I finished off my Hero of Shattrath achievement last night. I knew the achievement gives no achievement points but I am fine with that. I was doing it not only for the achievement but for the tabard (as that helps for an achievement as well) and for another exalted reputation (which is also for an achievement).
So last night I was figuring when I finished the Scryers not only would I get my Hero of Shattrath achievement but I would get exalted reputation number 33. Guess what. Nope, I am still sitting at 32 exalted reputation. Why did not I not get credit for exalted? I know I got it. I got the achievement to pop up, I got the tabard you need to be exalted to buy so why did it not count toward my total exalted reputations?
Some people will say it is because I no longer have Aldor at exalted but that argument does not hold water. I hit exalted, I got credit for it, I switched. It counts. Not to mention if you read the text of the achievement itself it says "Gain exalted status with The Scryers and The Aldor". The achievement notices I have both, why does my reputation count not notice it?
So people will go back to the argument of both do not count again because once you lose one you no longer have exalted. For that I bring you to the Insane achievement. While it is entirely possible to get that with all those reputation levels at the same time I've never seen anyone that insane to do it the long and hard way that would need to be done. Yet they get the achievement.
The Insane achievement and the hero achievement proves, beyond a doubt, that previous reputation levels are counted. Otherwise the achievements would not exists. So I want reputation number 33.
I put in a ticket to Blizzard but you know how they are, I will not expect to hear back from them any time soon and I am sure that their response will be something like, we can't do anything about that.
Fuck that shit, you can do something about it. Go into the line in the database where it says 32 and change it to 33. If that is too complicated for you then perhaps you need to look for another job because you are way to stupid do be doing the job you are currently in.
They can no argue with me about the validity of getting the reputation because I have their very own achievement to use against them. They can not say only one counts when I have an achievement that counts both. I will go to the forums if they do not do the right thing and whine and bitch and complain until I got it out of my system. Yeah, I know, it won't change anything but it sure will feel nice venting about it.
From my limited experience with actual problems in "recordings" like this I have found that Blizzard has the absolutely worst customer service of any business on the fact of the earth. There standard answer is there is nothing they can do about it. If there is nothing they can do about it then why is it called customer service?
After that I went and finished my grind for Lower City. So now I have 33 anyway when I should have 34. If and when a customer service rep responds to me, if I am online, and says they can not do anything I will simply ask them a few questions.
Can you tell me how many exalted reputations do I have now?
To which they can only reply, 33
What does this mean? I will ask as I link the Aldor tabard that you can only get when exalted.
They will only have one reply and it would be, that you where exalted with The Aldor.
So I will ask, so that is 33 and 1 right? What is 33+1?
If they answer anything other then 34 they deserve to be shot.
And I will say, then fix my reputation count please as you just admitted I have 34 exalted reputation. Thank you for your time.
Sometimes people go to customer service with requests that are crazy and have no ground on which to make your argument. This is not a crazy request, it is simple to do and it's logic is flawless. I am being my good old grumpy self here because I expect to be let down. I did that grind for the extra reputation and I would feel as if I completely wasted my game time by doing something for what turns out to be no reason. Doing it and getting the reputation to count makes it worth the effort. I have fun doing things like that. Doing it and getting nothing from it means I wasted my time and I do not pay to play a game to waste my time (well I do but not only to waste my time) I pay to play a game to have fun. Changing my reputation count means it was fun. Not changing it means I just wasted all that time.
I spoke with a few people after they screwed me over last night and all of them that did the same thing I did said they got credit for both. So maybe there is a little hope but like I said, I have no faith in the customer service from Blizzard. Their track record is severely lacking.
Wish me luck but it will be for nothing, they will most likely respond to me while I am at work and I will never get the chance to talk to them about it. Just means I will put in another ticket and keep putting in tickets about it until the situation is resolved.
Until I get the reputation corrected that achievement will always be known as Zero of Shattrath. Because they made me waste my time. That is not a hero achievement, it is a zero achievement.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Thinking Postive about Focus
As the Grumpy one I am always complaining about the changes that are coming. You know, like grandpa out on the back porch on his rocking chair that just doesn't like anything. Hey grandpa, I just won 200M in the lottery. You no good kid, when I was your age I had to earn my money. He can never be happy about anything. Well, that is me, grandpa before my age dictates. I am the grumpy one.
I have played some on the PTR with my Hunter and tried rotations in BM and MM, not SV however, and am trying to find my rhythm with it. More often then not I hear myself saying something like, volley would have been perfect here or damn, I am always low on focus. I have to look at the positive side. While doing some of my grinding recently it occurred to me that for all I've lost that I wanted I have gained some things as well. So for a moment I will try to look at the positive side of Focus.
One of the things I always considered set me apart from my Hunter brothers and sisters is that I had become a master at mana management. It was something I first picked up on and the reason I took Alchemy when I started playing. For the mana pots and health pots I could make.
As it turns out I was not only being my grumpy self complaining about the change but I was being downright selfish. My mana management is one of the reasons I could toast any hunter I've ever ran into even if they had 1000 gear score more. I liked that I had that advantage. I handled something well that others did not. In my selfishness I wanted to keep that advantage to myself.
So now I sit back knowing that Focus is here and trying to think of reasons I actually like that. At the moment it is not ideal being one thing I do love about it is Aspect of the Fox which we will not get until 83 but knowing it is there is worth working without it now.
Grinding has always been an issue for hunters, even more so if they do it the way I do. Keep moving and use instants all the time. Even the Hunter with the biggest mana pool would not be able to keep that up. I used my endless mana potion on each cool down and every chance I had to change into viper keeping my mana near full all the time. Made grinding easy for me as I did not have to stop to drink or spend long durations in viper. Focus makes it even easier. No more hitting the endless mana potion every time it comes off cooldown. No more switching back and forth between viper. Focus generates fast enough that you can grind and never need to stop anyway. On the off chance that is isn't, just open with a steady and by the time it fires you will have focus back.
Sure, now all Hunters can do what I always did so well when grinding, but I should not be selfish about it. Let them have it too. It adds nothing to my game but does add something to the game for others. Congrats on that guys. At least I have to press less buttons now to keep the grind going. Chalk one up for Focus, that is going to make grinding so much easier never having to worry about mana.
Speaking of Viper, now that we do not need mana that is gone as well. So that is a huge plus for me and many other Hunters. I know some of you will not want to admit it but I will do so freely. I've spent so many fights in Viper that I can not even count that high. The number of times I fired off a few shots and said, why is my damage so low and then noticed I was in Viper is countless. Never again will that happen. No more Viper, that is another great point for Focus.
How about Multi-Shot becoming an instant because of the change to focus and the removal of volley? That is awesome on so many levels. While I am still grumpy at blizzard taking away our only AoE ability giving us the ability to do a targeted multi shot ability as an instant is a nice touch. I can already see me grinding and doing even less movement. Remember I said I do not spot moving? Well now I can hit more then one target at a time without stopping movement. What is not to love? Sure this is not because of focus itself but it is connected to the change over to focus, so chalk up another great change to focus.
You know all those bosses or even random mobs with mana drains or things of the such. I remember so many times leveling up when I ran into them. It slowed my questing down the a crawl. No more needing to worry about that. Give that one to focus being great for us. One mechanic of the game we no longer give a crap about. Mana drain me all you want. Means nothing to me.
Speaking of that, being we are no longer mana users we should not get silenced any more. Not sure about that but it sure seemed that Ghostcrawler is so against us having "magic" (even if the survival tree is all magic still) that it would make sense that we can not be silenced. That would also mean, being he is against us using "magic" we can no longer be locked out of schools of magic so we can fire arcane shot until the cows come come and never worry about being locked out of it. Have to test that of course, I am not sure, but if we do not use mana and we do not use magic it only makes sense we can not be silenced or spell locked right? If so, the that is a huge plus for us having focus.
