Yay, 3.1!

Looks like tomorrow will be an interesting day. We’re going to do an exploratory guild 10-man Ulduar in the morning to get some practice before we do our 25-man in the evening, and Mingle will be going in to lend a hand with shadow pew-pew. (I’ll see if I can take some screenshots of the carnage to post between raids)

And as part of the preparation for tomorrow, I did some fishing to have a supply of Fish Feasts on hand. I did a lot of fishing over the last couple of days (and one of the officers gave me a couple of stacks of each of the fish ingredients), something that I really wish I could have left it until post-patch (mostly to get more chances at fishing up the Sea Turtle, as seen with the other new mounts on MMO Champion). I made 62 fish feasts, which gives me about 89 – hopefully that’ll last the week. (And Mingle dinged 450 fishing this evening in Sholazar Basin)

But here comes 3.1! Yay! A new raid and better fishing ahoy!

Farming Rep Used To Take Longer

Yet another Dingle achievement post; I’m sure you’re surprised.

I’ve been doing a little farming of reputations, with an eye to completing The Diplomat achievement – I think “Dinglemouse the Diplomat” has a nice ring to it, don’t you? 

As I mentioned previously, farming Kurenai to exalted took a couple of sessions of grinding, but otherwise wasn’t too rough.  Farming Sporeggar, however, had me scratching my head for a little while.  The two methods that I was used to (farming Fertile Spores or farming Bloodscale Naga) aren’t the quickest of things.  The breakthrough came while I browsed the WoWWiki page about the faction, and made a little mental adjustment that made it easy.

The adjustment is, “I’m playing a well geared tank – how hard can normal Underbog be to farm?”  As it turns out, it’s not hard at all.  I mean, it’s seriously easy.  (And kind of fun, to boot)  You see, as someone who previously raided on a rogue (which is to say, is used to being squishy) and currently raids on a priest (which is to say, is squishy), I’m more used to avoiding the kind of stand-up fights where a tank really shines – hopefully next time it won’t take me as long to come to my senses, and play the strength of the class.

On my first time through I cautiously cleared my way through to several of the groups of humanoids after Hungarfen, and stopped there to head back out to reset – it wasn’t necessary to finish the instance, as all I needed were around a couple of hundred Sanguine Hibiscus, after all, and they’re easily farmed in the area up to the first Naga pair.  (It’s quite possible I could have cleared the instance, but the humanoid section in the middle would have been an unnecessary time-sink)

I think I was getting around 30 hibiscus per run, and a bit of vendor trash (plus a couple of greens, and a blue from Hungarfen each time), and I was taking it very leisurely (about 20-30 minutes per run – I’m not really one to rush things when I don’t need to); after six runs (and a clearing my bags once) I was able to head back the Sporeggar and ding exalted.

Last on the list is Timbermaw Hold, and I’m relying (once again) upon advice from WoWWiki.  This is another old-school grind, and pretty slow going (especially when someone else is farming the mobs as well), but I’m making progress.  (If you’re planning on farming this one yourself, the WoWWiki guide is a must-read)

Gear also continued to drop – some helpful guildies went to normal Halls of Lightning with me, and I was blessed with the Seal of the Pantheon on my very first run, much to my chagrin.  (One of the others in the raid had to make several runs on his tank in order to pick it up)

A little exploring also saw the Explore Northrend achievement completed (with the new tabard to go with it, which took Dingle to ten), and the Explore Outland achievement fell not long afterwards.

Sunday saw the guild finishing clearing most of the Wrath content for the week (Kel’Thuzad and Malygos were saved for Monday night), and venturing back into Outland for something to do.  Dingle tagged along as Vashj fell first in SSC, followed by Kael in Tempest Keep, and we finished the night with Illidan in Black Temple.  (I kind of miss the fact that they used to be hard – and in the case of the Vashj fight, lots of fun!)

For now, though, the desire for something new to do is becoming uncomfortable in it’s intensity – the lack of level-80 content has become glaringly obvious and many of my guildmates have expressed sentiments similar to my own, in that Blizzard had better not disappoint with Ulduar.

