Ailis in Hunterland

My mage hit 80 roughly a week before 3.3 dropped so, I’ve been spending a LOT of time in the new random LFG system emblem farming to gear her up.

(Protip: group with a tank or a healer before queuing up.  It goes a lot faster.)

In my travels through the system and meeting folks from other servers, I’ve come across several things that I thought I would share with you guys.

1. Cheap buffs are perfectly fine.  Some folks have no issues using their reagents on the full awesome party-wide buffs but if you want to conserve instead of using reagents every 20 minutes or so, that’s completely okay and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
2. Gear judging is not your job.  You may snicker at the hunter wearing a spell trinket or the ret pally wielding a sword and board, but to comment on it and make them feel like a total loser doesn’t help.  Yes, you guys will probably never see each other and what you say is simply a passing comment but keep them to yourself unless you are of that class in the group – pally to pally, hunter to hunter.  Otherwise, you just come off as an obnoxious know-it-all elitist.
3. For the love of pete, greed on the stupid frozen orbs.  No one “needs” them anymore.  Period.
4. Speaking of loot (and here’s my huge thorn in my side), the new need before greed/disenchant system is nice.  It has a couple of hitches such as treating greed and disenchant rolls equally.  So the days of needing for main spec and greeding for offspec are gone.  Most groups have adopted a “need for both specs” attitude which I have no problem with IF the person that is needing for offspec waits to see if anyone else needs for main spec before rolling.  Twice yesterday I watched people need on an offspec item against someone who was needing on it for mainspec, win, then drop group or argue as to why they “deserve it” when I said something.  One argument presented to me was “Well, that is normally my MS.  I’m in here in my OS.”

   Fantastic.  How are any of us supposed to know that’s your offspec and you’d like to roll mainspec on drops when there is obviously someone there that needs it for the mainspec they are running AT THIS POINT.  *shakes fist*

   The other argument I hate is “It’s just a heroic.”  Well, yes.  If this were any heroic under Trial of the Champion or the new ICC 5mans I wouldn’t even open my mouth.  But seeing is how ToC drops 219 gear on heroic and the new 5mans drop 232 gear on heroic, it’s a bit of a bigger deal.  People trying to gear up quickly to raid need this gear more than anything that will drop from any other heroic.

   My point is this – if you’re in LFG for both your specs and the random system asks you to go in on your offspec but you’d like to roll need on mainspec, say something to your group.  Don’t steal loot from your tanks or your healers because that’s exactly what it looks like.

All in all, the random cross-server LFG system does not give you permission to be a total douche to everyone you meet.  Just because you will likely never see them again doesn’t mean karma isn’t a bitch.  Run your heroic, do your job, say hi, be fair with loot rolls, and leave.  I’ve seen personally and heard from guildies more and more asshats showing up in heroics.

Maybe we’re all just unlucky and get the local nuts but maybe there’s more to this and people need to just pay a little more attention to how they act.  And, if you witness something like this – unfair loot rolls or someone just being a prick to someone else – say something.  You don’t have to do what I did and really lay into someone (to be fair I’m pregnant and a bit pissy nowadays – my poor husband) but speaking up briefly will help over time.

Enough folks speak up on a regular basis, the better it can get.

The whole “cataclysmic this” and “cataclysmic that” won’t get old for at least another week so I’m using it until then.

I wanted to take a moment and talk about guilds.  Guilds are getting a tremendous facelift in the upcoming expansion, something that is, in my opinion, long overdue.

Scott Andrews at Wow.com put it best when he said:

I’ve said before, guilds are the backbone of any MMO. They facilitate all the group content that developers spend millions to produce — the content that keeps people interested in the game and separates an MMO from your average single-player experience…Without officers who sacrifice time and energy to organize and lead their guilds, no MMO can succeed.

He is, in a lot of ways, right.  WoW is a highly social game – friendships are formed, enemies are made, bonds are created and oftentimes unraveled with as much frequency as any family unit or social structure.  Guilds contribute to and facilitate those bonds and, on the flip side, can aid in breaking them as well.  Whether you’re a raider, a PvPer or a causal solo player, we all have experiences with guilds both good and bad.  Without guilds, the world we know now would be vastly different.