When doing my "rotation" on some of the special bosses that are on the PTR I noticed that when I tried to over extend myself I was focus starved. Again, this became an issue of wanting to much to soon. Having just a global on some of my bigger shots made me want to fire them over and over and tada I was out of focus instantly. Once I got the greediness out of my system and tried to play it as if it were my normal "rotation". I noticed that I was never starved for focus at all.
I needed to adjust just slightly, so say I would want to do Chimera, Arcane, Arcane, steady, steady steady (yes I know that is not how it is done, just an example people) I would now need to do Chimera, steady, arcane, steady, arcane, steady. You see, over the course of 6 shots I am still firing the exact same 6 shots, just rotating them. So my rotation actually becomes more of a rotation now. Focus is actually going to be easier to format a rotation with because you have to. As opposed to mana being ever present you could just roll with it and hit whatever was your biggest shot available. If you do that now you would be out of focus in 3 seconds. However, I liked rolling with it. Easier to respond to usage with procs, but this I can still get used to. Chalk up another plus for Focus. Finally Hunters can chill out some and fall into the easy rotation type thing that nearly all other classes have.
Rotation being said brings another thing to mind. So often I have fired another steady by accident, so to speak, and just let it roll where if I had waited two tenths of a second I would have had an aimed or chimera ready to roll. From a DPS perspective I lost DPS by doing that. I am sure I am not the only hunter that found himself zoning out and hitting 5 (or wherever you have steady) once too often. Being we are more rotation based with focus we will never be in a situation where were are spamming steady, so hitting one to many is not going to happen now. Chalk up another plus for Focus. No more counting times to Chimera, just weave it in. Love the easy mode, welcome to the ease most other classes have had forever fellow hunters. Enjoy.
While doing my grind and having my turtle round up mobs as I MDed and dropped my volley I kept saying, I am going to miss this. Truth be told, I am going to miss that. It made soloing so easy for a hunter. It was my key soloing ability. While doing that I was trying to figure how I would do things now. Then I read something about traps costing 0 focus. I had to double check, could that really be true? Well, it seems so. The launcher costs 30 focus but the trap itself is free now and that is when I came up with this awesome idea for how I would replace losing volley. Send pet in, round up mobs, wait 2 or 3 seconds, MD, Multi, step up and drop snake and explosive, step back and muti again twice, then work on the target my turtle is on if anything is still alive. While not as flashly as volley is, it seems, on paper, like it would be just as effective. I like that, chalk one up for Focus bringing some thinking back to soloing. With volley it was just send in pet, MD, spam volley. Nice and effective but it takes no thought.
Another shining example of the where Focus will really begin to shine is the go go go raids. When going through lower level raids the speed at which we move is astounding. Even with my excellent mana management normally I can not keep from running out. We are just moving so damn fast or they are chain pulling so my flask never gets to start its cooldown. Volley costs a lot and it starts to be impossible to keep up at maximum DPS when moving that fast when everything is an AoE fest even if I do try. I just start volleying with viper on because I have to. Focus cures that. Multi, multi and mulit again. Then drop some traps and multi will be available again, if it is not, throw in a steady.
The few seconds between pulls where I barely had any time to regain mana I will now regain focus completely. So I start over with mulit, multi and multi. So focus will really help in those go go go raids where you are just swooping everything up and moving as fast as possible. Chalk up another one for focus as well as the only example where I can see how the new multi is actually better then volley.
So thinking positive about focus is becoming a lot easier then I thought it will be. I needed to let go of some things that I have gotten used to, sure. And you know us grumpy old elves do not like change but I am starting to find a certain warming to it now. Unless they nerf down our focus regen to that of the rogue (shutters, I never have any energy as a rogue) then I think we will be okay with it. It is something that me, the one that fears change, can actually adapt to and possibly learn to love.
I have played some on the PTR with my Hunter and tried rotations in BM and MM, not SV however, and am trying to find my rhythm with it. More often then not I hear myself saying something like, volley would have been perfect here or damn, I am always low on focus. I have to look at the positive side. While doing some of my grinding recently it occurred to me that for all I've lost that I wanted I have gained some things as well. So for a moment I will try to look at the positive side of Focus.
One of the things I always considered set me apart from my Hunter brothers and sisters is that I had become a master at mana management. It was something I first picked up on and the reason I took Alchemy when I started playing. For the mana pots and health pots I could make.
As it turns out I was not only being my grumpy self complaining about the change but I was being downright selfish. My mana management is one of the reasons I could toast any hunter I've ever ran into even if they had 1000 gear score more. I liked that I had that advantage. I handled something well that others did not. In my selfishness I wanted to keep that advantage to myself.
So now I sit back knowing that Focus is here and trying to think of reasons I actually like that. At the moment it is not ideal being one thing I do love about it is Aspect of the Fox which we will not get until 83 but knowing it is there is worth working without it now.
Grinding has always been an issue for hunters, even more so if they do it the way I do. Keep moving and use instants all the time. Even the Hunter with the biggest mana pool would not be able to keep that up. I used my endless mana potion on each cool down and every chance I had to change into viper keeping my mana near full all the time. Made grinding easy for me as I did not have to stop to drink or spend long durations in viper. Focus makes it even easier. No more hitting the endless mana potion every time it comes off cooldown. No more switching back and forth between viper. Focus generates fast enough that you can grind and never need to stop anyway. On the off chance that is isn't, just open with a steady and by the time it fires you will have focus back.
Sure, now all Hunters can do what I always did so well when grinding, but I should not be selfish about it. Let them have it too. It adds nothing to my game but does add something to the game for others. Congrats on that guys. At least I have to press less buttons now to keep the grind going. Chalk one up for Focus, that is going to make grinding so much easier never having to worry about mana.
Speaking of Viper, now that we do not need mana that is gone as well. So that is a huge plus for me and many other Hunters. I know some of you will not want to admit it but I will do so freely. I've spent so many fights in Viper that I can not even count that high. The number of times I fired off a few shots and said, why is my damage so low and then noticed I was in Viper is countless. Never again will that happen. No more Viper, that is another great point for Focus.
How about Multi-Shot becoming an instant because of the change to focus and the removal of volley? That is awesome on so many levels. While I am still grumpy at blizzard taking away our only AoE ability giving us the ability to do a targeted multi shot ability as an instant is a nice touch. I can already see me grinding and doing even less movement. Remember I said I do not spot moving? Well now I can hit more then one target at a time without stopping movement. What is not to love? Sure this is not because of focus itself but it is connected to the change over to focus, so chalk up another great change to focus.
You know all those bosses or even random mobs with mana drains or things of the such. I remember so many times leveling up when I ran into them. It slowed my questing down the a crawl. No more needing to worry about that. Give that one to focus being great for us. One mechanic of the game we no longer give a crap about. Mana drain me all you want. Means nothing to me.
Speaking of that, being we are no longer mana users we should not get silenced any more. Not sure about that but it sure seemed that Ghostcrawler is so against us having "magic" (even if the survival tree is all magic still) that it would make sense that we can not be silenced. That would also mean, being he is against us using "magic" we can no longer be locked out of schools of magic so we can fire arcane shot until the cows come come and never worry about being locked out of it. Have to test that of course, I am not sure, but if we do not use mana and we do not use magic it only makes sense we can not be silenced or spell locked right? If so, the that is a huge plus for us having focus.
When doing my "rotation" on some of the special bosses that are on the PTR I noticed that when I tried to over extend myself I was focus starved. Again, this became an issue of wanting to much to soon. Having just a global on some of my bigger shots made me want to fire them over and over and tada I was out of focus instantly. Once I got the greediness out of my system and tried to play it as if it were my normal "rotation". I noticed that I was never starved for focus at all.
