Mystic Worlds

PVP for No Honor or Reward – Come Get Some Son

Even though I don’t consider myself a hardcore PVP player, I do enjoy the excitement, danger and adrenaline rush from being on a PVP server.  I did a tiny bit of Kingdom vs. Kingdom (KVK) in Asherons Call 2 (AC2).  It wasn’t until very late in my game play that I started going there with the guild.  There were no rewards to be gained other than bragging rights.

The initial implementation of WOW PVP didn’t have any rewards to be gained by engaging in World PVP and all that existed was World PVP.  I know that I’m not alone when I say, those were the glory days of PVP.  It was frantic, exciting and complete chaos in the hotly contested zones.  Lagfest and Illidown instability aside, it was as much fun, as any 40-man raid Blizzard ever designed.  The unpredictability of facing off against other players in a freeform manner just can’t be replicated in a Battleground or Arena.  There were no rules about what you could and could not do.  There were no contrived objectives.  The rule of law was, if it’s red make it dead.

Dual-Boxing Experiment

I spent three evenings looking into the mechanics of how to dual-box two characters using the same computer in World of Warcraft.  Thanks to the Dual-Boxing Portal and WowWiki, it was a piece of cake – sorta.  If this piques your interest and you’d like to give it a try, just get yourself a trail WOW account to use.

The software side of things was very easy.  I read several posts suggesting that you make a copy of your WOW gaming folder to avoid conflicts which might cause the game to crash.  I was going to do that when I saw how friggin’ large the folder was and immediately nixed that idea.  I just wanted to experiment so I didn’t really care so much if the game crashed a few times.  As luck would have it, it never crashed even when I wrote all the macros needed to pull it off.  *Shrug*

My first decision was which software to use for sending duplicate keystrokes to the two independent session of WOW.  My first attempt at dual boxing was done my actually clicking things on the separate session back and forth – definitely not the way the pros do things.  I downloaded AutoHotKey first as it seemed a popular choice on the forums.  But after starring at the scripts needed just to get started, I quickly abandoned it.  It offers more flexibility but the posts about having to code in ways to pause it so you can chat or interact with the game in other ways other than sending duplicate keys, convinced me that it would be too much work just to mess around.

Two-Boxing and then Again, Not

One of the things I enjoy about WOW Radio is the diversity of podcasts for World of WarCraft.  Hardcore or casual, raider or not, you can find a show that talks about how you play WOW.  Catching up on some the WOW Insider podcasts hosted by WOW Radio, I listened to a show about two-boxing in games.  I'm familiar with the concept having run into couples that were doing it in AC2 on a casual basis.  Run spouse through <insert name> dungeon because he/she is cooking, doing laundry, dealing with the kids, etc.

I've done short spurts of two-boxing to mule items across our WOW accounts, give a toon a healthstone or soulshard or apply some priest buffs, but mostly to enchant items.  In the past I couldn't do it on the same computer for more than a few minutes before my system blue-screened - a VERY scary thing when you're messing with Bill Gates and his infamous Windows OS. :-)  But it was doable in very short durations for very specific needs.

Before I continue too much further let me back up a bit and define two-boxing for those who are not familiar with the concept.  Strictly speaking, two-boxing is when a single person is operating two sessions of the same game and controlling two characters at the same time.  These days we could probably say multi-boxing and not limit the idea to just two.  WOW has a few rather famous multi-boxers - someone does 5 Mages, someone is doing an Arena team with Druid, Priest and Mages I think...blah...blah, I'm not up on the whole scene.  Bottom line - for the real multi-boxers it is the act of multiple machines running the same game while they control multiple characters within that game.  Another variation on the idea is running multiple instances of the game on the same computer.  I would still consider that multi-boxing even though there is only a single set of hardware involved. 

Go Go, Druid Boy!

Gamer geeks are really hysterical.  This is the funniest machinima I've seen in a while.  Here's a lil rap love for Boomkins.

700+ Player Queues on Illidan

The other night I read on the forums that Arena Season 3 was starting soon.  Knowing that I had a good bit of PVP honor on any of my mains - BGs is about all I did after hitting 70, I decided I'd see what was available for purchase from Season 1.  Wrong!  700+ player queues on Illidan.  WTholyF!  I tried later.  900+ queue.  My jaw dropped and my eyeballs almost popped from their sockets.

Quick Rant

While I was catching up on some podcasts on WOW Radio, I flipped on over to the General Forums to catch up on some game news.  First mistake - going to the WOW forums.  Second mistake - reading the general forums.  Third mistake - reading a post with the words AV, PVP and Honor Weekend all in the same title...

There's a long thread going where the posters is a Horde players asking that Alliance just lay down and take the loss for AV weekend because it's more efficient for the AV weekend because winning doesn't matter if we all get max honor.

Two Nice Lore Videos Concerning Illidan & Arthas

WOW Insider has posted two really great articles for those of us who hadn't played any of the Warcraft games before WOW.  These two machinma compilations tell the story of Illidan and Arthas in preparation for the story of the Lich King.  If you enjoy lore and would like more details on the history of these to infamous personalities, drop by and watch the videos.

10-man Raids <> A Good Beginning

Great post on AFK Gamer about the failure of the 10-man raid, from someone who raids regularly.  Foton has been linked on my site for a very long time.  If you aren't reading his blog you don't know what you're missing.  You'll never read guild drama any better than what Foton hysterically relates to his captive audience.

And is does some really nice game screenies - albeit not as many as he used to.

Blizzard Might Come 'Round

Tobold just posted a quick impression of Sony's new online card game for EQ1/EQ2.  Something like this is what I was daydreaming about in my post requesting that Blizzard take my game horizontal.  We have ships.  We have goblins who are supposedly gamblers.  Let's have an online version of the WOW card game but in game. 

Being able to get on a ship to play would score some very high role-playing points.  It doesn't have to be as short as the ride either.  We could just stay on board and play.  If not that, we could play in the Inns which would be equally as cool.  At the very least, make it so that we can just start up a game anywhere.  Waiting for your raid to start...pop-up a card game.  Waiting in the Alliance AV queue...card game.  Standing in IF fuking around 'cuz you're board...card game.

I was bored enough last night that I joined a mounted conga-line parading back in forth in front of the bank.  I tried to liven things up with the occasional /train emote.  *Yawn*  Doing that for a good 10 minutes was definitely an all time low.  I'd certainly have started a card game instead, had one been available!
 

Blizzard, Please Take My Game Horizontal

The next expansion for World of Warcraft has been announced.  I’m not sure we could have really expected anything dramatically different.  They’ve hit a formula that has worked.  And even though many of us gripe every day, millions of players continue to subscribe, proving that whatever the issues, they’re still okay with the Blizzard’s vision.  However, for me personally, there’s nothing compelling about Wrath of the Lich King.

Ten more levels to grind – the best part of the game in my opinion.  A few more skills, talents and deeper spec trees, are always a fun thing to contemplate.  But beyond that, I mean it’s more of the same.  It’s liked watching Titanic – the ride is fun but the end is always the same.  In this case, some raiding or not, some PVP or not, some Arena or not, re-grind a new profession or not, etc.

Death Knight as a hero class doesn’t excite me.  I would have preferred an extension of my own class. I do understand the nightmare that this would have brought into a game where they are still struggling with class balance.  But that doesn’t stop me from wanting it and being rather unimpressed about this type of implementation.

I keep playing WOW because the road to 60, and eventually 70, was fun.  I remain however, unsatisfied with what’s always waiting for me at the end.  If I was captured by some other MMO I’d hang up my subscription but nothing else that I’ve tried provides the same adrenaline rush, player hype and mania, enviable gear & weapons and crack-like obsession.  I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the core aspects of the game aren’t going to change, and I can see why they wouldn’t alter it.  Deep changes could be game-breaking and might possibly alienate the existing player base.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  So instead of vertical change, I’d be happy with horizontal movement.

Here are some horizontal changes that I would have loved to see in WotLK:

• Guild Halls – We’ve heard that they will release them when its ready and I’m sure that’s the case.  But since the game is going on three years old, I’d rather have them sooner than later, at this point.  AC2 had a very simplistic version of Guild Halls that were nothing more than shared spaces that acted as a gathering place.  I’ve been in WOW guilds where there are large amounts of guild toons that I’ve never seen face-to-face.  That didn’t happen in AC2.  Regardless of the level gap, you met everyone at one point or another in the guild hall.  I’d like more functionality than that since we’ve waited so long, but just give it already.

• Player Housing – Instanced player housing is a wonderful way for players of all types to spend their some end-game time.  It can be a source of pride and a mini game pursuit.  I’d like to have housing that provides a slightly buffed rested XP, small + profession buffs that last an hour and a small chance for additional procs on crafting.  I’d love to see trophies and lore items added that can be showcased in the halls and houses.  And lastly, bring back the small world buffs as those that can be gotten from having certain combinations of lore items in your house.

• Wood Harvesting & Woodworking – In support of player housing, guild halls and carpentry, they should add a profession that harvests and processes wood.  Seems like it would be easy enough to do and it would also pave the way for staves to be created by weapon smiths.

• Carpentry - Probably not a money-maker but it could be fun and sustainable with guild halls and player housing.  They could enhance the craft-able items with storage containers such as the various sizes of boxes and trunks that are available in EverQuest.  Furniture items would be mostly for show and prestige, and since there’s no shortage of epeen in WOW, I think carpenters will make enough gold for the effort.

• Scroll Maker – A profession that is long over due has got to be the ability to make scrolls.  I love finding scrolls in the low levels for those small buffs.  I’m not sure why they peter out at the higher levels.  As a solo player, having a few armor, intellect or stamina scrolls handy is very convenient.  Paper making is probably coming along with Inscriptions so perhaps someday we will also get scrolls makers too.

