Well, it's been a pretty long road, but yesterday I finally broke 10k achievement points. For a little backstory: I held the #2 spot for achieve points in guild for a long time without really giving much thought to it, the #1 spot was over 2000 points ahead of me and I was of the midset "whatever, never gonna catch him so..." I was fine with my plight, until recently another guildie was complaining on vent about looking for more achieves to do, and I happened to look at the rankings and he had stolen my #2 spot! You know I couldn't have that noise, right? So the journey began.
I started by aiming for easy-to-get achievements (you might be surprised how many you can easily get just by being aware that they are there, try flipping through your achievements menu and picking a delicious one to taste today!), mostly in the general tab, critters/pets/mounts, things like that. Then I looked to professions, and lo, another feast of fabulous easy points.
Got a little rougher after this, I decided to aim for all the dungeonmaster achieves. Classic wasn't too bad, harder to get to the places than to solo them, in most cases (wtf is up with Wailing Caverns? like srsly...). Outland was simple, at least on regular, however the a good chunk of the Heroics in Outland require a key bought with reputation from Burning Crusade factions, I had some of these, had to work on some others. I of course already had all the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons and heroics achivements, and at this point Cataclysm too.
After grinding a little rep in Outland to finish up the necessary dungeons, I set my sights on Outland reputation achievements. They are many, and they have a great range from absolutely simple (Honor Hold) to absolutely rediculous (Sha'tari Skyguard). This is the first place I didn't aim for the whole pie, content with just eating the easier slices. Farmed plenty of dungon clears for a net of about half the available Outland rep factions, and said 'enough.'
At this point, I had well solidified my #2 spot back, and even got very very close to the #1 spot, so I figured "what the hell, right?" and embarked on my Loremaster journey. Super painful grind, though surely easier than it was pre-cata. It was interesting to say the least, seeing the places where I quested on my earlier toons fully redesigned. They really did change alot, the flow of the questing is so much better, which not only helps the leveling questers, but did a number on the Loremastering as well. The most helpful and notable change here was the individual zone loremaster achieves, it was a really awesome way to rack up the points. At 10 points per zone and a crazy number of zones to complete, just one continent was enough to put me in a solid lead above the #1 guy. I saved the second continent and went to Northrend (which I seem to have dungeoned through, since all the zones only had a handfull of quests done in them...), then headed to Outland (which is by far, the hardest loremaster achieve to get, imo, even in 85 tank gear oneshotting mostly everything and never dying). I finished up the second continent last, was nice and easy after the rough Outland grind.
So at this point I was about 2k achieve points above the #1 spot, and fast approaching 10k, but running out of achievements to actually get. I wound up picking up a few more here-and-there type of achieves where I could, but didn't think I was gonna break the 10k, until last night! I found a Ulduar 25man achievement run. While these are not numerous as far as achievement points go (me having dont a bunch of them in current content and in late-wrath achieve groups), there were still a few I needed to clean up. Wound up netting me another nice handful of points and putting me over the 10k mark, right on the 4th of July! (which by the way was the original goal of the guildie who put me on this achieve rampage, and he's still sitting down there in the 8k range to date).
Moving forward, screw achievement points, I'll get whatever I happen to get, until someone comes along to threaten my lead again. I may work on all the same things over again on the Hunter (who thankfully already has Outland loremaster complete) and shoot for my former "2 in the top 5" status, as he's fallen off to around #14 by now, having not played him nearly at all since... current content Ulduar.
Finally, I would like to extend a Thank You to the previously mentioned, unnamed guildies currently in the #2 and #3 spots, without the spirit of competition I might just have never got here.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Explaining the Encounter
Unless your raid has been "balls on point" for a few weeks (ie: no screw ups, no super excess damage taken, no player deaths) on any particular boss encounter, odds are good that you will have to take the time and explain the fight. Don't succumb to the urge to skip the explanation in favor of 'hurrying up', especially when you don't have alot of experience in that particular encounter. A proper, full explanation can be very valuable in many ways: 1) as a refresher to everybody, including you... 2) accountability : If you explained it to them, and they screw it up, it's their fault. If you did't explain it you'll get all the same excuses: "I forgot" "I didn't know" "I thought that was the other boss". So explain the fights and you will be well rewarded.
So now that we've determined that we have to explain the fight, let's talk about how we explain it. The way you deliver the information is very important to you and your raiders. Try to deliver it in the same format all the time, it'll make it easier for those listening to absorb all the info they need, and it'll keep you from rambling on and repeating yourself, and keep you sounding like you know what you're talking about. It doesn't matter what format you choose, really, just use rule KISS (keep it simple, stupid), don't go off on tangents explaining class specific things, let people decide how to play their own class (ie: don't bet telling the priest where to put his lightwell, he should know / be able to figure out where, once he sees the fight). A few exceptions to this would be telling the paladin he can bubble out, or telling non-healing druids to use tranquility, etc.. So here is an example format for a fight explanation.
This is "name of boss"
A:) This is a "type" type encounter
1:) what ^ means. (ie: council type - bosses share health pool, phase type - "this is a X phase encounter"
2:) how is the fight going to flow (ie: when they get to 50 energy, switch targets, when they get to 0, they go inactive)
B:) Boss Abilities (for council encounters talk about common abilities, like shields on Omnotron)
1:) individual bosses (council type), individual phases (phase type)
a:) abilities
1:) name of ability
2:) what the boss does, visual/audio cues (ie: he starts spraying slime, then adds pop out, or "mix and stir, apply heat" is red vial phase)
3:) how we deal with it
b:) what people need to watch for (ie: poison clouds, adds, or previously noted common mistakes)
c:) specific assignments (interrupts, staggered group heals, stack on player, collapse point, etc.)
So just as an general outline, you can deliver your infomation in a format people can understand and get used to hearing, so they can absorb the information they need to and don't get alot of extra/confusing junk along with it. It's important to be as brief as you can afford to, while still being complete in your explanations, for pacing reasons.
After a wipe, two steps are needed, 1:) figure out what happened. Ask people if you don't know, no shame in sayin "what happened during that red phase? were people not stacked up or what?" and 2:) talk about the problems, "you gotta run away from those slimes, don't just keep dps'ing" or "if you don't stack up you'll get oneshotted, so it's very important". This way you don't just keep bashing your head while people keep making the same mistakes, see a problem; fix a problem. Take note of these mistakes for use in next week's explanation (see B; 1; b above).
