Casual Raid Leader

For the longest time I was a big time fan of stats.  It was fun to stare at.  I mean who doesn’t like seeing massive numbers?  But the deeper I got into leading raids the more skewed I began to see the statistics.  We had a fury warrior in our 25 man raids who always topped the damage charts.  And yet the raid leaders seemed to all agree that while his numbers were impressive, they came at the expense of true focus and benefit of the raid.

So what are the appropriate methods of using stats?  Should we be publishing the stats in general or should we keep them private? (more…)

I’d like to say we were first.  Hell we might have been first on Whisperwind, but we got him.  For the first time in a long time, its felt very rewarding to sit down… work on a boss that hasn’t been downed with no instruction manual.  We walked in about 2:40 PM.  Apparently he went up at 2:20 PM.  We spent about an hour figuring him out and playing with ideas.  But by god… we got him.

Prince Tenris... dead in the upper gallery.

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Tis a sad day.  Days like yesterday and today really hit home for many people.  A child died… one I read about last year and kind of forgot.  Though as a father though this story really touched me deeply.  I highly encourage you to head over to Wowinsider and read the note that ePhoenix’s father sent in.  For now… though… a moment of silence.

Karazhan…..

Once great monolith.  Gatekeeper of raiding.  Trainer.  First point of humility.

This once great edifice has been reduced to the status of what we call EZ Mode.  We made a normal Kara run in this week only to discover… that someone left the back door open and let out all the heat.  What was once a monument to strength and determination has become a towering wet noodle held only in place by the small bits of mortar. (more…)

In the wake of Echoes of Doom I was left with a serious problem.  Better than half of my mods had died.  Now some of them since that time have been resurrected.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  It forces you to pretty much delete your entire Add Ons folder and start over.  But it also comes at the cost of several hours worth of work.

As I was sitting there talking with a good friend, he said, “I pretty much just use the base interface except for the necessities like Omen for raiding.  What do you do with your interface that you have so many mods?”  So I thought I’d share with all of you the process I’ve used to rebuild my basic interface as well as ongoing research I’m putting into mods

Note:  The following Post is Graphics intensive.  Please be aware.

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A friend of mine approached me last night and told me they were disappointed that I turned off Achievement announcements in my interface.  “How will you know when someone does something cool?”  That is a great question.  I guess I should rephrase my thoughts on Achievements and put them into something more substantial. (more…)

There’s nothing like a week of hind sight to get a real feel for how things are shaping up.  Overall, I’m extremely pleased, but all the classes have changed.  The achievement system has landed.  And of course, those of us speed leveling through the content have a much easier road ahead.  Nothing says loving like lots of things to do right before an expansion. (more…)

Well the new day dawned.  I was both dreading it and eagerly anticipating.  It may seem odd, but I stopped paying attention to the million changes that were occurring about a month ago.  Now bear in mind I was and still am in the Beta, but it all becomes a huge cacophony of background noise.  After a while it just kind of blends into the background and its hard to think past the noise.  But hey… once its reality, then its easier to pick something and focus on it. 

I’m a hard core altoholic.  So for me I haven’t been able to really focus on one class in particular other than my main.  I’ve keep abreast of the druid changes.  I know those like the back of my hand, but there’s a ton of changes I just haven’t watched.  I play too many toons to track them all really.  What really bit me though?  Mods. (more…)

Its the end of an era.  Over the next two days its predicted that we’ll get the 3.0 patch.  I think given the end of the Arena Season and the fact that there is a 12 hour maintenance cycle tomorrow its probably  a fairly safe bet.  Now is the time when all good men and women can weep.  For the world is about to move on.  Depending on where you sit, it can be terrifying.  But what are the certainties?

1.  Someone you know will be completely over powered

There were several classes that were completely broken in the 2.0 patch.  I remember the outrage initially when some people got their new 41 point talents.  Some people where whining about how broken warlocks were with their new felguard.  At the end of the day, we have to remember that the 51 point talents are based on being balanced at level 80 and not level 70.  So someone… is going to do obscene amounts of damage.

2.  Some people are now officially wearing completely the wrong gear

I unfortunately fall into this category.  My ehancement shaman is wearing very lovely Burning Crusade gear and has none of the hunter gear.  Immediately after the patch I’m completely undergeared for anything I could conceivably need.  Maybe its time to break out my nice elemental set again??? Hmmmm hard to say.

3.  Someone you know will test out the new settings and decide its not worth it and quit.

Change scares the hell out of most of us.  We don’t like to admit it, but change is something that happens every day.  Some people will have their favorite class and not see it acting the way they envision it.  It can really crush the spirt and leave you feeling empty.  Some of these people will leave the game.  Probably a good number will return at a later date.

4.  Someone you know will hit 355 Inscription on the first day.  Probably within hours of the realm coming online.

We’ve had people farming all weekend long.  I made that mistake when I did Jewelcrafting back in the day.  Not only did I miss the mark by a bit, I also found it cost me a fortune. I probably could have taken a much more measured approach to the whole thing and saved myself a lot of pain.  For now, I’m content to work on my Inscription a little bit at a time and have my inscriptionist up to 355 by the time the expansion lands.  No need to rush.. I’ve got a month.

5.  Someone you know will spend the next 3 weeks picking the most horrid combinations of hair styles and tattoes just for giggles.

This is just something fun to do.  Sure its probably a big waste of money, but think of the fun you can have entertaining your friends.  God knows after several years I’m looking forward to a hair cut on my mains.  Do female night elves look good in a mohawk???  What about in bright pink???

6.  Someone you know will set up a Kara/Gruul/SSC/TK/etc… run just to see how broken the encounters/classes/bosses are.

We are all curious.  Hell I’m curious to see how my DPS changes after the patch.  If my understanding of the new mechanics are right, I should see a fairly substantial increase in my DPS.  If I’m right, then it could be a hell of a lot of fun to go mess around in a raid instance and see “how deadly” or “how bad” we’ve become.

It gets to be a wearying experience.  I watch a bit of the blizzard forums from time to time as well as track with a druid forum as well.  Now while I feel anyone who watches the Blizzard forums probably deserves some kind of medal, its probably more a self inflicted torture than anything.  So lets talk about gloom and doom.  What kind?  The homogenized kind.

One of the biggest complaints I hear leveled all the time is the one that Blizzard is wrecking the game because people now aren’t some delicate single flower in a meadow of grass.  Suddenly they aren’t needed and wanted because of their special skill thats necessary to succeed on a given boss fight.  Sorry but if I have one thing to say its about damned time. (more…)