I’ve been remiss in recommending this astounding manich … machin … animated feature set in our very own World of Warcraft.
For those that are not familiar with Alliance lore, the dark haired gal is Lady Katrana Prestor, the human guise of Onyxia, thus this places the story as prior to the return of King Wrynn. The male rogue, I’m not so sure. I thought he was Mathias Shaw, but Shaw is a redhead. But he does seem to work for or around SI:7.
The animation is top-notch. Character movement is fluid and obviously influenced by a few dozen martial artists. As someone commented elsewhere, “this is the Kill Bill of WoW”.
We Wildhammers celebrate the day with feasting, frolicking, and fellowship, all accompanied by a fine ale of some sort. We start the day opening presents (with ale). Mid afternoon are the kiddos’ steam tonk demolition derbies, accompanied by ale. Early evening we get started on the feasting and dancing, with plenty of ale.
Naturally, we pick a spot and stay there. Riding a ram or bear after all that ale is a bad idea, what with cliffs like these!
However you celebrate, we at Team Grimmtooth wish you a happy and safe holiday, and many more to come!
This weekend I have been enlisted in the cause of getting greens for Jasra so she can DE them for eternal essences or something like that. Also: lots of runecloth. So I broke out Saiph, my Gorilladin, and started at Zul’Farrak.
I want to be very clear on this: BRK is right. The Gorilladin is a magical being. With him leading the way, ZF fell inside of an hour.
Sunken Temple took longer to figure out than complete.
Scholo was almost doable at 70 with a cat pet. At 80 with a 75 gorilladin, it was cake.
Tonight, Strat. Live side completed, but I couldn’t get a crack at Rivendare. Finally our GM pointed out that I needed to clear all ziggurats as well as kill the bosses. So, tommorrow: Rivendare. “Launch all zigs! For great justice!”
Jasra’s annoyed – she’s supposed to be the center of attention now. But I want Rivendare!!!
If I need to farm more, I’ll hit DM, BRD, and LBRS in that order. Or if I need higher mats, then I’ll give Ramps a try. BRK says it’s so, so we’ll give it a shot.
Remember when a five-man generally required at least one CC class to get through anything, and some2 required two or even three CC classes?
Everybody had to be on the ball and know roles. Leaders marked targets, we didn’t pull until everyone was ready, and hopping-in-place PvP fratboyz need not apply if they couldn’t get with the program.
You had to be sharp, know your class, the fight, and your game, or you wiped.
Then your guild’s Tankadin got geared well enough to where he’d just AoE pull everything in the room. No CC needed, generally – though we still got asked to help CC things in raids. Prot pallis became EZ mode for instances.
Now, everyone AoE aggros. Retadins. Fury Warriors. Hunter pets. Disc priests. (But not warlocks — too fragile3. )
“Don’t worry about all that fiddly trapping and sheeping. Just let me get them all angry at me and AoE them down.”
And with this change, has gone the need to play as a good team. Or so it would seem.
Has it gone this way in the higher instances? I personally haven’t gotten past the first 30% or so of instances in Northrend, but so far CC has not been required. Is CC obsolete in all intances? Am I missing something?
I guess we play it by ear for now before we take our CCs off of the action bars. But it’s a ponderable, all right.
No, Rochelle, not picking on you. You were just the most recent one I’d seen saying that. [↩]
I realize it’s a level 75 instance, but I’m high 74, and besides, it wasn’t the lack of healz, but the lack of technique on my part. I just didn’t do a good job. [↩]
From the day I was old enough to pick up a weapon, I have trained towards the day I could confront those that have cost me and my people so much misery.
I have dedicated myself to the Light. I have learned to be proficient with any weapon within reach. I have trained to such an extent that I single-handedly worked my way halfway through both the Dead Mines and Shadowfang Keep before I turned 25.
I am a Soldier of the Light. Nothing can stand against me when I am full of righteous fury.
And yesterday, this Soldier of the Light … was asked to serve his people by fetching milk and cookies for a bleary old corporate shill of a Dwarf on a three-day bender. He practically coughed up a hairball on my armor.
There are rare days – and this was one of them – when I consider why people actually side with Arthas against the rest of us. Things like this, bring understanding closer.