• Lore Master – Ah, the profession of kings would be the lore master.  Why for kings?  Because the comps would be very expensive and difficult to obtain.  WOW has such a rich base of lore from which to pull content, I want to see more of it become tangible in game items.  The Lore Master would create items for halls and houses that would add the +damage, +stamina, +resistance, etc. that I spoke of earlier.  The buffs would come from hanging lore items in the hall or house.  A primary component of these types of items would be some epic ingredient or shard. 
  
  In addition to buffing items, I want to see books, collections and media that is viewable in game that contains parts of the WOW lore.  Books can be collected one chapter at a time and would reveal some of the lore not current seen in the game.  Not all of us played the pre-WOW games but would like to catch up on what we missed.  By simply adding more interactive books, scrolls or even image vignettes, they could present more lore in a fun way.
  
  Collections could be fragments of legendary items that could be pieced together purely for display purposes.  Famous weapons, whole sets of armor and the alike could be crafted just to be shown off in the player spaces.

• Spell Attribute Points – Making the talent trees deeper raises too many balancing issues so what about allowing us to tweak them with attribute points?  It’s similar to how you spend your talent points now except that these let you augment talents in your primary tree.  You get a limited amount to spend – ten or so with which you can add accuracy, speed, penetration, reduced resistance to your talents.
  
  What intrigues me about such a mechanic is that it would allow players to customize their talents to suit their particular playing style without offsetting class balance.  If you PVP you might want to use your points to reduce a player’s resistance to your spells.  If you solo maybe having faster casts would be your preference, whereas someone who raids might want accuracy or penetration.  Whatever, it wouldn’t matter because none of these things are game-breaking and with only ten or so points, it’s just enough to add some flavor without knocking balance out of whack.

• Swappable Talent Specs – Storing two specs per character is way over due.  Let’s just get on with it already.  If they don’t want to go that far, then at least let me store them so that when I want to respect I don’t have to manually build the trees again.  Geez!

• Exotic Player Pets – This idea I’m stealing from AC2 and Lineage.  I want pets that all players can acquire through questing and raising, said pet.  These pets can either be damage, healing or tanking focused, but they can’t be used in BGs, Arenas or instances.
  
  I remember questing to get my Dragon Egg in AC2, running off to place it in the hatching nest and counting the days/hours until it could be hatched.  I remember the thrill of summoning it and having it fight along side me.  Just about every player at the required level had one but there was a 24-hour cool down timer to re-summon so people used them with judiciously.
  
  Imagine a healing spec priest being able to quest for, hatch and raise a damage dealing pet that can be used to help grind mobs for rep, farming and leveling.  I think Warriors would jump at getting one that could do some minor healing for them and I’m sure someone out there might want one that could tank.  Again, this can be done in a way that doesn’t upset class balance – can’t be sent in to attack other players, the + damage, healing or tanking would be small – just enough to make it worth having.  And it must have a re-summon timer long enough to make people use discretion about when to use the pet.  Once it’s dead or dismissed you have to wait for the cool-down before it can be re-summoned.
  
  Look at all the players running around with the vanity pets.  I know this type of exotic pet would be a huge hit.  I often ran from encounters in AC2 rather than allow my damn dragon die.

• NPCs and Gambling on the Boats.  I was so excited the first time I got on a boat and run around below deck.  Just adding NPCs would be an easy way to add more flavor to the game.  Get rid of the screen transition and add some good ole goblin gambling.  If I remember correctly, EQ2 boats don't transition and they don't take any longer than WOW boats to reach their destination.  Keep them short and add some NPCs or liven things up with gambling!  Yar, I want to play some poker with a Pirate, accuse him of cheating and start an on ship brawl!

• Single-Player and Duo-Player Dungeons – Blah, blah it’s MMO – sure I know this but I still think they could add some dungeons that can be dialed down for single player mode.  Why?  Because sometimes it would be fun to farm in an instance.  Sometimes it would be fun to master a scripted event that I can do by myself and when I want to do it.  It doesn’t have to drop anything more powerful or valuable than higher end mobs in the game.  It would just be fun to do something that felt like an epic encounter on my own.

• More Live Events - We already know that they possess technology to do this because they did it for AQ and the opening of the Dark Portal.  Please do this on a regular basis.  This is a world at war, bring the drama please with NPC attacks on the major cities, especially since the player base as practically stopped doing this now.  It's so much fun as a newbie seeing these big bad azz NPCs descend on the player areas.  It adds another level of excitement and encouragement to level up and join the big boys.  Seriously, doing this randomly on a regular basis can't be that hard!  I want that encounter playing out on the Outland side of the portal actually happening!  Not scripted to jack off with itself, but go after player cities.  Please, please bring the drama and war right to our door!

• Hero Classes as Extension of Base Class – Death Knight be gone.  I want a hero class that is an extension of my actual class.  I don’t want to turn into something else in order to become a hero.  Again, balance is a problem but they can think horizontal instead of vertical.  Let me have more customization and only a little more power.  Give us utility or convenience skill/talents instead of more damage/healing.  Faster mount speed, additional hearthstones, access to unique buff food, more flexibility with changing my spec, a couple more talent points, hero-only gear and other things of this nature.  Or let me unlock the ability to start my alts at 40 or possess a mentoring skill so I can group my max level toon with my friend’s lower-level alts without diminishing their XP gain.  Lots of things that can be done that won’t cause a balancing nightmare.

These are some of the things that I’d like to see in a WOW expansion.  I could live off of these activities long after I hit max level and never enter a raid instance, BG or arena.  I can be casual and have serious pursuits that don’t involve rolling alts to be abandoned at 60, 70, 80 and beyond.  Give me something to cling to when the leveling is gone.  Give me a way to progress and customize my character that doesn’t unbalance the game.  I’m sure that 70 to 80 will be fun, but I’m not sure that I’m going along for the ride again, when I already know I don’t like what awaits me at the end.

Warlocks, the New Villians of WOW

I don’t think I’ve seen as much class hate as the current player base holds for Warlocks.  If you put the word “warlock” in a forum post title, you can be assured it’s going to reach “buzz” status and max out the allowed number of response pages.  I’m sorry to say, that this is classic Blizzard changing stances on an issue in a way that swings from one side all the way to the other, which causes a large amount of player angst.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are many statistical modeling tools that allow you to work through various scenarios in order to optimize outcomes.  I’m starting to think that the players need to take up a fund and send a copy of Crystal Ball over to Blizzard.

The History
I’ve heard tales that Warlocks were over powered during the WOW Beta.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to play Beta so I can’t comment.  What I do know is that when I selected it as my first toon’s class, it was anything but over powered.  She could hold her own against mobs and the flexibility of matching curses to the mob, class and situation was a fun challenge.  Once you had more than one pet, doing the same thing – matching pet to situation was an interesting dynamic that kept the leveling fun and fresh.

I avoided in world PVP as much as I could because we sucked at it.  In cloth with average health and no escape mechanism other than a long cast timer on Fear, death was lurking around every encounter.  We were such a joke that players 3-5 levels below me would take me on without a second thought.  The basic opinion of the average player at the time was that a Warlock was a free honor kill.  In a crowd they’d still rush to take you out first because you went down easy and it removed any opportunity for you to cast Fear.

I distinctly remember playing around with my son’s Paladin when he was in his low 50s one day, I had been 60 for a while by then.  It really struck me how people didn’t dismount to try and gank me.  Even if two horde players saw me some where alone, they didn’t just assume they could kick my ass and rush in to gank.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  Horde usually went in the opposite direction.  Not because the Paladin was known for damage but because they knew it would be a long fight, and someone of my own faction might happen to mosey on by before they could kill him and be on their way.  It was a very eye-opening experience to have players higher than his toon just ride on by when they saw the class.  That was definitely not how life worked for me as a Warlock.

The first real improvement for Warlocks came when Death Coil was introduced as our escape mechanism.  Instant cast fear with a damage component.  I would say player hate started building in small degrees with this spell.  It’s on a timer so you can’t cast it at will.  However, many Warlocks started using this as an opening move.  Doing so, allowed them to get you away from them while they DOT or cast the real Fear and then DOT you up.  It’s a rather low-blow or EZ-mode PVP strategy, one that I didn’t personally use.  I continued to use Fear as I think it was intended – escape mechanism.  It was long enough for me to start to run in the opposite direction while casting any instant DOTs I had available.  This was usually enough to dissuade the attacker who’d go about their business and try to mitigate the DOT damage, while I kept running.

The other way to use it, and this I did often was as a finishing move.  If my opponent was low on health I could DC them away from me and then Shadow Bolt, Searing Pain or drain the remaining health.  Either way, the DC gave me just enough breathing room to finish them off.  So as nice as the introduction of DC was, it wasn’t enough of a boost where I felt secure in PVP against most of the other classes.

Some time after, I’m old and the dates are fuzzy, Soul Link was buffed to mitigate more damage.  SL is only available to Demonology Warlocks who weren’t very popular at the time.  But if you went Demo now, you had DC, SL and Fear.  1v1 this is what made demonology shine and it gained in popularity.  Prior to this, players ignored your pet so unless you had the Succi out, they just pummeled you into the ground.  Now they had to respect the pet, because as long as it lived, it absorbed 60% of my damage.  Yes, it was first released at 60%!!  I was and always had been, Demo spec’d and it was as if I became uber over night.

