Glyphs, Talents, and Reforge

Please stop being so restrictive about the Glyph/Talent UI. It's driving people nuts, I loathe the moment I have to change!
Philosophically, we don't want automating talent or glyph swaps. Once it's easy to reglyph every pull, players feel like they must. (Source)

The above is about addons on the talent/glyph ui.

In Vanilla there was one spec, no glyphs, and if you wanted to change your talents you had to go to your trainer. He would then give all your talent points back and you could redecide how you wanted to spend those points.

Back then it was actually possible to spend your points halfway over 3 different trees if you so desired. The only requirement was that you had filled up the previous talent tier with enough points to open up the next.

There was no gemming your gear, no reforging, no glyphing. No nothing. You picked a spec, figured out what your role was, and went with the best spec for that.

During raid, you had no option then to just deal with it. And sometimes classes would be switched out, and the high-end raids would sometimes send people out halfway through to have them respec quickly and summon them back.

This was comparatively a lot more costly, but much easier, because at some point you would know your specs so well that you could just fill them in blindly almost. As long as you made sure to enchant all your gear you were good to go once the summon came.

Now when you get an upgrade you often cannot even wear it directly. Because without reforging, gemming and enchanting it it would quite often be a downgrade to your perfectly tuned set.

In fact, what happened to me the other day is that I got a neckpiece of ilvl 496 which replaced my 463 neck. 30 item levels up, but I could not use it because I would be so far under the hit cap by swapping it out that it would be a problem.

This makes me wonder if Blizzard has gone overboard in the options to finetune your character. Each time you win a piece all other items have to be reforged to be in tune with the items you already have. Gems have to be replaced, enchants have to sometimes be redone, etc

Hit and expertise are the worst for this as the blues have already admitted, but also haste forms an issue since for quite a few classes there is a haste cap. Mistweaver monks included, in between the different haste plateaus the stat simply doesn't do a lot and you're better off with crit or even mastery.

And then there is the retalenting and glyphing. I have to admit, I was excited when I learned that we would be able to reglyph and talent on the move. I'm not so sure anymore.

It feels like I'm at a disadvantage if I don't reglyph/retalent for every fight. So pre-fight check is no longer a matter of having all your buffs (flask, food, and casted buffs), it now includes do you have the correct talents and glyphs.

It feels as if more time is spent in between fights just to finetune it so you have the edge, more time spent in between and less time on the actualy fight. More time spent on preparation and less on actually having the fun. Or is the preparation supposed to be the fun?

Another problem on top of this is that when you do change a talent or glyph it changes the way you fight, or heal so drastically at times that it takes a couple of attempts to adjust. So while it may be the better glyph choice for the fight, it may change the way you do things so much that you'll do worse at first. Glyph of Uplift is a good example for this.

With glyph uplift costs mana, without it costs chi. Sounds simple, but it affects so much more. Because you're using mana for uplift you need to use a different spell to spend your generated chi, to generate mana tea. This changes your rotation. However, if you do not change your rotation and make sure to spend the chi to get mana tea you're running out of mana real fast, because not only does uplift no longer spend chi, and hence generate mana through mana tea, it also costs mana.

Or glyph of mana tea, allowing you to have instant mana tea, but only 2 charges at a time. But it still costs a global cooldown, so if you do not have those to spare you cannot just use more mana tea at a handy moment. To know if you have to use the glyph or not requires you to know before the fight whether you'll have downtime to drink your mana tea.

So one glyph can change your healing style so much that you can easily screw it up, yet it is expected that you know how to work with all this.

I'm liking this new method less and less. Yes, I have choices, but all those choices are diminishing my time spent on the actual fun, namely the fight and learning the fight.

And since the fights are built around having the option to reglyph and retalent I cannot just ignore this part of the game. I have to play the game as it is designed even though I would much rather just focus on the gorgeous raid fights themselves.

Not to mention the costs involved with changing everything every time, meaning that you have to go farm for those costs. An upgrade will generally cost about 400 gold - 8x reforging + new enchants, + new gem. And then it's not even a weapon which upsets stuff even more.

I find myself longing more and more for the days where the difficulty was in figuring out how the fight worked, not how my character, gear, talents and glyphs work for each and every fight separately.

(and please Blizz don't go with reforging on the run, because then I have to add that to my pre-fight check as well).

All I want for Christmas is...

Except for a nasty cough that is keeping me from sleeping through the night, my cold is mostly gone. Time to focus on the time of the year.

Christmas time! And time to make my wishlist for the upcoming year for World of Warcraft. I have done this before in the past and mused about what I wanted in the game. 

What we've been seeing in Mist of Pandaria has so far been pretty spectacular. And hey, as I see the dailies of Operation Shieldwall develop further I may even feel how Blizzard is learning from mistakes with the dailies of release (holy golden lotus way too many dailies batman!). 

Lets review my list from 2009:

1. Can there please be some cloth gear with crit/mp5 in Icecrown?

I think there was, but it now seems of so little importance, Icecrown was one of the best raid tiers that World of Warcraft has seen in my opinion. Even though it did last quite long. 

2. Can I have 1 gearset that is usable (and effective) in all my specs?

With spirit being hit for a priest they did come fairly close to this. If you're a healer priest as I was back then you can actually fairly easily switch to being shadow and use the same gear for starters. 

3. If number 2 won't work, then can I haz a soulbound items bag?

Yeah...still dreaming about that bag. Void Storage is interesting, but fairly unusable. Stuff ends up in there and never gets pulled back out. 

4. The little wishes count too: if I learn an account bound item, remove it from my bag

This is pretty much how most items are handled now, though I think there are still quite a few improvements that could be made here. 

5. Can we haz real mohawks for nelfs as well, please?

Of course they gave them to gnomes and to male nightelves (well sorta), but there are mohawks, still nothing like the funky troll hairdresses for nightelf females though. Being a panda now I still think most of the female Alliance hair dresses are rather tame. 

6. I would like haste to work on Weakened Soul

They implemented something like this with the disc priest being able to shorten the duration on weakened soul, wish granted I guess?

7. Gimme a challenge!

They did hand out a challenge. It was 'have your raid survive Cataclysm'. I guess we made it out alive, but not unscathed. I see challenges now in Pandaria though. 

8. An auctioning system like Auctioneer offers

Nope, the in game AH has gotten worse instead of better if anything. With the addition of battle.net account bound items I cannot even filter on pets that I already have anymore. This is rather disappointing Blizz. 

