Monday Random Thoughts

- Happy New Years all.

- Level 100 number 7 managed to ding this weekend.

- My mage this time around.

- I hit 100 while still in spires of arak, even before I finished it.

- Goes to show how much experience I gained just doing my garrison every day on it for a while.

- I usually finish spires a little past 98, even on alts with rested.

- It must have gained a ton of experience in the garrison.

- Speaking of a lot of experience running my garrison only, my mage got the achievement for leveling 10 followers to 100 less than 1 hour after he hit 100.

- Want more?

- My monk, still 93, got the achievement for leveling 10 followers to 100 yesterday.

- I did not even know I had 10 followers already on my monk.

- I think I hit my breaking point on garrisons.

- They have now passed from the "something fun to do to pass the time" into the "annoying busy work" category.

- It was bound to happen, even more so with as many characters as I like to run with.

- Did the proving grounds on my mage the moment I hit 100.

- Heard a lot of mages saying they had major problems with it.

- So I was interested to see what would happen.

- I was only a 584 item level, as I was only up to spires, and was still wearing a lot of last expansions gear, so I was not expecting much.

- One shot bronze and silver and was never even close to missing any rounds.

- Could not manage gold at that item level however.

- Only tried it once and failed, but maybe if I worked at it I could have.

- But I am not sure I would have ever been able to do enough damage on the sha at the end even if with practice.

- I am sure it could be done, just not by me.

- I guess being 26 item levels under the lowest it scales to was a bit to much for my skill level on a mage for gold.

- But silver was a complete joke.

- I now wonder why some mages were saying it was hard.

- There are a couple I know that it took them over 20 tries before they managed it.

- From my experience the hardest part of silver, outside of not getting yourself caught in amber like an idiot, like I did on my rogue twice, (and still managed to one shot silver) is the AoE part.

- It was rough on a few of my characters, the AoE part with the rabbit guys that is.

- Usually pushed it to the end of the timer.

- My priest it was close on, my rogue it was close on, but with my mage it had to be the fastest round in the history of the proving grounds.

- The one round with the one regular mob and tons of rabbits that is 45 seconds long I ended up sitting there and waiting for 42 seconds.

- It took me a total of 3 seconds to clear the AoE phase.

- Wow, and that is at 584, I can't wait to see what my mage can do at the appropriate 610.

- Can't get faster than that, but I am guessing gold will be as much of a joke as silver was with a little more gear and a little more practice.

- Mages are seriously OP.

- When I did finish spires and got the quest to go to skyreach I grabbed a group and went there for the legendary quest line.

- I always wait until I have the end of zone quest before I do skyreach, kill two birds with one stone, no pun intended.

- I manged 13K or better on all bosses in there on heroic.

- Yes, walked into heroic with a guild group, I don't waste time on normals.

- I'd say 90% of the people I see in dungeons can not do that.

- Mind you, I did no reading, no practice, just hit the "logical" buttons as I saw them, had not had much time to research as I had just hit 100.

- I'll do my research today.

- If mages can pull those numbers in that gear without even trying to do a "good" rotation, they are seriously OP.

- I think my mage will be my main DPS alt.

- I like that in an alt.

- Super easy, high numbers, not much thought or effort involved.

- I like alts like that.

- I like alts that are OP.

- Don't let anyone fool you, if someone says they do not like being OP they are either lying or have mild brain damage.

- Everyone likes feeling powerful, no one like feeling week.

- So, an alt which you play less so are usually less skilled with, being OP rocks.

- You get more out of it for less effort.

- Hey, you might not admit it, but I will.

- I like the feeling of being OP.

- Speaking of feeling OP I've been digging lone wolf even if I miss my pet.

- Fluffy is not really feeling the love lately and I am sorry for that.

- Lone wolf brings me back in time to a place where everything was new and I was still learning the game and trying to get better at it.

- No, not because I was a bad hunter that did not have his pet out, but because I spent literally hours practicing kiting.

- I would kite mobs all over azeroth, as best I could.

- Part of being a good hunter was being able to kite.

- And kiting back then took a fair bit of practice and skill.

- The jump and spin to shoot and keeping your forward motion took me a long time to get down and I still was never perfect at it.

- Doing that and learning how to kite is when I started to key bind, was a pure clicker before that, but kiting was so much easier, worlds easier, with binding.

- With lone wolf it was like the good old days of kiting.