I stopped running.  If you ganked me I would DOT you, DC you, Bolt you and if you were still stupid enough to pursue me, I’d Fear you and commence to nuking in earnest.  My play-style and my PVP experience changed overnight.  Before I knew it, I could take on 2v1 and win, regardless of which pet I had out.  Prior to that, if I didn’t have the right pet out for the class who was attacking me, I was dead.  Now it didn’t matter, any pet was of use to me for the damage mitigation.  Even the Imp, with its low health, could save me just enough health to outlast my opponent.  Demonology spec’d Warlocks became 1v1 and 2v1 gods.  The level of player hate increased at this juncture.  But having survived a year or more of abuse, I laughed my ass off and killed with reckless abandon.

Today
Everyone hates Warlocks unless their in your group and working toward the same objectives.  And even, then some people just flat-out hate the class now, and screams for nerfs and laments of how over powered they are, flood the forums on a daily basis.  Chief complaints are DOTs, 2 instant cast Fears, burst damage, high HP and pets.  The problem is that when people complain about Warlocks they consider all of the talents together as though every Warlock as them, which isn’t the case. 

Affliction Warlocks have the improved DOTs, improved drains, Siphon Life and 2nd instant cast fear.  Demonology Warlocks have the highest amount of survivability are probably the more balanced spec.  With their spare points, they had the option of getting a little burst damage from the Destruction tree or some improved DOTs from Affliction.   Destruction is for the nuke minded player.  They can bring the pain quickly but are very squishy.  If you get the jump on one and they don’t have the appropriate pet out, they’re problem going to be toast.  For this reason, I’ve never stayed Destruction for long.  In my early raiding days, I tried Destruction for the damage output but farming and grinding honor on a highly contested PVP server sucked hard.  With three or more Warlocks on every raid, I didn’t feel it necessary to take the personal hit by keeping a spec that I didn’t like, and went back to Demo.

So over time, Warlocks went from being Kibble to dominating people in PVP.  It seems like it happened over night but it didn’t.  It seems like every Warlock has all the tricks up his sleeve but they don’t.  They have some depending on their spec, and I’ll grant you that you can’t really have a fucked up spec being a Warlock.  Why?  Because they are one of the few classes, maybe the only class, where all three trees are synergistic.  Unless someone splits evenly across all the trees and fails to take anything of consequence, you’re guaranteed a pretty good spec.  Is this a bad thing?  No, it’s how it should be in the first place.  Each of the class trees should have a particular focus or playing style.  However, you should be able to specialize in one while picking up useful and complimentary talents from one of the others.

Because the trees are so good now, the only way they can tone down Warlocks is to nerf their base damage but I don’t think Blizzard wants to gut the class.  They’re trying to pick at it from the corners – resilience affecting DOTs, reduce durations on fears, etc.  To be fair, Warlocks have been nerfed several times over the past few months, and still the cries of “ZOMG, NERF WARLOCKS,” continue to draw crowds.  We already have some really broken classes/specs when it comes to PVP.   I don’t think gimping another class is the right direction.  We know that Blizzard does feel it’s often easier to nerf something than buff what’s really broken – hell, they’ve said as much on the forums.  That’s really too bad and annoying for the broken classes/specs.  I’m sure that many of the people who flooded to the Warlock class were members of the broken.  I’ve seen Priests and Paladins say they gave up on whatever spec they were hoping to see fixed and instead took refuge in the most dominate class, Warlock.

The Future
Can you imagine the number of pissed off players they’d have on their hands if they gutted another class?  Remember that nerfing any class does nothing but make raiding harder.  Frankly, I’m sick of them trying to balance classes around PVP – especially arenas.  What about those of us who don’t play arenas or give a flying fart about what is or isn’t broken in there??  If they really want competitive PVP they need to mimic GuildWars and be done with it.  Pre-made level 70s, in standard gear with a certain set of talents/specs to choose from for PVP, would end all of this non-sense.  At that point PVP would be all about skill and strategy, and it could reduce if not eliminate, all this balancing around something that wasn’t a core mechanic of the game in the first place.  But I digress…

Rolling a toon from 1 to 60 got old a long time ago.  Rolling 1 to 70 is rather obscene.  I would worry about people completely becoming outraged and abandoning the game if they nerf Warlocks to the point that the refugees now feel that effort was pointless, and are once again playing a broken class.  However much time and effort it would take, is what Blizzard owes its players and paying customers toward fixing the other classes and making them as viable as Warlocks.  If they buffed/fixed the other classes, Warlocks who are just drunk on power would be unhappy but their character would still function they way they’re used and it would be really hard to be too outraged.  The other classes would be happy and the mature Warlocks would just realize that the free ride is over and it’s time to step up their game the same way they did when Warlocks sucked.  Others might actually elect to go back to other classes which would diversify the playing field a bit more, and that could only be good for the game as well.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the course of the next few months.  I’m sitting in an “I can’t lose” position.  I have a Warlock.  If they decide to fix Priests I have one of those.  If they fix Retribution, it might be fun to try that, since it’s the one spec combination I never touched on the Paladin.  In case you missed it one of my comments, I’ve also been leveling a Druid when I just want to revisit the best parts of the game – pre TBC human zone leveling.  Whatever they do, my family has been playing so long that we have most bets covered.

For now I’m just watching the show – reading forums, doing the occasional Kara, dorking around with a Druid and praying for Beta invites. 

Did Nerfing Paladins Fix Priests?

I saw a level 53 Priest out leveling the other day, the sighting of which seemed odd.  I thought to myself, “Hmm, people still roll priests?”  I abandoned my priest shortly after hitting level 70, when it was clear that my ability to heal hadn’t scaled appropriately and that my least efficient tree was actually the one designed for healing.  Being a Shadow Priest is fun for leveling and PVP but the problem was that I’d rolled a priest to heal, not melt faces.

Every class asking for buffs is nothing new.  Everyone wants to be over-powered or at least a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.  And for every request to buff, you’ll see a troll post to nerf.  Priests were the one exception.  I think every single level 70 realized that Priest healing was sub par and combined with laughable 31-point and 41-point talents in the Holy tree, something needed to be done.

I think it’s safe to say that many people were shocked and dismayed to hear a Blue say that Priests were fine – “Where they should be.”  The thought being that it was actually the other healing classes <insert Paladin here> that needed to be brought in-line with Priest healing.  In their infinite wisdom the developers decided to nerf Paladins, who had replaced priests as the preferred raider healer, in order to secure raid spots for Priests.

 
As one of many healers who had replaced their lame-duck Priest with a Paladin, this was idea was obscene and wreaked of being obtuse.  I get that it was logistically easier to nerf the Paladin and maintain class balance versus fixing and buffing Priests. I mean, if they really knew how to fix the class I suppose they would have done so long before the outrage that was being a post TBC Holy Priest.  Still, this idea rankled many players and resulted in server protests, temporary bans and retired Priest characters.

Now that ample time has passed since this decision and no drastic class review has taken place for the Priest, did this help?  I can only speak from my very limited view of TBC end game.  In the 5-mans and heroics I ran, more often than not if there was a Priest, they were glowing purple.  In the many, many BGs that I run, I don’t see many Holy or Discipline Priests.  How would I know?  Well, I don’t see Priests healing in BG very much.  I see plenty of Shadow Priests but few of the other specs.  I still see Paladins doing much of the healing along with Druids.

If our guild is an example, then hell no, nerfing Paladins didn’t fix Priests.  Our primary raiding group consists of about 20 people, 13 of which raid regularly.  Within that 20, there isn’t a single Holy Priest.  There is only one Priest and he’s Shadow.  We have three core healers - two Druids and a Paladin, followed by two more Paladins who main heal when one of the Druids isn’t available or want to go in with one of their other classes.  That means out of our six raider healers we don’t have a single Holy Priest.  And since I don’t ever see discussions that we’re looking to get any, I’m assuming we’re fine with not having any Holy Priests in our raids.

As a player I think it’s rather sad that one of the supposedly core healing classes has been left to languish.  As a player who rolled one, it’s galling to have fundamental talent tree flaws remain unchanged.  You can rarely get the WOW community to agree on anything when it comes to class balance.  Yet my impression from reading the forums was that most everyone agreed that Priests needed to be fixed.

Alack and alas, nothing has been done.  At this point, my Priest is permanently retired.  I wouldn’t go back even if they fixed her.  I’ve emotionally moved on and would rather heal on my Paladin.  Leveling to 70 only to find that I one thing I expected to excel at, wasn’t what I was best at doing, has put me off healing classes.  Healing spec’d classes have to worker harder to do the other aspects of the game, like PVP and soloing.  It’s not impossible but it is more work, so I expect to be top healer as compensation.  I don’t think I’d take the chance again of investing so much time in a healing class for fear of being a lame-duck player at the end of the journey.  The flash and excitement are in the DPS classes – or at least, that’s the common perception.  Rolling one of those classes is a much safer route and you have more flexibility, in and out of raiding.

Please join in or sound off if I’ve missed the mark.  I still check the Priest forums but since I’m not playing one anymore, improvements may have skipped my notice.

My Love/Hate Relationship with WOW

It’s been months since I’ve spent any regular time in Azeroth, let alone Stormwind (SW).  Recently, I’ve had to fly in and out of SW as a stop-over on my way to Karazhan.  While I was flying over Goldshire the other night, I saw two lowbies fighting Defias and for a minute, it made me wish that I was just starting to play now, with levels 1 to 70 before me.

Something that has always frustrated me about World of Warcraft is the stark difference between the game I played to level up my characters, versus what’s available to me once they’ve reached maximum level.  I had so much fun and enjoyment on the way up that my dissatisfaction about what was waiting for me at the end of that journey, leaves me with bitterness equal to the proportion of what I enjoyed about WOW.  This is why I love and hate Blizzard, both in equal measure. :-)

One of the greatest MMORPG adventures I’ve ever had was the human zone from Northshire Abbey to Hinterlands.  That’s approximately level 1 to level 40, depending on how you go about it.  It is in my opinion, hands-down the best content progression of any game PERIOD.  The questing in the human zone is so popular that you regularly see other races there as early as Goldshire, which is approximately, level 8+ content.  For the races from Kalimdor, it’s no easy trek over to the Eastern Kingdoms unless you have an escort, a Warlock to summon you or a Mage to port you.  Otherwise, it’s a long slow naked death march which can take up to two hours to complete, especially on a PVP server.