Half of them sort of implemented, not a bad score I would say. Time for a new wish list!

1. Mount Battles

I am thoroughly enjoying pet battles, but it leads me to thinking about something I enjoy collecting even more. Mounts. 

Now, I would not very much like mount battles to be the same as pet battles, but I would love to be able to catch mounts in the wild. 

Capture them with a Lasso, battle them into submission, and then go into a period of having to teach them under the saddle. This process could be somewhat harder than catching a pet of course, and I think that you would need a certain taming skill to even start capturing wild mounts, but I'm sure Blizzard could come up with something great here. 

Much like a hunter can tame their pets I want to go out and find my favourite mount skin. And yes, there should be some rare catches as well. 

I think Aotona would make a great mount model for example!

Aotona

2. Less Transmog Restrictions

I have some favourite looks for armor in World of Warcraft. Unfortunately none of those are leather. And of the leather looks I do really like seeing, most of them actually have class restrictions. 

I would love to see my monk in some items, and while I can still understand the armor restrictions for transmog (it would look somewhat silly to see a warrior tanking in black mageweave), I hope that at some point they will remove the class restrictions so that as far as transmog is concerned, leather is leather is leather. 

And if my monks wants to wear tier 8 for rogues, or tier 4 for druids...she can. 

I love the colors of this set, Conqueror's Terrorblade. (Rogue)

Flying Saucer

3. Monk Tier without a Flying Saucer

Don't get me wrong, I do think that the flying saucer hats look good with monks, but I hope that the designers will not give every monk tier set a shado-pan hat in the future. 

Surely there is something cool to do with the crane, the tiger, the ox, or the wind serpent, no?

4. Choice of Rolling in LFR

Currently LFR seems to have waaaay too few healers. Logical as well, because most of the healers who heal fulltime have a raid of their own in which they get gear that is better than the LFR gear. So for LFR they queue as dps to work on their offset. 

But this does leave LFR without healers, and tanks and dps with a much longer queue. If I could join as a healer, but roll as a dps I would be rather happy. 

Also, I think that LFR gear should always drop. No matter the how maniest time you're in that LFR that week. When I currently queue up as a healer to help out guildies with a faster queue all I get for it is a meager sum of valor points, which I could get faster through dungeons or scenarios. I queue anyways to help them get into LFR, and I do my best to heal the raid, but this could be rewarded a bit better than it is currently. 

5. Item Storage like in Guild Wars

In Guild Wars you can click on a button on your bags and it send the item to your crafting storage. Once there it has a full overview of every craft item in the game, and has the items you do not have faded out. I love, love, absolutely adore this system. 

It would go such a long way in saving space in your bags, organizing your inventory, and actually having enough slots for those type of items. It would definitely have consequences for how items are handled. Stacks would no longer have to go to 20 or 100, no in the bank it could simply be a picture with a number. 

I'm sure that this is not something that is easily implemented, since World of Warcraft is of course dealing with bagage from 8 years of WoW, and a database design which would need quite a bit of changing. Not to mention all the consequences it can have for the economy. 

But I would love to have something like this implemented in World of Warcraft. 

6. Have Group Will Travel

I want it back, please? Or something like it at least. 

I don't even mind not having it for raid as much since you can just use the summoning stone and you're normally in the same place for quite a bit of time after. 

But where I really miss it is when I go out together with Thror to do Molten Core, or something like it. You cannot use the stone with just one, and it would be so nice to just summon the friend you're playing with at that moment. 

For older content it is nice anyways. My monk doesn't have all the nifty travel shortcuts that my priest had (working on it!), but it means that I generally make the other person wait while I take the long road. 

7. An ingame Cavalier Pet

Lady, our tri-color cavalier. 

I have two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, a ruby and a tri-colour, and I think they would make for adorable pets. They could even have a pet special and go barking when they see other dogs (mine do at least). It would make my day if I would see the Cavalier in the game. 

What would be even better is if they're available in 4 colors, as they are for real. Ruby, tri-colour, blennheim, and black and tan. 

But hey, probably every pet owner thinks that their pet is the most adorable and should have an in game model, so this may be a tiny bit unrealistic :)

tri-colour, blennheim, black and tan, ruby

No words...

This guy is visiting:

And because this guy is visiting I feel like this:

And this:

If I were to write posts now they would likely come out like this:

So I'll be back with a post once I feel like this:

End of message.

Who says it's about facts

Today I'll poke a phrase I keep seeing around in blue posts here and there, and that is giving me the serious heebiejeebies.

It normally comes by phrased into something like this:

"Is this something you just 'feel' like is reality or do you have facts?"

As if it matters?

Is it less important if it is about feelings? Are player feelings less important than statistics? If a large part of the player population feels that something is not enjoyable, then I would say that this is a rather important signal that something needs changing.

I get that as a blue poster you get tired of the raging community sometimes. Tired of explaining over and over that you cannot go change stuff just because the people who speak up demand it so. Because for every person who opens their mouth and complains, there might be 10 silently enjoying.

I get it, I really do.

But this just feels like sending players off with nothing...

Not to mention, Blizz keeps coming with statements like:

'We wanted the players to feel as if the world is more populated.'
'We want players to experience how big the world is.'
' Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn’t feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn’t feel too much like rage or energy. '

Of course it is about feelings, of course it isn't all about facts! The whole game is built around how people experience the game.

What is part of the issue here is the difference between how people actually feel, and how people think they feel.

Say what now, Shy? There is a difference?

Yeah, there sure is, and I'll try to explain as best as I can, though I am not a psychologist.

I assume you must have felt super angry at some point in your life. So angry that you wanted to (or maybe even did) smash something?

If you look back, was the true emotion anger? Or was it maybe disappointment? Was it maybe the feeling of being let down? Maybe you felt deceived?

Often anger is not the true emotion, often anger is only the resulting emotion, the underlying one is something else.

I believe that this is what is quite often happening at the forums as well. Players are all pissed off, shouting that they will leave the game, boo bah, etc

But what they truly feel is disappointment. Disappointed that their class is not performing as well as they had hoped. Let down by Blizzard because that item that they had hoped for so long did once again not drop (fault of the loot system and the designers of course), disappointment that their mount flaps in a wrong way, disappointed because their expectations were not met by the reality.

Expectations not met by reality...