My gold’s on 3.1 going live tomorrow.  Probably because I don’t want to be re-running the same old raids for yet another blasted week.

Time for dailies!

/wave

Busy, Busy Busy.

I had a pretty full-on afternoon (and evening) last night, and somehow managed to finish Naxxramas, Vault of Archavon and Malygos 10-man raids with Dingle.

Now, for an alt I think that’s pretty good. (At least, it is for my alts, the rest of whom aren’t getting out of Dalaran much) And the group worked pretty well, with quite a few one-shot bosses (including Gothik, who crushed last week’s group). I got to experience the terror of tanking both Kel’Thuzad and Malygos, but our DK tank had the death-of-boredom that is tanking Loatheb all to himself.

Tanking Sapphiron wasn’t that hard (having Dingle defence-capped in her frost-resist gear helped, I suspect), but KT was something of a challenge – originally the DK was tanking KT, but after a couple of wipes I inherited the position and he tanked the adds. It was tricky to fit both HS spam and frost bolt interrupts into the routine, and to move out of the things that appeared on the floor underneath me (at least, to get out of them without moving the boss too much – rotating around the boss slowly seemed to work) but I pulled it off (somehow).

Malygos was something of a shock to the system – in all my (short) time tanking, that’s the first time I’ve been seen my health dropping so drastically, so often and so quickly (no, Gluth doesn’t count). And I have a new respect for our 25-man Main Tank/Raid Leader, for being able to tank and watch for sparks and raid lead.

What I’ve learned from all this is that my tanking, while not as bad as some of the green-clad newly-80 DKs lurking in trade channel, still needs work. I was often rage-capped, and kept letting both my Sunder Armor stacks and battle shouts drop (when I remembered to put a shout up at all).

Fitting Heroic Strike spam into my rotation is tricky, and I’m definitely needing practice getting it all together a bit better. I also need to do a bit more research into the various battle shouts, to get a better idea of which to put up and when to do so. I will probably also have to put together more warnings in Power Auras to help keep track of whether a shout is up or not, although I should probably have a look to see if there are other ways to track them. (I’ll be sure to post my findings on here – if I don’t get sidetracked by new shiny toys and other distractions)

I have an empty ring in Opie that could be very useful for putting up short-duration buffs like battleshouts, but I think this is something I might have to get some advice with – I might see if I can have a word with our Guild Leader (who’s a very skillful prot warrior) and get some tips.

And the run didn’t leave me empty-handed – Dingle has finally picked up some T7, in the shape of shoulders and chest tokens, and Malygos blessed her with a shiny new shield.

Well, dailies are waiting for my participation, so I must get to it. But here’s an image of the fruits of yesterday’s labours.

/wave

Perception of Class Imbalance and Social Status: Another Perspective on PvE vs. PvP

I was reading a blue post about class balance, and I realised something: There’s not only two games in WoW (the larger social game of Player vs. Mobs and the smaller, tribal game of Player vs. Player), there’s also two very different mindsets applied to each one.

(A little disclaimer before I start: This isn’t really an opinion piece, more a stream-of-(un?)conciousness, so don’t read too much into it. I’m just trying to get a handle on the differences between how the two games not only affect the game, but also how they affect the players.)

(Beware incoming wall of text – You’ve been warned!)

In PvE, it’s all about a group of players (5, 10 or 25) trying to kill a group of mobs. Each class and talent build has it’s own strengths and weakness, but it comes down to damage done for dps, healing done for healers, and survivability for tanks. Any cries of imbalance are (usually) around imbalance of a class or spec compared to other classes or specs of the same role.

I’d argue that apart from situations where a spec is wildly overpowered (Ret paladin dps immediately after 3.0, for example, or Fury warrior dps currently), differences are more down to play style and player skill. While there are always calls on the forums to buff class/spec X and nerf Y, I believe it’s mostly jockeying for social position, in a manner of speaking – PvE is all about ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them,’ with ‘Them’ in this case being Blizzard as represented by their various NPCs. Buffing your class means you have a better chance to help defeat ‘Them.’

