Yeah, my monitor is huge, heh.
6/30/10
Halion, the Twilight Destroyer
I'll admit that, after we downed the third mini-boss in the Ruby Sanctum last night, I was initially underwhelmed by being confronted by a giant fuchsia dragon. The only lasting disappointment, however, is the color.
So, a bunch of us were in various Vault PUGs yesterday evening when, essentially, "WTF, Ruby Sanctum is available?" happened. A few minutes of, "Do you want to go to..." mixed in with, "I'm in VOA at the moment but..." and, "Wait, we're all in VOA at the moment," ended up with ten of us in Ruby Sanctum at about 7:30 EST last night.
The trash took some time - the dragons have a lot of health. There was much giggling about "Help me! I'm trapped in this tree!" The first miniboss (on the left) wiped us once because, hey, raid marks don't stick when he splits. The first of the five-dragon trash packs half-wiped us, but we quickly picked up that the commanders had to die first, and splitting the second of those packs went much better. The second miniboss, the drake, almost wiped us, because, hey, that patrol comes over really close, but we recovered with only two deaths. (And, hey, another chance to use Tranq Shot.) After that, the third miniboss was surprisingly not too bad - misdirecting the adds as they came in made it much smoother after the first wave. I think all that took us maybe a half hour.
Halion took us the next hour and a half or so; I was 6 minutes into my third flask when he died. (Note to self: Get more flasks before Thursday's raid.) To be honest, I didn't mind the wipes. This is, hands down, my favorite raid encounter of the expansion. (Sorry, Ony! You're still my favorite Vanilla raid boss.) I think I like it because while it requires "don't stand in the fire," the actual fire is forgiving enough to let you move out of it, and there's plenty of room to maneuver. The basically insta-gib laser in the Twilight phase is, if you're paying attention to the rotating orbs, easy enough to avoid, but not forgiving if you're not watching for it. Good DPS was important, but it wasn't a DPS race; balancing DPS, backing off or jumping over to the other phase if needed in phase 3 was more important.
In short - it requires coordination, it requires some precision, but it's not as frustratingly unforgiving as Sindragosa. (Sindragosa could have been much more fun if the whole fight were just phase 3. Maybe without chaining ice tombs.)
If the Ruby Sanctum is indicative of Blizzard's continuing evolution of raid encounters (that is, if it at all foreshadows what bosses in Cataclysm will be like), Azeroth 2.0 can't come soon enough.
So, a bunch of us were in various Vault PUGs yesterday evening when, essentially, "WTF, Ruby Sanctum is available?" happened. A few minutes of, "Do you want to go to..." mixed in with, "I'm in VOA at the moment but..." and, "Wait, we're all in VOA at the moment," ended up with ten of us in Ruby Sanctum at about 7:30 EST last night.
The trash took some time - the dragons have a lot of health. There was much giggling about "Help me! I'm trapped in this tree!" The first miniboss (on the left) wiped us once because, hey, raid marks don't stick when he splits. The first of the five-dragon trash packs half-wiped us, but we quickly picked up that the commanders had to die first, and splitting the second of those packs went much better. The second miniboss, the drake, almost wiped us, because, hey, that patrol comes over really close, but we recovered with only two deaths. (And, hey, another chance to use Tranq Shot.) After that, the third miniboss was surprisingly not too bad - misdirecting the adds as they came in made it much smoother after the first wave. I think all that took us maybe a half hour.
Halion took us the next hour and a half or so; I was 6 minutes into my third flask when he died. (Note to self: Get more flasks before Thursday's raid.) To be honest, I didn't mind the wipes. This is, hands down, my favorite raid encounter of the expansion. (Sorry, Ony! You're still my favorite Vanilla raid boss.) I think I like it because while it requires "don't stand in the fire," the actual fire is forgiving enough to let you move out of it, and there's plenty of room to maneuver. The basically insta-gib laser in the Twilight phase is, if you're paying attention to the rotating orbs, easy enough to avoid, but not forgiving if you're not watching for it. Good DPS was important, but it wasn't a DPS race; balancing DPS, backing off or jumping over to the other phase if needed in phase 3 was more important.