In conclusion: Don't underestimate the value of a good, solid fight explanation. If nothing else, it refreshes everyone to the names of the abilities/spells cast, and puts you (as the raid leader) in a position to hold people accountable for their mistakes (which is important, because if you know it's their fault, odds are they know it's their fault too, and they are much more likely to improve next time).
So now that we've determined that we have to explain the fight, let's talk about how we explain it. The way you deliver the information is very important to you and your raiders. Try to deliver it in the same format all the time, it'll make it easier for those listening to absorb all the info they need, and it'll keep you from rambling on and repeating yourself, and keep you sounding like you know what you're talking about. It doesn't matter what format you choose, really, just use rule KISS (keep it simple, stupid), don't go off on tangents explaining class specific things, let people decide how to play their own class (ie: don't bet telling the priest where to put his lightwell, he should know / be able to figure out where, once he sees the fight). A few exceptions to this would be telling the paladin he can bubble out, or telling non-healing druids to use tranquility, etc.. So here is an example format for a fight explanation.
This is "name of boss"
A:) This is a "type" type encounter
1:) what ^ means. (ie: council type - bosses share health pool, phase type - "this is a X phase encounter"
2:) how is the fight going to flow (ie: when they get to 50 energy, switch targets, when they get to 0, they go inactive)
B:) Boss Abilities (for council encounters talk about common abilities, like shields on Omnotron)
1:) individual bosses (council type), individual phases (phase type)
a:) abilities
1:) name of ability
2:) what the boss does, visual/audio cues (ie: he starts spraying slime, then adds pop out, or "mix and stir, apply heat" is red vial phase)
3:) how we deal with it
b:) what people need to watch for (ie: poison clouds, adds, or previously noted common mistakes)
c:) specific assignments (interrupts, staggered group heals, stack on player, collapse point, etc.)
So just as an general outline, you can deliver your infomation in a format people can understand and get used to hearing, so they can absorb the information they need to and don't get alot of extra/confusing junk along with it. It's important to be as brief as you can afford to, while still being complete in your explanations, for pacing reasons.
After a wipe, two steps are needed, 1:) figure out what happened. Ask people if you don't know, no shame in sayin "what happened during that red phase? were people not stacked up or what?" and 2:) talk about the problems, "you gotta run away from those slimes, don't just keep dps'ing" or "if you don't stack up you'll get oneshotted, so it's very important". This way you don't just keep bashing your head while people keep making the same mistakes, see a problem; fix a problem. Take note of these mistakes for use in next week's explanation (see B; 1; b above).
In conclusion: Don't underestimate the value of a good, solid fight explanation. If nothing else, it refreshes everyone to the names of the abilities/spells cast, and puts you (as the raid leader) in a position to hold people accountable for their mistakes (which is important, because if you know it's their fault, odds are they know it's their fault too, and they are much more likely to improve next time).
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Healing is a PITA
One of the hardest parts about healing these days is mana management. There are some things you can do to control your mana, some to increase your mana, and some to just avoid spending mana. It is very important that we use all/any of these to ensure enough mana to finish fights.
First, it is worth noting that at current gear level, all stats are low (by design) and therefore into the future these problems will diminish themselves. In the meantime, we must pay very close attention to gemming and enchanting things. I maintain a sense of balance here, where possible. For example, if you overstack Haste, you will OOM yourself, and if you overstack Spirit, you will waste mana regen (by waste I mean: your mana is already full and you are regen'ing mana). A nice haste:spirit balance is the way to go, in my book. For druid, the way I see it, I want it balanced so I can cast Nourish (my cheap, efficient heal, also my most cast heal) all day and never go under 98% mana. So balance mana regen/mana cost with cast time, it takes me the same amount of time to regen the mana cost of the Nourish as it does to cast the Nourish. This thinking has come in handy toward the end of fights where you are nearly OOM and have to keep your tank alive. I overbalance a hair toward the spirit side, so that in an OOM situation, I can continue to cast Nourish and actually gain mana (albeit at a very slow rate). So, watching stats carefully is step one to managing your mana, it's also your mana pool management.
In most cases Int>all stats, so general gemming practice is as follows: Meet your meta requirement using 1/2 Int 1/2 spirit(for blue)/haste(for yellow) split gems. You can strategically place these couple split gems in sockets across your gear to get a socket bonus or two, if possible. Then, gem straight Int gems in the rest of your gear, ignoring any and all socket bonuses that are less than 20 Int. Int so far outweighs any other stat in most cases that socket bonuses are irrelevant. Some gear will have a +20 Int socket bonus, you can put in one of your meta req split gems here and take double advantage (ie: same as a 40 int gem, plus the 20 spirit/haste from the split).
Enchanting is pretty straightforward for healers now too. Int>all still, so Int wherever you can, and wherever you can't Int, Haste. There is either Int or Haste chants for almost every slot. Some argument comes into the weapon enchant. You will get maximum benefit from a 1H weapon and an offhand as a healer, simply from an enchanting standpoint (obviously individual cases will vary, get your calculator out and add up your stats). There is now an Int enchant for offhand slot, nuff said. For the weapon itself, there are 3 schools of thinking: Hurricane (haste proc); Heartsong (spirit proc), my personal choice; and Power Torrent (int proc), which should be and will later be the obvious choice, but this early in the expansion the materials for this chant are rediculously expensive and unless you're the Bill Gates of WoW, not worth it, imo.
Mana Cooldowns! Use that Innervate, use it early, use it often. Mana Tide, Hymn of Hope, whatever you got, use it. If it restores 30% of your mana, then cast it when you get to 75%, so it will be ready when you need it later. Common sense I know, but you have to remind yourself to use these sometimes, if you don't, you wont have the mana to finish the fight. Don't get cought out without mana and your cooldown is still up.
So we've covered stats, now onto the number one way to conserve mana: cast the right spells! You have to pay attention now more than ever to the mana cost vs. heals done vs. situation. Every healing class has different spells, I would exhaust my brain to even think of working them all together, and probably exhaust your brain to even explain the druid spells here, so I won't get all specific (hopefully). Generally speaking, you want to use your lowest MpH spells (mana per heal) to get maximum mana efficiency. But as all you healers know, healing is reactive, not proactive, so you can only hope for the best, you have to plan for the worst. Your lowest MpH spell is almost always a long cast time, slow/big heal, so you can see why it is a great choice, but sometimes you need something faster, or something bigger. Most classes will have a bigger, more expensive heal that is at or near the same cast time as your regular heal, so there's your bigger option. Most classes also have a faster, more expensive heal that is at or near the same amount healed as your regular heal, so theres your faster option. Some classes will proc instant or free heals, some have cooldowns to get guaranteed critical heals or haste bonuses to certain spells, and various cooldowns to increase healing during tough times, while ensuring you will still have mana for the end of the fight. With this in mind, I'll pull out the old addage: lrn2(insert class name here), the more familiar you are with your class the better you will heal, period. Knowing your limits/strengths/weaknesses is half the battle. Plenty of resources out there to help you become more familiar, for the basic and the more in-depth theorhetical (*sp?) healing strategies for your class, one of my favorites is Elitist Jerks. But most importantly, take some time to really study your spec and your spellbook, and really think about how your heals work.