As I was flying over, I asked myself, “What is it about this particular zone series that’s so appealing?”  I know it’s not just me.  Many Alliance players have elected to level characters of various races in this area repeatedly.  And for myself, what I experienced there is what I’m looking for in my next game, so it’s time to really figure it out. 

First is the fact that it’s in a human zone.  Not all of the mobs are human, but the NPCs are human and you’re clearly in a human society.  My preference in fantasy is to be a human or as closely human as possible which would, include any Elf-like culture.  The atmosphere is a lush countryside.  It’s sunny.  It’s green.  Everything about Northshire and Goldshire is happy and country quaint.  I encounter creatures that are recognizable to me like wolves, sheep, chicken, rabbits, etc.  From the very first moment, it feels like I’ve been dropped into a fairytale.   

The second thing that keeps me drawn to those areas is the storyline.  Now, I’m not one for questing too much.  I do quests here and there – like every third or forth quest, unless it’s a collection or slay quest.  But I do them all from Northshire to Hinterlands because the story is so compelling, especially as it concerns the Defias.  It’s good and evil, dark versus the light and easily empathetic.  It draws you in like a good book with the added advantage that you are an active participant, with ample opportunities to be heroic.

The encounters are fun after you leave the Abbey.  You knock-heads with Kobold, defy the Defias, learn why everyone hates Murlocs and need I even mention Hogger?  Hogger has to be the most infamous level 11 mob of any game.  I mean really now!  What’s not to love about running to and fro in Goldshire?

The human zone is alive.  It’s buzzing with busy people and lots of NPCs going about their business.  The zones are densely populated with buildings, most of which can be entered and because you can enter them, it really feels like a virtual world.  And if you’ve started your professions, you also feel like you have a purpose and are an active part of the community, as you go about protecting, collecting, creating, trading and growing your character.

I’ve seen beautiful vistas in other games.  I’ve seen areas that were awe inspiring and filled me with emotion the first time I laid eyes on them.  Regardless, these past experiences didn’t dampen the joy and jaw-dropping experience of walking into Stormwind for the first time.  WOW came along and did everything BIGGER and this major city is no exception.  The city music starts about half way up the stone walk into the city and you’re stunned by the size and scope of everything you see.  Not to be out done, Ironforge is just as imposing and impressive when your adventure lands you at its entrance.

In Stormwind I saw my first mounted player and others flying in and out on gryphons.  All the shops are open with NPCs ready to talk non-sense and rob you of your hard earned copper.  I remember getting lost the first several times I was sent to SW on a quest errand.  It was annoying at times that it was so large and I had to traverse it on foot.  But the first time I saw guards kneeling before Marshal Windsor as he sauntered into town, I was one of the noobs running behind him and shouting in chat, “What’s going on?  What’s this about? Can I follow him?”  And I did follow him and went into the Keep for the first time, where I died a few times as I inadvertently the first time, and then intentionally the second and third time, got all up in the fight with Lady Onyxia.  It was awesome and made you want to be that level 60 player doing this quest.  I feel bad for people who came to WOW post TBC, as they are very unlikely to see these events – ever.

As you move further away from the SW vicinity, the light fades into darkness and a more evil presence looms large.  The towns become smaller and the areas less populated with NPC communities.  But it doesn’t really diminish greatly until after Westfall where some of the best quests and storylines exist.  Darkshire is spooky fun and you’re well used to PVP by now having survived the rooftop camping in Lakeshire.  Hillsbrad repeats the ambiance of a small coastal community, the sunshine returns and so does the PVP in a huge way.  Questing in Southshore took a lot of patience back in the days before BGs.  But you do what you can, and give as good as you get, until you exit to Arathi/Alterac where you begin encountering fewer humans and then on to Hinterlands.

Just about now you hit your first leveling wall and the hell hole known as Stranglethorn Vale, followed by another layer of Dante’s inferno where the NPCs don’t protect you from being ganked inside the town like they're supposed to do and it takes months for this to be fixed.  Yeah, you guessed it, Gadgetzan.  About the only saving grace of this zone was that humans returned in the form of Pirates.  Yaaaaaaaaaaaar, who doesn’t like to whack pirates!

On and on it went.  Great zones, followed by okay ones, a few baddies interspersed and the occasional hell-hole.  You could quest your way through, grind, do instances and any combination in between.  More importantly, you could do your leveling in groups or solo – take your pick.  Leveling was like Burger King, and I had my way.

I hit level 60 amid many congratulations and requests from guild officers to hurry up and get attuned for Molten Core and Onyxia.  I entered MC for the first time and my game changed.  I was expected to spend hours-on-end in dark and confined spaces.  I was expected to play on a schedule that also included making time to farm for consumables, repair bills and resistance gear.  And if I didn’t want to do these things, there wasn’t much else to do except to start all over on another toon.  Not one for alts, I stuck with my main, a human Warlock for a solid year. 

I was too burned out to take notice when Silithus came, even though I did raid in AQ.  Having been level 60 for months and not one who enjoys questing, the honor grinds weren’t my cup of tea.  It was then that I first started taking breaks from WOW.  I played EQ2 on and off.  I pretended to play GuildWars and EVE Online.  Yet I kept coming back to WOW hoping to some how rekindle how it felt in the beginning.  I had some success at first when I rolled a Hunter, started a Paladin and then my Priest.  But each one was started knowing that I didn’t like the pot sitting at the end of the rainbow, and each trip through the same zones, especially the bad ones, just broke my spirit.  Eventually, I just stopped playing all together for a couple of months.  Now post TBC leveling on any toon that I care about, I’m back where I started and a household that once had four accounts, is down to just one.

I loved WOW for the leveling zones.  There was real magic and fantasy there.  There was total freedom of choice there!  My game played my way.  At max level the game turns on its head, and no longer gives me the same degree of satisfaction.  I kept hoping with each large update and then an expansion, that I’d eventually find a different kind of end game – one that matched how they let me start. But that hasn’t materialized and I don’t think that it can or ever will.  The current form of end game is too engrained in the WOW mechanics and a large shift in focus would leave players bewildered and confused.

So I love Blizzard for the game that let me level and then I despise them for the restrictive, class biased, cookie-cutter spec requiring, honor grinding, consumable collecting, gold farming end game that eats like grass.  My time in WOW is borrowed.  I don’t expect the next game I play to be anywhere near as inspiring, as my early days in WOW or the wide-eyed wonder of my time in Dereth (AC2).  At this point, I’m perfectly willing to accept a copycat game with borrowed ideas, as long as it’s a new scenario, has some new classes and brand new leveling content.  That is all I’m asking for from Warhammer Online.  Even if it’s WOW but not WOW, it will be good enough if it provides decent game-play.  I want the newness of leveling again without knowing in advance, that I’m racing head long into a dead-end.

Holy Shit! Complaints about AFKers in BGs Take Over the PVP Forums

Wow, I dont think I've ever seen this many posts about the same topic consistently.  Screams to nerf Warlocks don't count. *hehe*  I've posted here recently about it too, as it's a real pain in the ass to deal with when you're trying to maximize your honor gain sessions.  And the smaller the battle population, WSG or EYE, the larger the impact of these idiots.

I wonder if Blizzard is going to do something about it.  I can't imagine that they can continue to ignore the outrage from the players on a topic that is well founded and not the usual forum tripe.

WOW Crafting 3.0 – No More Production Professions

I’d like to see the crafting system in WOW re-designed to be fully committed to the “no production skills needed” nature of its current implementation.  I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the WOW players aren’t really interested in having an in-depth crafting system like EQ, SWG, LOTRO or many of the other MMORPGs.  WOW is the first game that I played where the production portion of crafting was click-n-go – absolutely no interaction on my part needed to ensure the successful outcome of the product.  The crafting system implemented in WOW is all about the components and grinding to get them, along with the rarer recipes. 

I enjoyed the crafting in EQ2 where I had to actively participate in the production system, and my careful attention or lack there of, affected the quality of the item produced. I liked it even better once they removed the subcomponent combines which greatly streamlined the process, but still left the meat of the activity.  I can’t say this is a fact, but it certainly felt like my gathering took a lot less time in EQ2 than it does in WOW.  That of course would make perfect sense because the bulk of my activity was spent in the actual production phase.  During my short visits to EQ2, I met many people whose primary role in the game was crafting – no more, no less and they enjoyed doing it.

A player can’t subscribe to WOW and expect to only craft.  Not only do you have to farm for the best recipes for each profession, Blizzard also implemented character level requirements for the various tiers of recipes.  Therefore unless you level, you won’t be able to get to the more lucrative recipes for your given profession.  I can’t imagine anyone deciding that all they wanted to do in WOW was craft since you don’t really “craft” in the first place.

With the exclusion of primary subcomponents, I think they should remove the production aspect of crafting from WOW all together.  For all the value add of player interaction, or lack there of, we should have NPCs craft the actual items and turn the player professions into gather or pre-process.  For example, a tailor will continue to farm humanoids for cloth and produce specialty bolts and threads, which they then place on the Auction House for sale.  Someone who wants Robe of the Void purchases the necessary components and heads off to a major city to have it crafted by a Master Tailor NPC.  Every profession as it stands today can easily be fitted into this model.