- It also felt like I needed to learn it all over again being it has been so long since I put it to good use.

- It all felt new and exciting again for me.

- Was doing the daily in one zone and rounded myself up a nice little stack of 12 or 13 orges.

- I was running in circles, bouncing around like a mad elf, screw the buff for standing still as MM, I am putting on a show here baby.

- A troll shaman stopped and was watching, then a human DK stopped and started to watch, then a few more.

- I had about 6 or 7 people just watching me with this huge pack of mobs after me while running in circles kiting them, slowly killing one at a time as I tabbed thru them.

- I think they just wanted to see me die but that did not happen.

- One went down followed by the others quickly after and as I bent to loot a couple of the people watching actually cheered me.

- Looked like the troll shaman got a real kick out of it.

- It put a huge smile on my face and I had a hell of a great time doing it.

- It reminded me of all that time I took to learn something years ago that is basically useless in game now.

- Or was useless until I decided to start doing the dailies with lone wolf, even the ones with all elites like the group quest in the pit.

- It is easier to kite now than it would have been then, that is for sure, but it still made me feel like I did the first time I successfully kited a huge mob like the fel reaver into the horde city.

- Success.

- Success is always a great feeling.

- Speaking of success, even if we did not manage to get a gold on a skyreach challenge mode I had another one of those awesome hunter moments.

- On the bird boss after the second quills the group just blew up.

- Tank died, healer revived him, both damage dealers died, then the healer died after reviving the tank.

- Just me an the tank and 10 percent left.

- Give credit where credit is due here, the tank did amazing to keep himself alive.

- I said, as long as the tank can stay alive, we got this, I don't need any heals.

- I can kite all the birds and still kill the boss.

- And I did exactly that.

- The tank did amazing staying alive, I kited what felt like 12 million birds and killed the boss.

- Coolness.

- As I said, success it always a great feeling.

- I dropped enchanting on one of my characters and picked up blacksmith.

- Figured I did not need as many enchanters as I used to and having a second blacksmith would not be so bad.

- In case you were wondering, it takes 7200 ore to get to 600 from level 1.

- Either blackrock or true iron, does not make a difference.

- With as much as I had from my garrisons I managed to level it and still have nearly 10K ore left sitting around.

- It is not like it sells for anything otherwise.

- But now I have a boat load of items to disenchant for dust which does sell for a fair bit, as in 12 gold per dust.

- So I leveled a profession, got some stock for my enchanters to do their work orders, and even a chance to make some gold out of the worthless ore if I decided to.

- So if you have thousands upon thousands of ore like I did, turn it into something and disenchant it.

- If your server is anything like mine where ore sells for 1 gold per piece at best, that means making one piece costs you 60 gold, for the 60 ore.

- Being those things usually disenchant to 8-12 dust, if you average 10 dust at 12 gold per dust you can turn that 60 gold worth of ore into 120 gold worth of dust.

- Even if you go so far as to buy ore off the AH and process it this way you can double your money with some time investment.

- Not a great way to get rich quick and I would not suggest it unless you have countless free hours to do this, but processing your own ore that is worthless into something that has value is worth it, if you ask me.

- I'll do it to keep my 5 enchanter studies rolling.

- I keep the studies full more for the sorcerous elements than anything else.

- The enchanters study seems to have a good turn over for them.

- I get 2 to 5 per day with it usually.

- That, the scribes quarters and the engineering building seem to do well in terms of elements.

- The alchemy building sucks for giving elements.

- If I get 2 a week from that it is a lot.

- Your experience might vary of course.

- Or I wonder, are certain buildings more likely to give the elements than others?

- Do you find that your enchanters study gives a fair amount and your alchemy lab doesn't?

- I wonder if someone collected data on that.

- Might just be some people are lucky with some buildings and others are not.

- Just a luck thing.

- Like one friend of mine gets about 6 or 7 of the stones he needs each week for the legendary quest line from work orders.

- I've gotten 2 total from work orders.

- Just a luck thing.

- I did have some major luck this weekend in terms of the big crates of salvage.

- Three 665 BoE's, how awesome is that?

- Nothing I needed, so to speak.

- While I did "need" them they were not for my main so I gave them to people in guild to help the raid team out.

- I figure if I give them a 665 it will help me get 685s for my main.

- A lot better than putting a 665 on an alt I might rarely play.