In short - it requires coordination, it requires some precision, but it's not as frustratingly unforgiving as Sindragosa. (Sindragosa could have been much more fun if the whole fight were just phase 3. Maybe without chaining ice tombs.)
If the Ruby Sanctum is indicative of Blizzard's continuing evolution of raid encounters (that is, if it at all foreshadows what bosses in Cataclysm will be like), Azeroth 2.0 can't come soon enough.
6/24/10
June, argh
June has been a busy month, and it's not even friggin' done yet. The first three weeks basically went vacation, Kingslayer, conference. I found Sindragosa to be a much more difficult fight than the Lich King was. Maybe that's just me, though. (I'm so glad I switched to rocket boots.) I'm still toting around Bloodsail Admiral from Memorial Day weekend, though.
There's been mild drama in the guild, but it's not so much of the volcanic argument type as the slowly simmering personality conflicts eventually pushing someone to go. It really sucks for those of us, officers or members, who like all the people involved. I don't like feeling as though I've disappointed other friends by not being able to keep all of us together in the guild. But at the same time, I learned to accept several things a while back that have helped me deal with it.
I've had a lot of friends leave the guild over the past four and a half years, but I think, in an MMO, that just happens. Their goals shift, and they want other things out of the game. Or there's someone that they're just tired of dealing with. And it's a game; there are ways to keep in touch and continue to play with the people you like spending time with even if you're not in the same guild anymore. People shouldn't stay in a guild if it's going to make them unhappy.
My rogue just finished the holidays for the Violet Protodrake, and my priest should finish up tonight or tomorrow, depending how much time I have if I'm raiding tonight. Last week the guild downed Putricide in 25 for the first time, which bumps us up to 8/12 for 25s. (I think I'm personally still at 6/12.) Hopefully I'll get to see Princes on 25 sometime - I've managed to solo-juggle kinetic bombs in 10s twice now.
There's been mild drama in the guild, but it's not so much of the volcanic argument type as the slowly simmering personality conflicts eventually pushing someone to go. It really sucks for those of us, officers or members, who like all the people involved. I don't like feeling as though I've disappointed other friends by not being able to keep all of us together in the guild. But at the same time, I learned to accept several things a while back that have helped me deal with it.
- I can't fix everything. Not every problem has a win/win solution.
- I can't make people like each other. Some personalities just clash, and not everyone is willing to deal with someone they just don't get along with.
- I can't change other people. People have to change themselves.
I've had a lot of friends leave the guild over the past four and a half years, but I think, in an MMO, that just happens. Their goals shift, and they want other things out of the game. Or there's someone that they're just tired of dealing with. And it's a game; there are ways to keep in touch and continue to play with the people you like spending time with even if you're not in the same guild anymore. People shouldn't stay in a guild if it's going to make them unhappy.
My rogue just finished the holidays for the Violet Protodrake, and my priest should finish up tonight or tomorrow, depending how much time I have if I'm raiding tonight. Last week the guild downed Putricide in 25 for the first time, which bumps us up to 8/12 for 25s. (I think I'm personally still at 6/12.) Hopefully I'll get to see Princes on 25 sometime - I've managed to solo-juggle kinetic bombs in 10s twice now.
5/17/10
I am not a Kingslayer...
But as of last Wednesday, 10 of my guildies are.
I have reached the ennui stage of raiding, I think. I've had my 4-piece T10 long enough that I've sold six or seven Primordial Saronites on the auction house. Our raid nights only align with my free evenings on one night right now (I'm available 5/7 nights a week most of the year), so I'm seeing the same content, or variations thereof, in ICC10 every week. This doesn't mean I'll stop signing up (unless the glut of DPS means I'm taking a spot someone who could use the gear needs), but I'm hoping that my Wednesday nights opening up will at least get me some variety in content. Next month our 25s move back to Thursdays, too, which will give me another night of raiding (hopefully). I prefer the larger raid size, and I miss 40-mans.
