Gah…time passes by too quickly sometimes

I keep meaning to write but become distracted by various things.  That’s a lie it’s more like playing WoW distracts me from writing.  Though there are other games I’ve played recently that have kept me entertained also.

Once again I find myself playing Chrono Trigger which got released on the DS.  I play through it before I go to sleep.  And overall I’m impressed with the port and happy to see the animated clips they added because I never did play the PS version that had them.  It’s refreshing to play it again.

Then there’s a board game I’ve played with friends called Descent.   It’s a hack and slash sort of game.  You have an objective in a dungeon that you go through killing monsters and getting treasures to make yourself better.  Sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it lol.   Though in this it’s players versus the Overlord (i.e. DM) in that the Overlord is trying to actively win by placing obstacles, generating more monsters, or beefing up his monsters through cards he draws each turn.  These games take some time about 4-6 hours per scenario it seems.

In WoW I’ve been mostly working on my engineering profession, gaining rep with a couple different factions, and heroics/80 dungeons.   I’ve been in 10 man Naxx and outside of the last run it hadn’t been pleasant.  The first time we did the Arachnid quarter and kept getting wiped on Anub Rekhan and on the second entry kept wiping on Instructor Razuvious in the Military quarter.   The last time I entered we did the Plague Quarter we got past the first two bosses, all healing gear, but couldn’t down Loatheb because our healer had to leave after the first wipe after a quickened explanation.

My perspective from this is that I think our dps was just really low overall because the tanks and healers were pretty well geared in heroic or crafted gear.   Whereas dps varied greatly on what kind of gear they were in.   I don’t remember the damage meter clearly offhand from the first two attempts but on the third it a Ret Pally and me at about 2100 dps with the next highest at about 1500 and a big dip after that.   So despite what may be stated out there Naxx is not necessarily easy mode.   It does require people still get geared up or at least have been in T5 or above purples to be competitive.

In an attempt to help out Mana of healers going into the Military quarter I tried out the Hunter Survival spec.  Which going from BM was a about a difference of 200-400 dps depending upon the encounter.  It also made me realize that while some talents in the survival tree while they look good just don’t always come into play.  Like Sniper Training which gives bonus damage to a few shots if I’m 30 yards or further away from my target.  The problem with the talent is that some fights don’t allow you to be 30 yards away or the room just doesn’t have the space to do so easily.   Then there’s Trap Mastery which looks good but is a very lackluster 41 talent especially when you get into raids trapping isn’t very useful.    Lock and Load also has an issue in that it is only guaranteed to proc if you trap otherwise you depend on a 6% chance when serpent sting ticks for it to trigger.  Granted I wouldn’t expect a high percentage off a DoT but a bit more than 6% wouldn’t be asking much I would think.  Overall, I think the damage increase they’re giving Explosive Shot will help but it remains to be seen.  I have a feeling BM might still outdamage the other specs by a bit.

Anyways, I’m done for now.   Gotta continue working =D

A week full of Wrath

Alright Wrath has been out for over a week now and generally I’m really happy with the expansion so far.  The quests feel a lot more engaging lorewise and the lich king is actually present unlike Illian who only got mentioned in passing.

What bothers me so far is the amount of complaints I keep hearing from various articles and forum posts.  Most of it deals with one guild that wrote a letter.

The primary one is that the raiding content is too easy.  Apparently, Twentyfifthhour already completed all the current Wrath raid content as listed on mmo-champion as of last Sunday. The letter they write I feel is meant to inflame people as they comment that WoW must be going entirely casual since this was so easy.  My objection with this is that they had months to prepare for all this and plan it out whereas others may not have been so focused on that raid content.  Some players never were in the Beta at all so they are experiencing it for the first time.  Second, the bosses for Naxx from my understanding weren’t changed much from the initial Naxx.   Finally, not every guild had cleared and farmed Sunwell Plateau for months before the xpac.  Which brings me to the next point.