What I’m proposing isn’t some far-fetched idea either.  Pirates of the Burning Sea isn’t going to have players running around crafting items and neither will Conan. And given that the production part of it in WOW is negligible anyway, I say off with its head.

Most players argue that crafting in its current state is a time and gold-sink except for perhaps Alchemy.  The other professions make little or no money until when and “if” they acquire the rare recipes which are found by grinding instances or faction.  To me it’s very obvious that crafting has little to do with production, and succeeds or fails soley based on your luck or effort at grinding – be it for components or the recipes.  If they still feel the need to have some aspect that would distinguish the effort someone has put into “crafting” then have rare collection items or components instead of the production recipes.

There would be some global player benefits from a shift toward this model.  First off, every player would have the ability to get any item they so desired crafted, if they had the materials.  They wouldn’t be bound to finding the player that has the ability to craft that item.  The cost of crafted goods would center exclusively around the components, and not the arbitrary production fees of players.  Since grinding for the mats is mostly what we crafters do, let’s just focus on that part and be done with the “white noise” aspects.    We can still have Bind on Pick-up (BOP) items from the vendors for epic crafted goods, but instead of only a tailor being able to wear the Robe of the Void, anyone who wears cloth can have it made to wear.  Instead of Engineers sucking wind to keep up with that profession for the engineer-only gadgets, everyone can have engineering items made for their use.  Personally, I don’t see the value in making a player tie themselves to a profession just for the BOP items. 

Remove that false incentive of BOPS and instead let people do the kind of gathering they most prefer.  Do we still need two professions in this scenario?  I’m not so sure.  They could diversify the components farmed enough that you’d only want to do one or let people still have two.  And while they’re at it, Cooking and Fishing need to be turned into primary professions as well.  Hell, do away with secondary professions all together. 

Another benefit from this scenario would be the stability of item cost.  I guess people could jack-up the cost of the harvested items but not sure they could do that for long, when anyone would be capable of taking up that profession and providing the mats.  Instead of having to nerf professions to keep the costs of consumables reasonable for raiding, AFTER players have sacrificed time and gold to attaining max levels, the cost of production would have been controlled by the game.  I’m all for player controlled economy but that’s just a myth in WOW.  When Blizzard thinks the cost of something is out of line they intervene anyway – change the nature of the item’s use, alter drop rates, change production cool-downs, etc.  I’d rather have them doing this on the end that wouldn’t affect the player crafting side of things.  Some of the changes to certain professions recently were drastic enough that it could have swayed someone’s choice in selecting that profession.  But it’s much too late to not choose it when you’re level 365 and Blizzard swoops in for the kill.

We all know that the gathering professions are the money-makers – it’s a clear cut fact in WOW.  Let’s eliminate the grind on one side of the equation then.  We’ll keep grinding for materials and rare items, but let the NPCs handle the production and they’ll have access to everything.  They could of course take it a step further and have player, guild, city, race, class or faction quests that have the players unlock the rare recipes on NPCs.  All sorts of fun activities could be implemented for those types of endeavors.  And no, I don’t mean the War Effort grind-fest they did for the Gates of AQ to be opened.  That was some horrid BS.

I’m sure there are lots of creative things that can be done to make having harvest-only professions work.  I just don’t see the point of the production aspect.  It’s just an artificial boundary and cock-block to items.  The system as it stands now is so predicated on grinding, that we might as well do away with the queue-able click-n-go production pieces.  It would also remove the, “please do something for [insert profession here],” forum posts.  All players would have equal access to all crafted items, without being put into a choke-hold to choose a profession based on a couple of BOPs.  More importantly, all professions would be viable revenue streams without the pre-requisite gold-sinks.  Doesn’t that sound like more fun?

There is No Casual Raiding in WOW

I’ve raided hardcore, semi-hardcore and so-called casual.  There is no difference between any of these except that one of these raiding styles isn’t going to be getting anywhere, at least not as far as progressing in the content is concerned.  You might have been able to do casual raiding in pre-TBC content but that’s not really possible now, regardless of any efforts Blizzard has tried to put into place to make raiding more casual-friendly. 

I don’t know if they just went about it wrong or if raiding and casual are just oximorons that can’t be fitted together in a coherent way that is going to satisfy people at both ends of the spectrum.  And as surprised as I am at coming to this conclusion post the disbanding of the 40-man raids and the recent removal of attunements for some of the upper tier raids, I’m even more certain now than I’ve ever been, that you can’t raid casually in World of Warcraft.  I’m not for or against this view.  I’m just of a mind that this is the current state of affairs.

Let me preface this with a small definition, that raiding is more than just poking your head in the instance and meeting the immediate wipe.  Raiding is the measured ability to be able to clear trash and eventually the instance bosses – and this is what can’t be done casually.  I thought the demise of casual raids first appeared with Blackwing Lair, for it was certainly the content that started the divide in the casual guild of which I’d been a member, since day-one in the game and even before WOW.  For it brought with it a required steadfastness that many casual raiding guilds didn’t possess.  It also required massive amounts of consumables above and beyond the standard Fire Resistence.  And even if you attempted it on a casual pace, let’s say two attempts per week, you still had to face down the farming for another evening or two as prerequisites.  So a two-day guild even becomes a three or four day commitment and this is where any thought of “casual” must exit the conversation.

For our guild, it was the instance that started the cracks in the dam, as some wanted even more of a commitment – along the lines of three to four nights raiding + your two farming and now you’ve wrested five days from guild members.  So the war between the casuals and the hardcore began, and so did an exudous of people on both sides of the coin.  I left as a casual or better yet, a person who refused to allow someone else’s sense of urgency comendear five days of my time.  Once that commitment became required, I was out the door but sad to be saying goodbye.  Flip forward to where that particular guild is now and they’ve fallen from being in the top three guilds on a monster popular server, to being among the barely recognizable.  That’s a high price to pay for a family guild – losing long time members for a quest that couldn’t be sustained.

Now we have the raids of The Burning Crusade that offer 10-man and 25-man instances.  I won’t open the debate on how downsizing to such a degree killed many guilds – that’s fodder for another day.  What I will offer is that although the number of people required was reduced and they toned down consumables, what has been raised significantly, are the skills required to master the instance.  Not only does Johnny need to be there on time, in decent gear and have his consumables, he needs to intimately know the strategies and more importantly, execute them flawlessly.  And it is the latter that really puts much of this content out of the reach of the casual player.  Being a good Warlock is one thing.  Knowing how to be the perfect Warlock in a Prince encounter, is a whole other story.

I know you have to be prepared to raid – that’s nothing new.  But what hit me like a sledgehammer, was watching us faulter in our guild attempts at Prince, night after night after night, ad nauseum.  It wasn’t that we didn’t know “what” to do and “when” to do it.  It’s that it must be so precise, that when we changed out a couple of people here and there for each attempt, it became impossible to be impeccible.  Why? Because Harry as MT Priest does things just a tiny bit different than Lisa the MT Priest, and as a healing trio, Lisa, Harry and John, do it just enough different than when it’s Lisa, Geoge and Linda, that it causes a wipe.  And on and on, as tonight it’s this Warlock because of the kids or that Mage because it’s someone’s late night at work or this tank because of exams.  You can’t win at encounters of precision when they players must be continually changed out.  Yet this is what casual players need – versatility and the option of coming and going in the raid activity.

You could if you chose to do so, continue wiping and changing, wiping and changing until everyone has played with everyone enough, that it doesn’t matter and you’ll eventually get a boss down.  Then wind up and start all over for the next boss.  However, I think in most cases the players will give up long before that day arrives.  I mean – this is supposed to be fun, not someone’s second job.  And if all they get for weeks on end are repair bills in between racing off to farm so they can jump in an instance and fail… Well, I think you can see my point.  Some people will elect to pass on that oh-so-fun little adventure in Raid-land, and instead opt to play a different character or progress their main down the PVP trail, which is by the way, much more casual friendly.  Today I’m here but tomorrow I’m not.  Today we won, yesterday we didn’t.  So what?  The repair bills don’t stack up as quickly, basic consumables can be purchased with marks and no need to farm more than a couple of hours – not days per week, if at all.

Now that I’ve been in Karazhan several times my impression is that the content is good. It’s certainly exciting and it’s thrilling to down the bosses.  Prince is down yes, but do we have it or farm?  No, we don’t but we’re thinking of starting a second raid group so that other members can see this new content.  However, for myself, I have to consider if I really want to be on either raid team.  When I came to the realization that what was getting us closer to downing Prince was the consistency of having the same players, it hit me as, “Oh shit, that’s going to suck.”  What’s going to happen when so-n-so isn’t online?  In case you haven’t been there yet, the consistency is important because it builds a rhythm that can be counted on and helps to offset the random trash and special attacks that they’ve built into each encounter.  You can’t win these encounters in our old maverick devil-may-care style of just keeping the tank up and aggro off the healers.  That will not work now.

This collective heartbeat and synchronization is so strongly intertwined in Kara, that once we had the same group together and we’re on our A+ game, we started whizzing through the trash with seven and eight people, while waiting for the other raid members to login. No new gear yet acquired and Prince not downed yet, and we could get to him in ¼ the time it had taken us the week before, all because we’d nailed the core people and we were moving as a single fluid unit.  That’s hard to come by in casual situations.  On the third night of finally having the same people with the exception of one person, Prince went down.  If we tally it up, it took the guild as a whole three weeks just to make it to Prince’s door, then two weeks of hammering at him, then five days in a row with pretty much the same group and finally it culminated with that same group needing three nights in a row together, to get him down.