This Saturday's ICC10 group 2/night 2 was canceled for lack of healers, so I spent this weekend getting my baby hunter to 80. Yes, I have two level 80 Horde Marksman hunters on the same server. I regret the Blood-elfy-ness, but I can't afford to race change her, and the name doesn't seem Troll or Orc-ish to me, anyway. And two Taurens would be even more silly. The baby hunter is my jewelcrafter/new scribe. (The death knight scribe will be deleted in Cataclysm, to make way for... an undead hunter. Ahem.)
Next up will be the shaman, then the warlock, and then Mabs, the Night elf hunter who is my original. Mabs did 1-70 with a nightsaber named Kitty, but I'm going to do 70-80 with a crocolisk to see how that tanky pet works out. Kitty was pretty much Mabs's only, pet, too. I went to look at her again, and all she had in her stable was Kitty. (Kitty was aptly named Kitty, because Duskhawk's KitTabik, the wolf, is always called Puppy, despite having a proper name. Most of my other pets I actually refer to by name - Hadrian, Darius, Violet, Olin, Chad... I don't remember what Duskmoon's blue strider is off the top of my head.)
But those are pretty much my plans until I'm getting more raiding in - level the alts so they're ready for Cataclysm.
I have reached the ennui stage of raiding, I think. I've had my 4-piece T10 long enough that I've sold six or seven Primordial Saronites on the auction house. Our raid nights only align with my free evenings on one night right now (I'm available 5/7 nights a week most of the year), so I'm seeing the same content, or variations thereof, in ICC10 every week. This doesn't mean I'll stop signing up (unless the glut of DPS means I'm taking a spot someone who could use the gear needs), but I'm hoping that my Wednesday nights opening up will at least get me some variety in content. Next month our 25s move back to Thursdays, too, which will give me another night of raiding (hopefully). I prefer the larger raid size, and I miss 40-mans.
This Saturday's ICC10 group 2/night 2 was canceled for lack of healers, so I spent this weekend getting my baby hunter to 80. Yes, I have two level 80 Horde Marksman hunters on the same server. I regret the Blood-elfy-ness, but I can't afford to race change her, and the name doesn't seem Troll or Orc-ish to me, anyway. And two Taurens would be even more silly. The baby hunter is my jewelcrafter/new scribe. (The death knight scribe will be deleted in Cataclysm, to make way for... an undead hunter. Ahem.)
Next up will be the shaman, then the warlock, and then Mabs, the Night elf hunter who is my original. Mabs did 1-70 with a nightsaber named Kitty, but I'm going to do 70-80 with a crocolisk to see how that tanky pet works out. Kitty was pretty much Mabs's only, pet, too. I went to look at her again, and all she had in her stable was Kitty. (Kitty was aptly named Kitty, because Duskhawk's KitTabik, the wolf, is always called Puppy, despite having a proper name. Most of my other pets I actually refer to by name - Hadrian, Darius, Violet, Olin, Chad... I don't remember what Duskmoon's blue strider is off the top of my head.)
But those are pretty much my plans until I'm getting more raiding in - level the alts so they're ready for Cataclysm.
4/9/10
Whee! Cataclym Hunter Preview
The Cataclysm Hunter preview has been posted! And not, as I suspected it would be, at 3 a.m. EST. Of course everything in it is still subject to change, since they've just started sending out the press invites for beta, so we're a while from release yet. At least a likely late-summer date of some sort means I won't be standing for 45 minutes around midnight outside a Wal-Mart that lost power in an ice storm, waiting for it to reopen. (That was TBC. I could have gotten a collector's edition, but didn't.)
Anywho, stuff:
The new abilities: Cobra Shot, Trap Launcher, and Camouflage.
The first is supposed to act as a nature-damage version of Steady Shot, which says to me that, basically, Armor Penetration (besides going away on gear) is definitely not going to be like it has been in Wrath. Instead of stacking a stat and dropping non-physical shots for heavily armored targets, we'll instead have something in our arsenal to deal with it. (I wonder how it will work in PVP versus plate wearers.)
Trap Launcher just makes me squee because I want to throw snakes at people. Actually, the idea of traps being less situational and more useful from a distance (you know, add pack over there just aggroed on your mage) is awesome all around. And not having to run up to drop frost traps for Saurfang's blood beasts...