While you may frequently be beaten on the meters by other players, the fact that everyone is working towards the singular goal of Defeat ‘Them’ is by its’ nature inclusive. Certainly, conflict sometimes arises within the group where certain classes are perceived to be underperforming, but this can be due as much to player skill as an under-tuned class or spec, or even unavoidable factors such as a player’s internet connection or computer.

But at the end, everything still comes down to the group combining forces to overcome the challenge set before them in the raid. The cries of nerf/buff are groups trying to ensure that they aren’t being marginalised by other cliques (classes or specs) who would end up replacing their positions in their raid.

However, this effect is really currently seen only at the very highest level of play, especially in the current Wrath endgame where the substantially lower level of difficulty (compared to Sunwell pre-3.0, for example) means that the idea of “Bring the Player, Not the Class” has been able to gain significant traction.

So PvE is about your position in the raid. PvP, however, is where it gets personal.

With PvE, it’s really a game where everyone participating wins (we kill the boss) or everyone loses (the boss kills us). PvP, however, is a game where half the participants will lose, every time. It’s hard to be objective about that, especially if you’re on the losing side a lot.

I think of PvP as being a very tribal sport, as it’s usually based around a core group of 2, 3 or 5 players. (I’m thinking of arena and WSG here; other battlegrounds are far more organic, and while they have a larger population as a whole, successful play usually still comes down to groups forming and reforming during the duration of the game in order to achieve goals – defend a location, assault a location, retrieve the flag and defend the carrier, for example)

PvP is also about ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them,’ but in this case ‘Us’ is a much smaller group, and ‘Them’ is everyone you’re competing with (which is often everyone else in the battlegroup).

Cries of ‘Nerf DKs’ (for example) usually come from players who are directly affected by the comparative power of the class, as opposed to the indirect competition in PvE content. A dps-class whose raid position is replaced by a DK, for example, can simply raid with another group in order to experience progression. In PvP, however, that same warlock may be effectively removed from play by the disparity – the level of player skill and gear required to compensate for a large difference in class/spec ability can be considerable, and difficult to achieve.

So I’d suggest that PvP class imbalances are perceived by players (possibly quite accurately) as something that directly affects their play experience, and their characters’ ability to progress in PvP.

PvE imbalances, by comparison, are perceived more as influences that can undermine your position within the raid, possibly leading to the player needing to change their social group (raid outside the guild, or even change guilds) in order to progress in PvE.

Now I’m not drawing any conclusions with this, nor do I make any claims of accuracy or insight (or even of relevance); I’m just trying to come up with a mental framework for myself to place the two game-types in.

I wonder how other people perceive the two?

A Sword, A Sword, My Kingdom For A Sword

For all the hiccups and stresses, no-notice bails, and AFKs without warning, sometimes a pug will deliver.  Such as, a sword!

And now, the Wrath version of The Sun Eater, namely the Red Sword of Courage, dropped in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.  And it was most definitely a pug, complete with a shaman who bailed after we killed Skadi the Ruthless (possibly leaving because the drake didn’t drop), and a death knight who went afk while we were waiting for a replacement mage.  (The DK got back just in time to help kill King Ymiron, and was able to pick up his emblem with the rest of us)

But with my shiny new sword, I’m that one step closer to being fully epic-geared (and Ulduar-viable).  And all this is thanks to some useful guides to prot warrior gear (and another guide to consumables, which has proven invaluable)

First of all, TankSpot is a very useful site, and was one of the first to be bookmarked when I rolled my warrior.  TankingTips was not far behind, also very useful.  Anyway, these guides have been indispensible gearing Dingle up:

• Wrath Tanking Gear List (also has gems and enchants – very comprehensive)
• Best In Slot! Warrior Tanking Gear “At a Glance”
• The Badge er… Emblem of Heroism Pick Order
• The Emblem of Valor Pick Order (mostly theoretical for me, as my 25-man experience is limited)

I’ve also found the Tank Consumables post from Tank Like A Girl to be very helpful, while I get a grasp on what’s effective and what isn’t.  Now I just need to get some more raid experience – 3.1 is getting closer, as is 10-man Ulduar.

