WoW Rest Stop

I've been feeling pretty good about the game lately but sometimes a few asshats ruin everything.  Last night I ran Shribryn in a good ICC 10 PuG run by Chewy and was able to finish 8/12 bosses in ICC.  That gave me plenty of badges which I was able to get another tier piece for Shrib.  It was a nice relaxed run and everyone got lots of loot.

Fast forward to tonight.  I knew I wanted to run Henna and Delan in ICC tonight and figured since I waited that I was going to have trouble finding a decent group. 

Henna's ICC group had low dps and while I was able to keep everyone alive while everyone had over a 5.2k gearscore only a few could break 5k in dps and most were under 4k.  One bad thing is even though we had a vent server, the raid leader never joined it.  He is one of the rising problems for PuGs.  That being players that create a raid but have no support mechanism (vent) or ability/desire to actually call out strategies.  Most of these people say ... there's the boss ... hit it until dead.  You can get away with that on the first few bosses but not when you go further into the instance.  When we hit Saurfang I knew we where in trouble and the fact a boomkin had no idea how to do the fight made it even worse.  We wiped badly and when the group questioned the boomkin he had a sudden disconnect.  This boomkin never dps'ed the adds, had a 5.5k gearscore and did a little over 4k in damage while focused on the boss the whole time.  The loss of a raid member that far into an instance means a disband on that's what happened.  Result: 3/12 bosses down.... no loot.

Delan's ICC group looked pretty good at the start.  The dps on the trash was stellar but it is really hard to tell due to all the aoe's.  One issue I had is I've been working on improving my keybinds for Delan and when I got into the raid I fell back into my old keybind habits and stunted my dps.  I did well on the trash but on the first boss a hunter less geared than I outdps'ed my by about 10%.  I redid all my keybinds for the second boss but continued to struggle as my mind has half learned the old keybinds and the new keybinds.  As opposed to Henna's group this raid had vent and was talking non-stop during the first few bosses.  His favorite subject was about how much he wanted a drop from the 3rd boss.  DPS wasn't a huge issue in this group as even though I was struggling on Delan I was still hitting 7-8k dps with her.  The other hunter was in the same ballpark while a rogue was in the same vicinity.  No one really was really low although it was obvious a few people didn't know the fights that well.  We finish the 3rd boss and I actually lead dps on that fight even with my gimped setup.  The leader loots the chest and immediately says, "NOOOOOO!"  I had forgotten his earlier comments about wanting a piece of loot and it was obvious it didn't drop.  He passes out the loot and someone asks for a 2 minute break.  It took us 40 minutes to get through the first 3 bosses which was a pretty fair pace.  Then the leader comes on vent, "Sorry guys.  Step dad is making me logoff.  Gotta go...", and he's gone.  Weakest excuse ever.  The rest of us have to pick up the pieces but the rogue says... I need to go too and logs.  Keep in mind we have only been raiding for 40 minutes.  Most guilds raid for 4 hours straight for 3-4 nights a week and it is obvious that both of these guys logged because the bosses we could down didn't have the loot they wanted.  We decide to try to 8 man it but me and the other hunter are the only ranged dps.  I think it is a fools errand but we got him to 10% before wiping.  It was obvious that our 4 dps just couldn't pull it off.  It didn't help that me and the other hunter lead the charts despite needing to kite/kill mobs.  We all cursed the 2 players that left and left group.  Result: 3/12 bosses down.  No loot.

It is amazing how two bad runs like this can put a damper on the whole game.  I am pretty dependent on pugs for my gear these days and runs like this just make me want to never do it again.  I really hope that Blizzard 's new 10 man raiding focus will make things like this a thing of the past.  The key I think is to be in a guild that has lots of alts so I don't need to depend on pugs. 

May the asshats roast in hell.

I laugh at all the angst among the Horde about the coming leadership change.  Though the details are scarce it was said at Blizzcon last year that Garrosh is taking Thrall's place as leader and Cairne Bloodhoof is going to be killed by Garrosh.  This cause a wave of outrage from many Horde players.  Recently it was said that the Dragonmaw are going to ally themselves with the orc in Cataclysm now some people are upset all over again.

