They See Me Trollin’, They Hatin’.

Time for a change of pace.  After my recent…  failure to perform, I decided to take a couple of weeks off (just doing daily transmutes and making the various cloths on my tailor).  Well, time’s up.  I’ve decided to dust off one of my sadly-non-dwarven horde-side alts while I get back into the swing of things.  (I’m looking at getting returning to Mingle with 3.3, but that could be anything from a week to a month away yet) 

So, meet level 40 Troll Rogue, Dinglemouse the first.  Yes, my first named characters were in fact horde-side.  (There’s also an Undead Mage named Kringlenouse, but he’s only level 29, and a level 47 Undead Rogue named Ringleflouse on another server also gathering dust)

The first thing I did, of course, was to visit the barber.  (I think that’s what happens when you revisit a long-retired toon:  you look at it, and go “What the heck was I thinking - that haircut (or hair colour, or skin colour, or tusks) looks awful!”)  The second, of course, was to go pay for riding training.

After that, of course, I had to go kill turkeys.

I’m not sure where I’ll go next – it’s been a long time since I’ve been out in the field on a non-dwarf, and even longer since I’ve done any horde-side quests.  Perhaps this is the “something new” that’ll let me re-kindle my love for the game – or at least, to get me playing again in preparation for 3.3, and an eventual return to raiding on priest Mingle.

But there’s one thing that’s certain:  there’s still life in this old game – it’s the 5 year anniversary of WoW at the moment, and in just under a month it’ll be my personal 4 year anniversary of starting the game.

Now to find the Undercity flightmaster: there’s exploring to be done!

/wave

Nice While It Lasted

To cut a long story short, I failed my trial on Mingle (which I was expecting), and I think a break from raiding might be in order.

Basically, as a priest healer I wasn’t experienced enough for Heroic ToC25 (not as disc, and definitely not as holy).  And I was failing so much at raid-awareness (including little things like concentrating so much on healing my assigned targets that I let myself die – need to remember about Binding Heal!) that I was a liability to the raid.

So I politely said my goodbyes before /gquitting, and got an invite back to the old guild where I think I’ll stay awhile while considering what I want to do next.  (Healing is actually pretty fun, and I might be up to the hardmodes after a lot more practice and experience – it’s just hard to get that near the end of the patch cycle)

It’s tempting to throw it all away and start anew on a new server, and try building up a network of alts like the setup I have on Dath in preparation for Cataclysm. 

For now, though, I think I just need to let my wounded ego mend.

The Calm Before The… Drizzle?

It’s looking increasingly likely that I’m going to be looking for a replacement for WoW (impossible though it may be to actually find).  Between the fracturing of my old guild, my general apathy about my new guild, and my disinterest in anything except for 25-man raids (and that’s only three nights per week) I think the end of the world (of warcraft) may be approaching for me.

Cataclysm?  If it’s going to be more of the same, it’s more of a damp shower.

It’s actually quite disappointing; for all the increasing polish the game has picked up lately, the increasing reduction in the difficulty level of the new normal mode content (along with the increase in difficulty of the hard modes) has left me increasing dissatisfied with Blizz’s binary approach to raiding in a much more nuanced world.

In TBC, the guild I was in was approaching readiness for Sunwell when the big 3.0 nerf/patch went live.  We actually downed Illidan before the patch, which was something of an accomplishment at the time, and managed to reach Felmyst (although not without much fuss and hard work, along with some strong words from our guild leader on occasion).

Sure, it was hard – I was playing a rogue at the time, and overcoming the Reliquary of Souls would probably be the high-point of my raiding career.  But there were concrete rewards for concrete progression, and it was clearly visible how well you were doing by the gear you’d acquired.

The changes Blizz have made which make it easy to farm for gear that will get a new raider into the latest raids have cut both ways, I think.  While it’s made it easy for new characters to get raiding-ready, it reinforces for more experienced players just how much of a treadmill the game has become over the years, and just how long we’ve been running on that treadmill.