Makes me wonder if it really is good of Blizzard to do as much previewing as they are, since the bigger picture can rarely be seen by the one player.

But, even when the anger is not the true emotion, it does feel like Blizzard needs to stop discarding the feelings of the posters. Channeling that energy into other activity would maybe be better, not sure, as said beofre, I am not a psychologist. I don't have the facts.

I do feel that I am getting quite tired of Blizzard asking facts from disappointed players though...

Have A Nice Day Mr Troll!

A while ago I read this story at WoW Insider. If you don't want to go through the entire story, it is about a Blizzard CM, Tseric, who way back when picked a fight with forum trolls. He spoke his mind, but in the end, he lost the fight from the trolls, and lost his job over it.

Today I read another post on WoWInsider, about how a blue poster explains what you can do against harassment. And also repeating Blizzard's promise to deal with these people if they are found guilty as accused.

This all made me think on where we are going with this. It feels like I see it more and more that people are rude and mean to other people. Intent on bringing other people down, on hurting other people as much as they possible can, with no other purpose than their own enjoyment it seems.

Are we forgetting that there are real people behind the characters? Or worse...are we not forgetting, but is this simply how society is nowadays? Are these in-game bullies simply this messed up that they automatically do this?

It feels like more and more people are so self-absorbed, so self-centered, that they cannot seem to take one step in the shoes of the people they are harassing, and imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end.

On the other hand, maybe these sort of in-game bullies are constantly on the receiving end in their real lifes, and they need to let of steam in their online lifes. Reaction instead of action in that case.

I do like this last stream of though. The big bad bully suddenly takes on the image of a grown-up crybaby in diapers, waving a world of warcraft game around instead of a rattle. Makes them seem a little less impressive, huh? ;)

Have A Nice Day

I while ago I posted the DailyBink Poster you can see on the left, this poster is not recent, and what happened to Tseric is also old news, so this sort of stuff is nothing new. But, it does feel like I see and hear more and more about it.

Maybe people are fed up with it by now, maybe the people who remained silent against the bullies are speaking up now. I don't know.

I do know that it doesn't make the game more fun. It doesn't make me want to play more. So I had an idea.

Because I too can be short of patience against fellow gamers, and maybe leave a group hanging without a healer, or just ride along on other player's shoulders in an LFR. I would never openly be rude, but I too find myself cussing newbs we come accross every now and then, and I complain to Thror about how some people have no idea.

Because I feel like we're not getting anywhere if I don't start with changing myself I am going to change this. Starting with my own behaviour. Even though I am nowhere near the level of what would ever be reported, I too can improve my nice-factor in game.

So from now on I will introduce for myself  H.A.N.D. - 'Have A Nice Day' one day per week. On this day I will be nice to everybody in the game, I will offer help to people who seem to need it or ask for it. I will take time for the people who need to learn, and I will be patient to every newbie out there.

I will say hello, and chat in my pug groups, and even greet people in LFRs. On this one day per week I will try to explain to rude people that they should be nice, that the world (or at least the warcraft world) can become a better place, if only you start by being better yourself.

And ya know, I will even do this on a day I normally play a lot, I'll take Saturday for this.

So the rules are:
- Say hello cheerily in every pug group
- Greet fellow players
- Be patient to players who need to learn
- Be helpful to those who ask, and even to those who don't ask, but look to need it
- Do not argue over loot
- Basically be a nice person

What do you say? Will you join and make your own gaming world a little better?

Cross Realm Raiding

Current tier content cannot be raided with people from other realms at the moment. According to Greg Street 'Ghostcrawler', Blizzard worries about what that would do to guilds.

You wantz raidz?

With the shortage of people our 10man has been experiencing I have often wished we could cross-realm raid. We seem to be getting into a bit calmer weather now with 2 new people joining us on a more regular basis (we found them in trade, can you imagine!), but there are still times that I would love to invite someone from a different realm.

Imagine only how much easier it would be to trial people and how much bigger the recruitment pool would be for guilds that do actively recruit through these means.

And I keep wondering...wouldn't it be possible for blizzard to make realms not matter?

Worry about guilds, well...if guilds were cross-realm that wouldn't matter, right? The sense of identity would be placed even more on guilds.

Of course there are people who have, so to speak, 'grown up' on a certain realm. Personally I have grown up on Icecrown-US, and while I would be a tiny bit sad to see that part of my game identity become more vague, the advantages would far outweigh the disadvantages for me.

So why then is it so important to keep realms separate for current content?

Might it be maybe because people need to be able to identify themselves on sites like WoWProgress?



Being 16th in realm-wide progress sounds much better than being number 13943 world-wide.



But would the player base not find another way to measure how they are doing in the competition? Would in the end it not be better actually that you're not measuring apples against pears?

There is no possible way that FP can compete with Dream Paragon for example.



And doing so is only leading to disappointment in the end.

And even comparing ourselves against the number 1 on our own server is not a fair comparison. We raid 10s, they raid 25s. We raid only 8 hours per week, casually. They raid for 16+ hours.

Yet, these sort of sites compare the two guilds together and say how much better one is above the other.

I believe that if it would actually become possible to compare experience with experience, and time invested with same time invested with each other, it would become a lot more satisfactory, for a lot of players. It would feel good to be the best in your own league, the best in what you do. The best when all is set to even footing.

After all if FP would transfer to certain realms, we would suddenly be realm number 1...looks nice, but it is in no way an indication that we have improved.

Maybe Blizzard likes the income from the realm transfers too much?

Maybe, but I find this hard to believe. If there is anything that Cataclysm, and now Mists has shown me, it is that Blizzard designs the game the way they believe will work out, not the way they believe will make the most money.

Of course, quite often those two go hand in hand, but I strongly believe that if it would come down to a developer vs sales battle at Blizzard, the designers would win in the end.

So I'm getting to the end of this post, and while I have been turning this back and forth in my head, I find the argument that Ghostcrawler gave on twitter a bit weak and shallow. They must have a better reason, but I haven't figured it out yet.

What's wrong with just wanting to raid?

"Regarding the alt unfriendliness of MoP. You created a huge requirement sink and refuse to address the elephant in the room"
"If an alt gets every accomplishment your main has then you have few reasons to play that alt. There has to be a better design."
"I disagree Greg. I play dif chars because I want to play a dif class, not to get some achieves. Make them all .net bound."
"But what are you going to do on that character if it has everything the main does. Just raid?"

I wonder what is wrong with just raiding. 

