Monday, December 7, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- Decided this weekend I would run my horde hunter through LFR.

- Did not need valor on my main and did not feel like playing any other alts.

- Last I played it, some 3 months ago or maybe longer I guess, I was sitting at 11 tomes, so I figured what the hell.

- It had only ever did LFR, no real raiding, and the last I played it the last 2 parts of LFR were not even out yet.

- So a full clear and guess how many tomes I got for it?

- Come on, I know you wanna guess and make fun of my horrible luck.

- Two, I got two.

- Thought it was going to be a good run.

- Got one off the first boss I killed.

- And that was it until the last of the 13 bosses.

- First and last boss gave me a tome, none others did.

- I'd say that fits my luck perfectly.

- At least all the runs were very smooth.

- Don't recall wiping on any bosses, not even archie.

- But we did wipe on trash twice I think.

- And we did not, repeat, did not have any high geared players carrying any of the groups.

- I think it was just a solid group of all alts of people that knew how to play somewhat decently.

- Made for a nice run.

- But I learned one thing about my horde hunter.

- I am so out of practice I really suck at beast mastery.

- I am not just talking doing poorly, I am talking wow I sucked it up.

- My horde hunter is mixed in whatever it could get its hands on gear wise, so a collection of junk, and a 682 item level.

- I was doing around 30K-34K on most fights.

- Now maybe I am just wrong for comparing it to my main hunter which when it was 682 had the 4 piece BRF tier and that was easily over 50K at that item level, but it made me feel bad for the people I was playing with.

- Yes, even in the LFR I felt like I was letting them down.

- But when it came to AoE I can see why BM shines over MM in a million and one ways.

- I was pulling close to 200K on some AoE trash pulls, and not just bursting that that, staying close to there.

- Sure I would drop to 160 or so, but I could never do that on my MM unless the packs died fast.

- And these were not dying fast.

- Now to figure out how to do single target better.

- I know there is more I can get out of it even without the tier set.

- I know the priority, I know the abilities, I know how to maximize the KCs for BW with FF, I just do not think I was getting the most out of it.

- But I will take the same advice I give everyone else when they say their numbers are not where they should be.

- Practice.

- No really.

- I can give people advice until the cows come home (no pun intended as my hunter is tauren) but they will never get better if they do not practice.

- All the advice in the world won't help someone that does not do what they are supposed to do right.

- Either way, by the end of the run I was feeling a little better about BM, even if not comfortable with it again yet.

- Always takes me two or three weeks of playing it ease back into a spec.

- Now lets get off horde hunter BM DPS and move to more fun random thoughts.

- Well, maybe fun depending on how you look at it.

- Blizzard had some fun this weekend, that is for sure, trolling me.

- I've been trying to get those rare pets that were added in 6.2 but never see them around.

- I sometimes spend a half hour flying around to see if one spawned, but have never seen the one in Talador.

- But Saturday I saw one, my hands started to shake a little, can I land and get to it before someone else tags it.

- It was the first time I had ever seen one.

- I land and click on it, or try to, but I miss.

- And miss again, and again.

- I can't even click on the damn thing as it flies around.

- I then finally get it.

- First attack my pet lands a crit, no big deal the mob still has over 500 life left.

- Second attack I land another crit for over 600 and kill it.

- NNNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!

- I forfeit the fight because I could swear I heard if you forfeit or lose the mob reappears.

- For the record, that is 100% false, the pet was gone and did not return.

- /cry

- The first one I ever saw and I kill it by landing 2 critical strikes in a row from a pet I swear I do not recall ever seeing a hit over 500 before.

- What are the odds of getting two crits in a row like that?

- It never ever happens when I need it to.

- So I decide I just killed it, so it has to respawn somewhere else right?

- I am going to scour this entire place and find it.

- I put my corgi in, although I could have put my turnip in too, just so that way I would not kill it again if I ran into it.

- Low and behold less than 10 minutes later I see it again.

- I land, go to click on it, accidentally click on a mob and fire a shot at it and the mob does an AoE and kills it.