Every situation has it's different demands on healers, and every different healer combo will have different demands on specific healers within that combo. Step 1: (and I cannot say this with enough emphasis) You have to be able to trust the other healers you are with. Super important that you all play to your strengths and cover eachother's weaknesses to ensure no player deaths in any given encounter. Here it benefits you to learn (at least a little) about other healing classes, if only to assess strengths and weaknesses and see where you can help/expect help. Communicate with your heal team, get them aside before or after a raid, or during if it's an emergency, and give them a chance to speak up about where they're having a problem, it could be an easy fix. Working together is key, and it starts with trust, don't get cought out healing the raid and let your tank die, keep your eyes on your main objective, and help where/if needed. Often your 'helping' other healers with their assignments will lead to both of you overhealing, and overhealing = bad (duh).
Which leads me into another important area (my favorite, if you know me...) monitoring your heals. It is important for healers to have (and silly for them not to have) some kind of meter addon to monitor healing. My flavor of the month as far as meters go is Skada, but Recount is the more popular choice and still pretty good. As with most addons in my view, these are tools, to be used by you to better your (and your heal team's) performance. Use these to monitor Overheals, Healing Done, Overhealing Done, you can see who's healing what and what spells they are using, you can even go in an analyze how many of your heal's were crit vs. normal, all kinds of data can be gleaned from perusal of your meter, "it's not the tool, it's how you use it". Getting/monitoring this data is half the battle, interpreting it and putting it to use is the rest. Communicate to your team with the results of your meter when you're having noticeable healing problems, nothing wrong with saying "hey I noticed you were healing my tank alot there, and it drove my overheals through the roof" or telling your raid healer "hey I noticed you were healing a tank alot, that may be why the overall raid health was so low", just don't be a dick about it and I'm sure your healing team will respond well and in most cases be able to fix the problem, to the end of a better outcome in fights. Most importantly, use the meter to assess your own performance, drive down your overheals and your mana will love you for it.
Lastly, but not leastly, I want to go over consumables. Food, Flask, Potions, should be staples in your inventory, always. Your stat weight will carry over here, so in most cases (int being > all) you will want 90 Int food buff and your Int flask (Draconic Mind), these should be obvious choices. The potions I want to go a little bit further with. There are 2 kinds of mana potions I carry with me and use, each one has it's place. I'll start with the one I use the least, the Mythical Mana Potion. It gives you 10k mana instantly, I use it as kinda the "oh shit" pot, or in cases where there is knockbacks/interrupts (read on to see why). The other potion I use is Potion of Concentration. This will give you 22k mana over 10sec, *I think* it ticks for 2200 mana/sec. But here's the catch: you have to sit still (if you get knockbacked, it will interrupt it), no casting, no moving, just chill out and get your 22k mana over 10sec. Now, since you can only use one pot per fight, you need to choose wisely. Obviously the 22k is > the 10k, duh, but if you can't let it tick for 5sec, you get less than a mythical would give you, so plan it out for a slow time, make sure there's not any mechanics that are gonna knockback/interrupt you, in some cases tell your tank "hey, I'm sitting down for mana for 10sec" if you have to, so they can watch for if they have to use a cooldown, refresh your HoT, and sit. Usually you can find more than one place where you can break for 10sec (it's almost as if they designed it that way),
It all boils down to knowing the fights, knowing your class, knowing your team, controlling yourself, and paying attention. There are so many factors that you have to account as a healer, it's no wonder it's such a PITA.
First, it is worth noting that at current gear level, all stats are low (by design) and therefore into the future these problems will diminish themselves. In the meantime, we must pay very close attention to gemming and enchanting things. I maintain a sense of balance here, where possible. For example, if you overstack Haste, you will OOM yourself, and if you overstack Spirit, you will waste mana regen (by waste I mean: your mana is already full and you are regen'ing mana). A nice haste:spirit balance is the way to go, in my book. For druid, the way I see it, I want it balanced so I can cast Nourish (my cheap, efficient heal, also my most cast heal) all day and never go under 98% mana. So balance mana regen/mana cost with cast time, it takes me the same amount of time to regen the mana cost of the Nourish as it does to cast the Nourish. This thinking has come in handy toward the end of fights where you are nearly OOM and have to keep your tank alive. I overbalance a hair toward the spirit side, so that in an OOM situation, I can continue to cast Nourish and actually gain mana (albeit at a very slow rate). So, watching stats carefully is step one to managing your mana, it's also your mana pool management.
In most cases Int>all stats, so general gemming practice is as follows: Meet your meta requirement using 1/2 Int 1/2 spirit(for blue)/haste(for yellow) split gems. You can strategically place these couple split gems in sockets across your gear to get a socket bonus or two, if possible. Then, gem straight Int gems in the rest of your gear, ignoring any and all socket bonuses that are less than 20 Int. Int so far outweighs any other stat in most cases that socket bonuses are irrelevant. Some gear will have a +20 Int socket bonus, you can put in one of your meta req split gems here and take double advantage (ie: same as a 40 int gem, plus the 20 spirit/haste from the split).
Enchanting is pretty straightforward for healers now too. Int>all still, so Int wherever you can, and wherever you can't Int, Haste. There is either Int or Haste chants for almost every slot. Some argument comes into the weapon enchant. You will get maximum benefit from a 1H weapon and an offhand as a healer, simply from an enchanting standpoint (obviously individual cases will vary, get your calculator out and add up your stats). There is now an Int enchant for offhand slot, nuff said. For the weapon itself, there are 3 schools of thinking: Hurricane (haste proc); Heartsong (spirit proc), my personal choice; and Power Torrent (int proc), which should be and will later be the obvious choice, but this early in the expansion the materials for this chant are rediculously expensive and unless you're the Bill Gates of WoW, not worth it, imo.