If I had it my way I would raid a whole lot more than I do now. I happen to find it the most fun and challenging aspect of the game. Granted, I wouldn't have time to raid every day, and most of the days I do log on to do one or the other in the game, but if I could choose I would love to have an insta raid ready for me the moment I log on and feel like playing for a few hours. (not an LFR, I love raiding, but LFR is not raiding for me).

I prefer to think of my alts as holding wintersleep

Also, I wonder what else they want to see as final goal in the game. Dailies? Dailies to me have always been a means to an end. And some people may enjoy them. Some people may even enjoy them so much that they  don't feel a need to do anything else after the dailies, but to me that has never been a goal on its own.

PVP? Sure, pvp is an end goal in the game. But then the argument that is being made here, completely invalid as well. "But what are you going to do on that character if it has everything the main does?" More PVP?

Do they really believe that people have alts to do the achievements again? I would bet that this is about the smallest part of the wow population you can imagine that actually does this. People have alts to have a change of scenery, to learn from a different perspective in the game, to experience a different playstyle. Some may have a specific alt jus tot PVP since they don't enjoy their main in PVP. Others may just really like questing. One of the main reasons is probably professions. But least likely it seems to me that people have alts to do the same dailies and achievements all over again.

Achievements on many alts is not a goal, and while I believe that the road to the end goal in the game has to be interesting, sometimes challenging, and always rewarding, I do not believe that it would hurt gameplay one bit if alts would have more things account wide.

Also, I think the forum poster here expressed himself badly. Alt unfriendliness in MoP is something that seems to be experienced by a lot of people. Myself included. I used to love playing alts, experiencing different classes, and different viewpoints. I had 7 characters at 85 and I with that I was definitely not special.

But now...now I have 1 character at 90. Exactly 1. My hunter is halfway through 89, so closing in on 90, but that took me remarkably longer than it has ever taken me before in previous expansions.

Why then are alts so unattractive at the moment?

I play on average about 18 to 20 hours per week. And I think this is quite a lot already. This includes 8 to 9 hours of raiding, and 2,5 hours of achievement/challenge runs on my Sunday evening. But what do I do in the rest of the time then? I still have about 7 hours of not raiding or achievements...well, I prepare as much as I can for raid.

And when I say as much as I can, I mean as much as I can without burning out on the game entirely. You see I don't like doing dailies. But to get my lesser charms I have to do them. So last weekend I spent about 3 hours just on doing dailies and getting my lesser charms so that Tuesday I can get my elder charms.

Other than this I want to not be broken on my characters. I hate standing at the AH and not be able to get my gear enchanted or gemmed. I have guildies and raid members who help with this of course, but sometimes I'm simply impatient and I just want that enchant/gem now. So I spend time on working the glyph and darkmoon card market. This takes about 20 minutes per day and keeps my wallet nicely filled enough to do what I want to do without going bankrupt.

Then of course I have some things in the game that I would like to do, which makes up for the last 3 hours of playtime. I go looking for pets, or transmog gear, or I do my farm, etc.

So reason number 1 why alts don't get pulled out of the stables? Time. They have created so many time sinks that are semi-required for the main that I just don't have a lot of time left to play an alt.

Next to this I still needed a lot of items on my main. Items that seem to all be soulbound, bind on pickup. So reason number 2, I cannot get what I need on my main by playing an alt. And I'm not talking about BoP gear, I am talking about spirits of harmony for example. Which I need to get my lotuses for flasks. I am talking about reputation, which I need for gear. Valor points and justice points, which I need to upgrade my gear.

Reason number 3, is that those reputation grinds are each looking like mount everest to me (and to a lot of others if I follow the forums a little). I haven't even been able to finish the rep grinds on my main. And time that I spent on my alts is taking away time from my main, who I feel already doesn't do everything I could do to be in the best shape possible for raid. I regularly don't do LFR. Last week I did only terrace. I don't max out my valor points every week. I haven't grinded all the reps to get the gear. Etc.

Every time I feel like playing an alt, I am thinking, "But I should really be doing this or that on my main" followed immediately after by, "But I really don't feel like that, blergh" and then quite often ends with "Hey Thror, feel like watching a film?"

Simply because it is all too much. What needs to be done is so huge still, that I cannot oversee what all needs to be done, which leads me to just not doing anything.

Lastly, reason number 4, As if it wasn't enough the first time I need to do all of it again on my alt. Once I finally have stuff on my main, I have to do the same grind (less heavy due to new rep tokens) again on my alts. To get to the better profession recipes I have to grind several alts to revered with shadopan for example. Tailoring and enchanting being two examples.

It feels like a task on my main, but it discourages me completely on an alt. So my hunter is hanging around at 89 and a half, because levelling her to 90 means that I have to start the rep grind.

Somehow I think Blizzard has shot themselves in the foot a little with this, and I think I'll leave my hunter where she is and level the warlock to 89 and a half next. At least at that level there's no pressure of rep grinds if I don't reach level 90.

But hey, this is just my take on this. Opinions may vary.

Gara'Jal the SpiritBinder - Quick Guide

To find a full guide you only have to google and it comes up with many, many results. But a quick guide to have on the other screen when you have to quickly go over the fight before you begin...yah, not so much.

So often I make my own guides and then share them with whomever comes accros them on my blog.

This time Gara'Jal the Spiritbinder.

Raid Composition:
- 2 tanks
- 2 or 3 heals
- 5 or 6 dps

Phase 1 until 20% health - Phase 2 - at 20% he frenzies.

Tanks need to swap when a tank phases out, the tank who phases out needs to make sure that he kills his very own special enemy in the spirit world. (Banishment)

When the boss summons a totem some dps and heals need to go kill the totem and enter the spirit world by doing so.

2 dps + 1 heals in 10man
4 dps + 1 heals in 25man

The healer needs to heal the people inside to full which will give them an extra action button. This button allows you out again. You need to leave before the debuf runs out or you'll die.

Inside the Spirit World the dps needs to kill the adds that float around, since they damage everybody outside.

The healers need to heal, a lot. The more heals they land the higher the dps gets from the people that are inside with them because they will receive a stacking buff. So cast a lot of small heals. (but make sure to heal to full on time).

Outside it is tank and spank, stand and shoot, and do as much damage as you can. Just make sure to NOT stand in the totem circles when it's not your turn.

The boss casts voodoo dolls regularly on people. This prevents you from going into the spirit world.