/wave

Sometimes Your Best Just Isn’t Good Enough

Dingle has had another venture into the depths of Naxx-10, along with experiences with the Vault of Archavon in both 10- and 25-man flavours and the Obsidian Sanctum in 10-man.  While both VoA and OS turned out fairly well, the Naxx run clearly demonstrated that when your group is undergeared it can be a rather unforgiving.

The first part of the Naxx run, on Saturday night, wasn’t too bad – at least, not until we got stopped cold trying to down Grobbulus.  After 6 attempts where we had multiple problems with poison clouds being dropped in the middle of the raid, and some bad timing a couple of attempts with Dingle getting the injection debuff while attempting to pick up and tank the slime adds, we called it a night.  (We did manage to clear the Spider and Plague wings, and downed Patchwerk, so it wasn’t too bad.  Plus I managed to get the 50 Emblems achievement)

Last night we went back with a few less pug members and a few more guildmate alts, and apart from managing to get Razuvious down, failed miserably on the only two other bosses we could attempt after him.  We didn’t have anywhere near enough dps for Gothik (I was tanking the live side, and on our best attempt we only just managed to get down the last adds right before he spawned – the dead side didn’t do as well) or Grobbulus (I switched from tanking the slimes to tanking the boss, and it was an… interesting learning experience). Still, 60G in repairs isn’t that bad for a single emblem, is it?  Right?

However, Dingle needs many more emblems (and yet more loot) to finish gearing up before Ulduar, so I suspect I’ll have to brave the world of pugs again, regardless of whether I’m looking forward to it or not.

Perhaps I’ll get lucky, and get in with some groups who’re capable, competent, and well-geared.  Failing that, I guess I’ll find out if there’s any truth to the saying that suffering builds character - if I have a really well-built character by the time 3.1 goes live, this will be why.

/wave

Passing Time With Achievements

With time dragging between raids on my main, I’ve been working on a couple of achievements on Dingle.  For all the uselessness of achievements (which is to say, the only thing you get for completing an achievement is a completed achievement), they do provide a very convenient series of goals one can complete.

First was completing Ambassador of the Alliance by completing the rep grind with Exodar and Gnomeregan Exiles.  I’ve found that the easiest way in which to do this is simply by going back and completing all the starting zone quests; in this case, I went back and completed the Exodar ones, and dinged exalted with both factions before the zone was cleared.  (It helps that any reputation gain with a single alliance faction also gives an additional 25% of the reputation gained to all of the four other factions – for example, 1000 Exodar reputation gained awards an extra 250 reputation with Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus and Gnomeregan Exiles)

I also completed Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich? and Master of Arms by grinding the captive and exhausted vrykul (and farming more Relics of Ulduar for whichever alt on whom I’m next going to be grinding towards exalted with Sons of Hodir).  I have to admit, it took surprisingly longer than the same grind did on Mingle – caster melee is so much lower in damage that grinding on lower level mobs is much more effective.  With Mingle, I was able combine weapon skill leveling along with reputation grinding, and leveled her Mace, Dagger and Unarmed skills to 400 while (once again) completing the Exodar starting zone quests.

With the much higher melee dps that Dingle was putting out, I was doing so much damage (despite using very low level, low damage weapons, which is a big help when leveling weapon skills) that the low level mobs just died too fast.  When I took her back to Stormpeaks, the Vrykul mobs had enough health that I was getting more than one hit per mob, which made the process more useful.  (Just pay attention to the durability of your weapons, and don’t end up grinding uselessly for an hour before you notice that your weapon was red.  Much like my face, upon realising how much time I’d wasted with that oversight.)

I also came across another useful blog recently, this time about UIs and addons.  You’d be well advised to check out No Stock UI.  It’s where I was told about Multishot, which is responsible for the shiny achievement image linked in this post.  I suspect I’m going to be drowning in screenshots in future, but I’ll just have to grin and bear it.

Well, time to publish this post, and get onto today’s dailies.

/wave