The problem (for me) is that for a player who is moderately skilled (ie, can reach a competent level of HPS/DPS/TPS, can perform the tasks for their particular class and spec reliably, and knows not to stand in the fire) they’re either under-challenged in the normal raiding environment or they have a massive challenge (possibly too much so, especially if you’re carrying anyone) in heroic encounters.

I know that, personally, my skill level is definitely positioned between the two levels; neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.  I’m aware that Blizz has picked their current raiding difficulty implementation to make the most of limited development resources, but after Wrath and the two content patches so far I’m just burnt out on the choice of too easy or too hard.  (The addition of too much and too little in the Coliseum didn’t help, either)

But you have to bear in mind that WoW has been around for years, and everything gets boring eventually.  It’s probably about time to move on – if it’s not fun now, continuing to play is unlikely to magically make it start becoming fun.

Personally, I’ve tried alts, different classes, and different roles, so there’s only so much more that I could try.  My own aesthetic biases prevented me from trying some classes (draenei and night elves are just…  ewwww, so no shaman or druid), and the logistics of starting over as Horde are equally unappealing (not to mention those aesthetic biases again – why can’t the dark-iron dwarves join them?).

Why so much effort on my part?  Mostly because of the people I played with, who are a pretty groovy bunch (no offence to the young folk reading), and who I’d rather not lose touch with (but, without the game to act as common ground, will).

For now?  Well, I’m paid up until the end of January, so I’ll get to see Icecrown (well, if I pass trial – with my current dissatisfaction, I’m tempted to end the trial early, still undecided), and maybe even kill the Lich King (guild willing).  After that?  Well, Star Trek Online comes out at the start of February doesn’t it?

Toto, I've A Feeling We're Not In Kansas Any More.

Well, I’m trialing in another raiding guild and…  I miss my old guild.

It’s actually odd to discover how much of my enjoyment of raiding can be blamed placed on the people I was raiding with, and just how unsatisfying it can be to find myself playing with a new group of players who, while they’re more competent…  well…  the raiding just isn’t as much fun.

It’s an odd feeling, to be the new guy in a well-established social group, with their in-jokes and expectations, most of which I have no idea about.  Which isn’t to say the new guild isn’t most likely a good bunch of people who are fun to raid with – it’s just that I suspect my interest in raiding may not survive long enough to make the transition.

It’s a pity, as since joining I’ve experienced heroic 25-man Anub, finished 25-man Firefighter, 25-man Knock, Knock, Knock On Wood (although I died early on the successful attempt), and encountered Algalon for the first time (on 25-man, no less).

My experience of being thrown in the deep end as a holy priest has been more frustrating, however.  I’m very much aware of how poorly I’m performing (especially on trial), but so far I’ve had minimal feedback from anyone.  I suspect I’m also underperforming as disc, but it’s hard to tell with only the meters to guide me (and anyone who’s played disc knows how unhelpful they can be).

It doesn’t help my cause that I’m too anxious about the whole new-people thing to ask all that often – I’ve already had a couple of “Well, you should have done that already” moments during raid with boss videos, and another time when I didn’t realise I’d lost the healing channel until we were pulling the first boss of the night…  Way to impressive the healing officer, for sure.

I’m pretty sure I could follow my old guildies who’ve made the jump to Blackrock, but the higher performance bar on that server is something I’m wary of.  The fact it’s a PvP realm is also something I’m holding against it - PvP is something I only want to do when I opt in for it.  Mind you, I can’t afford to server-transfer any characters any time soon due to the fact I’m saving to upgrade my computer with a new cpu and motherboard, which renders such speculation pointless.  (Mmmm, quad-core…)

I really don’t know what I want to do, but suspect I’ll end up following the path of least resistance and continue raiding with newguild until I either, a) get used to them, or b) fail my application (although the latter is my best guess at this stage).  3.3 is slooooowly drawing closer, and after that we’ll be getting that cataclysmic game reset that probably renders the whole problem moot anyway, as the new Star Wars and Trek MMOs will probably be out by then if WoW has failed to hold my attention (which is increasingly likely).

Perhaps I’m just not cut out for modern raiding.  Or perhaps what I thought was satisfaction playing the game was actually due to the company I was keeping?  Time to consider my options.

/wave

Holy Moly!