Milk and cookies.
Bah. :: mumble mutter mumble righteous fury, my bum mutter mutter ::
In which I rattle on about my talent spec, and why.
First of all, my spec is currently 33/28/2, which is level 72. I will also discuss where the last 8 talent points will probably go when we get there. As you can see, right now I’m more Discipline than Holy. Discipline, however, offers many healing enhancements, so it’s not as big a hit as one might think.
Before plunging in, let me note that for talents that appear to be PvP-oriented (i.e. are triggered by me getting hit) talents are not up for consideration, and I’ll not spend any more time discussing that. Other talents that look good but are not taken for other reasons may be discussed.
Shadow
I’ll hit this one first to get it out of the way since I only have one talent here
Tier 1
Spirit Tap (2/3) – The sole reason to get this is for mana regeneration. 2/3 rather than 3/3 because I’m willing to gamble that I can get by on 66% efficiency on this talent.
Discipline
This is possibly one of the most misunderstood trees of the bunch, but it truly has something for everyone. My main concern here was to get Reflective Shield and Divine Spirit for party buffs, but there are many delicious treats along the way.
Tier 1
Twin Disciplines (5/5) – Can we be more obvious here? This one cries out “Holy Hybrid, Batman!” all over the place. It enhances damage output for grinding, and healz for raiding1 .
Tier 2
Silent Resolve (3/3) – This is another one that has Hybrid written all over it. Healer aggro is so intense sometimes, especially with adds. If you’re a healer, you need this to reduce the chance that Mr. Ugly’s friends want to dance with you.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude (2/2) – If you’re one to like PW:F, the improved version will make you happy, and this also applies to the party-wide Prayer, which will make your tank happy. I adore happy tanks.
Tier 3
Improved Power Word: Shield (3/3) – This one speaks directly to survivability when grinding, obviously. Its absence is very noticable if you don’t take it.
Meditation (3/3) – This is, again, a no-brainer for a hybrid spec. You need mana for healz, and this improves the regeneration during combat by a healthy amount.
Tier 4
There’s actually not much for me to like about this tier.
Mental Agility (4/5) – I took this simply because I had to take something from this tier, and the others were not as compelling. This one is very situational, only affecting insta-cast spells, but there is good news there – Renewal is an insta-cast, and something a healer is likely to use often.
Tier 5
Divine Spirit (1/1) – If you’re healz, then you want Spirit. This one’s a given.
Mental Strength (2/5) – My only regret is that I don’t have 3 more points for this one, because it makes grinding go by so much faster.
Tier 6
Focused Power (2/2) – This one increases DPS and healing, therefore is pretty obvious for a hybrid spec if you’re this far into the tree.
Enlightenment (3/5) – This is another one where I wish I had two more points just floating around. Stamina, Spirit, and Spell Haste in equal measure.
Tier 7
Reflective Shield (3/3) – This one is a treat for grinding, and if you need survivability this one will become beloved to you. It does not improve the shield’s durability, but almost half the damage that it takes will bounce back in the face of the enemy.
This thing is golden against attack totems, imps, and other small units with high DPS and low healt – they usually kill themselves when attacking you!
Against the bigger units, it’s an additional source of damage, and it crits using your crit table, or so it appears.
Going Beyond
So, with 8 points left to spend, how would I dump them in this tree? Well, I can’t move past Tier 7 without either spending points in the rest of tier 7 – which is unlikely (PvP *cough*)
The most likely would be to take the last two points of Enlightenment and then skip on over to the Tier 8 talent, Rapture, which is another mana-replenishment talent that just happens to mesh well with Holy. This would push me further towards sustainability rather than Massive Healz FTW. There would be one point left over, and there’s nothing in Tier 9 that interests me so I’d toss it to the Holy tree.
Holy
The first unusual thing you will notice in this tree is that there are quite a few damage-enhancing talents. Everyone thinks “Healz” when they see “Holy” but the original conception of the Holy priest was not exactly “Healbot” – it just ended up that way.
Tier 1
Improved Renew (3/3) – I think we can agree that increased healing effect is good, yes?