- I am having the odd luck this expansion thus far like I did the last few when it comes to boss kills.

- My main still does not have a kill on the 6th boss.

- For some odd reason I am always needed to tank when we are on that one.

- Either a tank needs to leave or has some connection problem and as always I am the first person to offer to switch.

- Actually, I think I am the only person in guild that has more than one character heroic raid ready.

- So it is not so much me being "a nice guy" by offering, it is because I am the only one that can.

- And in truth, I would rather kill it while tanking than not kill it while DPSing even if I would rather be on my main.

- Still do not have a last boss kill on normal or heroic.

- We always run out of time, but we are getting faster with it.

- What slows us down usually is that we always have a few new people with us and I need to explain every fight.

- This my friends is one of the reasons I am really starting to hate the flexible format.

- While I like it for what it does, it feels like it is slowing us down at the moment.

- It is like a slow death for a casual guild like mine so far.

- If we were a strict 10 I am sure we would be clearing heroic with time to spare in our two hours every week instead of stopping on the 6th boss, usually on normal because of the lesser geared players.

- Maybe we should just extend the lock out one week and kill the last boss.

- Being we can go back in from the beginning now after we kill it, it really would not be a big deal right?

- Holy crap, how did I never think of doing that until just now while typing this?

- I miss the simple solutions sometimes, maybe because they are so simple I overlook them.

- I think that is part of the reason I started writing here, because it makes me think things out while I type.

- I can not believe I never thought of that.

- How could I have missed an obvious solution like that?

- I deserve to be fish slapped by those trash guys before the shaman fight in SoO.

- I really got a kick out of that ability.

- When I pointed it out to the raid they all got a laugh out of it, no one had noticed that was what they were doing, beating people with a fish.

- Being I have not killed the last boss I have found it impossible to pug the last boss.

- There is some logic to that, they want people that know the fight.

- Just because I have done killed it does not mean I do not know the fight.

- But it is one of those catch 22s.

- You need to kill the boss to get a pug to kill the boss, but when I have not yet killed the boss I can not get a kill on the boss so I will have the kill on the boss so I can get a kill on the boss.

- So I think extending and doing it will be the ideal solution.

- Looking at what the pugs ask for, 20K DPS and 30K HPS, my group should be able to do it no problem.

- But I wonder because many of the groups I see assembling are looking for so many healers.

- Multiple ones last night were looking for the 3 tank, 9 healer, 13 damage dealer set up.

- Being I have not done it, is there really that much healing needed?

- If they are looking for 30K HPS from 9 healers that would mean there is an insane amount of damage going out.

- If they are looking at having nearly as many healers as they do damage dealers that seems more like a fault of blizzards design.

- I think that is where my guild would have the problem.

- We have a lot of healers, sure, but they are not pulling those 30K numbers.

- Maybe on one or two fights here and there they are, but they usually max out around 25K at most.

- Maybe I will just find some group to carry my butt so I can see how it goes in a 3/9/13 group.

- I just want to see what the strategy is for that.

- Not like it would be a carry so to speak, I would well exceed the 20K they are asking for from the damage dealers.

- But if they are asking for the achievement to get in, and I do not have the achievement, it would qualify as a carry even if it were not, as I do not meet the requirements, so I would be getting carried.

- At least that is how I think the logic of the system works in terms of what is a carry and what is not.

- I logged a few runs this week to look at some numbers and compare, for my own benefit really.

- I tried out survival in one run and compared it to my MM numbers.

- I did not regem or reenchant to multi strike, but over all my MM numbers were considerable higher.

- I did two runs of the first 4 on normal to compare.

- Mind you anecdotal evidence is anecdotal and I have been practicing MM and not SV and gemmed and enchanted for MM and not SV.

- But I did between 24K-26K as MM on the first 4 and between 20K-24K as SV on the first four.

- So in all cases MM was better, for me.  Even Tectus, which SV should have done better.

- But I believe that was more user error, as in me, not taking complete advantage of AoEing.

- I am sure if I had I could have padded the meter some and helped the fight over all.

- I just got focused on single target like I was used to and basically made a mistake.

- So for me, it seems MM is still better, but SV is most definitely competitive.

- I think with some SV practice and different gems and enchants they would have been near even.

- And I am absolutely sure if I did not fall into making the mistake of single targeting on tectus, SV would have done much better than MM.

- Next test is to try it with focusing shot.