- NNNNOOOOO!!!!

- Blizzard, why do you hate me so?

- Well, it has to respawn again right, so I will keep searching, I know today is my day.

- Once more less than 10 minutes of flying around and I see another one.

- I land, slowly, I put my mouse over it, every so sure handed, and I click on it.

- It is a poor one but who cares, I will just stone it, this pet will be mine.

- And it was.

- Finally.

- But blizzard was not done trolling me.

- No, not by a long shot.

- See, I have been trying to get that garrison achievement for doing all the archaeology missions but I still need one, that never pops up.

- Story of my life right?

- And I keep buying the explorers notebook to force an archaeology mission to spawn.

- But I was all out of restored artifacts to buy more so figured I would do some archaeology and get a few.

- And also work toward my pristine collection achievement at the same time.

- I was flying about digging, which I remind you I only do because I can fly, please take note of that you dim wits at blizzard that do not like us flying.

- I was doing it, and enjoying it, only because of flying.

- And I get one dig in forstfire ridge.

- Right on top of garn nighthowl.

- You have to be F'N kidding me.

- Maybe someone is farming him and there will not be any mobs around.

- I get there and there is no such luck.

- I land and start digging.

- It tells me to get closer to the pack.

- Do you know the pack I am talking about.

- The one with the big nighthowl and his bunch of baby nighthowls around it.

- And by babies I mean the babies which are the smaller ones that are level 100 elites with millions of health each.

- And there are a lot of them completely surrounding him.

- I step closer, closer, closer.

- I dig.

- Damn, I need to get closer.

- Blizzard, why do you hate me so?

- Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.

- Two points for reference.

- I dig again and it appears.

- Right under the snout of one of the babies.

- Sleeping babies.

- Please stay sleeping baby wolf.

- I am a hunter and I love animals, I do not kill them, I keep them well fed and give them a home to live in and they are my friends.

- Do not eat me Mr Wolfie.

- I grab the dig and turn tail and run off.

- Of course I was not done, there are more than just one dig per site, but I got that hard one out of the way.

- So what do I do next?

- Think logical about it.

- I get myself killed because I am not paying attention and while walking around digging two come up from behind me and maul my purple elf butt to death.

- Looking at my death log is like this.

- 311,570 from garn nighthowl.

- 158,616 you have died.

- Ouch.

- I did not die a second time, I keep an eye on all the roamers around there.

- I did not realize how many there are in that area until I did the dig.

- There has to be 35-40 of them, if not more.

- It was the single most "exciting" dig of my entire life.

- And if you do archaeology get ready for next expansion.

- With mobs scaling to your level and no flying, every single dig site has the potential to be exactly like that.

- It was fun, yes, but I will never even think of touching archaeology until A) I have flying and B) I am so far over geared that even scaling to my level I can one shot things.

- The garn dig site was really fun to do, as a once in a blue moon thing, but if every dig site was like that, sorry the reward is most definitely not worth the effort.

- They better put dig sites in areas where no mobs are in legion.

- Because this will not be fun if that is what every single one is like.

- Serious question, if they are removing a stat next expansion, why is versatility still in game?

- They could have removed that and no one would complain but they are removing multistrike instead.

- Sure, remove a stat some classes actually love and keep a stat everyone either doesn't understand or doesn't want.

- Versatility is not bad, so to speak.

- But given the option most people would want anything else.

- So are we really going to go through another expansion of everyone and their mother saying "It's got versatility on it, I don't want it."

- Maybe they will buff it a little bit.

- But therein lies the problem, if you buff it any then it becomes the best stat for everyone.

- So why have a stat so powerful or so weak, that it would be near impossible to balance correctly, even in game?

- Your guess is as good as mine.

- And my guess is the people at blizzard just like trolling people.

- And versatility is them trolling everyone at once.

- Which I guess I am fine with, they can't have all their fun just trolling just me.

- Hey, where is my beta invite blizzard?

- Give me something to write about.

- Have a great day.

12 comments:

  1. "Hey, where is my beta invite blizzard?"