Holy Specialization (5/5) – Note that increased chance for Crits applies to Holy spells – both DPS and healz.
Tier 2
Divine Fury (5/5) – Again, all Holy spells get the benefit, not just Smite but also Greater Heal, etc.
Tier 3
Not my favorite tier.
Desperate Prayer (1/1) – Unlike most PvP-ish damage mitigation talents, this one is wholly effective provided you get it off in time. Roughly 60% self-heal, insta-cast. This is a major life-saver. Take it and find a (very prominent) home for it on your action bars.
Blessed Recovery (1/3) – There is only one reason to take this talent, and that is to get you to the required number to move on to Tier 4. Another situational, PvP-ish talent, I would not be at all interested in it if it weren’t for the even lesser attractiveness of other talents not taken. This one at least has the possibility of helping save the day in the direst of straits. But don’t count on it, even at 3/32.
Tier 4
Holy Reach (2/2) – Because extended range for your healz is a Good Thing.
Improved Healing (3/3) – You spend a lot of time healing in an instance. Anything that reduces the mana consumption of that activity will extend the amount of time you can keep actively on-station healing. Win.
Searing Light (2/2) – OK, I confess, this one does nothing for healz. It’s all about the damage. If you need more healz, you might consider dropping this one in favor of one of the upcoming tiers. On the other hand, it does make grinding so much easier.
Tier 5
Healing Prayers (2/2) – This one is very limited in scope, and normally I wouldn’t take it because of that, but note that it is a whopping 20% saving on mana for one very big mana-eater spell, and it starts to look more palatable. Highly subjective.
Spirit of Redemption (1/1) – This one is an absolute must-have for a healing priest. It quite often makes the difference between victory and defeat. You get a few seconds to get a last HUGE heal off (without a fear of reprisal) and maybe set up a hand-off to the backup healer, if you have one. Also, when you take this, come up with a good exit strategy, set it up, practice it, and get it down so that you get maximum use of this talent.
Tier 6
Surge of Light (2/2) – This one is hard to quantify, and may be totally not worth the two points. What it does is akin to Nightfall in the Warlock talents. It works for healz, too. With a 50% proc chance on each crit, it probably will proc a lot during healing, and insta-healz are a good thing when you can get them. I say you will probably have to evaluate it, as I am. Thus far I have been pleased with it.
Spiritual Healing (1/5) – Obviously I am working on getting this one tanked up. Fully talented, it will be a 10% improvement on healz. All healz.
Beyond Tier 6
The other eight talent points have many possible homes here. I could go with 5 in Spiritual Guidance for enhancements in both healz and DPS. Stacking Spirit will help here.
Holy Concentration looks very nice, and I’d have to take two additional points in Spiritual Healing, which is not a bad thing. The remaining 3 points can be spent topping off Spiritual Healing and contributing one final point to either Serendipity, Empowered Healing, or Lightwell. It’s largely a tossup, though I would not take the latter unless the party members knew how to properly use it. I could also toss those last 3 points into the Discipline tree.
My inclination is probably to take the Lightwell simply so that I have the option in raid situations. Something where I can gather up with a bunch of DPS that will be taking damage over time, such as with the Nightbane fight. But it’s still up in the air.
Omigawd! I just realized that this only affects instant spells. I am now seriously reconsidering Unbreakable Will (5/5)! I can think of more than a few places where that comes in handy. [↩]
Hey, since I’m probably respeccing for Unbreakable Will anyway, maybe I’ll find something I like better. [↩]
As of this weekend, I’m the de facto “main” for the clan until I hit 80. There has been a general discussion that we have no committed healers leveling to 80. Well, here I come. See how I spam.
Today was my very first Northrend instance, and it happened to be a PuG. We were fortunate in that we only wiped twice1 and besides that only lost one person. I’m told I did a good job, which thrills me to no end. I also got some nice accessories: [Sandals of Mystical Evolution] and [Band of Glittering Permafrost].