- I really like that I can run the same bosses over and over again.

- It makes it easy for me to test new things out.

- And as a 660 hunter looking to join a fresh normal it is extremely rare I would get turned down because I over gear it so much people like to take me along.

- And if they did not want me that would probably only be if they were full on DPS.

- I saw one person list something on group finder I thought was awesome.

- He listed what he needed, his rules, his requirements, the loot system, etc, and at the end he said, if you read all of this please put "secret word" in when requesting to join the group.

- That is awesome.

- Someone that actually read it would see to put his "secret word" in when they request to join and anyone who didn't and just pushed to join and will get instantly declined.

- At least that way you know you have people that can read and follow rules.

- I am so going to have to steal his idea and use it.

- It is a great idea, it should be stolen by everyone.

- One day we were looking for a healer on one of the bosses, put healer only in the title, and we had dozens of people apply that were DPS.

- No exaggeration there at all.

- I would say we had at least 50 people apply looking to join that were not even healers.

- Do people read or do they just apply to anything?

- I know when I am looking for a group I probably spend way to much time trying to pick and choose a group.

- I don't just apply to any group that has what I want, I look for a group I think will fit me well.

- I like guild groups that just need one or two more.

- I like groups that already have their tanks and healers and are just looking for a few DPS.

- I like groups that have a clear description of what they want and what they expect to do.

- So basically I end up never even finding a group because I set my personal standards too high.

- I never apply to one that says they are looking for a tank or healer specifically, as I am neither of those.

- I never apply to groups that have bad descriptions, or rude language.

- I never apply to groups that have a seriously low item level requirement like a 620 requirement for heroic, because while I know it is just the person assembling looking for a carry (and they can do that as they are doing all he work assembling so I would not deny them their carry) I can not be sure that the rest of the group won't be low item level too that can not do the content.

- Maybe I am too picky.

- If anything it is really ruining my playing experience this expansion.

- To no ones fault but my own.

- I miss the old way where I can just list my name and people come to me instead of me having to ask to join a group.

- At least that way I can go out and do things and let people fine me.

- I miss that.

- I also hate getting rejected.

- As funny as it sounds I got rejected for the world boss last week 3 times in a row on my 660 hunter but got accepted instantly on my 584 mage shortly after he hit 100.

- Does that make any sense?

- Why reject a high item level player and take a low item level one?

- I don't need anything it drops on my hunter so no big deal as I am only doing it for the enchanting materials, but I still do not understand why you would reject a decent item level player.

- I think it has more to do with who has accept and decline privileges.

- I think a lot of times people just decline people to troll.

- It could also have to do with who is assembling the group.

- Like the one that was assembling for the one that instantly accepted my mage was from stormrage, a good server.

- They probably were a smarter player than some and realizes that even a low level player is better than an empty space on a world boss.

- Even if I sucked the suckiest of sucking ever I could still run over the flowers.

- Or maybe he saw the silver proving grounds at that low item level and figured I can't suck that badly and probably would be smart enough to at least run over flowers.

- Who is to say why he invited me and why a higher level character got rejected.

- One thing is for sure, if you have a healing spec you get instant invite, to anything.

- Don't even need healing gear, just any healers in those encounters are good.

- Want to hear the funniest part of the whole thing with my mage?

- Here I was on the squishiest class of them all, in crap gear with a low health total, running like a mad gnome over flowers everywhere, and I never died.

- I've done the world bosses, one or the other, on many characters thus far this expansion and never once had I done one where I lived through the whole thing, except on this character that I would have surely thought was as good as dead.

- Maybe it was because I was a gnome and none of the mobs could see me to hurt me.

- Thanks to AoE of the fight I did manage to do good enough for 8th in damage done.

- I'd say that was more a process of me never dying than me doing well however.

- How are savage bloods selling on your server?

- They seem to go from around 900 to 1500 on my server, depending on the time of the week.

- I have 2600 spirits now, I am thinking of trading them all in for bloods and selling them before they drop any more.

- But I keep putting it off because maybe I might need them.

- I swear being a junk collector that likes to hold on to everything will be the death of me.

- I know I can sell them for a cool 52K+ gold now and if I ever need them buy them back later for a much cheaper price but I still keep holding on to them.

- My hoarding tendencies are really taking over.

- I need to kick that habit.

- Anyway, happy new years once again.

- Have a great day.