I needed to adjust just slightly, so say I would want to do Chimera, Arcane, Arcane, steady, steady steady (yes I know that is not how it is done, just an example people) I would now need to do Chimera, steady, arcane, steady, arcane, steady. You see, over the course of 6 shots I am still firing the exact same 6 shots, just rotating them. So my rotation actually becomes more of a rotation now. Focus is actually going to be easier to format a rotation with because you have to. As opposed to mana being ever present you could just roll with it and hit whatever was your biggest shot available. If you do that now you would be out of focus in 3 seconds. However, I liked rolling with it. Easier to respond to usage with procs, but this I can still get used to. Chalk up another plus for Focus. Finally Hunters can chill out some and fall into the easy rotation type thing that nearly all other classes have.
Rotation being said brings another thing to mind. So often I have fired another steady by accident, so to speak, and just let it roll where if I had waited two tenths of a second I would have had an aimed or chimera ready to roll. From a DPS perspective I lost DPS by doing that. I am sure I am not the only hunter that found himself zoning out and hitting 5 (or wherever you have steady) once too often. Being we are more rotation based with focus we will never be in a situation where were are spamming steady, so hitting one to many is not going to happen now. Chalk up another plus for Focus. No more counting times to Chimera, just weave it in. Love the easy mode, welcome to the ease most other classes have had forever fellow hunters. Enjoy.
While doing my grind and having my turtle round up mobs as I MDed and dropped my volley I kept saying, I am going to miss this. Truth be told, I am going to miss that. It made soloing so easy for a hunter. It was my key soloing ability. While doing that I was trying to figure how I would do things now. Then I read something about traps costing 0 focus. I had to double check, could that really be true? Well, it seems so. The launcher costs 30 focus but the trap itself is free now and that is when I came up with this awesome idea for how I would replace losing volley. Send pet in, round up mobs, wait 2 or 3 seconds, MD, Multi, step up and drop snake and explosive, step back and muti again twice, then work on the target my turtle is on if anything is still alive. While not as flashly as volley is, it seems, on paper, like it would be just as effective. I like that, chalk one up for Focus bringing some thinking back to soloing. With volley it was just send in pet, MD, spam volley. Nice and effective but it takes no thought.
Another shining example of the where Focus will really begin to shine is the go go go raids. When going through lower level raids the speed at which we move is astounding. Even with my excellent mana management normally I can not keep from running out. We are just moving so damn fast or they are chain pulling so my flask never gets to start its cooldown. Volley costs a lot and it starts to be impossible to keep up at maximum DPS when moving that fast when everything is an AoE fest even if I do try. I just start volleying with viper on because I have to. Focus cures that. Multi, multi and mulit again. Then drop some traps and multi will be available again, if it is not, throw in a steady.
The few seconds between pulls where I barely had any time to regain mana I will now regain focus completely. So I start over with mulit, multi and multi. So focus will really help in those go go go raids where you are just swooping everything up and moving as fast as possible. Chalk up another one for focus as well as the only example where I can see how the new multi is actually better then volley.
So thinking positive about focus is becoming a lot easier then I thought it will be. I needed to let go of some things that I have gotten used to, sure. And you know us grumpy old elves do not like change but I am starting to find a certain warming to it now. Unless they nerf down our focus regen to that of the rogue (shutters, I never have any energy as a rogue) then I think we will be okay with it. It is something that me, the one that fears change, can actually adapt to and possibly learn to love.
What do you call "Bads"?
Personally I do not like using the word "bads". That is something in WoW that is commonly used to refer to anyone that does not perform up to optimum ability. I think the word is overused in the LFD system entirely because of the blanket use of it. Anyone that does not do perfect is a "bad".
I've been a "bad" and I have no doubt you have been a "bad" as well. It usually happens when we make a mistake like healing yourself because some mob targeted you and changed your target from the tank to it and you did not notice. That does not mean you are a "bad", that means you made a mistake.
Another time I have seen people be called "bads" does not even have anything to do with a mistake. It is game mechanics. A mob fears, you run into some other mobs thus getting their attention and bringing more mobs to the battle. You get called a "bad" when it had nothing to do with you. It was not your fault. I see this often on the top tier before the last boss in DTK. Someone gets feared into the other packs and brings them into the battle. It is part of the game. Can't blame the person and can't blame the tank. No matter how far back the tank drags the mobs someone can easily be feared into the other ones.
There are countless situations where someone is called a "bad" where it really has nothing to do with skill, knowledge of their class, ability to play or even crap luck. I usually chalk it up to people that use the term "bads" are people that are themselves quite bad and love to point out anything anyone else does, their fault or not, just to make themselves feel better.
In my humble, be it grumpy, opinion I believe there are three types of bad players. Those that don't grasp, those that don't know and those that don't care.
All three of those type often get thrown together into the term "bads" where only one of those types are actually bad players. I'll give some examples based on my own experience.
Those that don't grasp:
Overall I consider myself a decent player. I research the class I am playing, the tree I am in, the abilities I have, the rotation(or priority) I should use and the stats, gemming and enchants that are best for that class. On my Rogue I just suck. Flat out. I am trying to get better at it but it seems to escape me no matter what I do. I feel I am making small steps forward but I just suck at being a Rogue. I play one bad but that does not mean I am a "bad" on it. Not grasping something does not mean you are a bad player it just means you are bad at doing something. Because playing a Rogue is easy for you does not mean it is easy for everyone.
Those that don't know:
When I started playing my first character, my beloved Hunter, I knew nothing. I was a new player and it wasn't until I got to be around level 40 before I even looked to the forums to find more information on the character. Up until that point I was cruising along nicely and never had any questions really. It was when my pet started having problems holding aggro and I went in search of information that might help. I had points in my talent tree in all three specs. I wore whatever dropped that looked good (even if I did figure out on my own that agility was my main stat). I was just bad because I did not know any better. I was good enough to get things done, sure, but when compared to others that knew the class beforehand I was a bad player. I was not however a "bad" player.
Those that don't care:
If there were ever a case where someone deserves to be called a "bad" this is the case. You know the type I am talking about right? The type in the LFD that come out all balls to the wall when they know they have a new tank. They are bad players.
The ones that look at the gear score of someone and start bitching because apparently a 5K gear score is required to do a heroic. The ones who think that doing 1.5K DPS means you suck and are quite vocal about you sucking so badly even if when everyone was first doing heroics 1.5K meant you where the superstar of the run. The ones that start AoEing mobs before the tank gets to it. Those are bad players. The ones the pull for the tank. Those are bad players.
They are the people where you look at their gear and spec and gems and enchants and everything is textbook perfect. They are the ones with gear scores so high they make my geared characters look like I just started playing. Those are the people who are truly "bads" Healers that heal in Shadow gear at 80, tanks that tank in Ret gear. Bad players, nothing to argue there. Just because you can do something does not mean you should, it means you are a bad player.
I have no issues running with people that do know grasp or people that do not know but I hate people that do not care. If you do not care why are you even playing. People that do no care pull aggro, people that do no care pull adds, people that do not care walk around doing sub par DPS while they are complaining about everyone else's DPS. People that do not care ignore mechanics that can still kill a 6K gear score player. Spellflingers anyone? They are bad players because they do not care.
I would much rather be in a heroic run with a group all doing 2K DPS that are doing what they are supposed to be doing than in a group where everyone is capable of doing 5K DPS but they just don't care. People that don't care make more mistakes. I can forgive mistakes if they are in fact a mistake. People that don't care make mistakes because they don't care, not because it is an actual mistake.
Someone was on the forums complaining about people only doing 3K DPS in a heroic. They said that there is no reason at this stage in the game that anyone should be doing less then 5K in a heroic. They said it is a sign of all the "bads" out there. Lets not even talk about the term this stage in the game, just because you hit 80 nearly 2 years ago does not mean the person you are running with did. They might have just hit 80, this might be their first ever character. What is this this stage you are talking about Mr. "bad"?