Mana Cooldowns! Use that Innervate, use it early, use it often. Mana Tide, Hymn of Hope, whatever you got, use it. If it restores 30% of your mana, then cast it when you get to 75%, so it will be ready when you need it later. Common sense I know, but you have to remind yourself to use these sometimes, if you don't, you wont have the mana to finish the fight. Don't get cought out without mana and your cooldown is still up.
So we've covered stats, now onto the number one way to conserve mana: cast the right spells! You have to pay attention now more than ever to the mana cost vs. heals done vs. situation. Every healing class has different spells, I would exhaust my brain to even think of working them all together, and probably exhaust your brain to even explain the druid spells here, so I won't get all specific (hopefully). Generally speaking, you want to use your lowest MpH spells (mana per heal) to get maximum mana efficiency. But as all you healers know, healing is reactive, not proactive, so you can only hope for the best, you have to plan for the worst. Your lowest MpH spell is almost always a long cast time, slow/big heal, so you can see why it is a great choice, but sometimes you need something faster, or something bigger. Most classes will have a bigger, more expensive heal that is at or near the same cast time as your regular heal, so there's your bigger option. Most classes also have a faster, more expensive heal that is at or near the same amount healed as your regular heal, so theres your faster option. Some classes will proc instant or free heals, some have cooldowns to get guaranteed critical heals or haste bonuses to certain spells, and various cooldowns to increase healing during tough times, while ensuring you will still have mana for the end of the fight. With this in mind, I'll pull out the old addage: lrn2(insert class name here), the more familiar you are with your class the better you will heal, period. Knowing your limits/strengths/weaknesses is half the battle. Plenty of resources out there to help you become more familiar, for the basic and the more in-depth theorhetical (*sp?) healing strategies for your class, one of my favorites is Elitist Jerks. But most importantly, take some time to really study your spec and your spellbook, and really think about how your heals work.
Every situation has it's different demands on healers, and every different healer combo will have different demands on specific healers within that combo. Step 1: (and I cannot say this with enough emphasis) You have to be able to trust the other healers you are with. Super important that you all play to your strengths and cover eachother's weaknesses to ensure no player deaths in any given encounter. Here it benefits you to learn (at least a little) about other healing classes, if only to assess strengths and weaknesses and see where you can help/expect help. Communicate with your heal team, get them aside before or after a raid, or during if it's an emergency, and give them a chance to speak up about where they're having a problem, it could be an easy fix. Working together is key, and it starts with trust, don't get cought out healing the raid and let your tank die, keep your eyes on your main objective, and help where/if needed. Often your 'helping' other healers with their assignments will lead to both of you overhealing, and overhealing = bad (duh).
Which leads me into another important area (my favorite, if you know me...) monitoring your heals. It is important for healers to have (and silly for them not to have) some kind of meter addon to monitor healing. My flavor of the month as far as meters go is Skada, but Recount is the more popular choice and still pretty good. As with most addons in my view, these are tools, to be used by you to better your (and your heal team's) performance. Use these to monitor Overheals, Healing Done, Overhealing Done, you can see who's healing what and what spells they are using, you can even go in an analyze how many of your heal's were crit vs. normal, all kinds of data can be gleaned from perusal of your meter, "it's not the tool, it's how you use it". Getting/monitoring this data is half the battle, interpreting it and putting it to use is the rest. Communicate to your team with the results of your meter when you're having noticeable healing problems, nothing wrong with saying "hey I noticed you were healing my tank alot there, and it drove my overheals through the roof" or telling your raid healer "hey I noticed you were healing a tank alot, that may be why the overall raid health was so low", just don't be a dick about it and I'm sure your healing team will respond well and in most cases be able to fix the problem, to the end of a better outcome in fights. Most importantly, use the meter to assess your own performance, drive down your overheals and your mana will love you for it.
Lastly, but not leastly, I want to go over consumables. Food, Flask, Potions, should be staples in your inventory, always. Your stat weight will carry over here, so in most cases (int being > all) you will want 90 Int food buff and your Int flask (Draconic Mind), these should be obvious choices. The potions I want to go a little bit further with. There are 2 kinds of mana potions I carry with me and use, each one has it's place. I'll start with the one I use the least, the Mythical Mana Potion. It gives you 10k mana instantly, I use it as kinda the "oh shit" pot, or in cases where there is knockbacks/interrupts (read on to see why). The other potion I use is Potion of Concentration. This will give you 22k mana over 10sec, *I think* it ticks for 2200 mana/sec. But here's the catch: you have to sit still (if you get knockbacked, it will interrupt it), no casting, no moving, just chill out and get your 22k mana over 10sec. Now, since you can only use one pot per fight, you need to choose wisely. Obviously the 22k is > the 10k, duh, but if you can't let it tick for 5sec, you get less than a mythical would give you, so plan it out for a slow time, make sure there's not any mechanics that are gonna knockback/interrupt you, in some cases tell your tank "hey, I'm sitting down for mana for 10sec" if you have to, so they can watch for if they have to use a cooldown, refresh your HoT, and sit. Usually you can find more than one place where you can break for 10sec (it's almost as if they designed it that way),
It all boils down to knowing the fights, knowing your class, knowing your team, controlling yourself, and paying attention. There are so many factors that you have to account as a healer, it's no wonder it's such a PITA.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Guild Achieves
It's been a long while since my last post, and I have a perfectly good excuse for all of you that feel let down by my long absence... Guild Achievements.
Guild Achieves started in Cata, and they are a great reason for us to come together and do stuff. Recently we have been working on the professions achieves, 1k flasks, 100k herbs, and 100k ore. The flask one kinda goes hand-in-hand with the herb one, so I can't claim a crazy amount of extra effort there. Thankfully, it's 100k herbs total and not 100k herb nodes because that would be approx 3-4 times more farming, and take my word for it, it was already a crazy amount of herbing. Same goes for ore, and the miners definitely put in their work racking those up.
So now that we're done with those we move onto the harder ones, skinned animals, disenchanted items, crafted items, glyphs, gems, and 3000 flasks. Some of which are just stupid time investments, I mean seriously, how long is it going to take to kill and skin 250k animals? Some of these are crazy monetary investments, crafted items probably the worst of these. Easiest of the set is the 3k flasks, we are already well on our way to that one, the rest are going to take time.
Some of the guildies are working on the GAchieves for the old world raids and dungeons, there's a full set of Vanilla, BC, LK, and Cata raid and dungeon achieves to be completed in guild (3/5) groups. These are less of a total time investment but more of a logistics nightmare, as you have to get the groups together, but on a good night they can knock out several of these in a row.