Which is why I’m somewhat amused that it’s taken this long for Blizzard to revamp them or reward them in any way.  Up until the expansion, all rewards and achievements are for the individual player and they can take those rewards, tabards, and pets to as many different guilds as they want to with no penalty.  The only advantage, at the moment, to being in a guild is regular raiding times and raid achievements (if your guild goes for those) and raiding guilds are somewhat dependent on their core raiders staying so they strive to keep them happy.

With Cataclysm, a number of things are being implemented to reward guilds as a whole and to make their jobs a little bit easier.  There’s a new “Looking for Guild” interface (which needs more work, in my opinion, but it’s a start) and, combining that with cross-server instances, recruiting may be a bit easier than the myriad of Trade Chat and Guild Recruiting spam most people resort to.

Another big change, one we don’t know a ton about yet, is the Guild Heirloom system and the Guild-only recipes/loot/etc. system.  There is a lot of debate over these as people are afraid of large portions of what they own being bound to the guild.  In some cases, this could work – recipes, heirlooms perhaps.  However, any raid loot?  I, for one, hope this isn’t the case but we shall see as more information is revealed.

The biggest change coming for guilds is the Guild Talent system.  Through this system, the top 20 performers in a guild (or all members if your guild is less than 20) will earn achievement points for the guild through activities such as PvP, raiding, questing, titles, individual achievements, profession leveling, the sky is the limit.  At each level, the GM will be able to put a talent point into the Guild Talent tree and earn the guild rewards such as mass resurrection on a raid wipe, no reagents for mass buffs, lower repair costs, less durability damage, etc.

On the surface, this seems like a fantastic idea and I think it could be a lot of fun.  It promotes unity and teamwork – “We’re all working towards X talent because it will benefit everyone.”  This is wonderful.

However, and many have raised this point, will it be the end of smaller guilds?  Yes, there are a myriad of tiny guilds on every realm that really have no business being formed and would probably be much better off condensing into one big one or joining an already well-established guild.  There are, though, other small guilds – the mom and pop stores of our burgeoning economy – that are small but firmly grounded, filled with skilled people and are progressing slowly but fine.  Should they roll into the big corporations for the perks?  Will they be penalized for not having the volume to compete with the bigger guilds?  Will we see the death of small guilds through this system and the rise of mega guilds?

The other concern is for the individual player.  People come and go all the time.  Sometimes someone gquits in the heat of the moment, sometimes it’s a well-thought out leaving due to real life, a change in schedule or the simple desire to play with friends elsewhere be it another realm or another guild.  Should the individual be penalized for leaving the guild and joining a new one?  Should the guild be penalized for losing that member who contributed to the achievements?

In my opinion, you should only ever be in a guild because you want to be there – because you enjoy the people there and they add to your gameplay in a positive way.  If you are staying in your guild because you feel obligated to – “my 10-man would fail without me” or, with this system, because you are getting perks – “If I leave then my repair costs will go up again” then that guild isn’t right for you.  Period.

The concern with this system is that the achievements will make it harder to leave a guild, even if it’s for all the right reasons.  Will people just stay in their guild even though they hate it to get perks?  Maybe.  Lord knows that happens now in progression guilds with folks staying for the killing and the loot.

The changes coming for the guilds are massive and will, hopefully, cause a lot of guilds to reexamine their goals, overall structure and member base.  I also hope it causes people to take a good look at their guild and decide if this is the right place to invest their time and their contribution to the guild talent tree.  We may see a lot of pre-Cataclysm guild shuffling as people form up with folks they enjoy playing with, or, on a darker side, guilds they feel will earn and spend talent points the quickest.

Whatever the motivation, to the individual player I say this: Yes, WoW is more than a game in a lot of ways.  It’s a social avenue, a place to escape, a place to be someone or something you are not, or just a place to hang out with friends.  Whatever it is for you, make sure everything that is part of that experience, especially your guild, is something that is positive in every factor.  Make sure that you are with people you enjoy, a leadership you trust, and a style of play that suits you and your interests.  When you lose that, WoW becomes more about obligation, irritation and general mediocrity than the initial awe-inspiring game you first began playing months or even years ago.