To prevent confusion about who goes in, and who doesn't we use the addon Gara'JalAnnounce. This addon will set up everything as long as you have done a role check. You can however adjust priority of people who go in and out.

-------

The next post I'm working on will be about this: (Copied from MMO-Champion)

"Regarding the alt unfriendliness of MoP. You created a huge requirement sink and refuse to address the elephant in the room"
"If an alt gets every accomplishment your main has then you have few reasons to play that alt. There has to be a better design."
"I disagree Greg. I play dif chars because I want to play a dif class, not to get some achieves. Make them all .net bound."
"But what are you going to do on that character if it has everything the main does. Just raid?"

PS: My raid managed to get 2nd boss Heart of Fear down this weekend. Well done guys!

WoW Mood:

Dissecting Da Boss

Yesterday in the car home I was discussing boss abilities with Thror and how most can be brought back to standard abilities. In fact, once you understand the basic abilities, raiding almost becomes like dancing. You dance left and right, and make sure to press the buttons at the same time. Make sure you stay in the right rythm ;)

After that we had some fun coming up with new boss abilities. I figured that it would be a lot of fun to write about this and got all excited about that!

At first I figured one post would be enough and started writing....turned out I had quite a bit more to write about than one post. So I'll turn it into a series of posts and come back to it when I feel like it.

Today I'll go with the first 3 abilities that came to mind, and 1 idea for a new boss ability.

This player has no idea....

'The Bomb'

One person gets chosen to be the bomb this person has to stand away from everybody else because everybody close will be blown up. Remarkably, the person itself is often not all that harmed.

Boss examples: 
Feng the Accursed - Arcane Resonance - Mogu'shan Vaults

Baron Geddon - Living Bomb - Molten Core
High Astromancer Solarian - Wrath of the Astromancer - Tempest Keep









'The Puddle or Cloud'

Defile would quickly take over the entire platform. 

Somewhere in the room, quite often under someone, a puddle or cloud of bad will form and everybody has to get out.  These puddles may or may not have extra bad, for example expanding when you stand in it.

Sometimes they stick around for the fight and you have to put them tightly together to prevent the whole room from flooding, and sometimes it requires you to stand apart so that as few people as possible get hit by it when it forms.

Boss examples:
The Lich King - Defile - Icecrown Citadel

Conclave of Winds (Anshal) - Soothing Breeze - Throne of the Four Winds (reversal, circle heals enemy and pacifies you, not directly damaging.)
Northrend Beasts (Acidmaw) - Slime Pool - Trial of the Crusader (worms drop acid clouds that need to be gotten out of)
Mimiron - Ulduar - Firefighter. So. Much. Fire

One of our raid members still has nightmares about this phrase I think...

'Hide or Die'

The last one for today is the mechanic where something, most often the boss itself, explodes and the only way to survive is to hide behind something. When a boss has this ability it is often combined with players who become blocks of stone or ice so you can hide behind the player.

Sometimes however you have to hide behind the environment, or even behind the boss.

Boss examples:
Sindragosa - Ice Tomb - Icecrown Citadel
Sapphiron - Icebolt - Naxxramas
Shade of Aran -Arcane Explosion - Karazhan (get out of the Arcane Explosion or die)

The Ability I would love to See

'Don't Touch Me'

Of course fights should be about doing something, not about doing nothing. Yet, I would love to see a boss where every hit to the boss will drain life from the hitter and give it to the boss. Some of the Sha should probably work like this. In fact, I was well surprised that we can even beat a 'Sha of Anger' when you have to beat him with more anger and fighting...I had figured this would only feed him.

How to kill the boss then? Simple, by killing his cohorts. Kill the adds, kill the boss. Of course the adds have to be tanked closed to the boss, otherwise the boss goes pissy. There has to be a reasonable risk that if you do it wrong you hit the boss anyways, right?

It would be a nice change to have to carefully pick and chose your abilities. Carefully tank the boss without doing too much damage.

Not being able to do your full rotation because it includes cleaves would naturally piss some dps off, but then, which fight doesn't?

PS: Thanks to Thror for thinking along with the boss examples

The great danger!

Patch 5.1 has now been live a couple of days and it seems to show a bit more what Blizzard has meant all that time when they said that this expansion would be more Alliance vs Horde.

The new dailies are very much pvp flavoured, even if you don't have to flag, or even join in any pvp style play, you do still feel very much that you're fighting horde.

The areas are as gorgeously made as the rest of Pandaria, and the boats are quite real. The daily zone that I went through really did give me the idea as if a battle was fought.

So if the dailies are ok, and there is no pvp, and the art is gorgeous once again, what then is this post about?

Well....I miss the hero aspect.

I wrote a post on wanting to be the hero as a healer and now I don't even feel like a hero with the dailies anymore. In fact this entire expansion doesn't feel as if the players get to be the hero. It feels as if we're all soldiers, playing our little parts, but nobody stands out.

Then again, on the other side nobody stands out either. The other side also has soldiers to beat, but no grand evil. And I think that this is where the problem is for me. There is no big baddie so far.

No common enemy to hate, no the enemy is splintered. Of course there is still Garrosh, who can die in a fire for all I care. And Varian...who can...well not much better (I know they're trying to make him more likeable, he's still an arrogant prick).

But there is no common purpose in the world at the moment. The world is divided, everybody fights their own little battle and that's that.

Now I'm no big lore monkey or anything, but even I felt the threat of Illidan during Burning Crusade. And when we finally beat him...god that felt good. In fact, I am currently doing quests with my monk and it still feels good.

You are not prepared!

And then in wrath there was Arthas. The Lich King was everywhere and Blizzard had made damn sure that everybody would be pestered by him at some point. Quests, dungeons, various raids...we all knew what we were fighting for.

Muradin's dwarves? Doesn't anyone stay dead anymore?

Once we had finally beaten the Lich King into submission (after he had beaten us into submission with his defile quite a few times) the world got turned upside down. Deathwing came flapping by and set the world on fire...quite literally in a lot of places.

I SHALL TEAR THIS WORLD APART!

When Deathwing was defeated there were...pandas?

Huh...yeah, ok, I love the pandas. In fact, I levelled the monk as a panda, shortly went human, but missed the panda so much that she's back to being cuddle and gorgeous. But we cannot really go fight the pandas much.

Well, we can, if they join the other faction we can, but that's not a big baddie. Who then?

The Sha?

