It's dead, Jim

First of all, I'm not dead. Nor is this blog. It's this.


Yes, I'm participating and I'm already couple of thousand words short of the aim I'm supposed to be at.

I think it's WoW that is dead for me. I got somewhat pepped up last week when we had the ongoing Three Stooges evening with our second team (paladin, shaman, rogue) and logged in with my - little played - Unholy Deathknight, tender at level 82. Ran some idle quests while queuing for a random and got into the Vortex Pinnacle.

I fully agree that I'm not up to the gear nor anything, but I also must state that I was the only one not stacked with heirlooms and top enchants. I am still running around with my lowbie quest gear, with one or two blues in the mix. And due to this, I was severely lacking in the dps I may have been supposed to deliver. Considering this, I wasn't the one standing in the fire. I was not the one disconnecting repeatedly. I was not the one constantly pulling unnecessary aggro and definitely not the one pulling stuff off from the pally-tank. I even mentioned this and got mentioned for being ok in these regards.

Still I was kicked before the wind dragon boss. The only thing I saw was a note from the warlock who was repeatedly disconnecting and stalling our progress stating "Just kick him" before I was ushered back to the world.

No mention of doing something differently. No mention of getting better or asking if I knew things.

Not. A. Thing.

Sure, where the others were stacking incredible 11k dps at that level (heck, Förgelös barely can make that on a good day on our lv85 trio!!!), I was doing 'merely' 3.5k. Maybe that was the reason, not the overall performance.

So WoW is dead for me except for the Brotherly Thursdays. The community and the players currently suck and are obnoxiously stupid.

I rather spend my time in Rift or Champions Online. At least I'm not judged by an arbitrary number in either, yet, but by my performance and behaviour.

I doubt that's a good idea

This is not a Gnomore post. Gnomore is on vacation for this week due to Rift head start weekend.

This is a Rift post. Due to Gnomore being on vacation because of the Rift head start weekend.

Onwards.

So far I've been playing only one character, Kelari Mage called Copraf (ingenious naming, don't you agree?). The term "glass cannon" is an over estimation of Rift Mages survival abilities, but at least at the low levels the damage I can deal is quite enough to keep single mobs a couple of levels higher at bay. Even as much as to get them down before they can even hit me.

What can I say? Argent, the RP server I'm located with this character, is a very helpful and nice community. There have been no queues as far as I've seen, and the overall attitude is the we are in this together. The most bothersome thing about the game is its namesake, the rifts: it seems to me that there are invasions and rift events going on constantly when I'm online, making it nearly impossible to level up by the normal questing way. I'm overlevelling the content here, people!

As the explorer me, I had to take a breath of fresh air in Sunday and I ventured off the beaten path of Freemarch (the level 5-20 area). Strolling around in Droughtlands (level 22+) and later in Shimmersand (at least lv33+!) with a level 14 character was a stressful, exhilarating and very much refreshing experience! As every step had to be thought out in advance to stay alive, the intensity of that session was very, very high. And I really mean that you had to plan your steps ahead, because the nearest resurrection point was always at the other end of the map if you were lucky: the corpse run wasn't as nice as it may sound.

Anyhow, seeing the depth of detail put into these areas and the love in the graphics has convinced me even more that there is no hurry to level up. There is quite enough to explore on the way up, and the lore and legends which I encountered on those travels are quite promising. Like the separation of two Cyclops tribes after they were freed from the ilk of the evil Eth, who had brought them through dimensions by magic to serve as slaves and gladiators... How the heck has all that happened and what is going on in the cave there?!

In Shimmersand there are some nice triggered events which left me giggle: I won't go any deeper into this, because they are somewhat a surprise and I would surely spoil the fun from someone entering them for the first time. Needles to say, I'm waiting to come back with a proper level character and see how the events proceed then.

I have only one thing to complain about in the Rift events and public groups. There seem to be no interest to heal in them. As a pure dps I have no way to keep my health up, while the dps from Druid persuasion toss a self heal every now and then and keep pounding. The elite invader as much as breathes to my general direction and I'm gasping for a potion to stay in the foray.

Sad to say, but this was to be expected: everyone wants to beat the baddies, and as the system rates everyones personal performance, healing isn't going to be rated too high by the players. It's a war out there, anyhow, no time for losers! (I should have rolled a pure healing cleric and level only by quests and healing... no, too much Gnomore!)

The best part was yesterday: guild fun in Iron Tombs.

First of all, the game is gorgeous. But the instance itself rises the bar even higher: it is dumbfounding. The atmosphere, lighting and sounds are just magnificent and just ... right in its grand meaning. Can't wait to run the instance again, even though the initial amazement has vaned.

The structure and flow of the run is well thought. Like I said during the run, Trion has truly delivered the fun they promised to include in the game. Even though our rag tag group had one 'overlevelled' character, the rest at level 18 and my meager lv15 had quite enough to do and the challenge was to plan the pulls and kills after the first - and only - wipe after a specialist pull gone somewhat awry. Or how can you rate a pull for three mobs which ends up pulling thirteen, among which at least one mini-boss? Expert job, I say. Something I capped by stating the next proposed pull with "I doubt that's such a good idea".

The fun part of the run was that I really learned more about my Mage than I had learned before questing and rifting. I also found out later, when I was going through the run, the reason why it was so fun in many ways.

The main thing was the fact that there was no feeling of having to be the min-maxed super performer of the class. There was no need to show and tell how my class is played properly. And there was no expectations on anyone in the group that a certain class should perform at a certain level.

Here comes the only comparison to WoW in this post: in WoW I don't like the instances anymore because I have to be the best there is only to stay out of the name calling ring. Be it tank, healer or any dps, it is the same. The damage meters and the sour community does have its toll on the fun, really. Instead of going into an instance I have to think whether I have the gear to do it, the right spec to be accepted, the buffs I'm supposed to have. There is the feeling that the game and the rest of the group are expecting more than you can deliver.

Sure, there are players who don't give a damn about it and just go and get the bashing. But as a tank or a healer in WoW you are bound to get the shaft even if you perform well if someone decides the failure was your fault. Seen that on both my tank and my healer, and that's the major reason I don't want to tank in PUGs anymore.

It is not fun anymore, it's a chore.

Granted, the run in Rift was a guild run, but in a way it was a PUG: I'm a newcomer to the guild, the composition of the group came on the fly and we were just having a look into the instance. It had more common with a server PUG than a real planned guild run, really.

But the most fun came out of the fact that no-one really knew the instance, everyone was a gamer and had played quite a bit of MMOs and everyone was in to have FUN.

Anyhow, Rift is what I have earlier stated many times: WoW on steroids, Trion doing splendidly what Blizzard did way back when they launched WoW. It's new, familiar, simple to get a hang on, a new car with some new gadgets and better stuff under the hood.

For me the head start weekend - even though it was the worst gaming weekend I've ever had - was a great success on Rift point of view.

How about you? Have you tried Rift, will you give it a try or will you just pass it for something more shiny?

Or are you content enough with WoW?
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Narrow vision - 20:20?