Plenty more guild achieves to be done outside of these categories too, PvP guild group achieves (which unfortunately are going to be extra hard for us, since we are not a PvP guild and don't have a ton of people who even like to PvP), and the Reputation and Quest categories, also some General achieves. Rep is going to be pretty easy, as more toons become Honored with the guild, they will add up nicely. Quests will add up fast too, we have alot of mid level toons and max level toons in guild, so the regular and daily quests will get up there over time. The General achieves are kinda cool too, they will also add up over time, gold looted and gold spent and the like. The hard ones are going to be the Classy achieves. They require us to have one, max level, honored, class of each race. Going through our guild roster it appears we have hardly any Dwarves... go figure. So we will have to get to leveling some of that.
So we have alot to keep us busy, guild achieves definitely gave us a nice reason to dedicate time to working as a team, bringing us together and whatnot. It feels better than ever to be a part of a big, stable guild, knowing that we are going to level as a guild and achieve as a guild for long time to come. Good good times.
Guild Achieves started in Cata, and they are a great reason for us to come together and do stuff. Recently we have been working on the professions achieves, 1k flasks, 100k herbs, and 100k ore. The flask one kinda goes hand-in-hand with the herb one, so I can't claim a crazy amount of extra effort there. Thankfully, it's 100k herbs total and not 100k herb nodes because that would be approx 3-4 times more farming, and take my word for it, it was already a crazy amount of herbing. Same goes for ore, and the miners definitely put in their work racking those up.
So now that we're done with those we move onto the harder ones, skinned animals, disenchanted items, crafted items, glyphs, gems, and 3000 flasks. Some of which are just stupid time investments, I mean seriously, how long is it going to take to kill and skin 250k animals? Some of these are crazy monetary investments, crafted items probably the worst of these. Easiest of the set is the 3k flasks, we are already well on our way to that one, the rest are going to take time.
Some of the guildies are working on the GAchieves for the old world raids and dungeons, there's a full set of Vanilla, BC, LK, and Cata raid and dungeon achieves to be completed in guild (3/5) groups. These are less of a total time investment but more of a logistics nightmare, as you have to get the groups together, but on a good night they can knock out several of these in a row.
Plenty more guild achieves to be done outside of these categories too, PvP guild group achieves (which unfortunately are going to be extra hard for us, since we are not a PvP guild and don't have a ton of people who even like to PvP), and the Reputation and Quest categories, also some General achieves. Rep is going to be pretty easy, as more toons become Honored with the guild, they will add up nicely. Quests will add up fast too, we have alot of mid level toons and max level toons in guild, so the regular and daily quests will get up there over time. The General achieves are kinda cool too, they will also add up over time, gold looted and gold spent and the like. The hard ones are going to be the Classy achieves. They require us to have one, max level, honored, class of each race. Going through our guild roster it appears we have hardly any Dwarves... go figure. So we will have to get to leveling some of that.
So we have alot to keep us busy, guild achieves definitely gave us a nice reason to dedicate time to working as a team, bringing us together and whatnot. It feels better than ever to be a part of a big, stable guild, knowing that we are going to level as a guild and achieve as a guild for long time to come. Good good times.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Green-->Blue-->Purple, the saga continues.
Gotta love the 'new and shiny' factor when starting out the expansion pack, but after the oooh's and ahhh's wear off, and you get down to the new content, sometimes you can find it a little... harsh. Point is, people are used to being the big cheese, facerolling around and killing whatever they point their mouse at. The new xpac hits and all of a sudden they are getting facerolled and watching where they point thier mice.
You would say that it's all about the gear, and you'd be right. Back when the max gear level was 277 and you were in at least 251-264 gear, you were rockin the liscense to kill, if you were skilled in your class there was very little you couldn't do in the game, and most of what you couldn't do was because of your raid (composition, leadership, skill level, ambition). As you go up in level, your stats required to hold the same dmg/healing/mitigation/whatever goes up. So 100 expertise at lvl 80 is worth a ton more than 100 expertise at 85 *if that makes sense*.
So now we find ourselves getting top end quest rewards at level 333, our blues are 349(I think), and our epics, crafted or bought with points, are 359. I would equate these with the initial blue/epic item lvl 200/213 stuff from the beginning of lvl 80. So to me, it stands to reason that if gear went from 200/213 to 264/277, that we are gonna wind up seeing a huge jump from the 359's we can get right now.
The gear is so stupid expenisve right now too, if you're not ballin outta control good luck landing yourself in any crafted gear. They instated a new(old) system of making a necessary part of crafted gear drop from heroic dungeons and is BoP, meaning the crafter himself has to get them from doing heroics, then go about advertising his known patterns and letting people buy the orbs from them. Good for the crafter, hard on the gen pop. This is one of the many ways I can see blizz promoting guild groups, you are motivated by wanting the crafted gear to not pug, but to bring your guild crafter thru the heroics to acquire the orbs you need (@ one orb per heroic end boss, and some recipes require 3 orbs). There are plenty of crafters pugging heroics for orbs, buying/farming the other mats and selling crafted epics on the AH for crazy amounts of golds too, so if you are lucky to have a sugar daddy/momma, or a fat stack banked up, you are in business.
Blizz also put gear level requirements on the heroic dungeon finder, which is causing some drama about the guildies. You can walk into the instance if you are undergeared (not that you'll do good dps or be able to tank/heal it well), and this is where you get guildies assuming to be 'carried' through. People want to use the dungeon finder to do a heroic random dungeon for their extra points, if you walk in you lose out on the 70 points. So what do you do when you get a guildie in your group and you go to que for the random and it says 'Bob does not meet the requirements for this dungeon. Needed item lvl 329 (currently 314)'? You kick Bob's ass outta the group, I say. Then Bob tries to guilt you into takin him anyway "well we can just walk in". Some people are too nice to say "Foff, Bob. We are doin random for points", some are even too nice to add "we can take you to a regular or walk into a heroic when we are done our random for points". So where do we draw the line?
Basic readiness rules for Heroic Dungeons:
Gear: you need an average item lvl 329 to be able to que for heroics. Do the quests all the way out to the end of the lines, nice 333 stuff dropping off quests. Do the daily quests for reputation, or sometimes you already have rep so just visit the quartermasters for cata rep factions and see what's up, lotta good gear there. Some cheap small upgrades (crafted pvp gears) available on AH. Point is, do the homework, do the quests, ask for help, not a walkthru/carry.