Honestly, I sometimes question the actions of Varian and Garrosh but does it make any sense that we've had fighting in Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, etc for years but the leaders are essentially pacifists?  I say bring on the hate. 

As far those that are upset at their leadership ... it is easy to take the facts we know and portray Garrosh as a hero.  Here's my quick attempt:

Varian decides after the fall of the Lich King to get back some of the territory lost to the Horde in WC1-3 and attacks Hammerfall.  While Jaina and Thrall are engaged in peace talks Varian attacks Tarren Mill.  He is surprised there by Garrosh and his small army fresh from Northrend and Varian's forces fall back to Southshore to regroup.  Garrosh calls for help from his allies but all but the trolls decline due to losses in the recent Northrend battles.  Desperate,  Garrosh sends an emissary to the Dragonmaw with an offer of general amnesty if they join his cause -- they accept.  Thrall continues to work with Jaina for a peace treaty but they are unable to get Varian from attacking Tarren Mill once again.  This time Garrosh not only to stops the offensive but regains all the lost territory when his new-found Dragonmaw allies attack Arathi from the South.  Varian is forced to abandon Southshore and retreat to his starting position.  Thrall is now discredited by his calls for peace so the orcs remove him as leader and put Garrosh in his place.  Garrosh's first act is to boldly march to Thunder Bluff and challenge Cairne Bloodhoof for his failure to support him at Tarren Mill.  They engage in single combat and Garrosh emerges the victor.  The Tauren install Baine Bloodhoof their new leader. When Garrosh returns to Orgimmar his first act is to banish all non-orc/troll from the city.  The war has drawn into a stalemate centered on Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch, and Twilight Highlands but things are starting to settle down and talks are occurring again among the Horde leaders.  Then the Cataclysm hits....

I'm sure he will be arrogant prick the whole time but Garrosh would be a hero in this story.  I'm sure Blizzard's version will be much better but I think I think it is funny that people threaten a race change over lore that is unpublished.

I just looked at the changes in the resto tree and my mind is blown.  In my opinion, the current baseline druid build is this.  This level 80 build leaves 2 pts that most put into either Sublety, Tranquil Spirit, Improved Tranquility or Improved Barkskin.  

There has been massive changes to the talent tree in Cataclysm.  You can see the current tree  here.


The biggest changes I've noticed so far:

• Resto Druids are going to need to put at least 16 pts into Balance to get Nature's Splendor.  The issue is the third tier where there isn't an obvious choice after the 3 pts in Nature's Grace.  Most druids have gone away from this talent in WotLK.  This takes 5 pts from our most common build today.
• With the exception of Nature's Grace it looks like all haste related talents are going away (most notably the haste from GotEM).
• Naturalist has moved from the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier and replaced by Perserverence a 5 pt spell damage reduction talent (2% per level).  I'm guessing most druids will skip this and put 5 points into Sublety/Natural Shapeshift instead.
• 3 pt Intensity is gone in the 3rd level and replace by the 5 pt Naturalist.  While most druids skip the Naturalist talent today they won't be able to do this as it is the prerequist to Nature's Swiftness.  This takes 2 pts from our most common build today.
• Tier 4's Improved rejuvenation doesn't change it's 15% increase on Rejuvenation but adds the increase to Swiftmend as well.
• Tier 5's 2 pt Improved Tranquility loses the reduced cooldown but gains a 25% damage reduction per pt while casting.
• Tier 5's 5pt Gift of Nature (2% increase to healing per pt) has been removed meaning you will need to spend pts in earlier tiers to get to Tier 6.
• Living Seed has been moved to Tier 6. 
• Empowered Touch has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 7 and has changed from an effect on bonus healing for Healing Touch (40%) and Nourish (20%) to a 10% improvement in healing for Healing Touch on targets under 25%.  The other change is 2 points in this talent will cause Nourish will refresh Lifebloom (!!!!).
• Tier 7's 3 Pt Living Spirit has been removed from the game.
• Tier 7's Natural Perfection has been moved to Tier 8.  It also appears that the increased crit chance has been removed but the damage reduction has been doubled.  PvP talent.
• Tier 8 adds a 3 pt Efflorescence which heals people within 15 yds of the target for 10% per point of your Regrowth over 7 seconds.
• Tier 9's 3 pt Revitalize now only effects the casts and restores 1% per point for regrowth or lifebloom crits.
• Tier 9's Tree of Life is now a periodic form for 45 seconds with a 5 minute cooldown.  It has lost the 6% healing buff to the raid and the 20% reduction to mana cost but now the buffs formerly in Improved Treeform are included (200% armor and 15% increased healing).
• Tier 9's 3 pt Improved Tree of Life reduces the cooldown on Tree of Life by 30 seconds and increases damage by 5% for every point.  
• Tier 10's 2 pt Improved Barkskin is unchanged with the exception of losing the 35% per point dispel reduction.
• Tier 10's 5 pt Gift of the Earthmother loses its impact on spell haste.  The improvements per point are a 4% increase in Tranquility on targets less than 25% health, 2%  increase in Lifebloom's bloom effect, and a 3% instant heal of the total periodic heal for rejuvenation.
• Tier 11's Wild Growth is now has a 10 seconds cooldown vs the 6 seconds it had previously.  The heal portion appears to be about 40% of the former affect (686 vs 1442).