I have just read the post Tobold made about WoW in 2020 and Larísa's 'response' to that. I even commented both of them, almost with the same response, something I see every time I run a levelling PUG with my druid (lv63). The sad decline of the random groups ever since the Dungeon Finder came. Especially the decline in the social side of the grouping, as no one can be held accountable on anything else than their performance in the dungeon and with no repercussions on acting poorly or being a jerk, aspects which have caused the PUGs to be silent runs through the instances with - in a good case - a hello and thnx to cap it.

My opinion is that the social side of WoW has died outside the guilds which are composed of people fitting into the guild mentality and group. Anyone else is a lone wolf in a world of pixelated avatars which could be easily replaced with AI drones everywhere, creating an illusion of a living world.

The more I read the blogs of people in high end raiding guilds or people in guilds with real life friends, the more I get the impression that this vocal minority has narrowed 20:20 sight of the game. They live the game in the promised land, in tight, seclusive, social ground which seems like the game is perfect to their needs. What ever is outside that perception is fault and voided by their perception.

Even though I'm in a great guild, I don't feel I'm part of the group. It's purely because we have differing agendas on the game. Thus I'm levelling up Gnomore as well as my banker druid, exploring and experiencing the game without the hurry and need to compete or achieve. And as such I see a very much different game than the people in guilds gearing for the next raid.

And the view isn't pretty.

Sure, to make a social connection requires activity on your side. But why bother on a random group, which you will never meet again. A group of random players from other servers whom you will never know any better than "nice tank", "great healer" or "darn dps".

So I'm very reluctant to agree with the rosy tinted views Larísa poses as the future facts of the game: I share her view on how newcomers will have a very different view on the game than her, though.

If we socialize, we tend to do it with people we already know. I feel truthfully sorry for new players who enter the game on their own, like I did once upon a time. My impression is that you’d better have some real life friends joining at the same time, or you might end up lonely and alienated. It seems to me as if people don’t have the time for small talk they used to have once upon a time. It’s all about efficiency and return on investment of time. Get your achievements done. Gear up. Get your ranking. Accomplish. Don’t waste your time on strangers!

The game is already more solo friendly than ever, the social possibilities have been limited to the bare minimum and I doubt that any player coming to game even gets the notion that the other player characters are played by a living person. To deny this is the ultimate way of narrowing your vision by your own experience.

And I refuse to narrow my vision like that. Instead, I treat the other players in a PUG with the same courtesy they offer to me.

They be NPC's, means to my ends.

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I don't have the guts

Christmas came and went: now we're trying to suffer the rest of the fabulous food that we just couldn't eat up. Oh, yes, and I'm back at work, filing things.

The little time I spent playing went to doing some secondary things, like working on AH, starting a non-violent pacifist gnome priest and levelling some unnecessary tradeskills on my secondary toon, my spriest. I have been deliberately avoiding taking my warrior out of the closet, because I am confused, scared and mixed up with the tanking in the new instances.

I just do not have the guts to take up on a PUG to run the instances.

The reason is the same as it was with the WotLK endgame instances and taking up on raiding: I fear that I'm not good enough to do it and that I ruin the evening - or the instance - for the rest of the group whom I will never meet again.

The change in the way how tanking goes changed quite a bit, at least in my book. The last few heroics after the Shattering (before Cataclysm hit) really showed me that I just couldn't handle several rampant mobs at a time: to let one pass is two misses too many for me. When I'm tanking I want to have things under control, and nothing should go past my presence. "Thou shall not pass!"

But... the run with the Stooges and my two PUG's with my shadow priests showed me that even though the instances are pretty simple - especially the trash mobs - I can't expect to keep all the threat on me all the time. Blackrock Caverns was pretty simple but the Three Stooges will have hard time with the encounters later on where one has to be tied to the beam, you know what I mean. But as a tank in a PUG... not my bowl of porridge. Throne of the Tides is even worse, as some of the boss encounters evolve around the idea of multiple mobs spawning around the area: the group - which was two-three levels higher than my spriest, but I still scored the second highest dps... - wiped twice due to mismanaged aggro and lack of attention from the druid tank. Knowing the lack of area threat generation of a protection warrior, I can't see myself enjoying the red Threat Plates on my screen alongside the screams of agony from the group members. And accusations after that.

Oh, I know. There is this group of people who say that because you are in a guild you shouldn't have to PUG at all. Sadly the majority - read all - of the active guild are at the cap already, running heroic modes: knowing how nice it was to go through the same instance time and again, there is bound to be next to no interest to return to the normals after gaining the option to run a heroic. I'm assuming this and I doubt I'm too much off with this.

So, I'll just level up by questing which is nice. With the current rate of advancement I'll be off the boat once again.

Only because I don't have the guts to ruin others day by messing around in my tanking.

C out
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Sidestepping again (YAWP)

First things first. Blizzard has decided to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbour by releasing Cataclysm on it's 69th anniversary. I hope this is just coincidence and not a sign.

Anyhow, the weekend. I spent playing this and that, for example a great night of going through old Vanilla instance Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj, but the main thing for me was that I finally got my unguilded crafter DK to ding 80. And noticed how the problems started right on the bat.

You see, with the quest blues and greens, I was smacking top dps in all the instances up till I dinged. After that, I feel like a slacker, not being able to even compete with the big guys. Funny part is, that even though my dk sucks in delivering, he's been just getting encouraging comments from the people I've ran heroics with. Mind you, HEROICS. I gently skipped normal 5mans alltogether.

Had I been tanking, I would have been scorned, called names and kicked from the groups. Like happened to that one pally trying to be a tank in better gear, wiping the group in the Gundrak. I stayed, with gear score below 2.5k, where as he left with his score of 5+k. Go figure.

So thus far my experience with levelling - or gearing a toon through 5mans - has been such that a melee dps is the one most easiest left alone in the instances. Tanks are under the most scrutiny, high above healers which in turn are high above all dps.

I think I start doing IC5hc's with my tank as dps. I wouldn't need to talk to anyone, just hang around and deliver. No more stress nor waiting for the one less fortunate soul who decides to do something stupid for which the tank gets the blame in the end for not saving their sorry butts.

One other thing about this DK. The first instance I applied to as newly dinged lv80 was Coren Direbrew. Ques what happened? He got both mounts on the first try. My other toons do not have the mounts as of yet. Sucks to be me.

On the other hand, I have checked the new talent builds through WoWtal.com and I think I've found builds for my tank and his dps as well as my spriest. Of course the cookie cutter talent builds will come in no time, but as far as I can see the 'new' talent system is much easier to handle and is less prone to gimping your toon completely with 'bad' choices. The PvP talents stand easily out of the trees and are in some cases more a question of choice rather than crucial things. The main talents are still there, with the characteristics.

Last but not least. Last night. Guild 5man achievement runs. With my spriest. Great big fun. For example, it took us at least 15 impales in Gundrak before we got the Share the Love achievement. Zombiefest was a blast and no one died. Pupunen still has a lot to fill for the Glory of Hero meta, but then again, so does Laiskajaakko, my warrior. Not to speak about that newbie dk.