Camouflage won't, unfortunately, be quite as awesome as Aimed Shot+Shadowmeld was in Vanilla, but since it will provide immunity to ranged attacks, we can be over on one side, dropping our traps safely, and the mage or pole-dancing dot/hot Disc priest that won't die will have to actually come over and, you know, hit us to break it... setting off our carefully laid traps, muhaha.
Focus
We've known about this for a while. From what the preview said, focus will regen slower than a rogue's energy, but Steady Shot, Haste, Rapid Recuperation, and other things will help us regen faster.
I'm looking forward to this change, even though it means I'll need to relearn what I'm doing. My rotation macro will be completely dead, and to some extent it will be more like playing my rogue, but at range, without finishers or combo points or any of that to worry about. No, it'll be more along the lines of hitting Chimera, Aimed, Arcane whenever they're available, keeping my stings up, and hitting Steady/Cobra in between. Not really much different, but almost certainly not cast-sequence macroable. I've got 3 hunters to level and learn on, though. I may see if I can train myself to keyboard exclusively without the mouse in combat so I can keep using wasd...
Other changes
Ammunition is going away, and quivers become large hunter-only bags! (Note to self: make a large quiver for each hunter before change just in case. Since Iceblade Arrows are Gnomish Engineering-made only, I've actually been considering going back to a quiver. Just so I don't have to bug my husband for ammo as often. I'm not too keen about the idea of going back to a 4-slots open normal bag crunch, though.
Stables being expanded with limited active pets is nice - I have pets I don't want to ditch, but probably won't use much, or would use in rotation. (Bored with the cat for a while? Switch to the hyena.) That cat was leveled up the old way from 8-70 at 70, damn it. I don't want to get rid of him. Since they're making more pets have varying utility skills, this is especially nice. No lock in the raid? Bring your wind serpent. No kitty druid? Bring your hyena, and your Hunger-for-Blood Assassination rogue will love you.
Hunters starting with pets I think will lead to less confusion for people picking up the class who aren't long-time or intuitive gamers. I didn't start sending my pet in to tank for me until I was in the 50s - I'd shoot something and let the pet pull it off me before that.
Alas, poor Mongoose Bite, we knew you.
The Mastery bonuses all seem pretty straightforward, although the mechanics of "Double Shot" aren't really laid out. Whether it will act like Lightning Overload, or like a Black Mage's "Double Cast," we don't know yet. I kind of doubt the former, actually, given that we already have Wild Quiver (unless that's going away), but if it just randomly procs a "next shot is free, causes 50%, and does not trigger the global cooldown" buff, kind of like Surge of Light, it could be neat.
Anywho, stuff:
The new abilities: Cobra Shot, Trap Launcher, and Camouflage.
The first is supposed to act as a nature-damage version of Steady Shot, which says to me that, basically, Armor Penetration (besides going away on gear) is definitely not going to be like it has been in Wrath. Instead of stacking a stat and dropping non-physical shots for heavily armored targets, we'll instead have something in our arsenal to deal with it. (I wonder how it will work in PVP versus plate wearers.)
Trap Launcher just makes me squee because I want to throw snakes at people. Actually, the idea of traps being less situational and more useful from a distance (you know, add pack over there just aggroed on your mage) is awesome all around. And not having to run up to drop frost traps for Saurfang's blood beasts...
Camouflage won't, unfortunately, be quite as awesome as Aimed Shot+Shadowmeld was in Vanilla, but since it will provide immunity to ranged attacks, we can be over on one side, dropping our traps safely, and the mage or pole-dancing dot/hot Disc priest that won't die will have to actually come over and, you know, hit us to break it... setting off our carefully laid traps, muhaha.
Focus
We've known about this for a while. From what the preview said, focus will regen slower than a rogue's energy, but Steady Shot, Haste, Rapid Recuperation, and other things will help us regen faster.
