Last Post

All things come to an end. And so has my blog on world of warcraft come to an end. 

A few weeks ago already I have stopped raiding, maybe for now, maybe for ever. But I will definitely stop blogging. 

Why?

Combination of things.

The game just doesn't do it for me anymore. During Cataclysm the annoyances came and those annoyances kept coming until eventually they just outweighed the good. 

I now haven't raided for a few weeks, and while I miss my friends, I love the freedom that I have during my weekends now. I love being able to sleep in as well. I hadn't done that in ...oh...about 5 years. 

In fact, I woke up yesterday morning at 9:10 am in the morning! It has been a looong time since that happened. 

I might continue blogging if I find subjects that I am passionate about, but I will not do that here anymore. Shy at World of Warcraft...no more World of Warcraft.... maybe it'll be Shy in her new world, we'll see. 

If I do continue I'll post the address here (for those few that would want to follow me anyways), but other than that no more posts will be posted here. 

Thank you all for reading and commenting and I wish you all the best. 

Council of Elders - Tactics 10man

Much has happened since my last post here...amongst other things, Furious Pantaloons has had a guild split. 

Sad, but in the end unavoidable I think. I wish the group that split off the best of luck, and hope that they will be happier within their new guild than they eventually were in FP. 

But hey, that is not what I wanted to talk about. What I did want to talk about was the Council of Elders. 

We beat this 3rd encounter of the new Throne of Thunder raid this last weekend using one of the more unusual tactics we have used in raid encounters so far. In fact, the unusual part was that we ignored just about every normal tactic. 

What you are supposed to do is have a tank with Sul, one tank with the priestess, keep them plit up and kill adds as they come up. The dps attack order would then be to kill adds as they come up, and kill the boss that is empowered at that moment. 

We had tried this for 12 attempts, starting to think already that we should let the information sink in and come back next week, when someone suggested that we could try to just group everything up and aoe all of it down. 

This, normally, would never be an accepted tactics. Blizzard generally makes sure that there is one or the other something going on that prevents you from doing this. And in fact, this is totally not how this encounter is meant to happen, but lo and behold....3 attempts later, the Council of Elders was dead.

What you do need to know before attempting this. 

- 2 heals

- 2 tanks

- 6 dps

One tank on Sul, One tank on Priestess, tanks have to swap the frost dude between them, Malakk. 

First boss to empower is Malakk. When he is empowered he casts Frostbite. This ability forces 2 people (4 in 25s) to stack on the person with Frostbite to reduce the stacks to one. 

This still has to happen!

Other than that, make sure that if you cleave off something you cleave of Sul. You want him dead first since his sandstorm ability is a pain. 

Lastly, make sure to kill the Shadowed Loa Spirits that are cast by Mar'Li while she is empowered. They will kill the person they are targeting if they reach that person. 

Heal the crap out of everybody, muchos aoe heals, and aoe dps everything. 

Your dps will be much higher this way, which is also what will allow you to do this. 

Our logs for that evening. 

Attempt 13, 14, and the winning attempt followed the group'em up strategy, the rest is following normal tactics. 

We then went on to have a look at Tortos..but he kicked our ass. Guess next week we'll be kicking some turtle ass!

Good luck if you attempt to use this strategy :)

DPSing fistweavers holy batman!

Assuming you’re talking about fistweaving, that’s always been the intention (and always been the case). Fistweaving is an alternative that provides less HPS in exchange for very significant DPS.

Think about it like this:

Holy priest / Mistweaving monk: 100% healing
Combat rogue / Windwalker monk: 100% DPS
Atonement priest / Fistweaving monk: 50% DPS AND 50% healing at the same time


This is from the patch notes.

So if I translate this:

Holy Priest / Mistweaving monk: 60.000 hps
Combat rogue / Windwalker monk: 70.000 dps
Atonement priest / fistweaveing monk: 30.000 hps + 35.000 dps

I like the theory, but have never been able to do what Blizz is saying here. What I have seen is that I'm not capable of doing half the dps a normal dps is doing, mostly due to mana issues, because in short fights I do see the numbers sometimes. But I have also never seen myself do half the hps I can do without the fistweaving.

Wondering if what they say here will happen in patch 5.2.

For what it's worth

I like 10s better than 25s. 

Reasons?

1. With 10 people you normally have a tighter group. 
You know each other better, and you have to trust more on each other to do the job. In 25s you always get sub groups. This is not even my experience only, there has actually been research into this stuff and once a group gets to big, it will automatically split into smaller groups.