So I have again sidestepped from my tank. Shame on me. Have to correct that soon, as the rest of the guild seems to be smacking LK weekly now. Kingslayers everywhere, except in my roster.

But hey, I still have almost 2 months to go!
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Jump into the deep end

by Copra

Sometime ago I wrote about how the PUGging is in fact a question of trust. In that post I mention how I don't want to tank in LFD heroics because I feel that the rest of the group are not trusting me. Now I have to change that a bit: I don't feel comfortable enough to volunteer for a PUG raid as a tank, but in LFD group I take the leap into the deep end of the pool. I trust the healer to do their best to keep me alive, but I don't trust the dps to look their threat meter -if they even have one.

Yesterday was another evening like that. Several IC10's opening up all the time, GS requirement a bit higher than my current gear and achievement requirement for 4-6 bosses, minimum. I don't have the achievements, so that's it. I know I can do the fights as a tank, seen them all up to Sindragosa and bested them. Sadly on two different characters and on different raid sizes, so I don't have a concise way of showing them.

So I passed the whole /trade because of this. If the people calling for a PUG raid have such expectations for their group, they won't trust them a bit. They just want to have the badges and some loot, not anyone doing their best.

We ran two heroics with Förgelös, and I submitted myself on the mercy of the healer. There was enough to do in the first Ahn'Kahet, as there was a hunter and a warlock who were no the most careful with their pets. Fun and furious, never the less.

Second one showed me again the lack of group play tutorials in the game. We went to Gundrak Drak'Tharon and there was this boomkin druid who clearly had no idea on aggro management or what to do in a group. But hey, he had at least four pieces of ilvl264 on him. First pull with five mobs and this druid was down. Why didn't tank hold the aggro was his question. Being the gentleman I am, I told that I had a glitch on my computer (which I really had, the whole thing froze for 5-10 seconds mid-fight), but the real reason he died was the fact that he pulled that one mob before I had any aggro on it. I had enough to do with the rest before my 'puter froze.

The same thing persisted through the whole instance. The other thing that royally pissed me off was his use of Cyclone all the time. Just as I had charged, thunderclapped and slammed the trash mobs, his cyclone would push them all away from me and I had to start again. Worst moment was when he did that on King Dread fight in which we had two adds: the two adds were pushed to the path of two more, so that when Dread was dead, we still had five (one came later) raptors to deal with.

Without the wonderful shammy healer and mu total trust in her talents it would have been a wipefest. Also the mage did a great job to down the odd adds for the druid, not to mention Förgelös' new level of dps after getting some sweet crafted gear.

It is hard to let go and trust completely to other players when you see this kind of disregard from them. But in the end, when you are able to trust that the players around you do -or at least try- their best, you can really pull out the best in your own performance: concentrate on your own skills and moves and dedicate yourself on your own job.

As a tank, getting beaten by the bad guys so the others can do the beating, uninterrupted.

Can you really take the jump into the deep end and not worry about other's doing their job while in a PUG (raid or LFD)?

I think I finally can.

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I am not prepared

by Copra

First of all, Blizzard backed up from the RealID forum implementation. Small victory, the pebbles did their work in downing the Goliath. Now the issue is to keep our eyes on what Activision/Blizzard/Vivendi is going to do next, as they will most probably come up with something clever to get what they want.

And to open our eyes what they have implemented during the riot and ramble around the RealID issue. Whenever there is something big and rousing going on in the politics or media, something minor, but at least as annoying, goes through without anyone noticing.

Enough.

Over the weekend I learned one thing. I am not prepared, or at least my computer isn't prepared to run anything more than the basic 10 man dungeons. You see, I was lucky enough to be online when the guild ICC25 run folded due to lack of participants. There were enough people to run the weekly, though, so they asked for more people just for the heck of it.

Well... I was well among the first to rise my hand, this time with my shadow priest. The weekly was Ignis the Furnacemaster must die, which I have tanked with my warrior earlies, so it suit me well to see it from the dps side, too.

The beginning of Ulduar was simple enough for my computer to cope with, and it was actually fun to go through the Flame Leviathan encounter. But as soon as we started clearing the trash mobs from the Forge area, I saw it happen.

Slow motion jerky pictures, framerate around 7-10.

And it got even worse when we launched on Ignis. I was glad to stay alive, not a small feat when you have to anticipate seconds in advance, hoping that the cooldowns are done and bad things aren't on the floor.

From the success the group, which had grown to 23, decided to go for ICC25. I kind of hoped it would have been easier on my computer, but Marrowgar proved how wrong I was. I had tanked Marrowgar earlier in a 10 man group, without problems, but it seems that the 25 man strain to the processor is too much to handle.

Never the less, I am happy that I have at least seen the first 6 encounters of ICC, all up to Professor Putricide. Which I still have to do to get the second achievement in ICC.

The other lovely thing to happen was the impromptu guild pug doing IC5 man hc all the way through, so I got to see what HoR really looks like. IMHO, it's boring as hell compared to the build up of tension and expectations of FoS and PoS. Go in, stick to one spot, kill everything. Get past big bad wolf and kill, kill, kill.

Thanks to our guild's lovely, adorable and [add  your own favourite superlative] recruitment officer Elora, I got to experience these both. First she insisted I participated on the ICC25, and second she put the guild group for two of us 'non-raiders' to experience the IC5 as whole.

Now the experience in ICC25 was a lacking one, and I really didn't get much insight on the fights themselves due to the framerate problem. I checked my computer with the CanYouRunIt tool and found out that my processor was the main reason to the issues I had. Everything else checked on the recommended specs, even overcame them nicely. Except the crucial part.

Now the only thing to do is to get a new computer, really.

All things taken into account, the weekend was quite successful and action packed, as Pupunen got exalted with Sons of Hodir and almost exalted with Wyrmrest on top of the ICC25. Laiskajaakko got his IC5 questline done and some nice upgrades to the off-spec gear.

We'll see what the week brings in. One hell of a heatwave I've heard, but that shouldn't affect the game.

Or should it?
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Question of honesty

by Copra

The craving of that new shining gear available for Emblems of Frost is too tempting to the players. Where it earlier was the Emblems of Triumph (and all the former reincarnations), the achievable amount of the Frosts make them a real treat.

Last night proved me right once again.

I ran a perfectly excellent Forge of Souls, gaining an excellent staff (Blood Boil Lancet) and neck (Coil of Missing Gems) from the Devourer of Souls, after which I broke 3.2k on a dummy with my spriest. And on the next run in Nexus I was the top one in DPS and second in damage done.

Then came the dark moment, which says everything. Random heroic ToC5. As I got into the arena, there was an unnatural silence. No hi's,  no helloes, nothing. All of a sudden the dungeon guide, a shaman, stated: "Only dps specs in here", followed with lols and hehe's. What was the next question?

"Priest, can you heal?"