Reading their post it came to me that the only "bads" I noticed in their story was themselves. If they think everyone should be doing 5K in heroics then they are a bad player. I am a DPS machine. I've pulled 19K in a heroic once on a 9 pack pull before I had any ICC gear. I routinely pull 8K-11K single targets, even average 10K DPS on the brew boss lately. I know DPS and with that I can say this with 100% conviction. Sometimes with a well balanced group it is impossible to pull 5K DPS in a heroic unless you are a "bad" player.
If everyone is doing their job well and is good at it and is geared then everything will die so damn fast that no one will ever get a chance to ramp up their DPS. You will end a run with all good players like that hovering around 4K and the tank around 3K. That is not because they are bad, that is because the mobs die so fast.
Also a blanket statement like that shows they are a "bad" because apparently they do not know anything about classes. Lets say we are fighting something and it goes down before I can lay off my second Chimera or even a kill shot, which happens often in dungeons because as soon as I am able to use it, the mob is dead, then my DPS is going to be considerably less then if I were able to get my full rotation out with a kill shot. The difference can be from doing 5K DPS and 10K DPS. How about a lock? If given the time to ramp things up they can do obscene damage. Where is there ever a chance for them to get that going in a heroic?
Some classes are made for heroics. Hunters and Rogues with MD and tricks can go balls to the wall to start out so they will most likely have better DPS in a run, even with a bad tank. Other classes will have to hold back and even more so with a bad tank. In some heroics I have seen horrible tanks end up tanking the instance like a pro because all the DPS was so damn high all they ever needed to do was hold threat for 5 seconds and things where dead. My MD takes care of that for them. All they need to be there for is to take the hits. No skill needed on their part at all.
Does it mean that locks or mages or any class that has huge burst that needs to ramp up is a "bad" because they do not do super DPS in a heroic?
You know what I think the issue is here? DPS. Why do people judge others by their DPS?
Do you know how I would judge a bad player? Is it a Hunter that does not Misdirect even when it is not needed? Bad player. Is it a Rogue that does not vanish when moving up on aggro? Bad player. Is it a Mage that waits until the mob gets to him before he iceblocks? Bad Player.
If you do not fit into the don't grasp or don't know category and do bad then that means you are a bad player.
I can deal with people that don't know. I can deal with people that don't grasp. I can deal with them even better if they are honest about it and want to learn. But if either of them are part don't know or don't grasp and part don't care, then I have no patience for them.
Anyone that fits into the don't care category is a "bad".
I've run just as many heroics as everyone else out there that likes to blurt out, I don't care it is just a heroic, but it doesn't change the fact that I play a class and that class has a job and I do my job. I know it is just a heroic and one I have run 100 times at that but there is no excuse ever for doing a bad job when you know better.
Just because you have done it 100 times does not give you the right to be a "bad" player. Step up or step out. Stop calling the other people bad players because they are only doing 2K DPS. At least they are trying, at least they are learning, at least they are gearing up. Hate to break it to you Mr. Potatohead but you are the only one that is a bad player in this equation. You are the idiot paying more attention to the recount then the run. That is a sign of a bad player, any raid leader will tell you that.
So in summation, I see "bads" as people that just don't care.
People that don't grasp, can get better. People that don't know, can learn. People that don't care, are bad.
I've been a "bad" and I have no doubt you have been a "bad" as well. It usually happens when we make a mistake like healing yourself because some mob targeted you and changed your target from the tank to it and you did not notice. That does not mean you are a "bad", that means you made a mistake.
Another time I have seen people be called "bads" does not even have anything to do with a mistake. It is game mechanics. A mob fears, you run into some other mobs thus getting their attention and bringing more mobs to the battle. You get called a "bad" when it had nothing to do with you. It was not your fault. I see this often on the top tier before the last boss in DTK. Someone gets feared into the other packs and brings them into the battle. It is part of the game. Can't blame the person and can't blame the tank. No matter how far back the tank drags the mobs someone can easily be feared into the other ones.
There are countless situations where someone is called a "bad" where it really has nothing to do with skill, knowledge of their class, ability to play or even crap luck. I usually chalk it up to people that use the term "bads" are people that are themselves quite bad and love to point out anything anyone else does, their fault or not, just to make themselves feel better.
In my humble, be it grumpy, opinion I believe there are three types of bad players. Those that don't grasp, those that don't know and those that don't care.
All three of those type often get thrown together into the term "bads" where only one of those types are actually bad players. I'll give some examples based on my own experience.
Those that don't grasp:
Overall I consider myself a decent player. I research the class I am playing, the tree I am in, the abilities I have, the rotation(or priority) I should use and the stats, gemming and enchants that are best for that class. On my Rogue I just suck. Flat out. I am trying to get better at it but it seems to escape me no matter what I do. I feel I am making small steps forward but I just suck at being a Rogue. I play one bad but that does not mean I am a "bad" on it. Not grasping something does not mean you are a bad player it just means you are bad at doing something. Because playing a Rogue is easy for you does not mean it is easy for everyone.
Those that don't know:
When I started playing my first character, my beloved Hunter, I knew nothing. I was a new player and it wasn't until I got to be around level 40 before I even looked to the forums to find more information on the character. Up until that point I was cruising along nicely and never had any questions really. It was when my pet started having problems holding aggro and I went in search of information that might help. I had points in my talent tree in all three specs. I wore whatever dropped that looked good (even if I did figure out on my own that agility was my main stat). I was just bad because I did not know any better. I was good enough to get things done, sure, but when compared to others that knew the class beforehand I was a bad player. I was not however a "bad" player.
Those that don't care:
If there were ever a case where someone deserves to be called a "bad" this is the case. You know the type I am talking about right? The type in the LFD that come out all balls to the wall when they know they have a new tank. They are bad players.
The ones that look at the gear score of someone and start bitching because apparently a 5K gear score is required to do a heroic. The ones who think that doing 1.5K DPS means you suck and are quite vocal about you sucking so badly even if when everyone was first doing heroics 1.5K meant you where the superstar of the run. The ones that start AoEing mobs before the tank gets to it. Those are bad players. The ones the pull for the tank. Those are bad players.
They are the people where you look at their gear and spec and gems and enchants and everything is textbook perfect. They are the ones with gear scores so high they make my geared characters look like I just started playing. Those are the people who are truly "bads" Healers that heal in Shadow gear at 80, tanks that tank in Ret gear. Bad players, nothing to argue there. Just because you can do something does not mean you should, it means you are a bad player.
I have no issues running with people that do know grasp or people that do not know but I hate people that do not care. If you do not care why are you even playing. People that do no care pull aggro, people that do no care pull adds, people that do not care walk around doing sub par DPS while they are complaining about everyone else's DPS. People that do not care ignore mechanics that can still kill a 6K gear score player. Spellflingers anyone? They are bad players because they do not care.
I would much rather be in a heroic run with a group all doing 2K DPS that are doing what they are supposed to be doing than in a group where everyone is capable of doing 5K DPS but they just don't care. People that don't care make more mistakes. I can forgive mistakes if they are in fact a mistake. People that don't care make mistakes because they don't care, not because it is an actual mistake.
Someone was on the forums complaining about people only doing 3K DPS in a heroic. They said that there is no reason at this stage in the game that anyone should be doing less then 5K in a heroic. They said it is a sign of all the "bads" out there. Lets not even talk about the term this stage in the game, just because you hit 80 nearly 2 years ago does not mean the person you are running with did. They might have just hit 80, this might be their first ever character. What is this this stage you are talking about Mr. "bad"?
Reading their post it came to me that the only "bads" I noticed in their story was themselves. If they think everyone should be doing 5K in heroics then they are a bad player. I am a DPS machine. I've pulled 19K in a heroic once on a 9 pack pull before I had any ICC gear. I routinely pull 8K-11K single targets, even average 10K DPS on the brew boss lately. I know DPS and with that I can say this with 100% conviction. Sometimes with a well balanced group it is impossible to pull 5K DPS in a heroic unless you are a "bad" player.