Looking at this scenario and knowing all that is required to raid, I’ll contest that it’s in any way, casual friendly.  So here you are at level 70 and you’ll have to ask yourself, “Is this what I want from playing WOW?”  Can I honestly make that commitment, knowing that if I agree to go as the [insert class here] to help my guild, that when I can’t make it, they’ll be screwed?  People will die, waste consumables or just flat-out not be able to go when the key classes aren’t available.  That’s what WOW raiding is now.  When it was forty-man, we on occasion started with less hoping to get to thirty-eight at least before any boss encounters.  You won’t be trying to down bosses with less than the 10-man required, until your gear has progresses above it, by which time, you’re already in the next Tier of content.

Now that the excitement has worn off, I can be honest and say, “No, I personally don’t possess the same level of desire or commitement to playing WOW that I once held.  And that being the case, it pretty much excludes me from being raid material.”  Personally, I’m okay with that fact.  If I could raid one or two nights a week, and not have to grind or farm much to support that schedule, I do it.  Sadly, that is not the state of raiding in WOW.  I’ll return to PVP and if I get called on to pinch hit, I will, but I won’t be attempting to join the static raid teams.

AFK Players Destroying WOW Battlegrounds

If you've been visiting the WOW forums lately, you'll see many posts in the General and PVP forums begging Blizzard to do something about AFK players in the Battlegrounds.  We're all used to a handful of people going AFK in the entrance areas leeching honor without participating in the event.  For some reason the numbers have gone from a half-dozen odd people doing it, to a couple of dozen people when things are at it's worse.  That's HALF of a faction's fighting force in AV who are too lazy, stupid, inconsiderate and bad sportsman, ruining the game for other players.

Let’s get real. Playing the BGs isn’t hard if you don’t care about winning.  So if you don’t, then you don’t have to rush.  You don’t have to take unnecessary risks in encounters.  Don’t do anything much – just follow the flow and pitch in a little.  If you’re stuck in a group of idiots then just farm Honor Kills until it’s all over.  But for God’s sake, don’t just AFK.  You ruin the experience for the other participants and impact their opportunity to gain bonus honor.

Blizzard’s stance is that as long as the player isn’t using an illegal program  to prevent them from getting removed for being idle, then the player isn’t doing anything wrong.  So if Johnny just sits in the cave pressing his spacebar every few minutes, he’s playing the game his way and within the bounds of game rules.  It doesn’t matter that his behavior is in direct conflict with the spirit of the game.

Fine, if they can just sit there and do nothing, so be it.  However, what real PVP players want Blizzard to do, is to only grant the honor and the marks to players in the encounter who have killed the enemy or healed players taking damage.  Anything – something that shows they actually participated in order to gain the honor and the marks.

This can’t be hard to do.  Blizzard already does these kinds of checks with PVE encounters.  If you’re in a party, you have to be within a certain distance of the mob killed in order to gain the XP.  If you’re in a party you have to be within a certain distance of the kill to gain faction.  They can easily do the same for BG honor.  Why don’t they?  Perhaps they don’t want to piss off some fraction of their customer-base who deems this as acceptable behavior?  Maybe they feel it's the so-called casuals who are gaining their honor in this fashion?  Who knows what their reason is for not addressing this problem.  And quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about their reasons. 

What do I care about, is the fact that PVP as it stands now, is a piss poor excuse for player conflict anyway and any more deterioration of it’s game play, makes it borderline worthless.  PVP is supposedly the other white meat – that other end-game option if you don’t want to raid.  If that’s the case, then how dare they let a portion of the player population decide to break its intended use?  Would they allow some rogue group of players exploit how end-game bosses work?  Hell no!  Anytime a raid boss or instance exploit is discovered that shit is patched up and nullified ASAP.

Yet they continue to allow AFK players to gain unearned honor points, while causing others to lose bonus honor when they lose the encounter, thereby increasing the amount of time it will take them to earn their rewards.  A whole guild got banned for using an exploit to skip trash mobs they’d already proven they could clear so they could get straight on to pwning the boss.  Who did those players hurt?  What they did had no negative impact on any other raids.  Yet they were sent packing.  In fact,  theirs was actually a victimless crime, whereas the AFKer’s in BGs, negatively affect hundreds of other players.

We already know PVP was tacked on to WOW as some light night after thought.  We already know that raid content is king in WOW and if you’re not down with that program you’re a second-class citizen.  We get it.  It's alright that you can't figure out how to fix PVP in general.  We’ve gotten over it and moved on, so don’t let these worthless people ruin the little PVP that we do have in the game.  You got rid of the Gold Farmers now get rid of the BG AFKers!

In my mind, if Blizzard chooses not to address this issue, they are saying that end-game is only about organized content.  If you can't find a static party to raid with or at this point, also PVP with, then you're just subject to the PUG bullshit and people purposefully going AFK in your Battleground.  If you can't roll with a guild or group of friends, then I guess you get what you get.

Down the Rabbit Hole into Karazhan

A couple of weeks ago I joined a guild with my Warlock and Paladin.  It wasn't by design.  In fact, it was merely as a result of trying to improve communication between the members of our 5v5 Arena team.  While running around healing the mayhem in AV, I was invited to join a 5v5 and 3v3 arena team as the healer.

Until now I've not been very interested in playing the arenas even though the gear is vastly better than the standard BG fare.  For one, I wasn't in the mood to start a team of my own.  Secondly, I wasn't sure that I wanted to commit to playing WOW on certain days, at certain times.  But after the first couple of days playing with this team, I enjoyed their company and since they were all in the same guild, it just made sense to be in it too.

Our schedule is to do our required ten matches on Thursday evenings starting at 8 PM server time.  I was on and ready to go when I received a whisper from our tank that we wouldn't be able to go because three of our five members were raiding.  I was a little disappointed but no matter, we could get the matches in on Friday instead.

With nothing else to do, I decided to pop on to my Warlock and use my tailoring cool-downs.  Surprisingly, doing nothing but PVP still costs gold.  I don't use any potions other than the ones I buy with spare marks, but you still need food, water and have repair bills. I've also been slowly buying gems for my sockets and putting enchants on the gear that I will keep a while longer.

My Paladin has no professions yet to speak and farming on him would be a royal pain in the butt.  Consequently, when I need cash for him, I farm or craft on the Warlock.  I'd only just logged in on my Warlock when someone whispered asking my spec. I told them and asked who they were.  It turned out to be one of the guild leaders, and he asked if I'd come DPS for Karazhan.

At first I hesitated.  I hadn't played the Warlock in a raid setting in many months.  Other than farming mats, I hadn't done anything on Vellora (used to be Saylah but had to rename when I brought her back to my account) in at least six months.  I was relunctant but since this was Kara and likely to be my only time seeing it I said, "Sure."

As I headed to Duskwood from Shatterath, I told the raid leader that I hadn't play the class in a long time and had never done Kara.  He told me to go to the guild raid forum, read the strategy and watch the related video while I was on my way.  When I landed in Ironforge I hurried to the bank to grab some potions, bandages and a bag of Soul Shards that I always keep full in case of emergency - old raiding habit.

You can well imagine my nervousness when I heard they were on Prince.  I'd only been in the guild for a couple of days, had never spoken to anyone other than the people on the arena team, and here I was about to walk into their most important raid goal at the moment - pawning Prince.  My hands were perspiring and I had to turn on the fan to keep from breaking out into a sweat.  This was a PVP guild that had recently decided to take on raid progression, so this was rather improtant to them.  This maybe nothing more than a game but raiding is serious business. *Smile* 

I arrived at Kara to find the area swarming with Horde. "Just great," I thought to myself.  "Now they'll have to wait while I make the slow death walk to the entrance."  You know the drill.  You race to get as close to the entrance as possible, knowing that you're going to die.  Each time you resurrect yourself, you try to gain a few more feet before your next death.  Until little by little, you can rez close enough to step into the instance portal.

I was rattled by having to die three times to make it inside, conscious that they were all standing around waiting for me.  Plus once I was inside, I had no earthly idea how to find Prince.  Geez, I felt like such a nub.  When I said as much in vent, they told me to talk to the NPC and select to be ported to the Library and someone from the group would come to meet me and show me the way.

All too soon, I was standing outside the massive wooden doors leading to the chamber (more like a terrace), where Prince was anxiously pacing in circles.  "Good, he's nervous too."  I exchanged greetings with the raid members, buffed up, accepted the "Ready Check" and began the encounter.  So many things were running through my head I couldn't enjoy the scenary.  I was focused on what "to do" and "not to do" based on the video I saw.  I kept checking my aggro.  God forbid I pulled Prince of the tank and wiped the raid.  I think I'd have to /gquit from embarrassment and shame.

We ended up wiping anyway but not because of anything I'd done.  We attempted it several more times and continued to wipe at the phase two transition.  Given that they'd already been at it for a couple of hours they decided to call it a night.  People were tired and they clearly needed a new strategy for that transition.  No point in dying over and over for nothing.

It was fun to be in Kara and facing a boss I've read so much about on the forums.  It was a thrilling fight where you had to be on your game every second.  I felt that old familiar rush of adrenaline pumping through me.  And even though I died and used up a lot of expensive consumables, it was worth it. 

Everyone thanked me for coming at the last minute and I thanked them for the invite.  Just before I hearthed out the raid leader whispered me and asked if I'd be interested in coming back to try again tomorrow.  Just like the first time he whispered, I hesitated before answering. 

Sure, I'd had lots of fun and they seemed like a nice group of people.  But I already knew where this kind of story would go from here... Raiding schedules, farming mats for consumables, the hamster wheel of farming reputation to get the better gear needed to take on raid bosses, only so that you can kill them for even better gear and making commitments that if broken, negatively affect other players. 