Enchants: not a bad idea to put at least a basic enchant on your mid/crappy gear to boost you just that little bit. The cata small enchants are surprisingly cheap, and if you weren't a cheapass greedy sucka and maybe saved some of the BoE gear you got while questing, you probably already have an available arsenal of enchanting mats for your local/guild enchanter to help you out.
Consumables: Flasks and elixirs are very expensive right now, high in mats and hard to get, so I'm sure everyone will understand why you dont want to flask for a heroic. Potions, slightly different story. First off, if you are a healing class, you need mana pots, period, end of story. Tanks can use pots for armor or mastery as a cooldown, and dps can boost theirs with a nice haste/sp/agi/str pot. Fairly cheap to make and readily available, just talk to your local/guild alchemist.
Buff Food: separate from consumables for emphasis. It's still too early for anyone to have the superduper fish feast right now, so you can't go about assuming you'll have your food buff handed to you in-group. Come prepared! It's so cheap to make, and there are so many varieties available, there is literally no excuse for you to not have some kind of 90/90 buff food on you at all times. Talk to your local/guild chef, enough time has passed for him/her to have just about every recipe if they have been diligent about their daily cooking quests. Materials are easily farmed by you, or bought for decent prices all over the AH, and a 90 stat buff is definitely worth it, whether it's str, dodge, int, agi, exp, the list goes on...
The last requirement to be included in my list for heroics is Attitude. You need to come ready to learn, to wipe and re-wipe, to learn from mistakes and adjust strategies. You need to come ready to pay full attention, don't be that guy standing in the void zone because your healer does not have a ton of extra mana to be healing you through that. You need to come ready to spend the time necessary, don't start a heroic (especially with guildies) if you have to go to work in half an hour, you should be ready to stick as long as it takes (barring emergencies and bio's) to complete your heroic, or until it is decided that, as a group, you dont have what it takes to finish. Do not be surprised if this happens as well, there's no shame in calling it quits if you dont have what it takes. IMO, better to call it than to beat your face against something you're not gonna get just for some heroic loots, raid loots maybe, progression certainly, but not just heroic dungeon, nobody likes wiping for hours.
You would say that it's all about the gear, and you'd be right. Back when the max gear level was 277 and you were in at least 251-264 gear, you were rockin the liscense to kill, if you were skilled in your class there was very little you couldn't do in the game, and most of what you couldn't do was because of your raid (composition, leadership, skill level, ambition). As you go up in level, your stats required to hold the same dmg/healing/mitigation/whatever goes up. So 100 expertise at lvl 80 is worth a ton more than 100 expertise at 85 *if that makes sense*.
So now we find ourselves getting top end quest rewards at level 333, our blues are 349(I think), and our epics, crafted or bought with points, are 359. I would equate these with the initial blue/epic item lvl 200/213 stuff from the beginning of lvl 80. So to me, it stands to reason that if gear went from 200/213 to 264/277, that we are gonna wind up seeing a huge jump from the 359's we can get right now.
The gear is so stupid expenisve right now too, if you're not ballin outta control good luck landing yourself in any crafted gear. They instated a new(old) system of making a necessary part of crafted gear drop from heroic dungeons and is BoP, meaning the crafter himself has to get them from doing heroics, then go about advertising his known patterns and letting people buy the orbs from them. Good for the crafter, hard on the gen pop. This is one of the many ways I can see blizz promoting guild groups, you are motivated by wanting the crafted gear to not pug, but to bring your guild crafter thru the heroics to acquire the orbs you need (@ one orb per heroic end boss, and some recipes require 3 orbs). There are plenty of crafters pugging heroics for orbs, buying/farming the other mats and selling crafted epics on the AH for crazy amounts of golds too, so if you are lucky to have a sugar daddy/momma, or a fat stack banked up, you are in business.
Blizz also put gear level requirements on the heroic dungeon finder, which is causing some drama about the guildies. You can walk into the instance if you are undergeared (not that you'll do good dps or be able to tank/heal it well), and this is where you get guildies assuming to be 'carried' through. People want to use the dungeon finder to do a heroic random dungeon for their extra points, if you walk in you lose out on the 70 points. So what do you do when you get a guildie in your group and you go to que for the random and it says 'Bob does not meet the requirements for this dungeon. Needed item lvl 329 (currently 314)'? You kick Bob's ass outta the group, I say. Then Bob tries to guilt you into takin him anyway "well we can just walk in". Some people are too nice to say "Foff, Bob. We are doin random for points", some are even too nice to add "we can take you to a regular or walk into a heroic when we are done our random for points". So where do we draw the line?
Basic readiness rules for Heroic Dungeons:
Gear: you need an average item lvl 329 to be able to que for heroics. Do the quests all the way out to the end of the lines, nice 333 stuff dropping off quests. Do the daily quests for reputation, or sometimes you already have rep so just visit the quartermasters for cata rep factions and see what's up, lotta good gear there. Some cheap small upgrades (crafted pvp gears) available on AH. Point is, do the homework, do the quests, ask for help, not a walkthru/carry.
Enchants: not a bad idea to put at least a basic enchant on your mid/crappy gear to boost you just that little bit. The cata small enchants are surprisingly cheap, and if you weren't a cheapass greedy sucka and maybe saved some of the BoE gear you got while questing, you probably already have an available arsenal of enchanting mats for your local/guild enchanter to help you out.
Consumables: Flasks and elixirs are very expensive right now, high in mats and hard to get, so I'm sure everyone will understand why you dont want to flask for a heroic. Potions, slightly different story. First off, if you are a healing class, you need mana pots, period, end of story. Tanks can use pots for armor or mastery as a cooldown, and dps can boost theirs with a nice haste/sp/agi/str pot. Fairly cheap to make and readily available, just talk to your local/guild alchemist.
Buff Food: separate from consumables for emphasis. It's still too early for anyone to have the superduper fish feast right now, so you can't go about assuming you'll have your food buff handed to you in-group. Come prepared! It's so cheap to make, and there are so many varieties available, there is literally no excuse for you to not have some kind of 90/90 buff food on you at all times. Talk to your local/guild chef, enough time has passed for him/her to have just about every recipe if they have been diligent about their daily cooking quests. Materials are easily farmed by you, or bought for decent prices all over the AH, and a 90 stat buff is definitely worth it, whether it's str, dodge, int, agi, exp, the list goes on...