Players are complaining that they aren’t seeing upgrades in Northend much at all.  Which is silly I think.  People complained that tier pieces were replaced by the first greens in outlands and now we begin into Wrath you’re complaining that you aren’t replacing gear.  Make up your mind already.  I personally am a fan of it as some of the gear took time to get and if I replaced it with a green I’d be upset.  At this point I’ve only gone from purples to blues but have really only replaced 3 pieces of gear.

So with the Twentyfifthhour guild having alot of Sunwell gear they were able to use most of that to get through the raids.  I’m sure some things were replaced but because the scaling wasn’t as enormous as the last expansion they could do that.

The last thing about that guild’s comments is they make it sound like there is nothing else to do in the game.   Which is ridiculous to me as there is no way they ever did any of the questlines and believe me there are some fun questlines in this expansion.   I’m only level 75 and have gone through some chain quests that left me with a very epic feeling. If they want to whine then play the rest of the game before you do so.   It’s not my fault or blizzard’s fault that was your only goal in the game.

For those of you who don’t have Wrath yet if you need something to do just check the Looking for Group channels I’m  sure there are plenty of Death Knights trying to do various instances.

Twas the night before Wrath of the Lich King

I’m not going to try rip off a night before Christmas but you’ve got to realize this is sort of an Xmas for people.  We get presents of new spells, content, and levels.  Though some may be more excited than others.  And even though we have an xpac coming there are still things in the work and issues that need to be looked at.

Despite all the new things coming multiple classes certainly have issues that haven’t been dealt with or will be patched post Wrath.

Druids will have their armor contributions changed for shifting into bear form but this won’t take affect immediately.  Resto druids will see Wild Growth get a cooldown on it but that also will take place later.

Paladins prot spec is woefully lackluster as abilities and talents make them a less effective tank compared to other tanking classes mostly against single targets and working as OT.  Retribution paladins might be adjusted still so they are more effective pvp and pve wise.  There’s talk of an 11 point Prot tree talent for Ret pallies.

Hunters will most likely see some talents change.  Survival hunters will see Trap Mastery changed but no details have been given on that.  Hunter pets will still see changes as Blizz tries to balance what pets have and what exotic pets have so that especially BM hunters don’t feel an exotic pet is what they have to go with.  Marksman hunters still need some help Mana wise.  And finally Aspect of the Viper will probably still see multiple changes over the course of this expansion.

Warriors have buggy issues with Heroic Leap.  There are still complaints that Bladestorm is lackluster as it prevents uses of any other ability while it’s active.  Prot is pretty steady from what I’ve read and seen so far.

Mages I haven’t heard too much issue with other than potential nerfs to Arcance because of the Torment the Weak talent.

Locks have issues that Chaos Bolt is underpowered now as it’s been nerfed throughout beta.  And that Metamorphious seems rather out of place and doesn’t really help much pve wise.

Shamans are missing some pieces unless they spec Resto.  Thunderstorm the top Elemental talent is almost useless PvE wise as a ranged dps we don’t want to walk in the middle of a group to use it and the knockback causes others issues.  Without the mana regen component it might not be specced at all pve wise.  Enhancement still has issues PvP wise that they can’t control their burst damage from Windfury so if they can’t trap another player for a while they more likely will be killed off first

Priests I haven’t heard too much about other than Circle of Healing gaining a 6 second cooldown also.

Rogues find that still speccing Sub means they can only PvP still as it brings little for PvE.  And that speccing Mutilation means if the mobs are poison immune they lose a majority of their dps.  There is still issues with Vanish in which mobs still hit the rogue or that they still are targeted so that other players can use abilities against them.

Death Knights will probably see a lot of changes once raiding and arena really begins as the beta only can show some issues.  So Death Knights don’t expect that most of you have beginining in wrath will still be there by this time next year.

Overall, while I may not have listed them there are lots of good things coming for all classes in the expansion but at the same time there are still changes to come.  And by no means is this the entire list of what issues each classes have coming into the expansion just the ones that come to my mind.  Even with some issues still out there I’m excited what happens. 

