My Present Wasn't Under A Tree

Now that the holiday season has begun it's death spiral, all the presents have been unwrapped, and I curse the sweets and spirits that have punished my body over the past seventy-two hours, I can catch my breath (wheeze) and reflect on some of the in-game events I have been privy to.

Winter's Veil

Haven't done a thing. Not one present, not one snowball. Nada. Don't care.

Dungeon Finder

Hello new best friend.

I'll be honest, I have never been a big fan of groups. Guildie groups, the rare time it happened, were bearable because they're a good crew (amazing for a guild our size) and forgiving to those who were more solo oriented. Don't misunderstand, I know what to do in a group. I assist the tank, kill what needs killing, keep control of my pet when I'm using my Hunter. It's just the people that annoy me sometimes.

Especially in PuGs.

Not so much with the Dungeon Finder. In fact, it plays to one of the more powerful drives in the WoW player base - Greed.

In the days pre-DF, you'd get a PuG and be picky about it. After all, it took time to put these things together and you essentially got one shot at clearing the instance for Emblems of Triumph. It could be slow, painful, and not very much fun.

Fast forward to the PuGs of the Dungeon Finder Era. Emphasis on FAST. First, it takes no effort on the player's part to find a group. They simply queue up as the role they want to play, then carry on with their business until they get a tap on the shoulder saying "Excuse me, but your group is ready."

Next, a teleport to the instance. No more summoning, no more waiting around for people to arrive. Everyone's there at the same time, ready to go.

The pace of these things are quick. People like to rush through them so they can queue up for another one as fast as possible, getting the most emblems they can. It's like they ducked into the bathroom to drop a deuce with their laptop resting on their thighs, and need to get their Triumph emblems before they flush.

This quick pace means people aren't too picky. The Dungeon Finder ranks characters by gear, so people aren't carrying lesser-geared toons through the instance, but they don't sweat that dude with the less than amazing DPS. They just want to get through the instance and start a new one. I have yet to see anyone be kicked from a group for sub-par DPS.

Needless to say, I've been having fun with the Dungeon Finder when I've had the time to use it. I've been testing the water with my Hunter, just to get the hang of dealing with people. Some, like the druid who humped Rukgut's wolf to kill some time, were more interesting than others.



Bloodybull, I will find you and you WILL be paying pup support.

Today, after stacking run after run through instances like a fleet of drunk sailors on a hooker during shore leave, I ended up with a few pieces of quality T9 Gear -




Those are the types of presents I can handle over the holidays. I've seen new content that I'm sure I'll be sick of seeing. I've met horny druids and and silent drones who storm through encounters without saying a word. I've gathered gear that'll be more than sufficient until the next expansion, and I'm gaining experience that can't be shown on a bar.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Happy Holidays.

Progression

Back on the net, back in the game. New motivation there, strides to be made.

For example, Rokk has been doing it big in Wintergrasp.



He's amassed enough enough of a bodycount to pick up an upgrade.



From there, he knocked off a couple of reputations: Exalted with Sons of Hodir and -



Gemmed some gear, shoulder enchant SoH, and put a new killing tool in Rokk's hand, made by Rokk's own hands.



All this in the past 24 hours. How was YOUR day?

Halls of Lightning

When you have multiple characters, you sometimes forget what they have and haven't done as far as progression. However, I do know that Rokk appears to have gotten into the swing of the PVP concept of Wintergrasp.



He's becoming quite the adept killer.

Now in the wee hours of the morning, when a call went out to run heroic Halls of Lightning, a still-blooddrunk Rokk answered the call.



With the band of merry guildies, Rokk went forth and began to lay waste to Loken's minions.



Eventually, after crushing bodies beneath his feet, Rokk finally heard the words of the treacherous and deceiving Loken.



The battle raged, the body fell, and Rokk's first heroic instance had been completed. What did he have to show for his efforts?






It wasn't all about achievements. He did get an upgrade for his tanking set.



Success!

The Wall - Part The Second

That's a good looking sword right there. A steal at only 25 Champion's Seals!



Most DK's swing the Titansteel Destroyer once they hit 80. We can make one if we wanted to. But since we're not buying pets or mounts with our Seals, might as well get something out of the jousting efforts.

This is the second toon I've taken to 80, and I've found the same thing happened. Ding 80, and the enthusiasm fizzles out. I thought that, with my hunter, it was just burnout on the class. After all, between all the servers I've had characters on I've probably gone through over 200 levels of Hunter. Hecksticks, Rukgut even got the rare Proto-Drake from the Oracle's Egg and even that wasn't enough to get me psyched up to play him.

Maybe running Rokk through some instances might help. Problem there is that I'm running WoW on my laptop, and I've found that my system bogs right down during Chillmaw fights. I can't imagine what it'd do during a raid, or a heroic for that matter. Wonderful.

Feeling a bid dejected, we decided it was time to round out some skills. Well, fishing had fallen behind and it had the potential to be a good money-maker. Why not?

Mid-cast, someone runs up to me out of the blue - I shit you not - and they feel the need to let me in on the server's worst-kept secret:



Fantastic.