Worrying about raids and guild progression goals hadn't been my WOW "story" for a long time.  Is that really something I wanted to do?  What about my Paladin?  What about the arena team?  What about my stance that I'm above all this and am only a casual player?  For as long as I've not raided, I haven't missed it.  I think it's like crack what Blizzard has done with their phat loot, the prestige of killing infamous lore charactrs and the need to feel l33t.

Hadn't I already denounced all of this as evil?  Hadn't I proclaimed to be above it?  I've thumbed my nose at it for months.  Yet after a small taste I weakened, succumbed to the WOW-beast and replied, "Sure, what time?"

Choosing Professions for the Paladin

Dweeb that my son was about professions, he didn't level any on his Paladin that I inherited.  I'm thinking that when I gave him an equal level character in exchange, I definitely got the raw end of the stick in that regard.  He got a maxed out Tailor, Enchanter, Fisherman and Cook!  I got a toon with 75 First Aide.  Granted getting a Paladin to alleviate my angst over the botched Holy Priest I had at 70 was a blessing so I'll have to get over that he has no professions.

My first thought was Herbalist/Alchemy.  I always needs potions for myself and potions sell well.  The only concern I had was that the lowbie potions, the range of which are now extended with the raised cap, don't sell worth a crap.  Then I thought about doing two gathering professions - skinning & mining or skinning & herbalism.  Either pair is probably a safe bet.  Then I asked myself, why not try something new?  It's not like I'm jumping for joy to still be playing WOW (topic for another day), so why complicate matters by doing the same ole same.

I've dabbled in engineering on an abandoned hunter and know that it's a money sink - money that I don't have at the moment, but is supposed to be a nice perk for PVP.  Then it occurred to me that there is one profession that I never touched - Blacksmith.  Having recently availed myself of some crafted goods on the AH to quickly get the Paladin out of his remaining T2 gear after spending the Honor I'd gained before I took my little break, it occurred to me that BS might be a nice profession to have has a Pally.

Do I go for the tried and true two gathering professions or try for Mining and Blacksmithing?  Thoughts?

Back at It

It's a confirmed and done deal - all WOW accounts were cancelled except for one, that being mine.  It seems strange some times not to be paying for multiple accounts.  I catch myself wanting to chat about something I read on the forums or heard on a podcact, only to realize that no one else in my house cares about that stuff anymore.  I'm back to being the gaming alien.  My son would like to be playing something - Xbox 360 to be exact.  However, with the new house purchase and all, that's not in the cards for a few months.

Before cancelling I merged all mains onto my account.  In doing so, I brought the entire fold, save one, back to Illidan where it all began.  I wish that I could bring my Priest over, not that I'd play her but she just seems stranded now.  However, I had moved her many months back to a PVE RP server to play with friends who didn't stick around, so now she can't never be moved back to a PVP server.  I think they need to change that rule.  World PVP is all but dead these days.  There's not much difference in leveling on PVE vs. PVP.  Yeah, there's some gankage along the way, but NOTHING like back in the day.

So what to do, what to do?  My plan for now is arena on the Paladin.  Even though I'd like to heal some end game content, I keyed on the Priest and refuse to do that crap again.  If I happen to trip across a casual end game guild I might do some on the Warlock.  If not, then I'll use her to try out the new patch content and quests.  While I was tooling around in AB last nite, I was invited to a 5v5 team and am looking forward to seeing how this works out.

Profession Notes - 300 to 375

Tailoring 300 to 375 Guide by Highlander on EU-Terenas and Lobotomy on EU-Frostmane


300 - 325
Bolts of Netherweave (6 x Netherweave Cloth each)
(Seriously, your going to need about 430 bolts, so you may as well get the skill up's for it)

325 - 340
Bolts of Imbued Netherweave (3 x Bolts of Netherweave, 2 x Arcane Dust each)
(You'll need at least 90 bolts for later, so that should see you through to 340)

340 - 350
Netherweave Boots (6 x Bolts of Netherweave, 2 x Knothide Leather, 1 x Rune Thread each) x 10

350 - 360
Netherweave Tunic (8 x Bolts of Netherweave, 2 x Rune Thread each) x 10

360 - 375
Imbued Netherweave Tunic¹ (6 x Imbued Netherweave Bolts, 2 x Netherweb Spider Silk, 1 x Rune Thread each) x 15

¹Pattern is sold by Arrond in Shadowmoon Valley in limited supply. You need to have Scryers rep to be able to talk to him or be neutral with both Scryers and Aldors, but they are not BoP, so if your aligned with the Aldors, get someone else to buy them for you.

N.B. If your an enchanter, disenchant all the Netherweave Robes and Boots for Arcane Dust. If your not, get a friend or guild mate who is to do it for you. This will save you some money on Arcane Dust. Thanks to Chiyochan on EU-Bladefist for pointing this out :o)


Approximate Materials Required

2460 x Netherweave Cloth
180 x Arcane Dust
35 x Netherweb Spider silk
35 x Rune Thread
20 x Knothide Leather

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Enchanting 300 to 375 Guide by Highlander on EU-Terenas


300 - 301
Runed Fel Iron Rod (1 x Fel Iron Rod, 4 x Greater Eternal Essence, 6 x Large Brilliant Shard, 1 x Runed Arcanite Rod) x 1

301 - 305
Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense (8 x Illusion Dust) x 7

305 - 315
Enchant Bracers - Assault or Brawn (6 x Arcane Dust) x 10

315 - 325
Enchant Cloak - Major Armour or Enchant Gloves - Assault (8 x Arcane Dust) x 10

325 - 335
Enchant Chest - Major Spirit (2 x Greater Planar Essence) x 10

335 - 340
Enchant Shield - Major Stamina (15 x Arcane Dust) x 5

340 - 345
Superior Wizard Oil (3 x Arcane Dust, 1 x Nightmare Vine, 1 x Imbued Vial) x 10
If you have the mats, keep making this until 350. You may need to make another 15-20, so top off with Major Strength below, if your not getting any regular skill ups

345 - 350
Enchant Gloves - Major Strength (12 x Arcane Dust, 1 x Greater Planar Essence) x 5

350 - 351
Runed Adamantite Rod (1 x Adamantite Rod, 8 x Greater Planar Essence, 8 x Large Prismatic Shard, 1 x Primal Might, 1 x Runed Fel Iron Rod) x 1

351 - 360
Enchant Gloves - Major Strength (12 x Arcane Dust, 1 x Greater Planar Essence) x 15

360 - 370
Enchant Ring - Striking (8 x Large Prismatic Shard, 24 x Arcane Dust) x 10 (requires Consortium Revered rep and the formula is called Enchant Ring - Weapon Might but the enchant is called Enchant Ring - Striking, confused?)

Or

Enchant Ring - Spellpower (8 x Large Prismatic Shard, 8 x Greater Planar Essence) x 10 (requires Keepers of Time honoured rep. Basically, do Durnholde, do BM...your honoured. Easy.)

370 - 375
Enchant Ring - Healing Power (8 x Large Prismatic Shard, 10 x Greater Planar Essence, 20 x Arcane Dust) x 5 (requires Sha'tar revered rep)

Approximate Materials Required

1 x Fel Iron Rod
4 x Greater Eternal Essence
6 x Large Brilliant Shard
1 x Runed Arcanite Rod
56 x Illusion Dust
645 x Arcane Dust
96 x Greater Planar Essence
10 x Nightmare Vine
10 x Imbued Vial
1 x Adamantite Rod
128 x Large Prismatic Shards
1 x Primal Might

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Fishing and Cooking 300 to 375 Guide by Highlander on EU-Terenas


Ok, first things first. A quick shopping trip.
Buy lures!! +75's preferably.
Now go and buy the Master Cookbook, to give yourself master cooking level.

If your Horde, buy it from Baxter in Thrallmar (Hellfire Peninsula).
If your Alliance, buy it from Gaston in Honorhold (Hellfire Peninsula).

Now go buy Master Fishing - The Art of Angling from Juno Dufrain in Cenarion Refuge (Zangarmarsh).

Now go buy Recipe: Blackened Trout.
If your Horde, buy it from Gambarinka in Zabra'jin (Zangarmarsh).
If your Alliance, buy it from Doba in Orebor Harborage (Zangarmarsh). Whilst your here buy Recipe: Feltail Delight.

Horde can go back to Swamprat Post and buy Recipe: Feltail Delight from Zurai.

Head back to Cenarion Refuge and fish for Barbed Gill Trout and Spotted Feltail.

You only need to catch about 25 in total too get your cooking up to 320. Your fishing level will probably only be about 305 by this stage, if your lucky (it's a long, slow process and not for the easily bored).
Cook up the Trout and Feltails.

Now take a trip to see Nula the Butcher in Garadar if your Horde or Uriku in Telaar if your Alliance. Both in Nagrand. Buy Recipe: Poached Bluefish and find a nice quiet spot in Nagrand to fish for Icefin Bluefish. Your really going to need to have lures attached here, unless you spent a lot more time in Zangarmarsh fishing.
Keep fishing till you have about 40 Bluefish and then cook them to take your cooking to 350.

Ok, the next bit requires a flying mount, as the only recipe that will take you to 375 easily is Spicy Crawdads which requires Furious Crawdads. They are only found in one of three lakes in Terokkar forest. All of which can only be accessed with a flying mount.

The three lakes are:
Lake Jorune - north west of Stonebreaker Hold.
Lake Ere'Noru - south east of Allerian Stronghold.
Blackwind Lake - in the south east corner of the map, in the Skettis area.

If your Alliance, go see Innkeeper Biribi in Allerian Stronghold (Terokkar Forest) and buy Recipe: Spicy Crawdad.
Horde go see Rungor in Stonebreaker Hold (Terokkar Forest) and buy Recipe: Spicy Crawdad.