Sha of Happiness

I can't help it. The Sha is just not as impressive as our previous big baddies.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, and hope that this all turns into something badass still.


And otherwise I will just keep on hoping that both Garrosh and Varian tragically find their end or something.

{◕ ◡ ◕}

25 vs 10man

We love 25 player raiding. We also love 10 player raiding. We have people on the team that do both, depending on who they are. We aren't really satisfied with the state of 25 player raiding right now. Our goal when we made the raid changes at the start of Cataclysm that unified the 10 and 25 player lockouts was to let players choose the raid size that they preferred and make it a fair choice. 

At the time, we were responding to feedback from many players who preferred 10 player raiding and felt pressured to do 25s because they offered such better loot. The reality, something we failed to properly account for, is the logistical burdens of maintaining a 25 player roster. Those burdens are borne almost exclusively by the officers, raid leaders, and guild leaders of those groups. Those pressures are such that it tends to cause those groups to splinter into 10s. Before there was the carrot of 25s give you the best loot in the game, which was enough to get guilds to push through those stresses by recruiting more or making it work. 

Now it is easy to say, well, we only have 21 people on at raid time, let's just do 10 mans instead of cancelling the raid. Then you go down the road to transitioning to a 10 player guild. It isn't a reflection of what our players want, but what is simplest for the guild leadership. We are looking at trying to better incentivize 25s, recognizing that for it to be a fair choice, there needs to be something to compensate for that additional logistical burden.

A blue poster posted this a couple of days ago. I picked it up from MMO-Champion from this post, and I immediately saved it as a draft. Knowing that it was something I wanted to speak my mind about when I would have the time.

Overall this statement tells me that there will be a higher loot level again at some point for 25s. Especially with tests going on already with 10s and 25s being separate lockouts again.

If the burden is completely on the raidleader/officers/guildleaders, and those people are done with the catherding, what is the problem of them turning to do 10s instead of 25s?

If the general raider is not willing to step up to do the extra work, why should they be the ones rewarded? Attendance bonus?

"There needs to be something to compensate for logistical burden."
I disagree. Obviously people would prefer not to do this. 

Obviously people prefer to do 10s. Because there is currently nothing holding them from 25s. 

Yet, they don't.

Why do they need to be pushed into doing the 25s anyways? Why is it so important that the 25s are more popular than they are now? It feels like these people need to be bribed into doing something they would prefer not to do.

If I would not get paid for my job, I would not work either. So does this mean that I prefer working over doing something else? No. If given a choice and having everything even I would much prefer to do only the things I want to do, and not go to work. And I like my job, but there are still quite a few things I would like doing better.

So are the 25s supposed to be like work? Are players supposed to be pushed into 25s? But if they are obviously not fun enough without the extra incentive of 'salary' why would Blizzard want to push people in that direction?

To me it seems that currently people can decide to do 25s if they prefer that size. It seems to me that the fact that so many 25s have fallen apart is proof that the leadership prefers 10s over 25s. And to be honest, it's also proof that the players prefer 10s. Because if they would be so hung up on doing 25s, why do they not put in the extra time and energy to get that done?

Frankly, if you're a player who wants this or that, but is not willing to put the energy in to get that going or at the very least help the leadership to get that going. Then you have not much to want. You have to be happy with what the people who are willing to step up get done, and be happy that you can tag along.

If anything at all does happen, the leadership should be appreciated, not the whole raid. If you want the leaders in World of Warcraft to step up and do more, reward them. Not the whole 25 man, just because it is a 25man.

How about just giving the raid 1 item per boss kill? 10s and 25s. An item that the raid can reward to the players they feel have deserved it most. That the raid can give back to their leadership or whomever stepped up.

An item that does not effect the effectiveness of raiding mind you. Or maybe only after a long time of saving up. So having to save up say 20 of this or that item will get you the extra special reward.

Or maybe Blizz should introduce 20mans? 2 times 10 after all. If guilds have to transfer back from 10 to 25 that means 3 groups of 10, with 5 people left by the wayside.

In the end I don't know how Blizzard will get what they want, I know even less why on earth they want it. I do know that in the end the players won't be happy with it anyways.

Current WoW Mood:

The current state of healing

I spoke about off-spec healing, and while writing I found that I was meandering into a post about,  what I believe, are currently some of the major issues with healing.

So I finished that post, and today I'll continue with where I left off.

What is the current state of healing?

To be honest I am not entirely sure. What I can personally see is that LFRs seem to always be waiting for healers to fill up the group. What I can also see is that I would get the incentive baggy about 50% of the time if I would join solo as a healer. I see this as often, if not more often than the tank baggy.

If I look at my feelings about healing, and explore them on a deeper level I think that there are a couple of reasons for this.

A healer is no longer the hero. This is partly due to off-spec healers, but I think the biggest reason for this is the way Blizzard has currently designed healers.

I am often told that numbers do not matter. I can do a boatload of healing, but if I heal the wrong people...But, if my success is not measured in healing numbers, than how do I know if I am succesful?

If my success is measured in keeping the raid alive, but I have no influence over who lives and dies, other than doing my normal rotation as good as I can and shouting at people to not stand in the bad, than how do I measure my success?

If keeping your feet out of the fire is an individual success, than I'm back to how do you measure the healer's success?

Let me list some things that I believe could help the healer position in the game.

Dps heals should be just that, dps heals. 

Limit the healing dps can do to self-heal only. And then only so much what they need in emergencies, so they can live a few seconds longer until the healer comes by and does the actual healer job. Dps should not be the ones responsible for healing, they should keep themselves out of trouble as much as possible, and be able to survive a moment while the healer is busy elsewhere, that's their job.

Find a way to bring the saviour aspect back to the healer role. 

We need more woah! moments in the healer specs, instead of rotation. It will give the healers their sense of importancy back, and it might even make more people chose for the healer role. I haven't had a woah! healer moment since Icecrown btw. Lifegrip was fun in Cata, but I don't need to be a healer for that.

And even my biggest woah! heal as a monk, Revival, is used only in specific moments of the fight since the fights are built around having spells like that. As long as that is true, it is not a save people's asses move, it is a rotational move.

People should die, guaranteed, if they try certain things without a healer. 