Gone Plurking

Things have slowed down in WoW recently as people look forward to the expansion coming up. I see a lot of good and bad things coming from it. Overall, I think WotLK will be a great improvement to WoW not only lore wise but in playing.
There are still some fun things coming up before the expansion. Currently, we have brewfest which produces items like beer googles and a pony keg. Along with Coren Direbrew to take down who drops badge equivalent trinkets which anyone can use as you can use them in addition to the badge trinkets. And come the end of October we have Hallow’s Eve and another chance to beat up on the Headless horseman.

On the front of my goals before the expansion well I can only really cross off getting my Shaman up to level 70. It was fun and I look forward to the changes that are coming with WotLK for Shamans cause I’ll actually have a second melee attack yeah!

On a different note and what the title is based on, after talking with my one friend I’ve also started plurking which is more based on what’s going on in my head at the time than anything the link is here:
Sonvar’s Plurk Page

I’m not dead yet

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’m not sure if it is a motivation issue or I get myself involved in reading other blogs and stuff about WoW that I forget about my own.

Speaking of people who aren’t quite dead yet Doom is back up and writing again after a hiatus after he got laid off his last job. I’m glad to see his normal topics to write about haven’t changed at all.

For me I’ve actually been busy outside of work between some raids in WoW and time spent with friends. And my other obsession pro football has started again.

Warning the rest is a football post:

And while I’m very happy with a 38-3 win over the St Louis Rams I’d like to see the same dominance over the Dallas Cowboys. It should be interesting next Monday night. And thus begins me talking about the Eagles

The Eagles came out against the Rams missing their two starting WRs, and started a rookie WR something that has not happened since Andy Reid has been the coach. They made plays and three of them had over a 100 yards receiving with none of them being widely known. And the Eagles Defense did allow a single 3rd down conversion by the Rams. Now if this was near the end of last year it wouldn’t be a big deal but this is a healthy Rams team and was supposed to have a good offense. And they didn’t even score until the 4th quarter when the Eagles started using mostly second string players. Only the Steelers had a similar dominant game but they gave up sacks whereas the Eagles O line didn’t even when the backup Kevin Kolb came into play.

I certainly hope Dallas isn’t resting on its Laurels beating the Browns because Romo will not be able to just sit in the pocket cause he’ll be getting pressured. And the Dallas defense didn’t do enough to impress me. They had one sack on Derek Anderson for no loss and gave up 91 yards rushing. If it weren’t for multiple drops by Braylon Edwards it easily could’ve been a much closer game than it was. Which is why I’m confused by the news that Dallas dominated the Browns when by looking over all that happened this applied more to the Steelers, Eagles, and Bills opening games. Dallas played well but not good enough for me to be throughly impressed.

My name is Sonvar and I’m an altoholic

So I’ve now started a dwarf rogue that I’ve gotten to lvl 11. Not sure if this char will make it to 70 like my druid or hunter but I’d like to get it up there. Though my primary alt at the moment is to get my shaman up to lvl 70 and he’s currently at lvl 62 about to head into Zangamarsh.

What is about making alts that make it desirable to some but to others they can’t imagine playing more than one char?

My guess is based upon how much activity you feel you can still get done on your original char or whether you’ve found that at endgame the class you chose doesn’t fit what you’d like it to.

Personally, I made alts cause I like leveling because it can be done solo without much help from others. Because once you hit 70 beyond finishing quests you didn’t complete while leveling and dailies there is not much PvE solo content anymore to do. Making these alts give me stuff I can do solo and also a reason for me to keep onto drops that are BoE I might have otherwise sold.

It also gives me a different experience as each class has a much different play style with it. On my druid I leveled as feral and if a mob started to run I had to chase them to kill them because casting a spell would take just as much time but unlike my hunter I could heal myself afterwards and shift back into cat form to beat mobs. With my shaman I had to drink constantly because I would evaporate through my mana pool after 2-3 fights though with Water Shield at lvl 62 I’ve not had to take many drinks since. I also think that the amount of times I died as druid, and shaman is substantially more than my hunter due to the fact that I’d be at range fighting and the always nice Feign Death.