The last requirement to be included in my list for heroics is Attitude. You need to come ready to learn, to wipe and re-wipe, to learn from mistakes and adjust strategies. You need to come ready to pay full attention, don't be that guy standing in the void zone because your healer does not have a ton of extra mana to be healing you through that. You need to come ready to spend the time necessary, don't start a heroic (especially with guildies) if you have to go to work in half an hour, you should be ready to stick as long as it takes (barring emergencies and bio's) to complete your heroic, or until it is decided that, as a group, you dont have what it takes to finish. Do not be surprised if this happens as well, there's no shame in calling it quits if you dont have what it takes. IMO, better to call it than to beat your face against something you're not gonna get just for some heroic loots, raid loots maybe, progression certainly, but not just heroic dungeon, nobody likes wiping for hours.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Cataclysm!
So I know it's been awhile since my last post, but in my defense, it has been kinda slowgoing prior to Cata release, and kinda 'zomghurryupandlvlbrbeatingasandwichandtakinganapnotimetoplaywithlegos' since Cata release. So I reckon on this fabulous maintenance day, I'll put down my thoughts on Cata for general consumption.
In this first week I've seen 2 toons to 85, and experienced a ton of the quest content, not so much of the dungeon content. The quests are delicious, numerous, and pretty straightforward (most of them). The new redesigned questing method is, I think, awesome. They make the chains all link together, so one quest hub leads you to the next hub, and that hub leads you to the following hub, all the way through the zone. Gone are the days when you finish up a hub and go 'OK great, wtf do I go now?' Achievements for completion of all/most quests in every zone to make sure you don't spend hella time wondering if there's more quests in this zone and wandering around aimlessly lookin for that !.
So there's Vashj'ir (sp* on that?). Underwater paradise if you can stand very angry fish and some far-wandering patrols of naga. I was actually surprised we didn't see more murlocks here... but I'm not gonna look that particular gift horse in the teeth, ifya feel me. Blizz did an awesome job with this zone. It's multi-layered, excellent detail put into the underwater plantlife and varying kinds of wildlife (beasts, fish, and critters). All in all, I'd have to say this is my favorite of the new zones. Now, did it not include a water mount and underwater breathing..., maybe a different story, but I have chosen to start all the toons I'm lvling in this zone.
Then, Mt. Hyjal. I can't speak to this zone as I haven't gone out there to quest, other than to kill elementals for the new JC daily quest. Maybe one of you, my dedicated followers, can add your thoughts on Hyjal in a comment!, or not, whatevs.
So after one of the above-mentioned starting zones, there's Deepholm. They located this one in 'the maelstrom', nothing says good questing like starting a line by diving into a zomgbigass whirlpool, but you wind up in an underground (underground, underwater, under azeroth, under someshit, there is no way to fly up and out) cavern, all rocky and black and rocky and dark. The questline here is just rediculous, it makes one coherent story all the way from the first quest through to the end of the line. To make that even better, they force you to experience the entire line before opening up the Therazane reputation vendor/daily quests, which will almost guarantee everyone will finish up before moving on, since they are the new #1 place to go for shoulder enchants for all roles. And as a side note, awesome mining takes place here, no pyrite, but hella elementium, so yeah.
Next stop on your way to 85, Uldum. Sweet desert setup, really nice environment if you're into the whole desert thing, lots of cool pyramids around, the npc's are... funny lookin and whatnot. Kinda scattery in the questing, we see alot of different stories, not really a line from beginning to end as much as a group of smaller lines, but that's fine by me. Big highlight here : Harrison Jones! There's 3 (or 4, you can kinda split the last one into 2 pieces) questlines for Indy in this zone, he's in familiar territory, underground temples and crazy pyramid junk, and **spoiler** he even meets up with our old buddy Brann Bronzebeard ("You'll find me wherever the action is!" no shit.). Good times in this zone, and relatively fast an easy. Also, my new, all-time favorite quest is located here, toward the middle of the questing... the Crazed Gnome Massacre! For this quest you actually encase yourself in a sphere of awesome and go literally faceroll 1000 gnomes! Nothing beats that... nothing. ever. ever. I wish it was a daily... but sadly, it's not.
Lastly, there is Twilight Highlands. I've hit 85 both times in the middle of the line here, so I haven't seen the entire line play out and cannot speak to it's story coming together or not. What I can say is : who doesn't like helpling dwarves out. That whole Wildhammer/Firebeard thing is kinda crazy, there's a wedding, some trashed and burning dwarf holes (dwarf = hobbit?), and plenty of kegs of beer. Some dragon happenings, a funky upside-down octopus with flailing tentacles, and the new Ring of Blood (Crucible of Carnage I think they call it). This zone looks like your typical coastal land mass in my eyes, nothing exceptionally special about the environment detail, but definitely content rich, you can't go and inch without aggro'ing 3 things that just might kill you.
The new profession stuff is... at least interesting, at best a real PITA. The first couple days an enormous amount of money was to be made by people gathering and selling instead of trying to craft things off the bat. I definitely participated in some big money selling those first 2 days, which in turn, financed me to buy 10x the same stuff back to level my professions, about 4 days later. Wierd how that works, but anyway. I'm starting to realize that my professions don't match up... I was all set up when they were all lvl 80 to do things across all toons. Now I'm leveling my miner/alchemist and got no herbage to alchy with. So then I goto my herber/alchemist to balance that, but who needs 2 alchys off the bat? (small use though, in transmute cooldowns). Then I shoot for my leatherworker/jewelcrafter, so I have gems and ore for JC thru mining earlier, but no leathers. Then I realize that I dont even have a skinner! That won't do, so it's time to re-analyze my professions across the board. I really can't mine on 2 toons at once, so I don't need 2 miners is what I decide, and I drop mining on the paladin and switchin him to skinning to go with his blacksmithing. So the plan was to do the hunter next, but as he can do JC dailys for tokens and buy recipes while he's still 80, and he can't LW worth a damn without any leather... I'm going with the paladin first to provide skins, and a few hours a day mining on the druid will fund his blacksmithing, then, I'll be totally balanced. So after hunter, it'll be shaman for engineering, though I may go ahead and level his alchemy in the meantime, for an additional xmute cooldown.
Abit lengthy... and I left alot out believe it or not, there's just so much new junk goin on and all sorts of craziness. It is, as I'm sure blizz intended, going to be a long while before things get comfortable again. PvP is supposed to start today, Rated PvP next week, my raid is talking about starting up in the beginning of January. Overall, it's going to be an action packed few months, but I'm ready for the long and tedious gearing up process, bringiton.