It looks like I’m going to be expanding my horizons, as I’ve been accepted into one of the few hard-mode guilds, who are currently doing 25-man heroic ToC.

Needless to say, I’m a little nervous.

Or maybe, quite a bit nervous.

You see, I’ve been given a trial as disc/holy despite my having no holy experience.  I’ve done my research, re-gemmed and adjusted my gear to suit holy (and picked up a couple of upgrades to suit), along with changing my much-disliked shadow spec to holy, and setting up Vuhdo and Power Auras for my new holy spec and spells.

Now it’s a matter of getting some hands-on experience to go with my new-found theoretical knowledge.  Might be a little short of time, as first raid is scheduled for tomorrow night.

Yay, me?

LFG Raiding Guild?

Well, that settles that…  Another week where the guild couldn’t field a full 25-man raid, and we’ve finally thrown in the towel as a 25-man progression raiding guild (after the officers relented after their initial decision to retire, and tried for two more months to keep us going).

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do – as a healer, 25-man raiding is just more fun.  10-man, while a good time-filler, doesn’t measure up for challenge or rewards (other than trinkets, in some cases).  Some guild members have considered trying to do 10-man raids, maybe also 10-man hard-mode ToC (which I haven’t been able to do – disc priest healing isn’t good enough), but I don’t really want to do anything less than 25-mans (although that’s possibly my contrary nature shining through).

Unfortunately, after the wonderful experience of this guild I’m not looking forward to starting over with another guild if I want to get back into another 25-man guild.  It not only means leaving behind the collection of weird and wonderful people in this guild, but also hoping I get lucky and the guild I join is a fun group to raid with.

At heart, though, I just feel sad.  With our GM planning on server-transferring in search of 25-man progression (possibly along with other members), it feels to me like we’re also losing the heart of the guild.  Sadly I’m about to hit a financial crisis of my own, so server transferring myself isn’t really likely anytime soon (and would be problematic, with my support network of alts and lack of experience as a healer).

/sigh

Tankadin? Tankadin!

Well, raiding has ground to a halt: 25-man ToC, VoA and Onyxia only took a couple of nights, and we didn’t have enough tanks for our 10-man raid for two of the remaining nights.  So I finishing leveling my paladin.

Meet Binglerouse, level-80 tankadin extra-ordinaire.  Also tankadin very inexperienced.

I finished leveling her as I began; as prot spec.  Needless to say, it wasn’t the quickest of processes.  But. Once I picked up Divine Plea and Guarded by the Light, things became substantially faster.  (Yay for pulling a half-dozen mobs at a time, and finishing the fight with full health and mana)

The hardest thing has been finding information about how to gear, how to talent, and how to tankadin.  There are still some useful guides, but even then some of them are a bit out-of-date (such as the Item Enhancements page on maintankadin, which hasn’t been updated to cover epic gems).  I’ve been able to pick up enough ideas to give me a very basic understanding, now it’s a case of getting that chance to put it into practice.

And she’s pretty well geared (comparatively speaking), with the crafted titansteel helm and shield, the crafted boots and belt from Ulduar and crafted chest and wrist from ToC.  (Have I mentioned how lately how much gold I no longer have?  Well, I have now, and I can thank Bingle for it.)

Oh, and she’s had a haircut to go with her new gear.  I think it suits her.  And don’t you love our new guild tabard?  (I wanted a kitty, but nooooo…)

I might also gear her up as a healer – it’s early days still.

As far as the rest of my assorted alts…  Well, it’s a case of that vague ennui settling in during the dark period when you’re trying to choke down the dregs of the last content patch, with the promise of better things to come from the next patch.  Icecrown may await us, but not nearly as much as we’re awaiting it.

I tanked ToC10 on Dingle last week, but my performance was pretty awful – seriously, it’s was almost failpug level.  (It improved slightly after juggling some gear, but still, it wasn’t pretty…)

Hopefully things will improve this week – we’re really pushing things as far as attendance, and I can see it only getting worse before Icecrown and 3.3.  And it’s around time to get ready for tonight’s raid, so time to log over and get busy.  (Raiding or waiting, time will tell)

/wave