The whole conversation about the lack of healers in our progression group prompted one of our other healers to say he was shifting to shadow to level. This puzzled me and our GL’s healer since we’re neither one specced shadow and can both handle grinding just fine. In fact I’ve soloed every quest in Borean, with one exception, and that’s just because I haven’t gotten around to finishing it yet. He claims I’m toting DPS gear rather than healing gear, but in fact there is no more healing gear, not since the 3.0 patch. Oh, I’ll cop to the robe and the belt being DPS gear when I acquired them, but even then I knew that all +healz would be translated to +spellpower, so within that narrow confines, I have a hard time seeing where his conclusion came from.
The fact that I can apparently heal adequately doesn’t bolster his case. I think, really, he’s still thinking in outmoded terms. Holy can’t grind. Disc doesn’t DPS. +Healz. That sort of thing. It’s the sort of thing that makes you, when you see item A, conclude that it is a specific kind of gear, without actually looking at its stats.
When it comes right down to it, though, the fact remains: Holy hybrid, soloed Borean (even the Elites), is available for healing roles. Call me when you get that kind of mileage out of Shadow, but I think you’ll find – as I did around level 50 – that there are better ways to do it. A deep mana pool, fiendish regeneration, and an array of both healing and damage tools makes for an extremely hardy and playable priest.
All this sudden rush for Healz is of course predicated on the desire of our guild to raid. That may not be the case. There was – wait for it – guild drama last night, from the usual source, and it probably cost us a tank. The offending party then /gquit – for (by my count) the third time on his healing toon “to prove a point”. The GL just pretty much got pissed about it and said that we weren’t going to be running Naxx, then, since we can’t seem to get healers raised up.
Personally, I approve. People need to learn that they can’t cross a line without ramifications. If it means that never see the inside of Naxx, so be it. If the game is more enjoyable to all of us as a result, I don’t even need to see the inside of an instance.
once on the end boss, once was a stupid huntard trick. [↩]
First of all, I’m happy to say that the WP 2.7 migration appears to have gone through without a problem. Looks good so far. Auto-upgrade “FTW” as the pvp kiddies say.
Secondly; to the right is a picture from when I last escorted my sweetie through Gnomeregan. It’s strange that Gnomes can’t be priests, but it’s even stranger that they appear to have them in the Clean Zone. Is it a lost art that only these people know, and which they are unwilling to leave Gnomeregan to teach? I don’t know, but it sort of appears that way.
Finally: are you seeing those 3.0.8 changes? Wowzers. No race limitation on mounts? Where’s the fun in that?
We finally have official confirmation from none other than Ghostcrawler himself that Hunters are the most dangerous and powerful class in all the game.
Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE.
We tested this a lot internally in beta and knew hunters were high but we hoped other classes would be able to catch up in a way they have as yet been unable to do. We want to be careful not to hurt hunter dps too much in PvP, so we’re taking most of the damage out of Steady Shot and Volley. Beastmaster hunters are in addition losing some of their pet dps. We still want BMs to have the best pets, but pet dps numbers are a little high at the moment. We are also still concerned about hunter survivability in PvP and taking the opportunity to jazz up Deterrence into something that looks and plays a little more interesting.
I could see that – keeping in the top of the charts with little actual improvement in gear, my damage output has been rediculous. Not the over 2K that BRK touts, but still pretty impressive. So I am not in any way surprised. I’ve been expecting a nerf every since they made Mend Pet a HoT.
Expect epic levels of QQ for a while. Huntards aren’t quite as bad as Warlocks, but they can bawl pretty impressively when they want to.
Basically, he is commenting on a quest that is a vital part of a vital chain of quests that lead to The Nexus. If you don’t complete this quest, you don’t go to the Nexus, or at least not under your own power1. The quest in question is The Art of Persuasion. Go ahead and read the quest text.
As you can see, the goal of the quest is to extract information from a prisoner. The process to do so is to torture the prisoner. And the most galling part of this is that the Kirin Tor mage right there is asking you to do so because he finds it morally wrong to do so himself, as part of the higher ideals of the Kirin Tor.
Isn’t it ironic that in order to gain faction with the Kirin Tor, you have to do things for them that they themselves find to be morally reprehensible. Hello, Blizzard? Alannis called. She wants her irony back.
Now, Bartle has been pretty thoroughly flamed over this post, but I am going to completely agree with him on this. Like him, I went ahead and did the dirty thing, but in the back of my mind I was not believing what was happening.