If everyone is doing their job well and is good at it and is geared then everything will die so damn fast that no one will ever get a chance to ramp up their DPS. You will end a run with all good players like that hovering around 4K and the tank around 3K. That is not because they are bad, that is because the mobs die so fast.
Also a blanket statement like that shows they are a "bad" because apparently they do not know anything about classes. Lets say we are fighting something and it goes down before I can lay off my second Chimera or even a kill shot, which happens often in dungeons because as soon as I am able to use it, the mob is dead, then my DPS is going to be considerably less then if I were able to get my full rotation out with a kill shot. The difference can be from doing 5K DPS and 10K DPS. How about a lock? If given the time to ramp things up they can do obscene damage. Where is there ever a chance for them to get that going in a heroic?
Some classes are made for heroics. Hunters and Rogues with MD and tricks can go balls to the wall to start out so they will most likely have better DPS in a run, even with a bad tank. Other classes will have to hold back and even more so with a bad tank. In some heroics I have seen horrible tanks end up tanking the instance like a pro because all the DPS was so damn high all they ever needed to do was hold threat for 5 seconds and things where dead. My MD takes care of that for them. All they need to be there for is to take the hits. No skill needed on their part at all.
Does it mean that locks or mages or any class that has huge burst that needs to ramp up is a "bad" because they do not do super DPS in a heroic?
You know what I think the issue is here? DPS. Why do people judge others by their DPS?
Do you know how I would judge a bad player? Is it a Hunter that does not Misdirect even when it is not needed? Bad player. Is it a Rogue that does not vanish when moving up on aggro? Bad player. Is it a Mage that waits until the mob gets to him before he iceblocks? Bad Player.
If you do not fit into the don't grasp or don't know category and do bad then that means you are a bad player.
I can deal with people that don't know. I can deal with people that don't grasp. I can deal with them even better if they are honest about it and want to learn. But if either of them are part don't know or don't grasp and part don't care, then I have no patience for them.
Anyone that fits into the don't care category is a "bad".
I've run just as many heroics as everyone else out there that likes to blurt out, I don't care it is just a heroic, but it doesn't change the fact that I play a class and that class has a job and I do my job. I know it is just a heroic and one I have run 100 times at that but there is no excuse ever for doing a bad job when you know better.
Just because you have done it 100 times does not give you the right to be a "bad" player. Step up or step out. Stop calling the other people bad players because they are only doing 2K DPS. At least they are trying, at least they are learning, at least they are gearing up. Hate to break it to you Mr. Potatohead but you are the only one that is a bad player in this equation. You are the idiot paying more attention to the recount then the run. That is a sign of a bad player, any raid leader will tell you that.
So in summation, I see "bads" as people that just don't care.
People that don't grasp, can get better. People that don't know, can learn. People that don't care, are bad.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Don't be a Dick!
Let me tell you a little story about Dick. Dick is a WoW player that most would call a casual player. He plays once in a while during the week and mostly on weekends. Because of that he does not get a lot of raiding time in outside of the occasional PuG.
Dick resides on a relatively smaller server making PuG raids few and far between so he never really had much chance to gear up. Being he is on a small server is it not as progressed either, so getting someone to carry him is even harder.
One day Dick was reading on the forums about gold runs. They are runs put together to let people like Dick gear up. Where skill and normal lack of time to play usually would hold him back he can now buy his gear with gold. This idea appealed to Dick.
Being Dick's server is a smaller server he never saw anyone advertising in trade for gold runs. He wanted gear and he saw this as his only way to get it so he started to look around for another server where he could transfer to join in on a gold run. That was when he noticed there was a gold run on his server every Saturday. He was so excited about that being he was able to run on Saturdays.
Dick sent a mail to the person that was setting up the gold run to get more details. Dick was very upset when he got the reply. Dick thought he was doing good having almost 2000 gold on his character but the minimum to join the run was 5000 gold. Dick didn't even know how to begin to make that type of gold.
So Dick did what many people do, he turned to google and went looking for gold making help. Site after site appeared with ways to make gold with professions, with farming, with buying and selling but they all took time. Dick wanted to run on the gold run this Saturday and needed gold now.
Dick never saw any gold advertising on his server so he did not know which sites offered gold on his server. So back to google Dick went. Dick found a site that sold gold on his server for a good price. He had the money to spare so he ordered 50,000 gold.
Less then 24 hours later Dick had 50,000 gold and an invitation to the Saturday gold run. In the following weeks Dick ran with the gold run and he got some gear. Dick bought more gold, bought more gear. Dick bought more gold each time he needed more gear.
In this time Dick started seeing gold sellers advertise in trade and noticed a few cheaper then the one he used. So he would start to bargain shop. Dick was happy he did not need to search for gold sellers now. They were on his server adverting now. Making life easy for Dick.
Dick got almost all the gear he needed except for a piece or two but he continued to go on runs so he could buy them when they dropped. He made sure to always have 100,000 gold on him at any point now. Dick was a high roller now. When the item Dick needed didn't drop and he got his share at the end of the run Dick came up with a brilliant idea.
Dick started to run his own gold runs on Sunday nights. Dick had almost everything he needed and saw how much money he could make running in a gold run without buying anything. So he would never need to buy gold again. Dick knew that the people coming would need gold so whenever someone asked him he would say "I don't buy gold but I know some people do, I would suggest against it" and the circle began again as people started to buy gold to go run with Dick.
You notice that Dick never admitted to buying gold right? Most Dick's will never admit it. So if you say you do not know anyone in your gold run that buys gold then I have some bad news for you... Santa is not real. Sorry I had to break that to you, but you seem to believe everything everyone tells you if you think no one in your run bought the gold they are using.
A few weeks later Dick had 5 people missing from his gold run. The next week he got a mail from them saying they were hacked, they were sorry they missed the run. Dick noticed this was happening more and more often. Every week at least one person missed the run because they where hacked.
Dick noticed that trade was now being spammed almost all the time with gold sellers, people were complaining about bots in Icecrown picking their nodes before they could even land and people where getting hacked all the time.
Dick had heard of hacking but never knew anyone that was hacked. Now it seems Dick knows at least 30 people that where hacked.
Dick had never known where to buy gold because there were never dead bodies floating in the air and sellers spamming trade but now there are.
Dick made this happen because Dick wanted to go on a gold run. Dick did something he thought was innocent just to get some gear but it now seems to be having a snowball effect on the server.
The gold run made Dick do what he did. Dick now runs gold runs himself so now there are two gold runs going each week on his server. Dick has people joining his runs now that are buying gold.
Gold runs made Dick buy gold.
Gold runs bought the sellers, hackers and bots to the server being Dick was their customer now.
Gold runs that Dick needed money for are now getting innocent people hacked.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Do not start a gold run, do not join a gold run.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Even if you are making your money honestly you joining means one less slot to fill which means the run fills faster which means the people who buy the gold can get in there to use their gold. If none of the honest people with gold where in the run there would not have been a run at all for Dick to buy gold to join.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Even if you participate in a run to make gold you should remember that the gold you are making is coming directly from someone who bought gold. So you taking that money means you are taking it from a gold seller. It means you are taking it from someone that got hacked, it means that you are getting the money from that node that disappeared before you landed on it. It means you are now a gold buyer, by association.
DON'T BE A DICK!
The next time you hear of someone being hacked remember that it is Dick's fault. If Dick did not buy gold, if you did not run with Dick to take Dick's gold, then your friend would have never been hacked.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Gold runs are the #1 reason for people buying gold. Do not run one, do not join one, do not support one.