2. I find deafeating a boss with less people a lot more epic. 
Think about it...I defeated all those big dragons and baddies with only 10 people, other groups needed 25. Bah weakos, had to pull in all their friends to be able to beat da boss.

3. With only 10 people there are less spell effects and I actually get to see more of the fight. 
When I ran 25s I saw very little of the fight itself, the spell effects were overwhelming. I get this with LFR already and there you don't even have to focus much.

4. With 10 people each person has more accountability per person.
My experience in 25s is that more people can screw up. Actually, it's a fact that with 25s more people can screw up because you get 3 battle rezzes, and you even get more shaman logically that can self-rez.

5. Healing is a lot more intense in a 10man raid. 
With 25 people you have 5 or 6 healers covering the raid. You have a certain role, you do your role and you don't often move away from doing your role. In 10s you sort of have to be able to do everything. In current content the only boss we have somewhat strict healing divide on is Garalon, and even there we have to keep an eye on all targets and not just on the ones our focus is on.

6. Organization is less intense in 10s.
What can I say I am a control freak...or wait, think positive...a natural leader. When I see a situation that needs organization and structure I tend to step forward and take over. Not in a mean way, but it naturally happens often. I know what I'm doing and when there is not a strong lead in a group I take over.

This leads to me always leading something in a 25. In our 10s people lead themselves. I do some organizational stuff, like copy/paste the calendar invite, but the rest gets itself arranged.

I do have to say that I am incredibly lucky with the base of our 10man group. We've had people rotating in and out, but the base group is strong and stable, for which I am very thankful.

There you go, six strong reasons for me to like 10s better. So the fact that Blizzard feels that 10s are worth less than 25s, is to me another disappointment to the game.

Bit of a shame...I was discussing with Thror yesterday. And while this whole loot change is on its own not even all that big of a deal. MoP has few things in it that not have a bad aftertaste for me.

I hated Cataclysm with a passion, but I play less during MoP...but hey, that might just be the next blog post.

Foot in mouth disease

10s aren't more popular because the entire community agreed they're more fun, it's just a simple case of effort versus reward. 

A sentence grabbed from a blue comment....

In one sentence this person just called everybody who does 10s lazy and greedy.

Tons of players would love to do 25s, but the coordination and effort to do so is more difficult with very little additional reward. 

This was the sentence before that.

Tons of players....obviously not tons of leaders, because otherwise there would be more 25s than 10s. And if those leader's are sick of dealing with the extra organizational hazzle, why does it make sense to offer the entire raid a higher chance for higher item level loot?

I see what Blizz is trying to do, but the sort of nonsense they are trying to do now with the thunderforge loot only pisses people off.

Add to that these sort of explanations of why what they're doing is a good thing to do, and you'll piss even more people off. Smart move Blizz.

Monk Tier 15

So I checked out the monk tier 15 at MMO-Champion and I honestly thought that they had managed to put the wrong video with the link and had used the tier 14 video again.

Thror said that it was different so I checked, and indeed it is indeed different. More different than I thought in fact, but the fact that I though they had mistakenly put the wrong video in says something....

I guess the fact that apparently all monks wear flying saucers threw me for a loop. So far not too impressed though, finding it boring, and quite unimaginative for tier armor.

Especially since this is only the monk's second tier it could be somewhat more spectacular. I'm having difficulty finding gear that looks good for my transmog.

Where are you now?

Patch 5.2 Release Date
More interestingly, what do you think would be a good date to launch 5.2?

Do you think the majority of players are already “finished” with the current content? Where do you think most players stand in terms of PvE and PvP progress right now?
What rules do you think we should follow when deciding to launch new content? 
Should it be a fixed linear time cycle? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I copied this from MMO-Champion, and funny enough it kept the style...

So where are you now?

Where am I?

Well, I am currently finishing off Shado-Pan rep. I am 2/3 through revered with them. I am also finishing off August Celestials, I am a sliver away from Revered with them.

Raiding wise we have killed the first four bosses from Heart of Fear and were closing in on the kill on Amber Shaper.

Gearwise...well, we have been incredibly unlucky with the leather spirit drops, but our raid has their gear somewhat behind what we're beating, because I'm not the only one who has not finished their reps.

Valor points? I have now reached the valor cap 5 times since MoP went live! But then again, we were talking about this during raid last week and one of our shamans said he had reached it a whole total of once.