You may ask: Isn’t this just a game? Is this not merely the actions of an avatar in a virtual universe? Surely, you jest. Your avatar did not make the decision to use torture to advance a cause. You did. I can’t make that more direct. It doesn’t matter that the “prisoner” in this case was imaginary; it’s the fact that you, as a person, are asked to make this moral decision – torture, or no cookie. As far as I am concerned, saying the prisoner is just an avatar is the final step in dehumanizing one’s enemy. That chain starts with “They killed innocent people in an office building, therefore it is OK to torture them”.
You may disagree here, but in your heart you know that Bartle is right, as I am.
We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we are “heroes” regardless of how many times we effectively steal, murder, assault, and otherwise damage our pixilated adversary. We have come to terms with the idea that we are somehow more righteous than our adversaries even as we kill them and loot the bodies for prizes. The shores of Azeroth are awash in the blood of troggs, demons, dark iron dwarves, cultists, and other ne’er-do-wells. But in this expansion, Blizzard has notched it up a bit.
Torture of prisoners
Killing an adversary’s mothers and stealing the babies. And delivering them in a bag.
Killing people in retribution for them killing game animals.
I have to say, Blizzard has started down a slippery moral slope with some of these. DHETA was especially galling, but it doesn’t come close to the torture quest.
As Bartle noted, it’s unthinkable that there wasn’t at least the option to opt out of the torture scenario explicitly. Instead, such “losers” should just abandon the quest. There is no way to take a principled stand against these things, in such a way that truly declares your values.
Would a Paladin or Priest of the Light truly be OK with this? I can’t imagine either would. In my past AD&D campaigns, a paladin choosing such a path would suffer extreme consequences. I realize that WoW is no AD&D clone, but there are certain core design principles for the class that define the term “Holy”, and the power of Paladins especially flows from that source, and that source alone.
I applaud Mr. Bartle for voicing this concern, and hope that Blizzard will listen and make this right in the long term. Given their love of griefers, though, I find that to be unlikely.
There are two very excellent book series by a fellow named Stephen Donaldson – The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Gap Cycle – that a lot of people will not read because both have a non-gratuitous rape occurring early on. A lot of people are sensitive to that sort of thing, and given my druthers I would have rather not seen them in there either. Yet, some of these people would defend the torture quest as “it’s only pixels.” OK, I’ll play along. Would you feel the same way if there was a quest in WoW to go rape someone, and you were given no choice to make a stand? If it’s morally OK to make the call to torture, why wouldn’t it be OK to make the call to go rape somebody? What about children?
Hey, it’s your immortal soul or whatever. Tarnish it as you will. But I think you should have the choice to demur in a positive way, rather than take the lame “turn a blind eye to it” approach and “just decline” the quest. That’s the easy way out.
i.e. if you can endure the shame of being summoned, you’ll be fine. [↩]
Last night was run-my-sweetie-through-Gnomeregan night. She’d never been, and had no idea how huge it truly is; I’d say that it’s the first real epic instance in the game, except maybe Blackfathom. People rarely seem to do BFD, though.
There’s a couple of things I didn’t know about Gnomeregan that I found out last night. It’s amazing what you find out when you aren’t being dragged down railroad tracks. Of course, now I’m the dragger. Previously, I was essentially in drag, I suppose. And that should send shivers down your spine.
I was not ware of Emi Shortfuse or her event, nor was I therefore aware of Grubbis. Grubbis is a nice little bit of Gnomeregan lore that fits in with the story of the Trogg invasion that triggered the downfall of the city. Alas, I wasn’t aware that you could loot Emi’s fireworks after the event.
When Emi’s explosions go off, even a level 80 will die. /shame
One reason we were exploring was because I hadn’t run it in such a long time that I couldn’t remember the proper path, and we got mixed up on her cards. We pretty much took Thermaplugg out first, then backtracked to the clean room, then doubled back to get the cards again.
Interesting thing is that we got repops, and by that I mean, even the bosses. Even Thermaplugg. One of the guildies said that last time he was in there, the evil elevator1 disappeared after he rode it down.