If you do, well you are a DICK.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Dick resides on a relatively smaller server making PuG raids few and far between so he never really had much chance to gear up. Being he is on a small server is it not as progressed either, so getting someone to carry him is even harder.
One day Dick was reading on the forums about gold runs. They are runs put together to let people like Dick gear up. Where skill and normal lack of time to play usually would hold him back he can now buy his gear with gold. This idea appealed to Dick.
Being Dick's server is a smaller server he never saw anyone advertising in trade for gold runs. He wanted gear and he saw this as his only way to get it so he started to look around for another server where he could transfer to join in on a gold run. That was when he noticed there was a gold run on his server every Saturday. He was so excited about that being he was able to run on Saturdays.
Dick sent a mail to the person that was setting up the gold run to get more details. Dick was very upset when he got the reply. Dick thought he was doing good having almost 2000 gold on his character but the minimum to join the run was 5000 gold. Dick didn't even know how to begin to make that type of gold.
So Dick did what many people do, he turned to google and went looking for gold making help. Site after site appeared with ways to make gold with professions, with farming, with buying and selling but they all took time. Dick wanted to run on the gold run this Saturday and needed gold now.
Dick never saw any gold advertising on his server so he did not know which sites offered gold on his server. So back to google Dick went. Dick found a site that sold gold on his server for a good price. He had the money to spare so he ordered 50,000 gold.
Less then 24 hours later Dick had 50,000 gold and an invitation to the Saturday gold run. In the following weeks Dick ran with the gold run and he got some gear. Dick bought more gold, bought more gear. Dick bought more gold each time he needed more gear.
In this time Dick started seeing gold sellers advertise in trade and noticed a few cheaper then the one he used. So he would start to bargain shop. Dick was happy he did not need to search for gold sellers now. They were on his server adverting now. Making life easy for Dick.
Dick got almost all the gear he needed except for a piece or two but he continued to go on runs so he could buy them when they dropped. He made sure to always have 100,000 gold on him at any point now. Dick was a high roller now. When the item Dick needed didn't drop and he got his share at the end of the run Dick came up with a brilliant idea.
Dick started to run his own gold runs on Sunday nights. Dick had almost everything he needed and saw how much money he could make running in a gold run without buying anything. So he would never need to buy gold again. Dick knew that the people coming would need gold so whenever someone asked him he would say "I don't buy gold but I know some people do, I would suggest against it" and the circle began again as people started to buy gold to go run with Dick.
You notice that Dick never admitted to buying gold right? Most Dick's will never admit it. So if you say you do not know anyone in your gold run that buys gold then I have some bad news for you... Santa is not real. Sorry I had to break that to you, but you seem to believe everything everyone tells you if you think no one in your run bought the gold they are using.
A few weeks later Dick had 5 people missing from his gold run. The next week he got a mail from them saying they were hacked, they were sorry they missed the run. Dick noticed this was happening more and more often. Every week at least one person missed the run because they where hacked.
Dick noticed that trade was now being spammed almost all the time with gold sellers, people were complaining about bots in Icecrown picking their nodes before they could even land and people where getting hacked all the time.
Dick had heard of hacking but never knew anyone that was hacked. Now it seems Dick knows at least 30 people that where hacked.
Dick had never known where to buy gold because there were never dead bodies floating in the air and sellers spamming trade but now there are.
Dick made this happen because Dick wanted to go on a gold run. Dick did something he thought was innocent just to get some gear but it now seems to be having a snowball effect on the server.
The gold run made Dick do what he did. Dick now runs gold runs himself so now there are two gold runs going each week on his server. Dick has people joining his runs now that are buying gold.
Gold runs made Dick buy gold.
Gold runs bought the sellers, hackers and bots to the server being Dick was their customer now.
Gold runs that Dick needed money for are now getting innocent people hacked.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Do not start a gold run, do not join a gold run.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Even if you are making your money honestly you joining means one less slot to fill which means the run fills faster which means the people who buy the gold can get in there to use their gold. If none of the honest people with gold where in the run there would not have been a run at all for Dick to buy gold to join.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Even if you participate in a run to make gold you should remember that the gold you are making is coming directly from someone who bought gold. So you taking that money means you are taking it from a gold seller. It means you are taking it from someone that got hacked, it means that you are getting the money from that node that disappeared before you landed on it. It means you are now a gold buyer, by association.
DON'T BE A DICK!
The next time you hear of someone being hacked remember that it is Dick's fault. If Dick did not buy gold, if you did not run with Dick to take Dick's gold, then your friend would have never been hacked.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Gold runs are the #1 reason for people buying gold. Do not run one, do not join one, do not support one.
If you do, well you are a DICK.
DON'T BE A DICK!
Working toward Exalted
I am currently sitting at 32 exalted reputation thanks to a crunch toward getting Aldor to exalted this weekend. I ran Shadow Labs over and over until I got enough drops to get Aldor to exalted. It also got me pretty darn close to Lower City being exalted as well. I will do another run and a half soon to finish that one off.
It was fun to break out my BM spec again, been a long time since I had done that and done some good soloing. I would send my pet in and grab up a nice pack of mobs, say 8-12 of them and then misdirect and volley. It was enough to kill them all and made running clears easy. In truth, when it comes to soloing it seems the trash are more dangerous then any boss I have ever run into. I am going to miss that as soon as the patch goes live. No more making my pet crit immune by throwing on my PvP trinket and no more volley. Easy soloing as a Hunter has seen its days go good bye, or at least it seems. That is part of my reason to doing this now. Do it while I can still do it solo.
So getting Aldor to exalted gave me 32 now. One quick run plus a little will get me Lower City as well, might do that tonight in case the patch is tomorrow and that will give me 33 exalted. The thing is, I did not just do Aldor this weekend. I did Aldor and I did the Scryers. It took me 1344 Dampscale Basilisk eyes to change my faction from Aldor to Scryer. Farming 1344 Dampscale eyes took a while but it was not all done this weekend. I had been planning this for a long time buying them on the auction house whenever I saw them cheap for the last 6 or so months. Still left me having to grind a lot of them.
In the end I went from mid revered on Aldor to exalted (where I bought the tabard and equip it before switching for the tabard achievement as well), traded in all the eyes to switch factions, and got Scryers up to mid revered. With some added Lower City rep and Sha' tar rep added in for good measure during that whole process. Not such a bad thing for a days work.
Something I found interesting are the achievements connected to them. Shattrath Divided is a standard achievement worth 10 points for getting one of those exalted whereas Hero of Shattrath is a feat of strength for getting both exalted. First off, I thought that feats of strength are things that were not available any more or things that not everyone has access too such as certain pets like the one from the blizzcon and such.
Being I am roughly 11K rep from finishing off Hero of Shattrath I can tell you, without doubt, that the achievement is still attainable. Therefor it should not be a feat of strength. Does anyone know if there is an actual reason for this being a feat of strength because it make no sense to me.
It was fun to break out my BM spec again, been a long time since I had done that and done some good soloing. I would send my pet in and grab up a nice pack of mobs, say 8-12 of them and then misdirect and volley. It was enough to kill them all and made running clears easy. In truth, when it comes to soloing it seems the trash are more dangerous then any boss I have ever run into. I am going to miss that as soon as the patch goes live. No more making my pet crit immune by throwing on my PvP trinket and no more volley. Easy soloing as a Hunter has seen its days go good bye, or at least it seems. That is part of my reason to doing this now. Do it while I can still do it solo.
So getting Aldor to exalted gave me 32 now. One quick run plus a little will get me Lower City as well, might do that tonight in case the patch is tomorrow and that will give me 33 exalted. The thing is, I did not just do Aldor this weekend. I did Aldor and I did the Scryers. It took me 1344 Dampscale Basilisk eyes to change my faction from Aldor to Scryer. Farming 1344 Dampscale eyes took a while but it was not all done this weekend. I had been planning this for a long time buying them on the auction house whenever I saw them cheap for the last 6 or so months. Still left me having to grind a lot of them.