So what does this all mean?

• Rejuvenation and Wild Growth got the biggest nerf with the change to GotEM and Wild Growth.  I've heard they are going to increase the mana cost for both to reduce spamming.  Moving Revitalize to Regrowth/Lifebloom from Rejuv/Wild Growth won't help mana either.
• The loss of Intensity/Living Spirit takes away our mana regen talents.  This is going to have to come from gear as revitalize won't be enough.  Mana reduction talents like Tranquil Spirit are probably going to be necessary.
• The change so that Nourish refreshes Lifebloom is huge.  With druids having a reduced capacity for AoE heals I can see the return of assigned heals by party.
• Lifebloom/Regrowth/Nourish/Swiftmend  is going to be a big time tank/melee combination from healing with Wild Growth thrown in every 10 seconds.
• Will Tree of Life become an enrage/spike heal?  Speccing into Improved Tree of Life will depend on how much they use the spike damage mechanic in the middle of fights.   The only benefit is being able to go tree every 3.5 minutes vs 5.  It really depends on the length of boss fights.
• Will the improvement to tranquility heals under 25% for GotEM mean that druids will be put into the tank group and the common mechanic for an enrage is to hero, pop trinkets, pop tree and tranquility?  If so the threat/damage reduction in Improved Tranquility may be a useful addition.
• What is the point of Fury of Stormrage?  It seems like a PvP talent but I wonder if they are they planning to change healing so that we will be needed to dps in Cataclysm.  I'd really like a good dps spell at the bottom of the resto tree but I know it will never happen as it would possibly unbalance PvP.
• Healing Touch still sucks.  With these talents the only real buff is forcing us to take Naturalist to reduce cast time to 3 seconds.  That is too long for effective healing in an emergency.  The only way I can see them saving this spell at this point is if they increase the mana efficiency or burst damage.  Even then problem will be similar to Vanilla/BC when it was continually sniped by a paladin casting Holy Light causing over heal.  The slowness will also cause deaths unless they change the burstiness of damage (which they have said they were planning).  Until I see more, I think Healing Touch will remain off our cast bars.

This is my current thought for the level 85 talent spec (16/0/56). 

It gives all the spells I think are useful and leaves 4 points for things like Improved Tree of Life, Improved Tranquility, Improved Barkskin or Fury of Stormrage.  I don't see any points in any other tree that interest me for a pure healing build.

An interesting dps/healing hybrid would be this.  I mainly did this for a healing Dreamstate build as it looks like they are really making mana regen difficult in the expansion.  The problem is there is no way to do this without losing at least 1 point in Revitalize (as well as GotEM and Wild Growth).  I'd need to do some math to see the difference and I'm not going to do right now.  I do like the idea of getting 4/5 Starlight Wrath and 5/5 in Vengence for the ability to do some real damage as a resto.

That's all my thoughts for now and I'm sure some of my thoughts are off.  Blizzard will change half of this before Cataclysm goes live but it is interesting to see where they are going.  I am sad to see Wild Growth and Rejuvenation get nerfed as bad as they did but I am really excited about the improvements to Regrowth and Nourish in conjunction with Lifebloom.