Crap! Someone had stated to the LFD that they are willing to take the healer position, and it sure as hell wasn't me! No, sir, I have been levelling as shadow through the Northrend and don't even have a proper dual spec. The only thing the DG could say was that someone must leave.

Come to think of it, he should have been more strict and kicked someone out, one of the three paladins, maybe?

I lost my temper, first time with this toon and jumped out, taking the 15min lfd cooldown. Didn't matter that much, did my AH magics and left the game.

Why I lost my temper was the fact that I couldn't even think of someone being so stupidly selfish as to choose the healer position only to come out as dps. Sure I know there is an addon which can fake your achievements for the normal raid PUG call, but I can't imagine using one myself. Only because I think its more like lying to yourself and ruining the others playtime than anything else.

In the case of LFD tool, there is no way to say which role people have initially set themselves into. Oh, I can't be sure, as I haven't taken the dungeon guide role yet, but thus far I haven't seen any way of telling which role people vouched for, except when someone leaves the group and the group starts to look for a replacement. IMO this is a lack of functionality over here, putting too much emphasis on the honesty of people. Who are selfishly using the rest of the group to gain their own emblems to get further in the content, despite of others.

Instead of forcing the players to use their real names in the game forums, Blizzard ought to take a good look on the social tools of the game and make the game more rewarding on the group play area instead of the solo gains. There should be some kind of system to rate other players in the game and there most definitely should be a way to see to what position people have volunteered when they started to look for action through LFD tool.

There should be a mechanism to reward for team play and honesty within the game. But the recent decision of Blizzard on the RealID usage has shown that these aspects are of no interest to them: instead, they are teaching the players to take as much advantage of the others as possible and concentrate on ones personal gains only.

Good work, Activision/Blizzard! 

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Question of trust

by Copra

PUGging in WoW -or in any MMO to be honest- is pretty ugly, really. In most cases people are running the instances only for their own personal agendas and gains, with no interest of their companion's interests at all. As it happens, the current state of PUGging in WoW is even worse: the people running in PUGs don't have the best interest of the PUG in their interest, either.

There is also the problem with performance. Bob Turkey posted a nice post about the current state of play depicting the problems of gearscore addiction in the game from the eyes of raid PUGging. People are so concerned over the raid performance and their own ease of play that they rely on an arbitrary number instead of common sense. If you have the achievement, you surely have the skills to pull it even though your gs might be below the arbitrary boundary you set up. And if you're already performing better than the people with required gs, you sure as hell are carrying your weight, right?

My recent experience with the DK not willing to run Halls of Stone because he didn't know it prove this: being concerned over the performance resorts people running safe and 'easy' instances and doesn't push them to learn their class.

What does this do with the trust I mention in the title?

A lot. The raid leader of a PUG raid uses the arbitrary gs number to evaluate the people s/he takes on the raid because s/he cannot trust the achievement or the word of the player. They want to have a solid run for the gear they seek, not wiping because of the weakest link. The DK couldn't trust he wouldn't be kicked from the group if he messed up because he didn't know the instance. I don't want to tank because I have this feeling that the people I'm running heroics don't trust me. And I enjoy running with my shadowpriest because I can trust the tank doing his/her job properly, as I never question their ability to do so.

I feel that there is a real question of trust involved in WoW, or lack of it, really. People run their own personal agendas in such a way that it would be quite the same if the rest of the 5 man group in an instance were just AI bots. You cannot trust the other players in any way, because they are either ninja, don't know their class or don't know the bosses.

There is no room for failures, nor no room for learning. Which usually requires failures to happen, really.

I trust the tank in the group to be the one who keeps the harm out of my way when I play my priest. When I play my tank my job is to keep the mobs pounding on me, trusting that the healer keeps me alive and the dps keeps their threat throttle at reasonable level. And as shadowpriest I make my darnest to keep the mobs on the tank, never jeopardizing his aggro over them.

Whenever I play in a group, I'm willing to do everything for the group. I trust the players I play with, and I want to believe that they will do their best like I do.

But I seldom feel trusted by them. How about you?
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LFD curiosities (YAWP)

by Copra

Oh, what a wonderful toy this LFD thingy is! Oh what wonderful magic it weaves and what stories and tragedies it generates!

To begin with, I posed the question why my protection warrior hadn't ever been in LFD PUG for heroic FoS or PoS on twitter the other day. Almost a consensus of comments was that his gear isn't good enough, as the LFD system ranks the toons according to the gear level they have. Much like Gearscore, but with unknown variables.

Let me say that my experience with my shadowpriest proves that point of view wrong.

You see, my spriest was in heroic Forge of Souls which was continued to heroic Pit of Saron last weekend, and that was through LFD tool. Her gear was still 3/4 blues, whereas my protection warrior's gear is all purple and he has that second gear quality achievement (not Superior as that's iLvl 187, but at least the next one I think). Yet he has never been in there through the LFD.

That trip was quite something in all, and I surprised myself by having the average DPS of 2k+ on that run. First time in an instance, that is, and all I can say is that it was quite satisfying. The PoS run was pretty strange, though: our tank was changed three times, not by kicking but by the tanks leaving. We wiped only once the whole way through, and made Tyrannus kneel, too.

The doorway to HoR has become too familiar to me on both of my capped toons. Neither has passed that point so far.

The other curious incident happened last night. I went for a PUG run and got into Halls of Stone. Before the first pull the dps DK asked for another instance. Like what? "Could we do another one, as I don't know this", was his tell.

No one responded, the bear tank -who was excellent- made the first pull and ... the LFD was locked. The DK kept on trying to get to another instance until another player noted him that "someone is under instance lock currently" was showing and we should proceed. Only after some whining comments the truth came out.

"This instace takes too long."

Like hell it does. Granted, it's not as quick as some others, but it's still fast enough not to spoil the evening. In the minimum you get 4 emblems for the run and with tank like that it was a breeze. My spriest even got the Brann's Spanking New achievement, which means that the mid run 'boss' did actually go pretty well.

Still, the whiney DK left the group after that.

This rises the question: why the hell are people playing the game? To get as many emblems in as short time as possible? Or to learn to play their characters better and really master their class when they start raiding?

Or are they really so confident on their own performance that they don't care and think that failures are the fault of others than themself?

You see, that DK... his GS was way higher than my spriests who's gs is higher than Förgelös', but his dps and damage done on that Iron Council encounter was below us both. He had ran some ICC for the gear, but he really, really didn't know how to dps with that class.

And I admit: I'm only starting to learn mine.
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Three against the Pit of Saron

by Copra

The Three Stooges took up where they left last week: Ick&Krick in Pit of Saron. The fact is, that this fight is the training ground in movement and avoiding goo on the ground. The whole Pit is, actually, when you thing Garfrost with his Saronite Boulders and later the Scourgelord Tyrannus with the ice patches.

But now I'm going ahead of myself.

Garfrost was a kitten to our trio this time. Our biggest challenge over the whole play session was the uncanny ability of Bishopgeorge to dc without a notice, a trait which caused the most of our expertise to shine. To die spectacularily, that is.