    Lately, I've been reading and hearing a host of people talking about beta. You have the podcasters and streamers getting beta invites with a notable but smaller subsection of bloggers getting invites. A thought occurred to me listening to their observations and critiques.

    Blizzards press management leads inevitably to a feedback loop and influences expansion patterns, exacerbating, what was a natural progression of player interest.

    First, let us postulate that an expansions natural life cycle is Drop > Mid Expansion patches/content > Last Xpac patch > End of Xpac lull. I believe that at the drop of the expansion, interest is at its highest and slowly fades losing X% of people that just want to see the new stuff and unsub. Each mid Xpac content patch buffs the deflating enthusiasm bringing some small portion of X back (meanwhile X continues to grow as others unsub). Then when the final patch drops you see the highest return of X% just to finish up the Xpac which moves you into the Lull where you see X grow steadily until the pre-expansion event nears.

    I don't think this paradigm is revolutionary in any way. Why does Blizz do this? I believe its because it generates hype, buzz, and energy around the new releases (Xpacs, Content patches, etc). They utilize the media's reach and attitude to generate this energy, because they think these media sources DO influence the general player attitude, or else, why inevitably do the same people keep getting beta invites?

    Now let us look at these media personalities. They get access 6-9 months ahead of the content's official release. They play it and then use that material to fill content slots for their own entertainment productions: videos, streaming, podcasts, or blog articles. They dissect it at length, ad nauseam long before its official release. Then the official content drops and they play it, just like they've played it a couple? a few? a dozen times before? Perhaps, they wax poetic about the changes, the improvements, the actual official implementation compared to what they saw on beta. However, in the end, they've seen it a TON before and that enthusiasm can only last so long and shortly after launch of the Xpac, Content Patch, etc they grow bored, which is why you see multiple WOW podcasts talking about anything but WOW.

    Just like the hype, the buzz, the energy Blizzard sought to cultivate by giving these people early access; these media sources present information, thoughts etc much more muted having exhausted the fine detail analysis months earlier. That pall can't help but translate to the player base, who may have a qualm but the miasma that are these WOW podcasts and bloggers burnt out on what is actually newly dropped information can't help but permeate their future observations from playing the game. The players who listen and read and care are artificially burnt out by the burn out the media presence.

    From my perspective, it seems that Blizzards current predisposition to favor podcasters, streamers, and bloggers with beta access accelerates the life cycle of every expansion and subsequent component (like content patches).

    What do you think, Grumpy, is this a fair assessment?

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    1. I would say it is. The reason it seems most of the "positive" and newer, meaning video, people get them first is because they are trying to create buzz. Nothing wrong with that really. It is a good business plan to keep promoting your business.

      However I do believe that they are going about it the wrong way. I think pushing this hype so soon it will burn out in the long run, and as you mentioned, burn out the people they need to hype it.

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  2. With your luck or lack thereof, I suspect you will find that you have already received a Beta invite, but your email put it in your spam folder where you will not happen to discover it until two days after Legion is released :)

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    1. It would not surprise me in the slightest if something like that happened. I got the beta myself last expansion, but after I got it I noticed someone sent me an extra one they had 2 weeks earlier I never noticed. Guess I have to keep an eye on my mailbox.

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  3. I don't think you did badly with your hunter as BM at 682. It's more or less what I was doing when I was getting my horde hunter through the legendary questline.

    Remember that the DPS check on mythic butcher was around 35k per player and that was with 680-ish ilvl gear and no set bonus, and we're speaking mythic level there.

    Even on grull it was 40-45k ish and that was with set bonuses.

    Oh aswell, BM 4p in BRF was THAT ridiculusly OP.

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    1. Yeah, the BRF tier was better for starting HFC even if all you had was the 670 one. It really was that powerful.

      I guess it was okay. But comparing item levels with and without the tier set you are looking at close to a 15K-20K difference at the same over all item level. I know tier sets are supposed to give you a boss, but that seems a bit over the line if you ask me. Makes leveling alts always feel as if you are way behind, even, if as you said, you really aren't.