Sweetie didn’t have the first part of Gnogaine cleared out yet so we will go back in to complete that, and take another shot at the Hydrocane while we’re there. She did ding 30, so she’s officially the first toon on that account to get a mount. /pride
My sweetie is doing things right. Sure, I’m dragging her through instances, but she’s doing the work of getting the prelims together and working up to the right levels. She’s not one of those stupid kids sitting on his butt in Stormwind using the /yell channel to spam WILL SOMEONE PLZ RUN ME THROUGH DM2 . And the guild is short on both toons and interest to run level-appropriate groups, and nobody should have to PuG with some moron who thinks “lulz” is the proper response to “what the hell did you just do?”.
And yet seeing these places is essential for the lore. After all, she had no idea how big Gnomeregan was before this, now she does. She appreciates that Gnomes aren’t just some annoyingly cute parasite hanging out in Ironforge. Now she understands the true scope of their story and their loss, as well as the popularity of the “restore Gnomer to the Gnomes” faction IRL.
As far as that goes, at some point I gave up trying to get groups together for old world content and just blazed through to the ultimate end. At least in Northrend I get a chance to share my experiences with contemporaries, but in the old world and Outland, there’s so much I failed to see, let alone Flora, Jas, and Illume.
So far, it’s a lot of fun.
This story is a guild favorite. Young, level 26-ish I suppose, and getting drug through. Hit the elevator – saw my party take it down, but it started moving before I got there. I didn’t realize how fast it was going and tried to jump off the ledge to catch it. I landed on it – losing 1/2 health – as it was already headed back up. Still running (I was in shock), I then went off the edge and landed in the middle of a pile of mobs. If that didn’t kill me, the mobs did. [↩]
I mean, seriously, anyone that asks a question and leaves off the question mark has already lost my interest, let alone all caps in the wrong channel and hasn’t moved from that spot in two hours. A real player would have leveled up by then. [↩]
I like the idea of the daily cooking quests in Daleran.
What I don’t like is the cheese platter one. This quest rewards bad behavior – camping, ninja-ing, and outright jerk-like tendancies.
I won’t do it.
Way to go, Blizz. You guys seem to have a real blind spot towards the fact that people in your game, left to thier own devices, tend to generate a healthy population of sociopaths.
Either that, or blizz likes it that way.
Well, at any rate, gratz on finally making the Og’rilla bombing run look like fun.
The first milestone I should have caught almost a month ago. On November 11, 2007, was my first blog post. Apparently I was whining about how hard the Shadow Labyrinth was. How times change.
The second milestone is that I popped level 80 today, while questing in the Storm Peaks, and celebrated with a hot spicy brew.
This came about after I told King Wrynn of the happenings at Stormwind. Boom! Exalted with Stormwind. Since I was in Theramore anyway, I couldn’t resist getting a small token to show off my exaltedness. It’s my first main faction Exalted.
Now, how about this? My sweetie figured it out immediately, though our GL didn’t see it until it was pointed out. That’s right, folks. Thundercats. Which is only natural since I was grinding quests for the Cat God.
I love this kind of stuff.
Oh! Third thing! Almost 80! According to Ghost Crawler, that makes me almost hard core, only two days removed. Go me.
I’ve been remiss in recommending this astounding manich … machin … animated feature set in our very own World of Warcraft.
This weekend I have been enlisted in the cause of getting greens for Jasra so she can DE them for eternal essences or something like that. Also: lots of runecloth. So I broke out Saiph, my Gorilladin, and started at Zul’Farrak.
Ups
From the day I was old enough to pick up a weapon, I have trained towards the day I could confront those that have cost me and my people so much misery.
As of this weekend, I’m the de facto “main” for the clan until I hit 80. There has been a general discussion that we have no committed healers leveling to 80. Well, here I come. See how I spam.
Secondly; to the right is a picture from when I last escorted my sweetie through Gnomeregan. It’s strange that Gnomes can’t be priests, but it’s even stranger that they appear to have them in the Clean Zone. Is it a lost art that only these people know, and which they are unwilling to leave Gnomeregan to teach? I don’t know, but it sort of appears that way.
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