So we couldn't do a thing with Ick/Krick last time we were around. But because the instance had been so much fun and was really the only way for Förgelös, Bishopgeorge and Laiskajaakko to advance towards the Icecrown Citadel in any ways, we were determined that we would get past that boss. Even if it took hours to suffocate them under our own dead bodies we would do it.

With each try we learned a lot. When to move, how to hit and when to charge. Förgelös found several new ways to keep his poisons on the monster over the explosions and chases, while I got the best of the movement and hittin at the same time: strafing is your friend as a tank.

It took us five tries to find the perfection, and down he went. Ok, a couple of more due to the disappearing priest, but five full tries. One of which was a reset because Laiskajaakko went too far and another because Bishopgeorge ran too far while being chased. The reason to the avoidance was that our damage dealer, mr. Mutilate, Förgelös, had found the end of his road in a pool of toxic waste. Or something.

The transition mobs to the tunnel were a crappy bunch. Three casters and inadequate dps to down anything within reasonable time took its toll, but we got there.

Scourgelord Tyrannus.

I'm starting to hate that guy. It became obvious pretty fast that we couldn't beat the enrage. After that point the blows were over 20k a piece and none of us could take that kind of punishment. We need more dps, straight direct damage.

That's where we left it. We will overcome that snob, I'm sure of that.

To add to my earlier post, we are undergeared for PUGs. Laiskajaakko being the highest in gs (4.9k), Förgelös lowest (around 4k after the gear from the run), we are below the 5.6-5.8 requirement in the PUGs currently. I checked several PUG calls from VoA to RS to ICC10, all stating the same range.

Here comes the "but" in this case: we are bloody dedicated and we know quite a bit about our classes. We play seriously but with a grin. Still we're out of the raiding because we haven't raided ever.

To me it seems that without any incentives to mentor new people to raids the future guild perks will only make the separation between raiders and casuals bigger. Guilds require people to create guild exp and gold, which the raiders will use to their best. There will be the raiders and the cattle, unless the system changes somehow.

That's what I'm afraid of.
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Setting group atmosphere

By Azariell

Atmosphere is a very important aspect when rating an activity. Even when a Pug results in numerous wipes but in the mean time you had fun with the people in there and the overall atmosphere was good, then chances are you still had a good time, despite of the wipes.

By now we all know the silent LFD-Pug runs. You enter, say hi (if at all) and continue with the run without further chit-chat. To be honest, with those kind of runs, I always try very hard to lighten the mood in the first seconds, but when the other 4 just stay silent then at some point I stop trying and turn into my own game again for the 20 minute lasting silent-treatment.

This, however, is an issue that is bound to have been up on several blogposts since the LFD-tool was introduced. No, what I want to talk about is a pretty specific element from general Pugs, which is the' starter instructions' which can be linked to my earlier post "To Tank or not to tank, thats the question"

As a healer during the leveling process, and later in my tank role I have been thinking about building a pretty simple macro which can either be aimed at one single character or the entire party chat. At some point I was triggered to write a blogpost about it when Garumoo gave us an insight in his macro for addressing tanks at the start of of Pug.

But my issue has always been, how will it affect group atmosphere when the first thing you say is "K, listen up; 1: You pull, you tank (and most likely die); 2:I determine the pace etc etc". When you bring it in a kind manner, people will just have a laugh at you, and for example when you are the tank, they will purposely start pulling things for you to 'catch'. If you start of with a harsh message, somewhat like I just gave as an example, people will see you as one of the elitist jerks.

Will the healer (if you are the tank) be more willing to do his best when you start barking orders. Will the tank be more likely to stay if at the first few seconds of entry, he gets told several 'orders' on how his behavior should be? I'm most certainly not amused when at the start I get told (what I already know and take into account) to stay in range of the healer, wait for his mana etc OR ELSE... then I'm not that eager to tank the instance anymore. I am aware of the fact that there are tons of jerk-tanks out there, but that doesnt instantly mean I'm one of them.

A solution would be to only do those messages when things turn sour. Tank chain-pulls the entire instance, trigger happy dps etc. But at that point the atmosphere is already pretty grim and when you start handing out tips the group is more likely to fall apart then give it another go.

A completely different point of view would be that pugs nowadays are very short and why would one even attempt to create any kind of atmosphere when you will most likely never see those players again. But think about it, for some players, doing pugs is the majority of their playtime. If we add all those 20 minute runs, how much would be left outside of the pug to create the atmosphere?

Eric on the Elder game actually made an excelent post about the size of the community compared to the anonymity of the players. When you reflect that post on the LFD pugs, you see a small group (meaning less anonymous) but with a playing/shared time of 20 minutes the effect of the small group is completely negated. So again, why would you bother?

Personally I caught myself several times being more focused on the guild chat than on the pug I was running. When chat in the guild is fun, and the party is as silent as an isolation cell then people will focus less on the party, and more on the guild. Not a good development if you ask me.

So what do you all say?

Just accept the silent treatment and just 'get what we came for'? Or do you actively try to create some atmosphere and just have some fun with other people in what has turned into a daily HC grind?

Feature or fault?

Yesterday was the time for few hours of low level static grouping: only our rogue couldn't join us this time. The four of us took the WSG first because it was the daily BG. As we are using the ingame voice chat due to a)convenience and b) being lazy, I was a bit surprised that the group chat settings worked inside the battle party and it seems that they override the BG party settings. Which means that our petty troupe chatted the battles away, either disturbing others or not: no one commented on our chatting in any form or function.

The other thing was our run in Ragefire Chasm (we had to take set dungeon, as the LFD complained about one of us "not meeting the dungeon requirements" in random): the voice chat doesn't work there at all it seems. At least it doesn't work when we have a substitute to fill the group up. Which in fact complies with the information Blizzard is giving about the LFD: the communication and trade between different realms is restricted.

However, the thing which was disturbing was something I dismissed the last time. As we came out of the dungeon, we couldn't get out of the LFD until we left the group completely. So we had to assemble our party anew after the dungeon. This doesn't make any sense: we join the system in a party, and after doing the dungeon we have to disassemble and form the party again to go to another dungeon.

This is the feature I hope Blizz could tweak out. It should be possible to run several dungeons with the same party, I my honest opinion, so that you could group with even the same random dungeon group for several dungeons in a row. Someone else has written about the same, too, but I forget who it was.

So the question is, is this must to break even pre-formed group before going for a new random dungeon a feature or a fault in the system?

Hits and blunders (YAWP)

LFD is a wonderfull tool, which connects total strangers across the battleground to fight either select or -more often- completely random Wrath of the Lich King dungeon. It works like a clockwork, is simple, fast and very entertaining, most of the time.

And with that prelude I'm off to my weekend.