Legendary quest? I am 2200/6000 or so. I have a 500 int gem in my bags which is rather useless since I have no weapon to stick it in (not a usefull weapon at least, I did get the staff without spirit twice already in LFR).

Pet Battles, I have several pets at level 25, and am 2/4 on the Spirit Tamer quest.

Alts? yah...not nearly as far as I would wish to be, mostly because I keep feeling guilty if I spend time on an alt while I could finish of reps on my main.

Challenge Modes? We've completed 1 challenge mode and got no medals for it. Luckily I find the gear monks get ridiculously ugly, so I only have to get silver to get the mount. But yeah, somewhere I would love to find time to do some of this.

I have done the scenarios all once at least, but since I don't have time I am nowhere near tired of them. I am somewhat done with dungeons though since it doesn't seem to matter how much time I put in there, I seem to get the wrong ones anyways.

Oh yah...I am also allowed to go into Black Temple for transmog gear now, and got myself brutally murdered by the heads boss (reliquary), the rest is fairly easily doable solo.

So all in all I am nowhere near done with this patch

Yet, people are asking about patch 5.2. I am personally hoping that it will not be there for a bit still. I have accomplished quite a bit if I put it all in a row, but specifically the alts part is something that I would love to find some time for before I have to get back to grinding on the main again.

And I would love to have at least cleared all the normals before the next patch. Terrace is a few weeks away and I am looking forward to this instance. I find it incredibly pretty in LFR and the fights seem like they will be a fun challenge.

And I'm not even looking much at the achievements...

I guess FP's other group is looking at achievements...cause this was not our 10man...sounds fun, lol. 

So like all the Panda's say, Blizz:  'Slow Down.'

I am in no hurry to have a new patch already. I would only feel way behind again. (and we're 14th on the server on 10man progression...I think there might be more people who are not done yet).

How about you?

Alts, will they ever be the same again?

I came >< this close to actually quitting the game entirely last week. I had a whole post written up and was ready to post on our guild forums that I would not be raiding that weekend, or in fact any weekend at all every again.

The main reason?

I am tired of waiting for change. The game to me has not felt fully fun since Wrath of the Lich King.

Cataclysm was one big annoyance to me. Not until the very end did it feel like more fun again. Mana management is what Blizzard wants, but I hate it. I hate not being able to heal when I should be healing. I hate not being able to compensate.

Mists has done a better job at that end, now when I run out of mana I know I need to tweak my approach, and mana management is not so tight anymore that no mistakes are allowed. Healing stress is slightly lower at least now.

But now I am so tired of the dailies, that I can only longingly look at the moment that my main is caught up and has no more reps to do and can actually just get her valor cap by raiding and LFR.

And maybe, just maybe I'll get to play my alts some. I miss my alts...

My favourite way of playing this game?

Gear my main through raid and a little bit of other stuff, like a dungeon or two. And outside raid time I want to play my alts.

What have I been doing so far?

Playing catch up on my main. Frantically trying to get the reps done so that I won't feel guilty when I spend time on my alt. Running dungeons, scenarios, and doing dailies, just so I can get the valor cap on my main.

I have levelled 1 alt so far. I miss my alts...

Thror kept saying just wait for the next patch, it'll be better. But what the hell. Blizzard has been designing this game for years now, they shouldn't need a next patch again just to make things 'better'. They had it spot on when they started Icecrown.

The only thing wrong with that expansion was that it lasted a bit too long at the end. And even there I didn't care all that much since I had alts that I could gear up and play for the necesary change of flavour. I miss my alts...

Last week I felt like the dinosaur that should've been extinct a long time ago already, like the way I like to play the game just doesn't match with how game design works any longer.

But then I finished the shieldwall reputation, and realized. Blizzard really did fuck it up with the reps and dailies at first. I loved shieldwall, I loved how the storyline drew me in, how it kept me going, and how I wanted to get to the next part. Even if it meant having to do some dailies for it.

I think this is how my druid must be feeling, sad, alone, and abandoned. 

So while the rep situation will really just fix itself by the next patch, I do think Blizzard has learned.

However, that does not mean that they are now saved. No, all my alts still have the mount everest of dailies and reps to go before they can even start thinking about their professions.

I don't want to do that again on an alt. I don't care if I have increased rep gain. I just don't want to do it at all. And the worst is that you cannot get to one rep before you have finished the other. (Golden Lotus > Shado Pan & August Celestials).