I'm looking forward to this change, even though it means I'll need to relearn what I'm doing. My rotation macro will be completely dead, and to some extent it will be more like playing my rogue, but at range, without finishers or combo points or any of that to worry about. No, it'll be more along the lines of hitting Chimera, Aimed, Arcane whenever they're available, keeping my stings up, and hitting Steady/Cobra in between. Not really much different, but almost certainly not cast-sequence macroable. I've got 3 hunters to level and learn on, though. I may see if I can train myself to keyboard exclusively without the mouse in combat so I can keep using wasd...
Other changes
Ammunition is going away, and quivers become large hunter-only bags! (Note to self: make a large quiver for each hunter before change just in case. Since Iceblade Arrows are Gnomish Engineering-made only, I've actually been considering going back to a quiver. Just so I don't have to bug my husband for ammo as often. I'm not too keen about the idea of going back to a 4-slots open normal bag crunch, though.
Stables being expanded with limited active pets is nice - I have pets I don't want to ditch, but probably won't use much, or would use in rotation. (Bored with the cat for a while? Switch to the hyena.) That cat was leveled up the old way from 8-70 at 70, damn it. I don't want to get rid of him. Since they're making more pets have varying utility skills, this is especially nice. No lock in the raid? Bring your wind serpent. No kitty druid? Bring your hyena, and your Hunger-for-Blood Assassination rogue will love you.
Hunters starting with pets I think will lead to less confusion for people picking up the class who aren't long-time or intuitive gamers. I didn't start sending my pet in to tank for me until I was in the 50s - I'd shoot something and let the pet pull it off me before that.
Alas, poor Mongoose Bite, we knew you.
The Mastery bonuses all seem pretty straightforward, although the mechanics of "Double Shot" aren't really laid out. Whether it will act like Lightning Overload, or like a Black Mage's "Double Cast," we don't know yet. I kind of doubt the former, actually, given that we already have Wild Quiver (unless that's going away), but if it just randomly procs a "next shot is free, causes 50%, and does not trigger the global cooldown" buff, kind of like Surge of Light, it could be neat.
Something is off when...
Something is off when I'm thinking about booting my own alts out of the guild. But no, I should try to figure out what it is and if it can be fixed.
The feeling is the same as when there was a rogue who would bully the officers, and we were just taking it, rather than just kicking him. He would swear at us, throw tantrums when things didn't go his way, and so forth. I considered just leaving the guild rather than having to put up with his antics.
Well, I'm much more invested in the guild than I used to be. I put anywhere from 3 to 15 hours a week just into administration, depending what's going on at the time. Some nights my entire 1-2 hours of play time is eaten up by the guild bank, or roster management. So just ditching it and going solo again (which is much more feasible than it used to be) isn't really a good solution. I've invested too much of my own time to just let it go down the tubes because something needs work.
I'm just not sure what. Yeah, we've got some personnel issues, mostly a bit of a healing shortage, that's made me question some of the decisions we made two months ago regarding our healer corps and some of our more recent recruitment decisions.
I have a gut feeling about what part of the problem is, but I don't know if I can really... fix that, or if it would just make more problems.
But I'd imagine me kicking 5 of my own toons to put them in my bank guild would cause quite a lot of consternation (even if the bank access would be oh-so-awesome).
The feeling is the same as when there was a rogue who would bully the officers, and we were just taking it, rather than just kicking him. He would swear at us, throw tantrums when things didn't go his way, and so forth. I considered just leaving the guild rather than having to put up with his antics.
Well, I'm much more invested in the guild than I used to be. I put anywhere from 3 to 15 hours a week just into administration, depending what's going on at the time. Some nights my entire 1-2 hours of play time is eaten up by the guild bank, or roster management. So just ditching it and going solo again (which is much more feasible than it used to be) isn't really a good solution. I've invested too much of my own time to just let it go down the tubes because something needs work.
I'm just not sure what. Yeah, we've got some personnel issues, mostly a bit of a healing shortage, that's made me question some of the decisions we made two months ago regarding our healer corps and some of our more recent recruitment decisions.
I have a gut feeling about what part of the problem is, but I don't know if I can really... fix that, or if it would just make more problems.
But I'd imagine me kicking 5 of my own toons to put them in my bank guild would cause quite a lot of consternation (even if the bank access would be oh-so-awesome).