This comes with the whole, healers should be important thing. If you do not have the amount of healing only a healer can put out, the damage should be too big to live through. After all, nobody would think of going into a raid without a tank, right? Right. Healers should be necesary.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that we can 2-heal the whole of Mogu'Shan Vaults, but it's pretty bad for the healer population if Blizzard starts building their encounters around having only 2 healers instead of 3 because there are not enough healers. I would rather have them spend that design time and thinking in how to make it such that enough people will want to be a healer.

Solve the cause, instead of the symptom.

Kill Mana Management. 

I mentioned it earlier, but mana management is NOT fun. And only since mana management was back with a vengeance in Cata, there's a shortage of healers everywhere.

Healing, in my opinion, should be about saving people. About finding the right tool for the right situation. And if you screw up in finding the correct tool, or using it correctly, on the person who needs it, people die. Simple as that.

Healing should not be about carefully pre-planning the entire fight in your head. Holding back at times because you know if you don't it will be a wipe at a later moment anyways due to mana shortage.

I let one of the tanks die this weekend on Will of the Emperor because if I had saved him, he would've fallen over 20 seconds later anyway due to me being oom. I made the conscious choice of using mana efficient spells because otherwise I would not be able to keep up enough healing for the fight so I hoped he would pull through with the smaller heals. Not fun.

Should it go back to whack-a-mole? Maybe sometimes, yes. Should it go back to one-button healing only? No, but that's easily preventable. If one heal is dependent on the other heal to work properly (combos) healers cannot possibly be a one-button healer.

Should there be no watching your mana bar at all? Nah, if you go overboard you should run out of mana still. However, if the heals are tuned differently you should just be able to react to what the fight calls for, without worrying about your mana bar.

What I miss most?

I wish I was able to heal when needed. I wish I was able to react to the fight, without having to sit back and just let the damage happen because I will be out of mana if I don't sit back.

I am capable of more, but my character is not, and I find that endlessly frustrating.

I wish I wish...but oh well.

Off-Spec Healing, good or bad?

On MMO-Champion I was reading some blue responses about off-spec healing. Curious to the rest of the conversation I went to the forums, and read the rest as well.

Since I need an authenticator to log in to the forums, and am at work now without one, I figured I would share my opinions here.

Off-spec healing will be nerfed.

I personally quite like the fact that my dps can also be held responsible for their own health. I also like that they can throw an emergency heal every now and then.

I also believe that these emergency heals need to be big enough to make a difference.

I do not believe that they should be able to replace the healers.

What is wrong with the current model then?

I think what is wrong is not so much the off-heals being too strong. I think comparably the healers are just not strong enough. 

As a healer I want to be the saviour. When I specced healer I chose to be the saviour. I gave up being able to do damage to be the saviour. I am not the hero at the front, I am sitting quietly in the back running my rotation until it is time to shine and save someone from something incoming.

But Blizzard has completely taken out that second part 'save someone from something incoming'.

Healers are rotational now, not saviours. They do not get to shine anymore by making spectacular saves.

In fact, Blizz gave the save the raid's ass part to the dps. 

How the ratio heals/off-spec heals should be. 

I believe that this is the biggest problem for healers nowadays. Not that off-spec healers are taking their place, no, they simply have no glory moments of their own. In their aim to make the healing less of a whack-a-mole game Blizzard has also taken the glorious saves from the healer out.

Sure, you can throw in a guardian angel, a revival, or a pallie bubble at the right time. However, fights are build such that the right time for these abilities is pre-programmed nowadays.

Yaknow, that big ability that the boss does and everybody needs to press their cooldown button at that specific moment? Yes, that, not a 'nice save', pre-programmed.

Lets face it, healing is hard, healing is thankless, and healing takes a specific type of person. There is always a shortage of healers nowadays.

I sacrificed things to be the saviour, and Blizzard gives it away for free to the dps. 

What should they do to fix this then? Well, I do have some ideas, but this would be another monster post if I put them in here, so those will be for tomorrow.

Dailies, dailies, and LFR loot system

I've been following the blue posts a little and the hottest 2 items currently being discussed are the dailies, and the loot in LFR. Let me start by weighing in on the whole daily discussion.

Dailies 

Complainer's POV:
Everything is locked behind dailies. 
If we want to progress in the game we are forced to do dailies. 
Dailies ruined my game, I quit. 

Blizz's POV:
But you don't have to do dailies, go do dungeons and scenarios
You do not need your dailies or your reps to progress in the game. 
Go enjoy other content. 

My POV:
I have not maxed out my valor again this week. The reset is today and I have managed a wooping 720 valor or so. I play a lot, but I absolutely hate the daily system. They feel like chores to me, and so my whole head rebels and most of the time I really just don't want to do them.

I forced myself (no Blizz did not force me) to revered with the Klaxxi because I had nowhere!!! to spend my valor points. I hated every quest I did.

Now I am at the point where I don't feel like getting a lot more valor is currently worth much to me since I would have to force myself to do another rep to revered, and then another to get to something that I can use for my character. This means that I do not feel a drive to get valor points, and I feel even less drive to get the reps, since one is locked behind another rep.

So in all sense I do not feel a drive to do a massive part of the game. I do a dungeon to make sure I have maxed out my valor by the time the upgrade item system comes in, but that's about it.

What do I do in the game?

Well, last weekend I spent 3 hours with some guildies to get the dungeon achievements. A nice challenge and a lot of fun. Also got the guild some money.

Chores

I've also made a list of what I need to level all the cooking ways. There is a quest you get once you max it out and I'm curious for that. Plus I can skin with my hunter so I've been shooting crocs for their raw crocolisk belly.

I raid with my raid group and we're enjoying ourselves with that.

And I try to do LFR, but only on reset day since it sucks to try and get a proper group on other days. (unless my guild goes with a group).

Is this as rewarding as what I would prefer to do in the game? No. This is not the game I would prefere to play. I would prefer to actually run dungeons, because I like them, but I don't feel like that's very useful, plus since nobody has a drive to run them, it's not a lot of fun to actually do them at the moment.

I would prefer to work on my character's progression during the week and feel like I'm getting better for my raid. But since the only way I can do that in the game is in a way I really dislike, I just don't do it. I dislike that I am less good than I could be if only I could like the dailies. But I just don't like that part of the game, and it is the ONLY part of progression.

And here we come to the heart of the problem. The only SOLO path of progression is doing dailies. You can run dungeons till you drop, but it doesn't matter. Without doing the dailies you have nowhere to spend your valor.

You can level all your professions, do scenarios, do PVP, LFR, whatever you want to do. But the only way to progress your character and spend those valor points is through daily chores.