Having stealth makes a big difference too as if most weren’t aware. Instead of having to go through all those mobs to a particular target I can just stealth and walk around mobs. This also has the downside of slowing leveling as you don’t encounter as many mobs because you can just walk right by them.

And obviously come the expansion I’m gonna have to make a Death Knight. Now as to how far I go with that char that remains to be seen. So far Death Knights really only seem good cause of what you get just by completing their initial instanced area. Beyond that I’m not sure how much I like the game mechanics I’ve read so far about them. But going through that initial area is certainly a must and thus feeding my altoholicism.

You’re an analog

I saw this a few days ago and instantly thought this is exactly something I could see myself saying to another person.

Dilbert if you’ve never read it is about office workers. It’s something I’ve found consistently funny to read since High School. And I certainly wish I were Dogbert sometimes. But oh how much of it is true as I find myself working in a cubicle currently.

Apparently doors are indestructible

So on Saturday our guild did a joint run with two other guilds into Gruul’s Lair.

We wiped the first two times going against HKM because a tank died. The first time the mage tank went down quickly and the second time HKM took the MT down. Though each of those deaths were preceded by one of the healers dying.

The third attempt started a bit shaky as midway through Kiggler killed off one of the hunters on him. So after announcing it on vent I attempted to become the second hunter on Kiggler. This did and didn’t work. According to Omen I was on top of the threat by far but apparently he decided he liked messing with everyone. So I continued rotating my pet to the different bosses and focusing on Kiggler as much as I could. Eventually we were all on HKM. This is where it got even more odd.

Our Main Tank because of how the fight works had the highest threat by far and there shouldn’t have been much of any reason he should stay on someone after he charged them. But most of the ranged dps was dead before the end of the fight because he would charge as expected but then stay on that person until taunted off. Which at least from my prior experience with this fight has not been the case. Normally he charges and then runs back to attack the MT or one of the tanks that just taunted him. I died with him at about 5% but the group was able to take him down the rest of the way.

He dropped two Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender, a Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero, and Malefic Mask of the Shadows.

After dividing the loot out we finished off the trash and headed in to take on Gruul. Now the last time I’d been in here I did not have Deadly Boss Mods specifically. With it on this time made it a lot easier to recognize if I was close to someone when the shatter went off. At worst I hit another hunter that was there each time.

We did three attempts on him and got him to 25% on the last try but because the MT went down and a few of our healers had been killed by Shatters we couldn’t do much more.

Now the funniest part of this occurred after the second wipe. A hunter in the group FD after the tank went down but did that in the middle of the room. While everyone else had either ran back or been rezzed the hunter stayed there. They complained about their pet dying and that it was going to affect their dps accordingly because of it. Initially our MT didn’t care about the pet being there unless the person was a BM hunter as he thought pets could cause shatter damage. After a bit of discussion that hunter/warlock pets don’t cause shatter damage, I told the hunter to get up and try running towards the door so that we could rez them and continue another attempt.

Well the hunter got up and the door closed as expected. The hunter got within rez range but then Gruul appeared through the closed door. He then proceeded come after members in the raid and chased us out of the entrance. While and after it occurred I don’t think I had heard that much laughter or exclamations of how awesome that in a long time.

Overall, this attempt went a lot better then the first one trying to down Gruul but obviously he still stood once all was said and done. I think once we get people into some better gear and PvE specs we should be able to down Gruul.

Note: I was top DPS the entire raid averaging about 890 dps. Unfortunately, after the top 3 the average dps of other players dropped badly. If I remember it was something like 890, 860, 800, then went to 550 and below. Which again is why I say we need some of those in that raid to be PvE spec and in better gear as from my understanding each dps should be bringing about 600 dps.