Fix this Blizzard, please? Fix it so I can feel happy about playing my alts again, instead of feeling like I just finished all the chores on my main and if I ever want to play my alts somewhat properly I have more hoops to jump through, instead of just have fun with an alt.

Please fix it, so that I do not have to dread playing my alts, level them to just before 90 because I know that the horror starts at that level.

Please fix it, so that I can have fun with my professions again. So that I do not have to spend hours and hours and hours before I can do anything with my alts professions.

Please fix it? I miss my alts...

Pandaria Mounts Guide (MoP mounts)

I did a guide on the mounts in Cataclysm way back when, and this guide is still searched for and visited a lot. Over time more and more tools have come up to figure out which mounts you can get and where, and pretty lists are available through tools like wowhead. But an overview of what each mount looks like, and where/how to get it I have been unable to find.

A good guide can be found on wowhead here btw, but it still requires you to go to each link separately to figure out what to do and what they look like.

This will be a long list, since 73 mounts have been added in MoP so far. Luckily they can somewhat be divided into families.

Cranes

Available in Game:

Golden Riding Crane

Azure Riding Crane
Golden Riding Crane
Regal Riding Crane

Not Available in Game:
Albino Riding Crane
Crimson Riding Crane
Jungle Riding Crane

Cranes are ground mounts only, they do not fly.

Three Riding cranes are available at exalted with Golden Lotus; Azure Riding Crane, Golden Riding Crane, and Regal Riding Crane. They cost 500G, 2500G, and 1500G respectively.

The Albino Riding Crane, Crimson Riding Crane, and Jungle Riding Cranes are in the game files, but cannot be bought it seems at this time. The Albino Crane can be seen in game at Dawn's Blossom next to stable master Hong the Kindly (46,43).

Serpents

This being the eastern / asia feeling expansion the serpents had to be there of course, and there are quite a few of them.

Serpents are flying mounts, and I personally find them quite wobbly to ride, but they are gorgeous to see.

Available in Game:
Astral Cloud Serpent

Astral Cloud Serpent

Azure Cloud Serpent
Crimson Cloud Serpent
Golden Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent
Jade Cloud Serpent
Onyx Cloud Serpent
Thundering August Cloud Serpent
Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent
Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent

Not Available in Game:
Heavenly Azure Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Crimson Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Jade Cloud Serpent


The Astral Cloud Serpent drops from Elegon as a very rare drop.

The Azure, Jade, and Golden Cloud Serpents can be obtained by reaching exalted status with the Order of the Cloud Serpent. The comments on wowhead give a good explanation of what to do to get these.

The Crimson Cloud Serpent is a reward from completing Glory of the Pandaria Hero achievement.

The Heavenly Crimson Cloud Serpent is a reward for completing the achievement Glory of the Pandaria Raider. 

Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent

The Onyx Cloud Serpent is a reward from the quest Surprise Attack!. This quest becomes available on becoming Exalted with Shado-Pan.

The Thundering August Cloud Serpent, and the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent are rewards from reaching exalted with The August Celestials. These cost 10.000 gold each.

The Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent can be bought for 3,000 gold from guild vendors once your guild has completed Guild Glory of the Pandaria Raider.


The Heavenly Azure Cloud Serpent, The Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent, The Heavenly Jade Cloud Serpent, and The Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent have been datamined but are not available in the game.

Water Striders

Azure Water Strider

Available in Game:
Azure Water Strider

Not Available in Game:
Golden Water Strider
Jade Water Strider
Orange Water Strider
Crimson Water Strider

Only the  Reins of the Azure Water Strider are available in-game, through Exalted reputation with The Anglers in Krasarang Wilds.

The other four colors of this mount, though available from the same vendor during beta, are currently unavailable.

This mount walks on water, but cannot fly.

Dragon Turtles

Available at Level 20:

Great Blue Dragon Turtle

Black Dragon Turtle
Blue Dragon Turtle
Brown Dragon Turtle
Green Dragon Turtle
Purple Dragon Turtle
Red Dragon Turtle

Available at Level 40:
Great Black Dragon Turtle
Great Blue Dragon Turtle
Great Brown Dragon Turtle
Great Green Dragon Turtle
Great Purple Dragon Turtle
Great Red Dragon Turtle

Dragon Turtles are the pandaren racial mounts. So all you have to do is reach exalted with the pandaren...or be a pandaren of course, or even have been a pandaren, because after a race change you keep the mounts you bought already.

Dragon turtles are ground mounts only.

