic guilds to go screw themselves.  Not the smartest move in my opinion. 

Perhaps if mythic were 10 man than it would not be one of the two I would remove.  As a matter of fact, I am sure if mythic was 10 man I would have not said to remove it.  But as 20 man it does not fit in a dying game where it seems most servers can barely field one or two mythic guilds even if there are hundreds of people on that server that would want to run mythic.  Many, like myself, prefer smaller groups even if it historically means harder fights.

So if I had to choose only 2 to stay it would be normal or heroic.

Now comes the hard part, if I had to choose only one.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Normal is easy enough that you can take new players along with hurting yourself too much.  You can take alts on a normal run no problem.  You can make mistakes on a normal run.  You can have fun on a normal run once you start to over gear it by ignoring some mechanics, something it usually takes until the next tier that comes out to be capable of doing.  And the number one plus on the side of normal is because it is easier it is faster.  I am about as sick and tired of log fights as any one elf can be.  I enjoy going into normal on my main and blowing things up in record time.  Fast fights = fun fights.

Normal does have its downsides as well.  As it is easier you will down stuff faster.  Sure depending on your group and the skill of the players in it you can still hit a bump in the road here and there to slow you down.  Normal archie took a little bit for us, heck even gorefiend was a bit rough the first week for my guild who never did higher than heroic the previous tier and was geared as such.  Neither took us long to down, but that is the point.  Even the "brick walls" on normal are not much of a challenge for even the remotely organized group.  If all challenges are like this, were you never meet a fight that can take you weeks to down, or 100 wipes to get, I could see it getting boring.  Sure no one want to wipe 100 times on every single boss, but having one or two or even three in a raid this side that take you a few weeks, maybe even 40 tries would be nice.  It would feel like progression.  Normal might be fun, but it can also be too easy for anyone that is willing to put in even a little effort.

As for heroic, like normal it has its positives and negatives.  Some of the positives are the fact that for the vast majority of the player base these are genuinely hard.  It is a challenge and it is exciting to beat that challenge.  Even for the somewhat better players that might be able to down it in just a few attempts the fact that it is a bigger challenge is more rewarding.

Another positive is that it teaches the next generation of raiders that mechanics matter, performance matters, personally responsibility matters.  When someone can do LFR or even normal and they die on every boss but they still down it they think "oh this is easy".  In the heroic world they are removed from the group.  Sorry, no dead weight wanted.  Even if you can carry someone like that, why do so?  They offer no benefit to the group.  Heroic, if it were the only difficulty, would mean that a hell of a lot of player would get better.  They would be better player over all, or they would not be raiders.  That's a fact.   Well, unless you pay for a carry, but no matter what they will always happen so forget I said it.

The main negative of heroic is that I am a grumpy elf.  No really.  You really can not bring people in after you have been downing bosses that do not know the fight.  It is frustrating taking a step back and unlike with normal were you might be able to push through having a few inexperienced players it usually means a wipe in heroic.  Call it be being grumpy but I would just say it is me being tired and not liking the idea of doing progression over and over and over in a raid I have already been downing with no problem.  This is the biggest draw back of heroic.

A secondary drawback of heroic is blizzards own fault and that is the scaling of flex.  A fight like Killrog with 10 people early on was near impossible unless you had top notch players and they all performed to perfection.  But with 20 or even more so with 30 players it was a joke.  Blizzard needs to fix heroic so no matter how many you have 10 or 30 it is close to the same fight, difficulty wise.

So you see whittling down to just one difficulty for me would be hard.  But when push comes to shove I would choose heroic as the single raid difficulty.  Probably because that is what I like to raid so I am already bias toward it.  Someone that only does LFR might say LFR, someone that only want to do mythic might say mythic.

However, with that all said, I want to add one additional thing.

I would prefer to say the current normal should be the only difficulty.  And that the current normal should add activated hard modes like Ulduar had.  So you can turn normal into a heroic type encounter or even a mythic type encounter.  Now that would leave everyone with the best of all worlds in my opinion, all the benefits of normal with all the challenge of mythic if you so choose with a 10 to 30 player group.

Now that would be my real answer.  I want to see normal only, but with activated modes to make it harder as you decide it to be.  With no 20 person lock, with no issues switching back and forth, just one lock out doing each boss the way you want to do them.

So if they are left "as is" I choose heroic.  But if they want to make raiding better I choose normal with activated hard modes, many of them.

If you had to choose only one raid difficulty to stay, which would you choose?

Monday Random Thoughts

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

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

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

- I could not kill stuff fast enough.

- Bah humbug.

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

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

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

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

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

- Roll the same class as them.

- Get rifting.

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

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

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

- But I have faith I can do it.

- Did not play much warcraft again this weekend.

- Not much really to do.

- Tanked a full run of normal and half heroic.

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

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

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

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

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

- Shouldn't they be paying me.

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

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

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

- I train my hunters well.

- Thank you very much.

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

- Good players are good player.

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

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

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

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

- Oh wait, I know why.

- That retarded 20 man minimum.

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

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

- It keeps guild that want to keep playing playing.