In the end I went from mid revered on Aldor to exalted (where I bought the tabard and equip it before switching for the tabard achievement as well), traded in all the eyes to switch factions, and got Scryers up to mid revered. With some added Lower City rep and Sha' tar rep added in for good measure during that whole process. Not such a bad thing for a days work.
Something I found interesting are the achievements connected to them. Shattrath Divided is a standard achievement worth 10 points for getting one of those exalted whereas Hero of Shattrath is a feat of strength for getting both exalted. First off, I thought that feats of strength are things that were not available any more or things that not everyone has access too such as certain pets like the one from the blizzcon and such.
Being I am roughly 11K rep from finishing off Hero of Shattrath I can tell you, without doubt, that the achievement is still attainable. Therefor it should not be a feat of strength. Does anyone know if there is an actual reason for this being a feat of strength because it make no sense to me.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Are 10s really easier then 25s?
I always see people on the forums saying that 10s are so much easier then 25s. Now that we can rotate between the two with the 4.0.1 update coming it got me thinking about it some more. In some ways I can agree with that and in others, particularly from a management point of view 10s are leaps and bounds harder then 25s. From my experience, as limited as it might be still, 25s are usually a laugh fest because of the way things work out.
Here is the short list of why I think 10s are actually harder then 25s.
Buffs?
You have to start to weigh what is more important to the raid when it comes to buffs. The skill of the people you invite or the buffs they offer.
10s - Is a buff you need really important enough to invite someone that is say 85% as good as someone else that doesn't offer the buff? Choosing buffs over skill is really a hard decision to make sometimes.
25s - You have 25 people, unless you have a group half filled with DKs you will have at least one of everything and all the assorted buffs you can imagine.
Winner of easiest: 25s are 1000 times easier in this sense.
Gearing up?
Lets face it, we have all geared up alts in raids by carrying them for whatever your reason is. I made a healer and geared it up just to help my guild. I am sure other guilds do the same thing all the time.
10s - Maybe when everyone is over geared so much that you can 8 man a 10 man run you might be able to carry a DPS or two, but you are not exactly going to even consider taking a under geared tank or healer along, unless you take them as DPS. Carrying to gear up is not really a good option in 10 man.
25s - The average 25 man I am in there is me and maybe two other people (and that is a LONG maybe because it is rare) over 10K DPS. Most hover around 6K-9K even with the 30% buff and there are always a few under the tank. This is even in groups where we go 10/12 in 25s. Carrying people in a 25 is standard, always has been and always will be.
Winner of easiest: Gearing up in 25s is not only easy, it is common place.
Mistakes?
Lets face it, I do not care how elite you think you are you will make mistakes, we all do. Mistakes happen, that is why they are called mistakes and not stupidity.
10s - Until you get to the point where you can over power the bosses losing one person, even the lowest DPS on the recount, can be the difference between victory and defeat.
25s - Even when it is still new and still challenging you can lose a DPS or two or even three and be able to pull out a win. Been there and done that plenty of times.
Winner of easiest: 25s mans are more forgiving of mistakes.
Mechanics?
Every boss does something. 10 or 25, knowing the mechanics is the make or break for beating the boss. For this example we will use a 10 man boss with 3 distinct mechanics.
10s - There are 3 mechanics to work with, once you got those three mechanics down you can do the boss.
25s - Usually they have one more thing to think about, once you got those four mechanics down you can do the boss.
Winner of easiest: 10s, but only by a tiny margin. Most people that can learn 3 things can learn 4 things just as well. Might as well call this one even.
Damage?
Everything does damage, if it did not then moving out of the fire would not be a big deal.
10s - Lets say something hits for 10K per hit in 10 man...
25s - It might hit for 13K in 25 mans. But in 25 mans you have better gear which more then makes up for the damage difference. With that gear you can take more damage, mitigate more damage and heal more damage.
Winner of easiest: This one is a tie. Really no difference between the two.
Hit Points?
What is it going to take to kill the big bad guy is something that is a huge difference between the two.
10s - Lets say a boss has 7M health in 10 man...
25s - That same boss might have 24M health in 25 man. Seems like a lot, but once you factor in that the 25M most likely has triple the amount of people doing DPS with more buffs and better gear as well any difference is negligible at best.
Winner of easiest: This one is a tie. Really no difference between the two.
Skilled Players?
We all want to run with people that know how to get out of the fire. Sometimes finding those players is hard.
10s - For a 10 man you only need 10 people that are not complete morons.
25s - For 25 man you need to find 25 people that are not complete morons.
Winner of easiest: Well this one goes to 10 mans hands down. Finding 10 good players is a lot easier then finding 25 good players. Sometimes I doubt there are even 25 good players (that are not total asshats) on my server.
So in a tally when it all ends.
25s are easier in 3 areas.
10s are easier in 1 area.
3 areas they are basically tied.
So how exactly are 25s easier then 10s? Most people use 25s to gear up to do 10s to make 10s easy. 10s are harder and even more so when you do them with 10s only gear.
When was the US first LK Heroic 10 man kill?
I bet everyone said months and months ago right? Nope.
It was September 19th, 2010, less then a month ago. Check it out. Now that is your proof that 10s are a hell of a lot harder then 25s when you do not use 25s to gear up to make the 10s easier. They used only gear appropriate for the content.
When was the US first LK Heroics 25 man kill?
It was April 22nd, 2010, Check it out. Nearly 5 full months before someone could down 10 man in level appropriate gear just as they downed 25 man in level appropriate gear.
10s are harder then 25s. For many reasons. Do not ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
If you choose to use the argument that people just did not try for it then you do not know about the hard core people. Hard core people are all about world firsts. They did not do the world first 10 strict not because they did not want to do it, they didn't do it because they could not do it.
In level appropriate gear 10s are much harder then 25s. Facts speak for themselves. Just check the dates. If 10s where really that much easier don't you think the world first would have come before the world first for the 25 and not 5 months later?
So with the changes that are coming and everyone saying that 25s are dead because 10s are so much easier I would have to think they are wrong. 25s will still be run to help gear up people and because over all, 25s are just plain easier, they offer more loot, and they most likely will cover the fact that someone is trying to carry others through content.
25s are not dead. The "lesser" skilled players will still do 25s... for a while at least, until they realize that 25 gear can no longer carry them through 10s being they are the same loot now. Wow are they in for a surprise. They can not use the 25 version to over gear the 10 version any more, I just had to say that again, it makes me happy. I love it. Oh... my... god... I love it.
Here is the short list of why I think 10s are actually harder then 25s.
Buffs?
You have to start to weigh what is more important to the raid when it comes to buffs. The skill of the people you invite or the buffs they offer.
10s - Is a buff you need really important enough to invite someone that is say 85% as good as someone else that doesn't offer the buff? Choosing buffs over skill is really a hard decision to make sometimes.
25s - You have 25 people, unless you have a group half filled with DKs you will have at least one of everything and all the assorted buffs you can imagine.
Winner of easiest: 25s are 1000 times easier in this sense.
Gearing up?
Lets face it, we have all geared up alts in raids by carrying them for whatever your reason is. I made a healer and geared it up just to help my guild. I am sure other guilds do the same thing all the time.
10s - Maybe when everyone is over geared so much that you can 8 man a 10 man run you might be able to carry a DPS or two, but you are not exactly going to even consider taking a under geared tank or healer along, unless you take them as DPS. Carrying to gear up is not really a good option in 10 man.
25s - The average 25 man I am in there is me and maybe two other people (and that is a LONG maybe because it is rare) over 10K DPS. Most hover around 6K-9K even with the 30% buff and there are always a few under the tank. This is even in groups where we go 10/12 in 25s. Carrying people in a 25 is standard, always has been and always will be.