Never lose that.

I, like many other WoW players, read Elitist Jerks obsessively.  I’m not the number cruncher that most of them are and some of their formulas and theories go way over my head but I like finding the nuggets of information and using their information (what of it I can actually understand) to help hone my character(s) as they progress to and through the end-game.

One post I’m deliciously addicted to is their Enhancement Shaman BiS thread, in which they talk about The Wishlist (as I like to call it).  Every tier that is released, they put together a list of the absolute Best-In-Slot (BiS) gear/gems/enchants/glyphs and build for your enhancement shaman.  I call it my Wishlist because this list is only available if you have access to every possible option of raiding – including hard modes.

With Tier 9, in case you didn’t know, all the loot is faction-specific.  Stats are identical but names and skins are different depending on your faction affiliation.  EJ wrote up their list from a Horde’s perspective so I thought I’d give some of you guys a hand and rewrite the basic gear list from an Alliance perspective.  I’m also going to write this without any profession buffs so keep in mind you’ll have an extra boost to one of your stats with Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, Enchanting, Inscription or Blacksmithing.

To make this easy to follow we’ll do item slot followed by name of piece, the gems in order of slots available, and proper enchant (similar to EJ’s table but without the table).

• Head - Nobundo’s Faceguard of Triumph – Chaotic Skyflare Diamond/Wicked Ametrine – Arcanum of Torment
• Neck - Charge of the Demon Lord – Precise Cardinal Ruby
• Shoulders - Nobundo’s Shoulderguards of Triumph – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back - Vereesa’s Dexterity – Precise Cardinal Ruby – Greater Speed
• Chest - Breastplate of Cruel Intent – Bright Cardinal Ruby/Nightmare Tear/Wicked Ametrine – Powerful Stats
• Wrist - Bracers of Dark Determination – Precise Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Hands - Nobundo’s Grips of Triumph – Bright Cardinal Ruby – Crusher
• Waist - Belt of Deathly Dominion – Wicked Ametrine/Bright Cardinal Ruby/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs - Nobundo’s War-kilt of Triumph – Balanced Dreadstone/Bright Cardinal Ruby – Icescale Leg Armor
• Feet - Sabatons of Ruthless Judgement – Wicked Ametrine/Wicked Ametrine – Icewalker
• Finger - Ring of Callous Aggression – Bright Cardinal Ruby
• Finger - Planestalker Signet – Wicked Ametrine
• Trinket - Comet’s Trail
• Trinket - Death’s Verdict
• Main Hand & Off Hand - Remorseless – Wicked Ametrine – Berserking
• Relic - Totem of Electrifying Wind
• Glyphs – Windfury/Stormstrike/Feral Spirit (This is also best set up for Tier 8 as well so go ahead and get these glyphs now if you don’t already use them)
• Build – 18/53/0 (This is only for Tier 9 – for Tier 8, current Max DPS build is 16/55/0)

You will notice that the vast majority of these items come from places like the 25-man Tribute Chest, 25-man Algalon and other hard modes.  Like I said, wishlist and only available if you have access to (and succeed at) every possible level of raiding.

It will still be my wishlist because you never know but I will try over the next week to put together a 10-man version of this for those of you in 10-man guilds (as I know there are a lot) for your BiS given what you have available to you.

Happy hunting!

Yeah, yeah, I’m on a raiding topic streak but I swear I’ll get back to the Shammy stuff soon.  I still have to make fun of discuss the new Tier 9 armor design.

With Ulduar, Blizzard embarked upon a slightly new path of raiding, a parallel route, so to speak, called Hard Mode.  This was tentatively seen in Naxx with achievements earned for killing a boss in a “harder fashion” which contributed to overall achievement netting you a Proto-Drake.  With Ulduar, Blizzard stepped it up a bit by adding another incentive in terms of loot.  Kill the boss in Hard Mode and you will receive a random piece of loot at a higher ilevel.  Sounds good in theory, right?

Two major issues have risen out of this motif, one of which is touched on by WoW.com, that being morale.  The other issue is gear itemization.