On top of that the daily chores reward you with valor better than all the other stuff does. So clearly the best way to progress solo through the game is to do chores. Which is very very discouraging to people.

And this is not going to improve much with the 5.1 patch either, since it's not worth upgrading your gear much if you didn't manage to get it in the first place.

Now, I'm lucky to have some raid gear, but people who do not raid...well, again, what do you upgrade? Your dungeon gear? Make me laugh, yeah?

And I agree with the poster from this post:
If blizzard is not going to fix this fast, they will lose a lot more people all over. Not because it is to hard this time around, no this time they will lose the casuals. Because those casuals feel like they cannot get anywhere with their game without spending some hardcore amount of time in the stupid dailies.

To sum up:

• There should be some other way to spend those valor points (and justice points)
• There should be a way to have people who cannot log in every day feel equally rewarded for their play time as the people who do log in every day
• My time in game without doing dailies should feel as appreciated by Blizzard as someone else's time in game who does do dailies
• If I love scenarios I should not feel discouraged to do them because the reward is useless without doing something else in the game that I do not love so much
• If I need something from such and such faction number 2, I should not have to go through faction number 1 as well to get to number 2.
• We need more not wiggly snakes in the game (oh wait, that is a personal peeve that almost every mount you can get in the game is a silly wiggling snake mount now)

LFR Loot System

This is apparently also Loot

Now this is a different discussion all together. It weighs in on the valor and daily points since it is one of the few ways that you could progress solo...if not for the ways the new loot system has decreased your chances of getting loot.

But statistically your chance is much higher to get loot! Blizzard says....

Ok, lets compare.

Raid:
2 cloth healer, 2 leather healers, 1 mail healer, 1 plate healer

1 plate tank, 1 leather tank

5 cloth dps - 2 mages, 2 warlock, 1 priest
6 leather dps - 1 boomkin, 1 monk, 2 druids, 2 rogues
3 mail dps - 1 hunter, 1 enhance shammie, 1 ele shammie
3 plate dps - 2 DKs, 1 pallies

Old System:

Boss dies. The system pops up with 3 items from a random loot table.
Mail Int Chest Piece
Plate Str Boots (no tank stats)
Spirit 1handed mace

Mail Int Chest Piece - 2 people who would want it the ele and the resto shammie. Chance you get it? 50%

Plate Str Boots - 3 people who would want it, and possibly an asshole tank who needs on it. Chance you get it? 25%

Spirit 1H Mace - 7 people who would want it (shadowpriest). Chance you get it? 14.3%

ew System: (as explained by Blizzard)

Boss dies.


- Each player has a chance to win loot, independent of the other players.
- For each player who wins loot, the game randomly assigns them a spec-appropriate item from that boss's loot table. This subset contains only items that the game (meaning the designers in this case) thinks are appropriate for your class and current spec.
- Notice that you aren't rolling Need or Greed. You don't have an option to Pass. The game just says "Take this."
- You can't trade this item, or that would defeat the purpose of removing the social pressure on groups of strangers. If you don't want the item, you are free to vendor, delete, or disenchant it.


In a blue post:

First, other players will not affect your loot in any way. Another player winning will not cause you to lose. Another player winning a mace will not mean that she took your mace. If there are many rogues in the raid, your chance of winning a rogue item is not diminished. We may decide that each player has an X% chance to get loot, or we may decide that X number of players get loot, and then randomly determine who those lucky players are.

Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop."


What in the end is my chance to get loot? I have not been able to find out what my chances are, but it certainly feels lower than the 14% I had before.

Problem 1.

I think the first big problem here is that other players will not affect your loot in any ways.

Lets say in the old situation my guild group did what we did last weekend. We jumped in with  a couple of  people who are outgearing most of the LFR gear already.

We had 2 leather healers, 2 plate tanks, 1 mage, 1 shadowpriest.

For the loot situation I described above this means that for example the mace could have 3 less rollers on it. Lets say that from the people who were not in our group there is another healer that already has a weapon. All of a sudden your chance is not 14% for the mace, but your chance has just gone up to 33%.

And your chances will get higher as more people are getting geared.

With the new system your chance is static and will not change, because it is unaffected by other players.

Problem 2.

The loot system decides what I need. I personally have won 5 items in LFR/Sha so far. Woohoo!

1 pair of pvp gloves (which I am using since it's better than I had, and hey the bonus on the roll is nice)
1 neck (I had better, so it got sold)
1 cloaks (I had betetr so it was sold)
1 offhand (which I would've gotten apparently if I had not done that boss already)
1 chest piece (which I am using, since it was an upgrade).

It really, really feels as if those items that I didn't need went wasted, and it would've been so nice if they could have gone to someone who did need them.

Also, I cannot see how many items are handed out, and how many loot bags. There should be some sort of window that shows me who won items.

I am not getting any offspec gear this way. I would love to actually get some gear for my windwalker, but instead Blizzard assigns int cloaks without spirit to me. (I refuse items without spirit as a healer, but that is a different discussion). The mage in the group could've used that item sooo much better.

When you get useless gear like that it feels like a carrot is being dangled in front of you. Frustrating.

Problem 3. 

Elder Charms. I worked my butt off to get these elder charms. I did your stupid dailies, I went through the motions of doing what I should be doing. And what do I get? Another bag of gold.

It really feels as if the work I did for the charms should be rewarded. Maybe not directly with loot, but then at least with a bigger bag of gold.

Hey, you know Blizz, maybe that gold you get when you change the small charms to the big charms could be handed out to make the gold bags from elder charms extra big!

I want something to show for my effort.

Problem 4.

I think this is already on the fix list (or at least I would hope so).

If you do LFR again, to help out guildies with a faster queue time for example. Or to see that specific effect from such and such boss again. You get taunted with the loot you would've gotten if only you hadn't been so dumb to already be locked.

This is just plain cruel and is really demotivating to do LFR more than once.

To sum up:

• It feels like loot is wasted
• The precious few times you do win, you often get something you do not want because the choice is taken out of your hands. 
• Your chances do not increase as people gear up
• The effort that was put in acquiring Elder charms should feel more appreciated and rewarded higher. 
• Show people what loot did drop from a boss. Seeing that loot has dropped (even if not for them) might make the feeling of accomplishment higher
• Do not show what you would've gotten if you had not been locked

PS: You get some really odd pictures if you google for loot o_O