Winner of easiest: Gearing up in 25s is not only easy, it is common place.
Mistakes?
Lets face it, I do not care how elite you think you are you will make mistakes, we all do. Mistakes happen, that is why they are called mistakes and not stupidity.
10s - Until you get to the point where you can over power the bosses losing one person, even the lowest DPS on the recount, can be the difference between victory and defeat.
25s - Even when it is still new and still challenging you can lose a DPS or two or even three and be able to pull out a win. Been there and done that plenty of times.
Winner of easiest: 25s mans are more forgiving of mistakes.
Mechanics?
Every boss does something. 10 or 25, knowing the mechanics is the make or break for beating the boss. For this example we will use a 10 man boss with 3 distinct mechanics.
10s - There are 3 mechanics to work with, once you got those three mechanics down you can do the boss.
25s - Usually they have one more thing to think about, once you got those four mechanics down you can do the boss.
Winner of easiest: 10s, but only by a tiny margin. Most people that can learn 3 things can learn 4 things just as well. Might as well call this one even.
Damage?
Everything does damage, if it did not then moving out of the fire would not be a big deal.
10s - Lets say something hits for 10K per hit in 10 man...
25s - It might hit for 13K in 25 mans. But in 25 mans you have better gear which more then makes up for the damage difference. With that gear you can take more damage, mitigate more damage and heal more damage.
Winner of easiest: This one is a tie. Really no difference between the two.
Hit Points?
What is it going to take to kill the big bad guy is something that is a huge difference between the two.
10s - Lets say a boss has 7M health in 10 man...
25s - That same boss might have 24M health in 25 man. Seems like a lot, but once you factor in that the 25M most likely has triple the amount of people doing DPS with more buffs and better gear as well any difference is negligible at best.
Winner of easiest: This one is a tie. Really no difference between the two.
Skilled Players?
We all want to run with people that know how to get out of the fire. Sometimes finding those players is hard.
10s - For a 10 man you only need 10 people that are not complete morons.
25s - For 25 man you need to find 25 people that are not complete morons.
Winner of easiest: Well this one goes to 10 mans hands down. Finding 10 good players is a lot easier then finding 25 good players. Sometimes I doubt there are even 25 good players (that are not total asshats) on my server.
So in a tally when it all ends.
25s are easier in 3 areas.
10s are easier in 1 area.
3 areas they are basically tied.
So how exactly are 25s easier then 10s? Most people use 25s to gear up to do 10s to make 10s easy. 10s are harder and even more so when you do them with 10s only gear.
When was the US first LK Heroic 10 man kill?
I bet everyone said months and months ago right? Nope.
It was September 19th, 2010, less then a month ago. Check it out. Now that is your proof that 10s are a hell of a lot harder then 25s when you do not use 25s to gear up to make the 10s easier. They used only gear appropriate for the content.
When was the US first LK Heroics 25 man kill?
It was April 22nd, 2010, Check it out. Nearly 5 full months before someone could down 10 man in level appropriate gear just as they downed 25 man in level appropriate gear.
10s are harder then 25s. For many reasons. Do not ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
If you choose to use the argument that people just did not try for it then you do not know about the hard core people. Hard core people are all about world firsts. They did not do the world first 10 strict not because they did not want to do it, they didn't do it because they could not do it.
In level appropriate gear 10s are much harder then 25s. Facts speak for themselves. Just check the dates. If 10s where really that much easier don't you think the world first would have come before the world first for the 25 and not 5 months later?
So with the changes that are coming and everyone saying that 25s are dead because 10s are so much easier I would have to think they are wrong. 25s will still be run to help gear up people and because over all, 25s are just plain easier, they offer more loot, and they most likely will cover the fact that someone is trying to carry others through content.
25s are not dead. The "lesser" skilled players will still do 25s... for a while at least, until they realize that 25 gear can no longer carry them through 10s being they are the same loot now. Wow are they in for a surprise. They can not use the 25 version to over gear the 10 version any more, I just had to say that again, it makes me happy. I love it. Oh... my... god... I love it.
Offical Date for Cataclysm?
It seems that the official date for the Cataclysm release is going to be December 7th from the current information supplied on MMO-Champion. If this is indeed the case I am really impressed. I am one of those people that like little inside jokes that you often see in movies and seem to be all over the place in WoW.
In case no one remembers being it was almost a month ago now during the Gnomeregan event one of the Gnomes mentioned something along the line of it being 12.7% to destruction, or something like that.
12.7%...
December 7th...
12/7...
Color me impressed for the little bit of inside information that Blizzard threw out at us and we did not catch. Even more impressed that it was thrown out there and they are still on schedule to do it during that time frame they made a while back.
I was hoping it would come out at the time I had expected. See, I had this "grand design" idea in mind where I predicted the date of Cataclysm's release but I made one mistake in my assessment. My "grand design" for release was based on the date the Gnome and Troll quest lines began.
A long time ago, when this all started to be announced I said this is how it would work out. The Gnome/Troll even would happen and each month after something would happen up until Cataclysm.
In a way I was completely dead on, in a way I was wrong.
See this is how I saw it coming.
First Tuesday of September - Gnome/Troll event.
First Tuesday of October - Pre Launch event.
First Tuesday of November - Cataclysm.
Thing is I forgot something. They have the world change coming before Cataclysm as well. If I knew this my guess would have been December 7th.
First Tuesday of September - Gnome/Troll event.
First Tuesday of October - Pre Launch event.
First Tuesday of November - World Changes.
First Tuesday of December- Cataclysm.
So while I might have been off by one month, my theory, in principal, was dead on balls accurate.
I just wish it were in November because November offers lots of time off. I have a week off in November and there is the 4 day Thanksgiving day weekend. I would have loved to have had some extra time.
I will only work on my Hunter to 85 first off. Then my Priest. After that, as long as I can max out professions with the others for now I will leave them until I have my Hunter and Priest maxed out. After that my Druid makes the most sense as it is my (one of) jewelcrafter. So I would have all my important things maxed. Enchants, Gems, and Flasks. Ready to raid within two weeks on both I would hope.
In case no one remembers being it was almost a month ago now during the Gnomeregan event one of the Gnomes mentioned something along the line of it being 12.7% to destruction, or something like that.
12.7%...
December 7th...
12/7...
Color me impressed for the little bit of inside information that Blizzard threw out at us and we did not catch. Even more impressed that it was thrown out there and they are still on schedule to do it during that time frame they made a while back.
I was hoping it would come out at the time I had expected. See, I had this "grand design" idea in mind where I predicted the date of Cataclysm's release but I made one mistake in my assessment. My "grand design" for release was based on the date the Gnome and Troll quest lines began.
A long time ago, when this all started to be announced I said this is how it would work out. The Gnome/Troll even would happen and each month after something would happen up until Cataclysm.
In a way I was completely dead on, in a way I was wrong.
See this is how I saw it coming.
First Tuesday of September - Gnome/Troll event.
First Tuesday of October - Pre Launch event.
First Tuesday of November - Cataclysm.
Thing is I forgot something. They have the world change coming before Cataclysm as well. If I knew this my guess would have been December 7th.
First Tuesday of September - Gnome/Troll event.
First Tuesday of October - Pre Launch event.
First Tuesday of November - World Changes.
First Tuesday of December- Cataclysm.
So while I might have been off by one month, my theory, in principal, was dead on balls accurate.
I just wish it were in November because November offers lots of time off. I have a week off in November and there is the 4 day Thanksgiving day weekend. I would have loved to have had some extra time.
I will only work on my Hunter to 85 first off. Then my Priest. After that, as long as I can max out professions with the others for now I will leave them until I have my Hunter and Priest maxed out. After that my Druid makes the most sense as it is my (one of) jewelcrafter. So I would have all my important things maxed. Enchants, Gems, and Flasks. Ready to raid within two weeks on both I would hope.
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