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    2. Well there is definitely a problem this tier in DPS increase (that problem was not present to taht extend on HM/BRF)

      When you see that our benchmark for heroic archimonde was around 40k the first month of realease, and now on archimonde mythic we are all at 90-110k the increase is just insane.

      The problem is that for us that kind of dps start to feel normal, and we tend to forget the gain of 4set + 795 ring.

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    3. Funny you say 40K for heroic archie when most groups turn me down doing 70K because it is "not enough" now. The times have changed already.

      We do forget that it is the tier set and the ring giving us that power. It is what makes it even harder on alts trying to make the jump into raiding unless they get carried. As much as some people will hate me for saying it, but this is why we NEED tier gear back in LFR. So alts at least have a way to work their way into a real raid.

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  4. When I started playing, a bad overgeared hunter did roughly the same as an undergeared good hunter and sets didn't dramatically change a class. Now a bad overgeared hunter does more damage than the best undergeared ones. I have seen this at mythic level where 10 item levels more and messing things up is way better output than a perfect everything hunter with also 0 unavoidable damage taken. So no surprise there, gear is everything.

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    1. That is why I laugh when I see hunters that massively over gear me and I still beat them. How is that possible, their gear should be able to beat me alone. I sometimes wonder why I can not be that lucky. I mean they have to be in a mythic group to be getting that much gear. I am getting more and more jealous over the years as I get older. It makes me yearn for the good old days when I could beat someone that vastly over geared me through being the better player. Now it is about "who you raid with" and not "how good a player you are". I get punished for choosing to raid with people I like raiding with instead of moving to a progression group.

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  5. Interesting that you enjoyed doing the Garn Nighthowl digsite. For me, it was a big goof-up by Blizzard and a deterrent from even doing archaeology. I got the digsite in the first couple weeks of WoD (on my warlock), and I started working on the digsite. I was able to get a few digs without aggroing any of the wolves, but then I found one that seemed to be right underneath two sleeping wolves. Every time I tried to get to the digsite, I aggroed the wolves and they destroyed me. Ended up with a couple hundred gold in a repair bill, and didn't even finish the digsite. I submitted a ticket to Blizzard, and the GM said, hey sorry, I had that digsite too and it was hard, good luck. Then I stopped doing archaeology. When I started archaeology again, I had made Exalted with the Arrakoa, so I bought the thing that randomizes your digsites just to get rid of the Nighthowl digsite. Did a couple more digsites, and Nighthowl digsite pops up again. I tried it again, and even in my 690 or whatever gear I had by then, I got destroyed by the wolves just as easily as when I was a fresh 100. I submitted another ticket. Next time I logged in, my digsites had been randomized. Did a whole bunch more archaeology, and then Nighthowl pops up again and I stopped doing archaeology. Next time I logged in, my digsites had been randomized again. I have no idea what's going on with my digsites being randomized every time Nighthowl pops up, but if it didn't I would just randomize them myself to make it go away.

    I suspect that this digsite was simply a colossal error by Blizzard. The professions team added the digsite, and then another team came along later, added Garn, his minions, and the mount drop. And no one realized that people would be venturing here solo for archaeology.

    I don't think this a precursor to what will happen in Legion. These wolves are not just level 100 elites. I can kill most 102 elites pretty easily now, and the wolves hit much much harder. The problem is that they stuck mobs designed to be killed by a raid team in an archaeology digsite and then never fixed it.

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    1. I agree for anyone that was not over geared (and a hunter) it could be a huge issue and it was a goof on blizzards part. I can't see how many other classes would handle it, if they could at all.

      Seems like the under 2 wolves in the big pack was the one I had. I had to pick it up right under his snout.

      Oddly enough, and I only need 8 more pristine items, and there are a lot, and that was the first time I have ever encountered that dig. I guess I am lucky.

      Perhaps you are right. They are intended for a raid group to kill them. Or just a hunter. ;) That is why I really was not that afraid, I can do garn and his buddies solo.

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