The Crab Has Spoken

Ghostcrawler had this to say in regards to DK armor nerfage -

As I explained, we compared DK armor, health and avoidance to other tanks, and found that the DKs ended up in better shape than other tanks even if you totally ignored cooldowns. When you consider cooldowns, things are even more skewed.

I just didn't want potentially disgruntled players to perpetuate a myth that DK armor got nerfed because their cooldowns were too good. DK armor got nerfed because their armor was too good. Many players (some DKs even) argue that the cooldowns are still too good.

The short version of how we got there was that some glyphs and set bonuses ended up being better or worse than we imagined, block ended up mitigating a lot less damage than we envisioned (before the Ulduar bosses actually existed), and because effective health ended up being way more important to progression than any other aspect of tanking.

I'm sure there's a metric ton of DK's out there who are outright pissed at this. To them I say, suck it up Princess. Mind you, Rokk is wearing the Hell out of quest greens and those aren't getting him killed yet. He might get the stink-eye from the androgynous Blood Elves, but that's like having Richard Simmons and his legwarmers get all up in your grill about the shirt you're wearing. That's when you take your Volkswagon-sized Mace and pound his head into some location south of his belt line.

Consequently, Ghostcrawler did have a thing or two to say about Paladin gear -

---

Q u o t e:
I feel that this crusade against Paladin Healers is unjust and if you could take another step back, take your dev team, and run Ulduar on some premades (given everyone knows how to play correctly, but honestly I sometimes wonder with some of the patches you guys roll out) then you will see that each class has a specific role. While not all roles are quite as pigeon-holed as a Holy Paladin, I do believe that this is as about even as you will let us become.

---

Oh, come on. All of these "If you'd just play my class, you'd understand" comments are a bit silly. We designed your class. We know how it works.

The issue that started all this was paladins saying "We don't want MP5 on our gear." The designers designed you assuming you'd have MP5 on your gear -- I know; I was there. If you are effective without having MP5 then it probably means you are going to be too powerful at some point because you are able to replace a less-powerful stat with a more powerful one without missing the loss of the less-powerful one.

Imagine you could prune every less-useful stat off your gear. Imagine you could trade in armor, Stamina and everything else for just spell power and crit. Do you think you'd blow away the other healers? I do. That's more extreme than giving up MP5 for more crit, but carries similar risks from a game-balance perspective.

Healers should care about Spirit (druids and priests) and MP5 (paladins and shamans). It's fine to care about Int and crit too, but if you're ignoring Spirit and MP5 and aren't missing them, then something isn't working right.

Sometimes this guy knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

Only Fifty Clams

They're practically giving blues away.

Winterfin Retreat needed The Rokk's help. If there's one thing I know, it's that you can't discriminate. If they've got an exclamation mark hanging over their head, any quest they have is as good as someone else's, regardless of race, creed, or faction.

Except Alliance. They can go pound salt while pissing up a rope.

Anyway, there's a Clam Vendor at the Winterfin Retreat. While running quests at the opposing Winterfin Murloc camp, you easily scrounge up Winterfin Clams. In fact, in the time it took me to finish up Oh Noes, The Tadpoles! and Them! , I easily rounded up the 50 clams necessary to purchase what was pretty much an upgrade from the axe I was using -



Not only that, but if one wanted to make some easy gold in the AH, you simply have to get 100 clams and hand them in for a Siren's Tear which usually sells well (100g last time I looked).

One Good Day

The Rokk had, what many people would call, a good day.

During a round of questing, I hooked up with Betray from the guild Ruin. He told me about some gear upgrades through questing, so I backtracked a little and finished the quests I just wanted to blow off.


The end result was twofold:
1) Ding 69!
2) A serious weapon upgrade!



There's probably more to be said, but I'm tired and a little hung over from yesterday.

A Whole New World

Now The Rokk likes a good quest. Okay, maybe it's not the quest so much as the phat loots / gold / universal adoration that comes with it. But after landing at Warsong Hold and grabbing a few of the quests, a few deaths later I'm wondering WTF? Perhaps the Unholy spec I found isn't holding up that well against mobs 68-69. Maybe it's just partial resists due to level disparity. Who knows.

The bottom line is that The Rokk has picked up a few nice pieces already - we're talking chest, legs, and weapon upgrades without ever leaving the Fred Flintstone-like rock quarry that surrounds Warsong Hold.

Oh, and The Rokk says this: Not just anyone can ride a Magic Carpet and still look cool.

Reputations are made by searching for things that can't be done and doing them

- Frank Tyger

A Slow Grind

- Not much happened this past week, to be honest. Ruk kept looking for the Spirit Beast, made himself gear - Eaglebane Bracers and Swiftarrow Shoulderguards, and farmed mats.

- Halfway out of 78, and the pets are coming along. The Devilsaur is now being levelled for DPS, until I can get the Spirit Beast. Taming a wasp from Sholazar Basin is fine, but targeting can become an issue. I can't imagine any group being thrilled with having to navigate around a giant flying bug. Maybe grinding up one of the wasps from Zangramash might be a better way to go. We'll just put that on the list of things to do at 80.

- Questing is still a little frustrating. Ruk is working through the questlines, and they all seem to end at one elite boss. They're not listed as group encounters, but still... what a pain.