Morale

The first issue of morale comes from guilds attempting hard modes on select bosses before the instance is even fully cleared.  We come from the conditioning regarding raiding that the first 25% of a raid’s bosses are loot piñatas, the next 50% are a mite bit harder and the final 25% are more difficult and require much more coordination and, at times, the loot upgrades from the previous 75%.  So, with this conditioning in mind, it would stand to reason that the Hard Modes follow the same arc so, if we will receive better gear from XT Hard Mode and that gear will help us down Yogg in Normal Mode, then why shouldn’t we go for it?

Good concept and whether or not you should varies from group to group and raid leaders must be ever ready to make the call to do it or not.

However, you lead to morale and burnout issues.  Wiping on FL+4 multiple times takes a lot out of a group.  So you dial it back to FL+2 and move on.  By the time you hit your actual progression boss, say, Mimiron, your raiders are already suffering the diminished morale from a failed Hard Mode attempt and, consequently, may not give it their all on an entirely brand new boss.  Even if you down him and it’s the first time, yes, you’re excited, but, dammit, we didn’t down FL+4.  In terms of conditioning, Flame Leviathan is seen by your raiders in the same light as Noth or Anub’Rekhan in the simple fact that it is the very first boss of the instance and, therefore, no matter the mode, should be easy.  Wiping on him, no matter how many towers or how illogical that seems, is demoralizing.

Some guilds have addressed this issue by refusing to attempt any Hard Modes until the instance is completely cleared at least once.  I believe this is a great policy – if you can move through the instance at a relatively decent pace.  However, if you’re stuck on the same boss(es) week after week and are, effectively, farming every boss up to that point, the second issue with Hard Modes comes into play – gear itemization.

Gear

Whenever a new instance is released and the loot tables are pretty much set, I open up a notepad document and start browsing loot tables for my upgrades.  I make a very specific list of what is potentially best in slot and any optional “I’ll take this instead since it’ll probably be a while until I have that” pieces.  I do this so I have a game plan going into every boss.  I don’t have to sit there and compare what dropped to what I have to see if it’s an upgrade.  I know what I’m after and I save my rolls, loot council, DKP, whatever the system for those specific pieces.  This usually means I pass on items that may seem like upgrades.

The issue arises when my best in slot non-tier upgrades are spread across four different versions of the same instance – 10 man Normal/Hard and 25 man Normal/Hard.  I’m not alone in this either.  Elemental Shamans have it even worse than I do with very little non-mp5 mail dropping in any version.  Most of the classes have this issue.

I realize that Hard Mode Heroic will drop the best gear.  That’s a given.  Top level content = Top level gear.  But to restrict certain slot upgrades to only a certain boss’s Hard Mode doesn’t seem like the best plan or the best idea in terms of raider morale.  You end up with a raider who upgrades everything except one certain piece because their group cannot or simply will not kill a boss on Hard Mode.  Eventually, you end up with several raiders in this predicament and, while you have the first however many bosses on farm in an instance while you’re working on the latest progression boss, overall morale is low because no one has gotten an upgrade in a while.

So what’s the solution?  For me, I don’t exactly know.  For Blizzard, separate lockouts.

Four Versions

We have the Coliseum on the horizon and, with it, comes the option of four different Raid IDs – 10 man Normal, 10 man Hard, 25 man Normal, 25 man Hard.  Each one has a different loot table; each one has the same bosses.

In theory, this seems to be a good idea.  Don’t touch Hard Mode until Normal Mode is done.  Step into Hard Mode to see what it’s like, then go into Normal when you don’t get as far.  Separate progression paths depending on guild scheduling and group makeup.

But will this lead to increased raider burnout?  We are talking the same instance four times each week, potentially.

And does this solve the problem of gear itemization?  Will our Elemental Shamans be able to fully gear up in all four modes separately or will their upgrades be spread across all the versions?  (This we won’t know fully until the loot tables are completed.)

Blizzard has already stated that this is an experiment only and they aren’t setting this new method of raid lockouts in stone until they see how it works with the Coliseum.  So I guess we’re all going to be participating in this experiment.

/jumps on her wheel and runs