You'll need to catch about 30 Furious Crawdads to max out your cooking.

By this point, your fishing will probably only be about level 320. But you may as well stay in Terokkar Forest and fish for Golden Darters. When cooked, these give a +44 healing and +20SPI buff, so they are great to sell to healing classes.

Or you can head back to Nagrand and fish for Figluster's Mudfish, which give a +20AGI and +20SPI buff when cooked.
Either way, to get to 375 your going to have to make about 650 successful catches. That should take a normal person about 8 hours, so you'll want to break that up into something like 30-60 minute chunks, spread out over a period of time.

Remember that it does not matter where you fish, your skill up rate will remain the same. It's all based on successful catches. So fish anywhere you want and you'll still get skill ups.

When the Fat Lady Sings

Today my son announced that he's quiting the World of Warcraft.  I'm surprised on one level and not on another.  I guess he's serious.  He's already uninstalled the game and told me to take my Warlock back and put it on my account, so that his account can be closed.

He said the game just isn't the same.  He's a competitive player and their guild just isn't what it was pre TBC.  The guild that we were both a member of used to be one of the top three raiding guilds on Illidan. You may recall that I quit several months ago over the war between the casuals and hardcore, when required raid attendance suddenly reared it's head in our guild, which had always been - even before WOW,  a casual family oriented guild.  We were a family and that was our mantra.  People wanting to get into Naxx while others were just burned out and wanted to PVP or play alts, was the first spike that started the divide amongst friends.  Then TBC came along and fanned the flames with the raid size changes, completely new content and new races, player differences and varying priorities just became more pronounced.

The first real splintering came with the drive to 70.  Some people ran, some sauntered and others just started over, choosing to leave their former personaes behind.  When the more hardcore got to 70 there weren't enough members along side so new cliques formed, some of which were with other level 70s outside of the guild.  The first ten got into Kara without looking back, and the once f"amily above all" guild, wasn't quite the same.

Trying to piece things together they'd made some unpopular rules about raiding with alts versus mains - made and A team and a B team, which caused some hurt feelings and drama.  In the end, they've slipped way back in the raiding pack on the server which my son hasn't been happy about, yet he's also just not inspired enough to find a new guild and begin again, so he's quitting.

Part of me finds it hard to believe that someone who loved WOW like he did, knew so much about the game, classes, raid encounters, weapons, armor, etc. can just up and walk away.  For me, the apple hasn't been shiny for quite some time, but him - quit? WOW, is about all I can say.  He didn't like LOTRO and really disliked EQ2.  For now he says he'll just wait for Warhammer.

Meh, this leaves me feeling a bit down about it all.  It's one of the things we could always talk about and bond around - MMOs.  Blizzard's lead Dev recently posted on the forums that they feel priest healing is right where it should be in the game, so any hopes of seeing the Holy Tree fixed have been nailed into the coffin.  And given that in the same post they basically said that they needed to nerf Paladins to bring them in line with the Priests, we can stop hoping for a miracle on that score as well.

It's definitely not a good week for WOW in our household.  However, with summer coming, us buying a new house with more space and great backyard for entertaining, lots of work and a trip to Quebec in August, I'm sure we'll find plenty of other things to do until Conan, Spellborn, Pirates of the Burning Sea or Warhammer release.

My First Show ast Co-Host for WOWPodcast

Hey all, my first episode as co-host on WOWPodcast is finally up.  You can check it out by listening to episode 25. We were delayed this week because "who's on first" was doing video, as in, everyone thought someone else was doing it. :-)

Tonight we recorded the show for next week and uhm, I won't be surprised if they re-think their newest host choices, myself included. *Smile*  We were joined by yet another new host and the episode drifted into mass confusion, riotous behavior and innuendos that I'm going to have to edit out of the audio!  For a second, I thought I was on MOG.  I mean things got a little too loose because the chemistry of the hosts just clicked a little toooooooo well.

Been MIA from LOTRO for WOW

No new character progression for my Captain in LOTRO.  Having not played my main, I certainly haven't rolled a farming alt.  Knowing that I can only get another 3 levels anyway at this point, allows me to procrastinate a bit.

Instead I've been in WOW playing a Paladin - my new Paladin.  Background first...So several months back I wrote that my son was burned out on his Healadin.  He hadn't realized that choosing the plate wearing dude would land in the back of the raid, cooling his heals with the skirts, cleansing and healing only.  Like all young men, he had visions of pwnage in his head.  So after reaching 60 and doing the 4 nights a week raid thing, we were both about done with WOW.

For me, I was sick to death of looking at my Warlock.  I'd been playing for about 18 months at the time and had no alts.  I'd gotten to the point that just looking at her made me ill.  I went off to EQ2-it for a while and he asked to play my Warlock.  A month or so later I come back to WOW and well, needed my character back in order to play.  But I could tell that he was rather bummed.  He'd been grouping with her and had done a few raids in Naxx.  Although he didn't say as much, I could tell that he'd gotten hooked on the damage out put.  Trying to be nice and not wanting him to quite WOW over it, I gave him my Warlock.

He offered up his Paladin, also at 60, in return.  It was almost an equal trade - both 60s, already in T2 and attuned for all raid content.  Only difference was that I always max out all professions (tailor/enchanter), including cooking and fishing, while he does NONE.  He hadn't even bothered to level his First Aide.  Dork.  At the time I declined the offer.  I couldn't see taking his Main - his namesake character, even though that's what I was giving him.

Several months have passed since I transferred my Warlock to his account.  I went about rolling and leveling my Priest, who is now retired and will stay that way, until Blizzard gets a clue about the Holy tree.  Before the Priest I started a Paladin but the leveling was painfully slow.  Shortly after I ditched my priest, I went back to my Paladin.  In that time they'd been buffed into great healers, viable tanks and at least no longer laughable DPS.

With the Paladin bitch-slap changes looming, I wanted to know if I was really going to stay a Paladin.  I'm not into rolling the flavor of the month.  But I'm not going to take it...I'll use the PG version...I'm not going to take in on the chin to be a healer either.  And if I wanted to off-tank, I'd have to re-grind all of his gear, which is all spec'd for healing.  Therefore, if healing as a Paladin is greatly diminished, bye-bye Paladin. 

I decided that the best way to test how the Palading pre-nerf, compares the the Paladin post nerf, is to play a high level Paladin.  Himm, now where can I get my hands on a level 70 Paladin?  I know, the son whose games and internet connection I lovingly provide. I asked my son if I could get on his account for a while and play around, to which he said, "Sure."  He's been distracted by catching up on the Sopranos so he can see the final season.  Too bad he laughed it off as for you old folks, when I first suggested that he'd probably like it.  But hey, what the hell do I know.  Oops, I digress.

I played a few BGs as an easy way to try out his spec without having to form or deal with an instance PUG.  Plus I didn't want to compromise someone's group trying to be main healer before I was comfortable with the level 70 skills that I hadn't encountered before.  It was good.  It was the fast-paced fun I remembered BGs to be on my priest, but without the deaths. LOL  I'll do a different post about how few players tried to dismount when they saw me going by for a quick kill.  I kid you not, I don't recall a single time that one player tried to jump me one-on=one.  It was like four or six of them converged or they all steered clear.  Man, it felt good to be the king.

After three nights of doing this, he kinda wanted his account back to himself, and once again offered up his Paladin.  I thought about it.  Didn't really want. But then I figured why not?  It's just sitting there idle anyway.  Why run mine from 44 to 70 if I don't have to? 

So with the easy way out, I now have a newly transfered 70 Paladin to play with.  The only thing I don't like is that I'm playing a "he".  But I guess if he can get over playing a "she", I can do it in reverse.  In the beginning he really hated the idea that people would think he was a girl. LOL

Knocking through teams in BG has been a distraction from LOTRO the past few days.  For now, I just want to get my spec to match my play-style.  I want to choose what PVP rewards I'm gunning for and grind his professions to 300 -at least.  I'm going to go pure gatherer with mining and skinning.  After that, this toon will be set for me to be able to just pop on WOW when I'm in the mood and do some PVP as my way of upgrading his gear, and farm occasionally to make the gold for the flying mount.  Once those ducks are in a row, I'll be heading back to LOTRO.  I just can leave something half planned - I don't have to complete it all, but the plan of attack must be in place.

f figure by the weekend I'll have had my fill for PVP for a while and can head back to LOTRO.  Before I got distracted I was trying to decide on my alt class.  I thought about ranger but they're pet-less in LOTRO.  Lore Master was fun but I want something low maintenance since it's just a crafting alt.  I've never ever played a rogue so maybe I should give that a try?

Blizzard Back-Hands Paladins

You know they just never cease to amaze me.  Not long ago I was complaining about how badly the healing priests were doing in TBC, and was quite angry that hybrids in non-healing gear could out heal a Holy Priest.  What I was looking for - along with every other Holy Priest, were buffs and fixes to make us competitive.  What did Blizzard do instead?  Bitch-slap the Paladins.  GG Blizzard!

Paladins are taking multiple hits but one of them is a real kick in the nuts - 50% reduction to Illumination's mana return.  I won't bore you on the details here.  If you want an in-depth explanation, read this excellent forum post.  Net-net is that Illumination has been in place for two years and dramatically affects how Paladins gear themselves.  Their buffing stats are built around +Crit and Spell damage not MPS gear, so if they're getting their mana regeneration nerfed, they now need different gear - gear that isn't readily available in Plate, and I wonder who determines the stats of the class sets?  Hmm, I think it's Blizzard.  You want to see drama?  Wait for the first Holy Paladin to /roll on cloth gear for the +Int or MPS, and win it over a Priest.  There will be a Holy war in game and on the forums of truly epic proportion