All well and fine in the world of Azeroth. I met both exceptionally working groups as well as one or two obnoxiously intolerable dps divas, mainly from the DK persuasion: I wonder if DK's have somehow replaced the most obnoxious group of all times -that being the Huntards- as the most self-centered players in the game? Then again, lets not let the few rotten apples to spoil the whole basket: there were also excellent DK's with whom I ran the Random Dungeons. Too bad they were guildies, but what can you expect? :P

The total anonymity of the LFD tool is yet to surface, for people are very polite and nice to each other. Only in few of the random groups I found people eager to chat, the most vocal was this one mage who's main phrase was "gogogogogo" after any and all encounters. But then again, that run through Drak'Tharon was very smooth and fast.

There are few annoying things about the LFD tool, too. The first, which started to pick me the first time I ran it, is the fact that a) you can be 'denied' from a group before it launches and b) of someone declines the group invite for a reason or another the whole group is returned to the queue. The first one I cannot explain because I haven't tried to be a leader yet, but the second is annoying example on how dumb the piece of program is. It makes a selection from the set population, but cannot make a reserve list from which to amend if any of the individuals rejects the invitation. Probably this can -and hopefully will- be tweaked in latter versions.

One nice thing, though, for the DPS classes over there. As I grouped with a guildie, a DK, we got a random group running within seconds. So in a way he was riding along with me being a tank and in constant need from the system. All in all, it pays to stick with a tank in this sense, too. As we found out, we saved each other's butts more than once, and the groups we ran from wipe more than once. Imagine that tank and DPS save the day after a triggerhappy paladin -the healer- decides to tank a miniboss and few adds... It was fun and furious and all the cooldowns were used, but we prevailed. And were the only ones alive when the dust settled.

The only thing that didn't go as well as I thought was the finale of the weekend, in which I decided to go with guildies into the IC hc 5mans chain. Forge of Souls was a blast and went so fast I didn't even know what happened. Really, I had to ask before we entered the portal to Pit of Saron what just happened. I was just keeping the mobs and bosses on me and trying to keep them hitting me, mostly without a problem. Old rules of not standing in anything and avoiding the blasts applied, FoS was surprisingly easy. For the group, that is.

Pit of Saron was something else, though. At least for me, as I have this problem with moving and tanking at the same time. Add to that multiple mobs and I'm having really hard time.

Forgemaster Garfrost was already somewhat hard on us, as the healer got eaten alive by the cold stacking on him on the first try. This was the first wipe in the whole run, but not the last... sadly.

Ick was the second, and I'm not sure as of yet, why. Maybe it was me, not moving the boss enough to help the dps to be in a spot without the toxic sludge, or something, because on the second run it went smoothly. The ramp up to the passageway proved to be problematic. My computer had frozen earlier due to some UI issue, but now I got DC'd. Luckily before a pull, but never the less. Something's wrong with my 'puter, as this wasn't the first nor the last case of freezes and odd behaviour. But up we went to the Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Which was the wipefest. First pull: I didn't know what hit me, but it hit well over 17k overkill. Second pull: it hit even faster and harder. Third pull: my screen froze just as Tyrannus jumped off of his mount. I came back to witness a wipe.

So. It left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Things to be happy about. New shiny shoulders for Laiskajaakko: it cost 45 Triumphs, but was worth it. Pupunen left Outlands and is now capable of Cold Weather Flight in Northrend: she'll next start running the random dungeons, too.

To do: find a good DPS gear set for Laiskajaakko's Arms build. He's lacking a decent dps set for runs in which the tank is better, which are usually guild runs. But it would be nice to see the instances from the dps point of view and to see how other tanks do the job, especially in the instances I have trouble with mobs.

All in all, a good solid weekend of fun.

How about yours?

Off the comfort zone

Everyone is prone to living in the comfort zone. It's human, and in a way it's also a good explanation on the route of least resistance. Like going to the easiest way to gain proper loot for the next tier raiding.

My steps outside of my comfort zone have included such incredible things as starting a toon on a pvp server, getting my main into the battlegrounds (more pvp) and the last one -yesterday- pugging just for the sake of pugging.

Like I have stated earlier, I have been on the LFG tool as an automation ever since I've thought my gear is good enough to tackle the heroics, but without success. This has excluded, however, the daily heroic, which I have reserved for guild runs for simplicity's sake. And for the fact that there is no name calling in guild runs, but constructive and helpful commentary. If at all.

Now I changed this a bit. I put the daily hc into the lfg and pugged it. As you might expect, the daily hc was an instance I had never visited before, Azjol-Nerub. There is still one instance in the roll I haven't visited (barring Icecrown which launches today), and that's the Anh'kahet.

Needles to say, the run was a disaster and without the extremely over geared group it would have been worse. However, the impact was lower due to the fact I informed them right away I had never been in the instance. Normal pulls: no problem. My threat generation: no problem. Keeping the threat and taking adds: no problem.

The problem was not knowing the encounters, aggro areas and add spawns. Hadronox was my total blunder, as I ventured too far and initiated the boss encounter before we had cleared the web from trash. My wipe.

But then came the relieve: the mage of the group, who formed the party, whispered me how (s)he has done it before, helping me to understand what should have been done. No problemo after that.

And Anub'arak... Pushover in it's own instance. Got three Achievements from it, including Gotta Go, which is way too easy with the current item level being the norm.

Out of there and out of whim I put the Anh'kahet and Obsidian Sanctum 10 to the LFG.

This is the part in which I can say that I met with a group full of the attention span problem players. First of all, the group I was invited to was going for OS10. Namely the party leader stated Sarth+1 to begin with. I informed right away that it's my first time to really tank the instance, second time in there even. But the achievement with 9 players obviously convinced him to go this route, as he checked everyone's gear at one point for the possibility to do the Sarth+3... and I passed the check. Not bad, me thinks.

But the forming of the group took about a half an hour. During which at least three toons were replaced. In the instance the gear and dps checks were quite uneventfull: I had no problem in keeping the aggro of the trash and of the two drakes we took down for the actual event were total pushovers. Granted, I got dc'd before we hit the first one, so I cannot say about my part in that, but the second I was tanking in full and the aggro threshold wasn't even warning in my Omen: I was fully on top of the threat list on the drake without even panicking... something I was expecting from this.

But then it started. Checking, strat and off. First of all, I didn't pull Sarth far enough to help the group dps it: my bad, I was playing the encounter with different strat than the rest of them. My positioning was according to what the raid leader had told, which was different I had learned from strats I have read. No problem, though, I could keep Sarth on me easily and avoid the walls and all. Most of the group did that, too, until the drake came into the picture. And fire elementals.

And that's when the wipe started. Blew my panic button, pot, the lot. Lost two members from the group right at this point, one being the main dps.

"Do you tanks know at all what you are doing?", asked the raid leader. The honest me responed: "Obviously not if you have to ask that question".

New strat, back to the basics of facing Sarth to the side of the area, back to the lava. Now this was starting to sound like something familiar, I thought and went along.

However, there were three new toons in the group, including a DK who seemed to be pretty a)triggerhappy and b)knowing it all better than anyone.

Needles to say it went all down the drain from the pull onwards. Taunt, Heroic Throw, Charge and pull back to the tanking spot. Except that right after the throw the DK took aggro and despite of furious Taunt-spam with Thunderclaps, Shouts and all I couldn't get the aggro back.