Yaks

Available in Game:

Grand Expedition Yak

Blonde Riding Yak
Grey Riding Yak
Grand Expedition Yak

Not Available in Game:
Black Riding Yak
Brown Riding Yak
White Riding Yak

The Blonde Riding Yak, Grey Riding Yak, and Grand Expedition Yak can all be bought from Uncle Bigpocket in Kun Lai Summit. The Blonde and Grey one cost 3000 gold each and the Grand Expedition Yak costs 120.000 gold. But this one does come with 2 vendors, just like the traveller's mammoth, and it is a rather impressive mount.

Yaks are ground mounts only.

Phoenix

Ashen Pandaren Phoenix

Ashen Pandaren Phoenix
Crimson Pandaren Phoenix
Emerald Pandaren Phoenix
Violet Pandaren Phoenix

Obtained via trading in an Ancestral Phoenix Egg (which is obtained via challenge mode dungeon achievement: Challenge Conqueror: Silver).


At the moment it looks like it's possible to pick one color only, so choose wisely!

Goats

Black Riding Goat
Brown Riding Goat
White Riding Goat

These mounts can be bought once you reach exalted with the Tillers. Gina Mudclaw sells them. The Brown one goes for 125 gold, Black for 375 gold, and the White one for 812,50 gold.

These are ground mounts only.

Tigers

Blue Shado-Pan Riding Tiger
Green Shado-Pan Riding Tiger
Red Shado-Pan Riding Tiger

These mounts can be bought from the Shado-Pan once you reach exalted with them. The blue version costs 125 gold, green 375 gold, and red costs 625 gold.

These are ground mounts only.

Kites

Jade Pandaren Kite

Pandaren Kite (alliance)
Pandaren Kite (horde)
Jade Pandaren Kite

The Pandaren Kites can be gotten through completing the achievement to reach exalted with all orginal Pandaria Factions, Pandaren Ambassador.

The Jade Pandaren Kite is granted upon collecting 150 mounts, and getting the achievement We're Going to Need More Saddles.

These are flying mounts.

Depleted-Kyparium Rocket

Engineering Rockets

Depleted-Kyparium Rocket
Geosynchronous World Spinner

Geosynchronous World Spinner

Both of these mounts can be created by engineers. One by a gnomisch engineer, the other by a goblin engineer. Each costs 3 Orbs of Mystery which go for 20.000 gold per from the vendor (or 18.000 gold with guild perk), and other materials.

These are both flying mounts.

Jewelcrafting Panthers

Jeweled Onyx Panther

Jade Panther
Ruby Panther
Sapphire Panther
Sunstone Panther
Jeweled Onyx Panther

Jewelcrafters can get the patterns for these mounts at honored and revered Order of the Cloud Serpent. Each of the mounts costs quite a bit in materials and an Orb of Mystery.

At Exalted the jewelcrafter can make the Jeweled Onyx Panther. This mount requires the jewelcrafter to have all of the other 4 in his bags (unlearned!) and he can then combine them.

Gryphons and Wyverns

Grand Wyvern

Grand Armored Gryphon

Grand Armored Gryphon
Grand Armored Wyvern
Grand Gryphon
Grand Wyvern

These mounts are alliance and horde specific. They can be bought once you reach exalted with Operation Shieldwall. The armored version costs 2000 gold and without armor you have to pay 34 gold and 20 silvers.

These are flying mounts.

Miscelaneous

Amber Scorpion

Amber Scorpion can be bought for 10.000 gold from the Klaxxi once you reach exalted, this is a ground mount only.

Cataclysmic Gladiator's Twilight Drake is the arena mount for season 11.

Cataclysmic Gladiator's Twilight Drake

Imperial Quilen is the collector's edition and digital deluxe edition mount. This mount is a ground and flying mount, and can be used in all zones.

Imperial Quillen

Red Flying Cloud

Red Flying Cloud this mount can be gotten by reaching exalted with the Lorewalkers. This mount is a ground and flying mount and can be used in all zones. Check here for a guide on how to get this mount.

Son of Galleon

Swift Windsteed

Son of Galleon drops from killing Galleon. You can win the mount on a coin roll, but this does require you to actually be in the group that kills Galleon. I have personally never seen this mount. This is a ground mount only.

Swift Windsteed will be available through the Blizzard store for 25$ or 20€. It is expected to be availble from patch 5.2 onwards.





This completes this mount guide for the moment, I am sure that at a later time more mounts will be added in patches, but currently this is the known information.

Let me know if you find errors or incorrect information.

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.