I'd write more but I'm off to buy a 20 button mouse.

When you are younger your thinking tends to be short term.  Life changes so much at that time that it is sometimes hard to realize that decisions that you make today can have a lasting impact on your life.  World of Warcraft isn't life but it mimics the real world in many ways.

I was in a 25 man raid on Sunday that had the makings of a great run.  Good healers, good leadership and good dps.  I was playing on my hunter Delan and as this was my first time playing a hunter in a 25 man I was a bit nervous.  As we entered the first room of Icecrown Citadel I immediately noticed that we were in combat.  I haven't been there many times but I knew that wasn't supposed to happen.  A few people died but we were able to contain it pretty quickly.  When someone asked how it happened no one seemed to know.  We start buffing and a minute later the mobs come at us again.  This time we are more prepared and we down them pretty easily.  Again the question goes out ... "What happened?"  Most don't know and are quiet but on Ventrilo one person claims that a rogue just ran up and attacked them then vanished.  No one was really sure and both rogues were silent and the leader just let it go.  We downed the first boss pretty easy and we roll for loot.  There wasn't anything for me so I moved on. 

After every fight I always evaluate the dps / healing on the previous fight.  This comes from my officer days but it really is a good habit.  These days I mainly check my performance vs others in my class and see if I can learn anything from them.  I was holding my own so I looked to see the dps of the group.  Ten of the dps were over 6000 which was really encouraging for a PuG but we had 3 people who were under 2000 including one of the rogues.  Of course a rogue ring dropped and he wins it.  No biggie.  We move to the next boss.

I was in full panic mode for most of this fight as the situational awareness needed is totally different than healing.  I did ok and we one shot him.  I was hoping for a bow to drop but alas it didn't so I got on the elevator for the next boss.  While I'm waiting for the loot to be distributed I review the dps and see that the results were similar to the first boss.  We did a bit better on that attempt but we had about 4 people that were really holding us back.  The bad thing is once you've gone past the first boss it really is impossible to get anyone to join since no one wants to miss out on loot.  While I am reviewing all of a sudden I notice movement on my Grid healthbars.  We are under attack.  I see 5 people die almost imediately so I feign death and wait to see what happens.  The tanks and healers quickly got the situation under control so I poppled up and helped finish off the mobs.  As soon as they are down, the questions begin ... "Who pulled?"  No one knows except one guys that says... I saw that rogue just run up and pull them.  Which one?  Pinkz.  The question is asked to Pinkz in vent and no response is given.  They ask in chat and still no reply.  Pinkz had done about 1500dps in gear that should have done triple that amount and now he had almost wiped the raid three times.  The leader thought aloud about replacing him but decided against it because of the difficulty of getting someone after 2 bosses.  We move forward.

The Gunship battle is pretty epic but it is also pretty easy.  We win the fight with no problems and get loot.  The agility axe falls and the leader asks for main spec rolls.  Pinkz rolls.  A few comments go over Vent ... "Pinkz you already won something, you can't roll".  This is a true statement and was explained a few times before the raid.  Everyone gets 1 Main spec Item and 1 Off Spec Item.  After that it was first come first serve.  The call goes out over Vent ... "Anyone else need?"  No answer so the axe is given to Pinkz.  The issue wasn't that he got the item as ultimately he would have gotten it.  The issue was he rolled when he shouldn't have done so.  Leaders rely on the honesty of the raid to avoid mistakes and Pinkz should have known better.  No big deal but a bit annoying.  We move on.

The 4 boss is Saurfang and the end for most PuGs.  This fight takes a lot of coordination but this group had really come together.  I was nervous again because the hunters are responsible for CC'ing the adds and I'd never done it before.  I was amazed how smooth the fight went and how much fun I had kiting.  The boss falls easily and we get the loot.  Two tokens fall (neither for hunters) as well as the best DPS trinket in the game.  Pinkz of course rolls on the rogue token but loses.  We are all laughing/screaming in Vent ... "Pinkz, you already won something!  You can't roll on that!"  That doesn't stop him from rolling again on the trinket.  This time he wins the roll against 8 others (including me).  At this point it was past silly and it was obvious that even though he was in Vent he wasn't listening.  Someone typed in chat... You can't roll on that.  You have won your Main Spec item."  Like before there is no response.  In fact he hasn't said a thing all raid and I'm really beginning to wonder about this guy.  The loot is given to the second highest roll (again sadly not me) and we move on.