Result: one of the fastest wipes I've witnessed.
Result2: one of the fastest group dissipations I've seen.

The party leader and former left right away, followed by half of the group. Thank you, goodbye and so long.

The party leader had the stamina to form the group, have the objective and the second wipe -after introducing new members to the group- caused him to quit on trying. Proves my point: fast and easy gains instead of having to work for it. This guy will do the same again but with extremely over geared group and feels great about it.

What I learned about yesterday's ordeal was:
- My gear stands the comparison in the end game before Icecrown. Of course I wouldn't stand the snowball's chance in Hell in heroic Ulduar or ToC10/25, but I would make it in normals any day.
- In the Sarth group I was the third warrior, and I had almost 5k more hp than the other tank with buffs. That's better than I expected and I'm still lacking some sweet gear, especially my lousy blue shoulders have to be changed.
- Practise makes perfect, but what can you learn from PUG? To endure selfish conduct, some automation on your keybinds and the instances you haven't visited yet.

To be honest, neither run was fun. The Daily because it was so darn serious and the second because it was even more so. The only thing I enjoyed in both of them was the fact that I wasn't the behind the rest of the groups in gear, only in information and instance experience.

Maybe I just have to PUG more. From what I've seen earlier, yesterday was one of the 'good PUG days'...

But it surely was far off from my comfort zone.

Bane of anonymity in WoW

The player in an MMO is in fact anonymous being, hiding behind the mask of the avatar name. This leads to the fact that a huge MMO suffers from the same problem with anonymity as the internet: the decent, nice Average Joe turns into a virtual troll and sociopath goblin due to anonymity and wide audience. In an MMO, however, the name the player gives to the avatar is a kind of personality to the character and is a bit slowing down this approach: you are worth your name and your name is all you have in the game.

But still, like Azariel wrote yesterday, the anonymity and not knowing the people you group with leads to similar conduct: if you are not satisfied with the performance of someone in a PUG, you can kick them out without a word (provided you're the group leader). This doesn't help the person to improve their performance due to the problem in the system: you do not get any kind of response or evaluation on how well you are performing unless you are doing so good that people are thanking you for that. In a case of 'poorer' performance, you are called names and told you're either noob or crap player, without telling what to do or how to improve.

No constructive criticism or capability to give such exists in the majority of the PUG's, anyhow.

Now add to this the possibility to group over server boundaries: the audience grows wildly, your anonymity increases immensely and -like Spinks posted- 

You don’t need to talk to the other people in your group if you don’t want to – you won’t ever meet them again.

In the future cross-server PUG system Blizzard claims that they have thought about the jerk factor and tried to find ways to prevent the excessive ninja behaviour this system gives a great thumbs up. However, even though I can see the benefits of being able to PUG fast I cannot see a way to make this viable and reasonable way to improve the game experience. The initial issue is with the Interned Dickwad Theory and the implications it has over the amount of players submitted to the cross-PUG community. The secondary issue is with the lack of criticism and advice you -as a player- will face even more strongly in this system.

But it all comes down to the fact that anonymity brings up the beast within. I can see the conduct which Azariel reported in his post escalating to the point that you get invited into a group, get kicked due to factor or another, get immediately replaced and you never know what hit you, why you were kicked and who you were grouping with, whom to avoid in the later groups. Sure, Blizz instigated that they are expanding the ignore list and that you will not be grouped with the people in the list, but you can already have a name change in the game? Hello?

Or then you get into a group in which there are two friends who are working together: they decide the loot and effectively ninja the instance. You get out, get in again only to group with guildies or friends of theirs... Guess how that will work out?

I suppose that WoW Jackass took a head start to help people avoiding situations like this... but then again, if this kind of system is needed, there should be something to be done on the game mechanics' side.

We are having problems with jerks, ninjas and antisocial PUG groupers already in the smaller, server size scale: the problems are there within the 'confined space' of one server. What preventive approaches can be taken to avoid these problems from escalating in the cross server PUG system?

And will the cross server PUGging be the saviour Blizzard thinks it is?

First PUG without guildies

Ok. I have been in the dumps with my tanking performance ever since I hit 80 and started to gain experience on the 5 mans and the gear/stat requirements. Like I posted earlier, the brick wall of hitting 80 is can be devastating, and there surely doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

The other night I tanked for a guild 5 man heroic daily (what a monster of a sentence), of which I wrote something about earlier. I was very careful and I commented all the time how I am newbie, how my tps sucks and how the others should take care when I'm tanked: and I was silenced by the healer who said I should just tank and not worry.

The result was glaring success and thanks from the group. What a rush! Saved my next day at work, really, giving me that extra boost needed.

Yesterday was somewhat different. Guild people started forming guild run to VoA, and somehow I just slipped through the gaps and didn't find a spot in the dps team. In addition to that, a guild daily hc just formed right after that and despite being the first to ask for one I was somehow left out.

Crossed, short on time and more or less in a state of "do or die" I answered a call for PUG tank in daily hc, Gundark. The first comment after I joined came from the dps shaman: "Are you a tank with just 25k hp?"

I thought wtf and told her that yes, quite so. What was the clever question after that?

"Are you going to stay alive with that?"

Come again? 25k unbuffed and heroic? Never in my life, especially as I had tanked the same instance with guild run a couple of days earlier. I responded to her the following way.

"No."
"It depends so much on other issues, too. If the heals land on time, I can tank. If the rest of the group works fine, I can do it. Tanked the same instance yesterday, no wipes."

That was it. Simple "ok" and off we went.

This left a sour taste in my mouth anyhow: in heroics you should be able to cope with even less hp than that, provided your def and armor are at least decent. Those were not even questioned, even though I would be more interested in the def for obvious reasons.

Simple paladin and shaman buffs brought my hp to 31k, anyhow.

Fast, simple and solid run. Only that dps shaman died once due to the fact that I missed an add and she took the aggro. Otherwise it was a great and educating experience.

And the healer, paladin, was very much taken for the fact that even though I died on the end boss, I thanked him for the excellent healing. Naturally he couldn't heal me as I was tossed to the other side of the room with DoT ticking in.

Anyhow, I could imagine him blushing at his computer, that much awkward the response was. And the rest of the group got their share of the thanks, as they were more or less the guild-like people: sharp, quick and effective.