In this first week I've seen 2 toons to 85, and experienced a ton of the quest content, not so much of the dungeon content. The quests are delicious, numerous, and pretty straightforward (most of them). The new redesigned questing method is, I think, awesome. They make the chains all link together, so one quest hub leads you to the next hub, and that hub leads you to the following hub, all the way through the zone. Gone are the days when you finish up a hub and go 'OK great, wtf do I go now?' Achievements for completion of all/most quests in every zone to make sure you don't spend hella time wondering if there's more quests in this zone and wandering around aimlessly lookin for that !.
So there's Vashj'ir (sp* on that?). Underwater paradise if you can stand very angry fish and some far-wandering patrols of naga. I was actually surprised we didn't see more murlocks here... but I'm not gonna look that particular gift horse in the teeth, ifya feel me. Blizz did an awesome job with this zone. It's multi-layered, excellent detail put into the underwater plantlife and varying kinds of wildlife (beasts, fish, and critters). All in all, I'd have to say this is my favorite of the new zones. Now, did it not include a water mount and underwater breathing..., maybe a different story, but I have chosen to start all the toons I'm lvling in this zone.
Then, Mt. Hyjal. I can't speak to this zone as I haven't gone out there to quest, other than to kill elementals for the new JC daily quest. Maybe one of you, my dedicated followers, can add your thoughts on Hyjal in a comment!, or not, whatevs.
So after one of the above-mentioned starting zones, there's Deepholm. They located this one in 'the maelstrom', nothing says good questing like starting a line by diving into a zomgbigass whirlpool, but you wind up in an underground (underground, underwater, under azeroth, under someshit, there is no way to fly up and out) cavern, all rocky and black and rocky and dark. The questline here is just rediculous, it makes one coherent story all the way from the first quest through to the end of the line. To make that even better, they force you to experience the entire line before opening up the Therazane reputation vendor/daily quests, which will almost guarantee everyone will finish up before moving on, since they are the new #1 place to go for shoulder enchants for all roles. And as a side note, awesome mining takes place here, no pyrite, but hella elementium, so yeah.
Next stop on your way to 85, Uldum. Sweet desert setup, really nice environment if you're into the whole desert thing, lots of cool pyramids around, the npc's are... funny lookin and whatnot. Kinda scattery in the questing, we see alot of different stories, not really a line from beginning to end as much as a group of smaller lines, but that's fine by me. Big highlight here : Harrison Jones! There's 3 (or 4, you can kinda split the last one into 2 pieces) questlines for Indy in this zone, he's in familiar territory, underground temples and crazy pyramid junk, and **spoiler** he even meets up with our old buddy Brann Bronzebeard ("You'll find me wherever the action is!" no shit.). Good times in this zone, and relatively fast an easy. Also, my new, all-time favorite quest is located here, toward the middle of the questing... the Crazed Gnome Massacre! For this quest you actually encase yourself in a sphere of awesome and go literally faceroll 1000 gnomes! Nothing beats that... nothing. ever. ever. I wish it was a daily... but sadly, it's not.
Lastly, there is Twilight Highlands. I've hit 85 both times in the middle of the line here, so I haven't seen the entire line play out and cannot speak to it's story coming together or not. What I can say is : who doesn't like helpling dwarves out. That whole Wildhammer/Firebeard thing is kinda crazy, there's a wedding, some trashed and burning dwarf holes (dwarf = hobbit?), and plenty of kegs of beer. Some dragon happenings, a funky upside-down octopus with flailing tentacles, and the new Ring of Blood (Crucible of Carnage I think they call it). This zone looks like your typical coastal land mass in my eyes, nothing exceptionally special about the environment detail, but definitely content rich, you can't go and inch without aggro'ing 3 things that just might kill you.
The new profession stuff is... at least interesting, at best a real PITA. The first couple days an enormous amount of money was to be made by people gathering and selling instead of trying to craft things off the bat. I definitely participated in some big money selling those first 2 days, which in turn, financed me to buy 10x the same stuff back to level my professions, about 4 days later. Wierd how that works, but anyway. I'm starting to realize that my professions don't match up... I was all set up when they were all lvl 80 to do things across all toons. Now I'm leveling my miner/alchemist and got no herbage to alchy with. So then I goto my herber/alchemist to balance that, but who needs 2 alchys off the bat? (small use though, in transmute cooldowns). Then I shoot for my leatherworker/jewelcrafter, so I have gems and ore for JC thru mining earlier, but no leathers. Then I realize that I dont even have a skinner! That won't do, so it's time to re-analyze my professions across the board. I really can't mine on 2 toons at once, so I don't need 2 miners is what I decide, and I drop mining on the paladin and switchin him to skinning to go with his blacksmithing. So the plan was to do the hunter next, but as he can do JC dailys for tokens and buy recipes while he's still 80, and he can't LW worth a damn without any leather... I'm going with the paladin first to provide skins, and a few hours a day mining on the druid will fund his blacksmithing, then, I'll be totally balanced. So after hunter, it'll be shaman for engineering, though I may go ahead and level his alchemy in the meantime, for an additional xmute cooldown.
Abit lengthy... and I left alot out believe it or not, there's just so much new junk goin on and all sorts of craziness. It is, as I'm sure blizz intended, going to be a long while before things get comfortable again. PvP is supposed to start today, Rated PvP next week, my raid is talking about starting up in the beginning of January. Overall, it's going to be an action packed few months, but I'm ready for the long and tedious gearing up process, bringiton.
Friday, November 26, 2010
In My Boredom...
So purely out of boredom a few months ago I made a new alt on another server, an Undead (read 'really ugly') Priest. Also out of unconquerable boredom, I decided last week to actually level this new, sad, no BoA havin, ugly, pathetically weak, brokeass, 'nother server alt. It has been fun, I gotta say, despite being 'used to' having BoA gear and a ton of golds to fund my low-lvls through their journey. Horde-side questing is interesting, as I've only played one Horde toon before and it were so long ago I can't hardly remember. Plus, the new patch changed all the environments and a good bit of the quests, so it's all new. Time to see if the old addage 'if I could go back, knowing what I know now' holds true, starting a new toon on a new server with nothing, at all. So far, working out OK, made a fisherman and got some gathering professions, theres my income right there *which I didn't know about the first time around. As it stands, I *should* have enough G for my flying mount by 60, which I didn't get on my first toon (my hunter) until I was already 80. All in all, I reckon it's fun and semi-instructive. At very least, it adds a touch of perspective, to all those who have become so elitist and intolerant of 'noobs' in the game I would say: go make a new toon on a new server and see what it's like to not have heaps of gold and BoA's, bags, mounts, guildies, or friends again.
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