As we move into the next room we fight the first few mobs and are getting ready to go after the optional boss when Pinkz makes his first comment, "Hey (Leader), I won that trinket!  You didn't loot it to me."  Now we are all beyond belief.  This person who has almost purposely wiped the raid 3 times, has gotten two pieces of 25 man loot, has pulled less than a third of the dps he should be doing, is now questioning the raid leader on loot that has been told to him at least 5 times before that he wasn't eligible to roll?  The leader says nothing so I made the comment in raidchat, "You really need to review the loot rules."  He says, "What are they?"  Another person adds, "They were explained in /LFG when you were recruited, they were explained at the beginning of the fight in vent and in chat,  they have been explained 3 times since when you rolled out of turn."  Someone else says, "1 Main Spec / 1Off Spec loot".  He responds, "I got it."  Two seconds later he drops group.  Since the rest of the instance is pretty unforgiving on dps, losing even Pinkz reduces the will of the rest of the raid to continue as finding a dps willing to join is very unlikely.  We make a halfhearted attempt at finding someone then call the raid about a few minutes later.

That leads me back to the title of this article.  I sent him a tell just after he left the group, "Just so you know, it isn't a good idea to get into a PuG then drop group when you get loot because it will affect your rep and will make it tougher to find a group in the future as people have long memories".  His response ... "LOL ...so".  My guess is Pinkz is a very young player that lives moment to moment.  Things in his world revolve around him and that is how life works when  you are young.  Unfortunately as we all get older we find that our actions sometimes have consequences.  Perhaps Pinkz will never be affected by his actions in that raid but I have no doubt that if he continues to think short term in his real life that he won't like the long term results.   I hope he figures this out before it is too late.

Everyone is up in arms about how the guild feature is going to work in Cataclysm.  I think Blizzard feels that 25 man raids just aren't do-able by the 95% of its playerbase and have decided to encourage everyone to do 10 man raiding instead which can still be tough but easier administratively.  The odd thing is they are doing this at the same time as encouraging bigger guilds through the new guild achievement feature.  I could be totally off base here but I think their ultimate hope is they end pushing everyone to guilds similar to AIE on Earthen Ring.  This guild is a loose confederation of 5000 people that the officers make no attempt to organize.  Their only job is to make sure that guild chat/forums is as free from drama as possible and repeat offenders and dealt with promptly.  I haven't seen the charter (if one exists) but I'm sure there is a general understanding by all that they want a guild that anyone would be OK to let their 10 year old join without fear.  In a sense it is an extended WoW family.  The downside vs a typical guild is it is left to the members when it comes to raiding.  Many people have picked up the torch and there are many raiding teams inside AIE.  Over time the guild has centered their raiding around 10 man raids as organized 25 mans raids haven't been successful.  This has discouraged many players who are hard core and these people typically only stay with the guild a while.  This isn't to say there aren't many great players in AIE ... they just realize that the culture of the guild is that RL > WoW and they have to adapt accordingly.  The nice thing about this structure is when it is time to raid there and only 8 of the people in the "core" team can make it, a call goes out to the guild - lfg channel.  That means many people who aren't on a raiding team can find a raid.  The great thing about this is because everyone in the raid is part of the social network, the conversations are much more polite than you'd find in a normal PuG. 

I was listening to the podcast "World of Warcast" the other day and the main discussion point was Blizzard has switched their focus from being a MMORPG to being more of a social network.  When you combine the recent changes with the fact that Battle.Net is going to link every server with one another it seems this concept quite nicely by encouraging the AIE setup.  This does not mean that every guild needs to be like AIE.  I am pretty confident that mega guilds will pop up that will be focused on raiding with no cap on what can be said in guild chat.  When you think about it the possibilities are endless.  I can see a day when there are mega-guilds of similar minded people be it by georgraphy, politically, or hobbies.  It certainly is possible for those things to happen to day but the changes Blizzard is pushing seems to be encouraging more of it in the future.