Just like me. /flex

What I've learned after capping

1. It's all about fulfilling certain gear requirements. At least to be able to enter the 'real' endgame consisting of heroics and raiding.
2. Without the proper gear, you are undergeared and will not be able to perform in a group. This should go without saying, but obviously it doesn't. Note: I haven't been shrewd enough to hide this fact that I'm lacking...
3. People do not read the notes you write into the LFG tool. Really.
4. People do not care if you have put yourself into the queue for a NORMAL instance: the assumption is that if you are level capped, you are prepared to take on anything and beyond. That includes Algalon.
5. If you are a newcomer -and state that clearly to the group- be prepared to get two kinds of responses. First one is outright calling you "noob", which should be false. The other one is the professional -guild like- response "Ok, this is how we do it..."
6. If you're tanking, after the first wipe there are two responses, too. First one is "Noob tank!" continued with "DK tank next". The professional -guild like- response is "So we failed, I had this problem and we should try it like this next..."
7. PUG's teach you only one thing: to be selfish and need everything that drops.
8. Usually in any MMO, politeness goes a long way. "Sorry" and "Thank you" are powerful things to say.
9. In most PUGs, the former doesn't apply.
10 You shouldn't look into the gift horse's mouth: that is, when the PUG starts and there are two or more hyperactive kids fooling around, it doesn't mean that the instance is failed.
11. Expect the unexpected. Like the former hyperactive PUG performing top notch, or the stiff upperlip group failing miserably.
12. Blow your cooldowns early rather than late.

These lessons I have learned from 'only' less than ten ToC normal PUG runs in WoW. The best runs have been the ones with the guild, granted that the runs were meant to gear up us newly dinged 80's and there were a couple of very capable players with accordingly capable toons. The worst have been the runs with two players, who claim they know how to play and what to do, but do not see their shortcomings. These are the source of the name calling and noobishness themself.

Sad to say, it's the first time I've put anyone on ignore list for the conduct they have presented in a PUG instance run. Then again, any MMO would be much newcomer friendly without these arrogant kids, who do not see that the instances can be run more effectively by playing in co-operation rather than soloing.

More lessons to learn, and most certainly more things to report from the casual side of the hardcore mind.

Grouping pains

Now I have proven to myself that it's way much easier to get invited into a group as a healer than as a tank. I levelled my priest Pupunen to lv60 only to get the new riding skill and accompanying flying mount to her, and even before that the invites to come and heal in the Hellfire Ramparts or Blood Furnace had started to come in. In fact, the moment I rode her through the Dark Portal at lv58 marked the beginning of the invites. If only I had the time to participate the runs, I would gladly do so. But currently, as she is my tailor-crafter for my trading company, I'm not really playing her at all. Only levelling when the whim strikes me.

On the other hand, with my tank toon, Laiskajaakko, I have to do some real and dirty work to get into a group. Granted, he's currently at level 76, about half a ding short of cold weather flying, but still. I can go asking, begging, even paying for a group, but there always seems to be tank or two available in a group.

Or the group is looking for a speed run through the instance. Ok, a boost from a higher toon of someone's capped raiding toon.

Which just sucks.

Like I have posted several times earlier, a new and upcoming tanking class player is in a difficult spot to earn her/his spurs in the group instancing due to the fact that a) a tank is a crucial part of the group, b) the Northrend levels have more players who have capped toons (and usually know how to play) and c) the tank is supposed to take active leader role in the instance. Or at least be able to pull the group through the instance at steady pace (according to the people who have gotten used to plough through the instance at lightning speed).

I feel tempted from time to time just to jump the bandwagon and take up my lovely priest: as Discipline she is quite well versed in both damage dealing and healing, and as it happens, her first Hellfire Citadel run provided her with only healer boss loot (save one mace), so she's pretty adequately geared for the level, too. Whereas my tank is well geared with the Kaluak reputation chest and some very nice quest loot giving him some 15k armor and 15k unbuffed HP, which naturally should be higher. But what the heck, he's still levelling and the last Nexus run showed that I can now hit TPS in the range of 2.2k-2.8k and keep three paladins at bay with that.

But still, I'd rather group than solo. Even through Wrathgate.

Before long

My vacation starts today, meaning that I most probably won't be either playing or blogging for at least the next few weeks. At least the first two weeks I will be away from the computer altogether, though I may update my other blog during the time due to the fact that we're travelling to European Championships in Lure Coursing with our dogs. But for this blog... it's going to be a short silence.

This means that your blogroll will be a bit shorter on my behalf, too. As it happens, I'm not the only blogger taking a well deserved summer vacation: more prominent names have already taken their leave.

But before the 'long absence' I'll recap my last night's endeavours. First of all, the initial patch load was pretty quick, but for some reason it lagged my computer even after it had finished: was is just a freak incident or is there a real data leak in the loader, I don't know. But after restarting my machine the performance was quite different.

Secondly, I found out another reason why it's next to impossible for a new player -even in social guild- to get access to the lower instances and learn from them. You see, I travel with LFG tool on all the time. I have the "first time tank, noob warning" in the comments, which in a way works as a warning to the 'fast levelling' level capped know it alls.

Or should work.

In the initial party there were two druids (boomkin and asparagus), DK, mage and Laiskajaakko. Fine, the composition is quite reasonable. The tree-druid was the one who got the party going, and she was excellent: she took into account the fact that I am only learning to tank, gave me time and gave me information which I obviously didn't have due to my inexperience. She also tried to slow down the rest of the group, as the boomkin was one of the impatient know it alls: "sure I have omen, but the tank is slacking" was his comment on stealing aggro. Doesn't matter how hard I try, my TPS remains below 2k, for some reason or another: I don't think it's about the rotation or such, there is now something I just don't get.

Anyhow, we wiped. Partly because I couldn't keep the aggro effectively in the 3 or 4 mob pulls. Partly because the boomkin was doing steady 1500 damage and generating huge amount of aggro, stealing it constantly from me. Even with spamming taunt and devastate I wasn't keeping up to him.

So the bird-man left the group. So did the DK, as they were a couple.

And we got another two to run the rest of the instance. A paladin and another DK.

Who listened to the tree druid, checked their threat and all in all the rest of the instance went flying by. I suppose a big part of it was the fact that I got the time to call the pulls, get the initial aggro and just do my work on my pace. Thanks to the resto druid, I felt I could work within the group.

Still I hate Ingvar: he sucks.

Anyhow, I later heard that the warrior threat generation is a bottleneck in WotLK and that the situation is not unheard of. I tested my rotation later on against some elites for a quest (being healed by Bishopgeorge) and breaking even 1800 TPS seems extremely hard with the gear and talents I have...

And I remembered only as I logged out, that I haven't visited a class trainer since lv70... that's too skill ups ago...

Anyhow, the impatience and intolerance of different skill levels among the PUG's may be a big cause for the discussion about how terrible PUG's are: while the people with extensive raid experience -from vanilla even to the current top content- would like to advance on their own pace, there may be a player without that experience in instances, slowing the progress and trash clearing. I know that my talent build isn't that for clearing trash, and I don't have the Glyph of Cleave in my repertoire: it doesn't serve my levelling. However, this should be in the normal instances as the trash clearing is all about multi-mob tanking.

So, instead of trying to excel in PUG's, people should learn to adapt and wing their playstyle accordingly. This is something that is very hard to do, as the courtesy is a two way street. If you act snobbishly about it, the one feeling inadequate will act aggressively. That's self-preservation for you in short.

I want to thank all of you wonderful and helpful people PUGging day in, day out, helping newcomers and people who are not up to the challenge to overcome their lack of skill. You are the angels and helpers, who really make MMO's worth the grind to any instance, making the newcomer player feel at least a bit helpful on the way.

Thank you.