Prophet Velen corresponds

Ratshag today talked about how his disguising device messed up today. He commented about how he pretty much duped Prophet Velen. Now being the respectable Draenei I am I decided to ask Velen about this Ratshag he met. He handed me this letter.

Greetings Ratshag of the Hand,

First, you should know I deeply appreciate the help you’ve given my people on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles. It’s been a rough time for our people settling on Azeroth with the Blood Elves plotting and some strange occurrances we’ve seen with environment and a dragon no less.

You should know that I was aware you’d be coming to our aid for some time now. We’ve been expecting a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that would help us. Most of our residents were not told about this so that they would be more accepting of your help. We’ve seen how virile of a hero you can be and saw you’d be an asset. Those who were skeptical of your appearance had it explained that this was necessary for now. That as long as monetary rewards were given you’d be more than appreciative.

While I don’t appreciate people sleeping during my speeches, I’m not surprised an orc such as yourself couldn’t fully comprehend what I was saying and sleep was the only way it could get into your head. One day you will come to appreciate what I’ve said and truly appreciate the tabard that was given to you.

I will end on the note that while it was anticipated you’d deny my daughter’s hand in marriage I had to ask otherwise what is to come would not come to fruition. I can’t go into much more detail regarding this but your choice will have some grave consequences.

May the Light be with You,

Prophet Velen

Thoughts and hopes on WotLK so far

So obviously the main topic anymore is about the next expansion. With people in the meantime trying to do what raiding they can before it comes out.

Now first my thought is on when they actually release this one. My best guess is that it will be no sooner then November. This is is because the Headless Horseman event was tested in the last PTR for the current patch we’re on. Thus you know till the end of October is what time you have at least. Though I think the release may actually come in January or later just because Blizz has a habit of late releases.

As far as the new talents and talent redesign I’m quite excited about it. I still take it with a grain of salt because I have feeling they won’t stay that way. While they may be that way at launch I imagine the first major patch will cause a lot of people to get a few respec because they change talents for balancing purposes. The most questionable one I have is the 51 point talent for BM hunters Beast Mastery. What is this Exotic pet? Is there really a good reason to tame an Exotic pet over a normal one. Does it mean I have to do a chain quest to tame this or special areas I need to go? How many exotic pets are out there? My hope with it being a 51 point talent that these pets are clearly better then others you can tame either due to increased health/focus or a special ability they have that makes them better raid or party wise.

Then you have these pet changes with how they get skills and talents. I like that my pet’s abilities get leveled as they level instead of specifically taming another pet to get a higher rank. It means that once I tame a pet that has skills I like I don’t have to give up one of my stabled pets to get the higher level skill. There’s also the change that a newly tamed pet will be immediately 5 levels lower then the hunter. Which I say is great as I’m sure many people can attest that leveling a pet can become a tedious task especially the lower they are. Five levels is still alot to raise but makes the pet at least a worthy tank in the meantime. Lastly, the new pet talent trees. I like the abilities they’ve got in each of the three trees but I’m a bit skeptical about some of them. Mostly the Tenacity Tree bothers me actually. While it has talents in there that will make your pet a better tank I only really see the Tier 5 talent Roar of Fortitude being taken. Your pet shouldn’t have to be taunting and if it needs Last Stand what are you trying to take on. At this point if pet trees stay how they are I can pretty much see what will be cookie cutter builds at least PvE wise. Though Tenacity has at least one point I’m not sure what to do with so I chose Intervene.

Tenacity , Ferocity , and Cunning

Another item I’d read was how +healing and damage are going to be combined. Does this mean older gear will be revamped with this or does it mean that some of our 70 gear might actually be better for healing then what WotLK has?

Lastly, the Death Knights. Without being in the beta I’m really not sure how their playstyle will work out. I find them intriguing and certainly will make one but probably not till at least my hunter is lvl 80. It’s exciting though and I just wonder how imbalanced they might be to start with or what exploits people come up with using them.

I’m quite excited and can’t wait to see the finished product for it.

p.s. The pet talents I think seem obvious but I’m open to explaining/debating them