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

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

- There should be a 10 man version of mythic.

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

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

- It is a game, not a sport.

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

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

- No one would care.

- The game should not be designed around them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- The best of the best are all assembled there.

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

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

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

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

- They have to do what I do.

- Create players.

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

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

- I said MM.

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

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

- What the numbers and see what happens.

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

- Second fight, single target, destroyed.

- Third fight, mixed, destroyed.

- Forth fight, cleave and single, destroyed.

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

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

- I said no.

- He said, she must suck.

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

- MM is just better, simple as that.

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

- Don't judge a book my their cover.

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

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

- MM is better right now.

- But you never know what tomorrow will bring.

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

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

- Been using it since HFC came out.

- Guess what?

- Did not work this week.

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

- I mean... really.

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

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

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

- I mean... really.

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

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

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

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

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

- Because even with all the junk we love it.

- Have a great day.

How Would You Like to See Legion Unfold?

I've been reading a fair deal of fan theories about what will happen in the coming Legion.  Some of them, I must admit, have been really good.  There are a hell of a lot of really creative people out there in the gaming world and it seems like a few are having some funny with with fantasy of how to tell a good warcraft story.

If you read this blog even from time to time you might have heard me say that I think it is time we, the heroes of Azeroth had a set back.  I've often posted my fan theories mainly because I kind of dig that sort of stuff and I enjoy getting lost in the fantasy a bit with writing.  I think as early as when Cataclysm was announced before we really knew anything about it I had my theories of a story line that involved us losing.

When Warlords was announced I had a very elaborate scenario were we lost in our bid to save this alternate Draenor.  It was before we really knew anything about Warlords.  I had said a great ending would be if we come to combat the iron horde and the legion invades as we do so.  We attempt to save this Draenor from the legion as they open portals all over the world and we fail.  The final battle would be us trying to escape alternate Draenor before it exploded and if you won the fight and made it out alive the fight would end with you either in stormwind or orgimmar, depending on your faction of course.  If you failed, Draenor blows up with you still on it.

Seems I was partly right.  The end fight was against the legion like I predicted, but of course we won just like we always do.  I really have been aching for a set back.  I think the game needs it.  We, the heroes, are way too strong and keep getting stronger.  There was no sense of doom or dread in legion.  We knew we would beat everything the iron horde threw at us and later everything the legion threw at us.  We need a loss.  I have been on and on about it for a long time.

It seems that I am no longer the only one that thinks that.  A lot of these fan theories I have been reading where people making up their own story of what they would like to see all have us suffering loss.  Be it with our heroes dies, our cities burning, or just flat out having battles we can not win.

I think, for me at least, that is why I am really digging a lot of these fan made theories.  They jive with something I have been wanting to see for the better part of 6 years now.  I want to see us, the heroes, put in our place.  We are but mortals yet we take down the high and mighty as if we were an adult trying to beat up a toddler.  Super easy and really unfair.  We are too strong.  We need to be knocked down a few pegs if you ask me.  We need to lose.

Now loss does not need to be actual loss.  Like my idea for Draenor at the time.  While we "lost" in saving Draenor we did escape with our lives and the lives of a great many others we got off the planet in time.  So you could say even in defeat we won, a few battles at least even if not the war.

For story purposes we can not actually lose.  If we lose, we are dead, it is game over.  But we can lose in the sense like I mentioned for Draenor.  We can lose because we were not able to save the planet but win in the sense we made it out alive and managed to save a great many people in the process. 

I would love to see Legion bring us a story like that.  One with some depth to it, something character building, something that shows we do not always win.  While I have not quite thought out my story line for how I would like to see it unfold for Legion the way I had Warlords before it, it remains pretty much the same.  I want to see us lose.  And it seems a great many others have jumped on my bandwagon with that thought in mind in their own fan theories on what they would like to see happen.

How would you like to see Legion unfold?  More of the same with us exerting our dominance over each and every obstacle  in our path or maybe seeing some set backs?  Perhaps you have some other completely different idea in mind.  Maybe you picture the final battle not against the legion but against the titans or the old gods.  Do share.  What would you like to see?

Monday Random Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

- She too is a player.

- He came down with an extremely rare illness.

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

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

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

- I've known him since 2008.

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

- He was a semi consistent raider.

- When he was not away for military duty.

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

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

- And not just his arm.

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

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

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

- He was, is, family.

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

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

- I will gladly help him level next expansion.

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

- He will always remain a member of the guild.

- He will always remain a friend.

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

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

- Demo warlock or BM hunter make the most sense.

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

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

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

- That would make one handed play a lot easier.

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

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

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

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

- It is funny because it is true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- 55 is a breeze now.

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

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

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

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

- Random people still stuck at cataclysm time walkers.

- No surprise there.

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

- He got kicked because he knew the fight?

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Not even attempting to follow mechanics.

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

- It is standardized item level.

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

- So they were bad and stupid.

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

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

- At a 429 item level on day one.

- It was a nightmare in some groups.

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

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

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

- With a guild group they were awesome.

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

- All about perception I guess.

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

- I would be very grateful.

- Have a great day.