4/6/10
Five years, and the tune never changes
One of the things I discovered when I was going through our guild's forum archives, deleting about two years worth when we were being evaluated by our forum host for suitability for Google ads, was that with regards to raiding, there have always been, and always ever seem to be, the same arguments about raiding.
1. We're becoming too hardcore/casual!
Since we are, at our heart, a casual guild, this comes up any time we set up standards for progression. We're still casual; we're just not going to stick our heads in the sand about what kind of requirements are needed for actually getting all the way through a particular tier of content. People have been squealing about this in our guild since Molten Core, but it's never really been true. We're not going to be a "raids 7 days/nights, you have to be at every raid" kind of guild. None of us have the time.
2. Loot Distribution.
Do long-time raiders have first dibs over newcomers? Do you roll for loot, use a point system, etc.? We've gone through several loot distribution methods, and there are still people who are worried about getting their shinies first. First shouldn't be as much of a concern as keeping the raid as a whole improving. Starving your newer players of loot through overly restrictive system doesn't help the raid as a whole, and if their butts in the seats are what's making the raid happen, you're not being fair to them.
3. Raid slot distribution.
Who gets to go when? I think this is something we generally do fairly well - we take people who are qualified first, people who aren't quite there but qualified for the next tier of content down next, and so on. Within each pool, the attendance gets shuffled around so that people still get an opportunity to raid. We don't have as many raid nights as we used to - a peak of six or so in late Vanilla, and we're down to about three - so it's harder to fit people in that it used to be. We used to just do roll outs, and if you were only available certain nights and had really bad luck, you could end up raiding next to never. Scheduling in advance at least lets people know they can make other plans some nights.
4. Mains and Alts.
What's a main? What's an alt? Which gets priority on invites/loot? Yeah, this is a perpetual topic for debate. Do you look at every character that person has ever played when defining the terms? Their active toons? Their toons on your server? Their toons in your guild?
I think what frustrates me the most about any of these topics is when someone takes one side at one point, and then when it's personally advantageous, or no longer personally advantageous, to support the other side, they switch. What that tells me is that neither position is right or wrong. So I tend to go with what seems to be in the best interests of the guild in the long term.
1. We're becoming too hardcore/casual!
Since we are, at our heart, a casual guild, this comes up any time we set up standards for progression. We're still casual; we're just not going to stick our heads in the sand about what kind of requirements are needed for actually getting all the way through a particular tier of content. People have been squealing about this in our guild since Molten Core, but it's never really been true. We're not going to be a "raids 7 days/nights, you have to be at every raid" kind of guild. None of us have the time.
2. Loot Distribution.
Do long-time raiders have first dibs over newcomers? Do you roll for loot, use a point system, etc.? We've gone through several loot distribution methods, and there are still people who are worried about getting their shinies first. First shouldn't be as much of a concern as keeping the raid as a whole improving. Starving your newer players of loot through overly restrictive system doesn't help the raid as a whole, and if their butts in the seats are what's making the raid happen, you're not being fair to them.
3. Raid slot distribution.
Who gets to go when? I think this is something we generally do fairly well - we take people who are qualified first, people who aren't quite there but qualified for the next tier of content down next, and so on. Within each pool, the attendance gets shuffled around so that people still get an opportunity to raid. We don't have as many raid nights as we used to - a peak of six or so in late Vanilla, and we're down to about three - so it's harder to fit people in that it used to be. We used to just do roll outs, and if you were only available certain nights and had really bad luck, you could end up raiding next to never. Scheduling in advance at least lets people know they can make other plans some nights.
4. Mains and Alts.
What's a main? What's an alt? Which gets priority on invites/loot? Yeah, this is a perpetual topic for debate. Do you look at every character that person has ever played when defining the terms? Their active toons? Their toons on your server? Their toons in your guild?
I think what frustrates me the most about any of these topics is when someone takes one side at one point, and then when it's personally advantageous, or no longer personally advantageous, to support the other side, they switch. What that tells me is that neither position is right or wrong. So I tend to go with what seems to be in the best interests of the guild in the long term.
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