Badges of Justice=DKP

So I was doing some thinking at work the other day about ways that guilds use to get people to run instances that they don't need gear from anymore. Some use DKP and others use mandatory signups, which then got me thinking what if Blizzard came up with a way to do it. Then I realized that is what the Badge of Justice is for. What better way to get people to continue raiding than to give them a reward even if there are no official rewards in that instance for them? I hear of people who right about how they hate them but to be honest I think it is a great idea. This is a system that allows people to get "DKP" even when they are pugging and it keeps some of the non raiding guilds geared to go beyond what they technically are able to do.

Now there is one draw back. What happens when people have the best gear they can get from Badge gear and yet aren't getting into end game content? This is where people can get really bored with the game because they really don't have a challenge with the instances that they are running. I mean technically they are overgeared for anything they can run in terms of Kara or Heroics since the gear practically equals tier 6 items. I did some reading around through various other blogs and when the new items came out that you can get from the Isle are sometimes even better than some of the tier 6 gear. When a dps that is wearing T6 gear and running a heroic with a tank that is just in blue they really have to watch their aggro since they are way over powered. Or when you have a healer that is geared to the teeth they can easily get bored with the instance in that they hardly have to worry about heals.

So then is there a point for people to keep playing the toon that they love so much but are beginning to get bored with?

Haels FTW!!

Woot got to run my first instance as a resto shammy was real sweet. Went into ZF with a lvl 49 feral druid, 48 ret pally, 50 ice mage, 45 fury warrior and myself at 49. As we were getting ready for the instance we were looking for people from the guild and had everyone sign up except a healer so off I ran to IF to respec for 15g. Got respec'd with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZZE0xtAcop0b and hearthed back to Gadge and headed into the instance. Had my lovely wife share the quests that she could with me and it was off to the races.

I was using grid along with the healing macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player] Spellname

to cast my heals. I think I might put in there at /stopcasting to interrupt my casts incase I find I need something better. I was using this along with Grid which was just an easy UI to keep an eye on people's health bars and such. Also I love Nature's Swiftness for those OH Noes!! situations.

ZF is a lot easier now with the gimping from Blizzard but hey I can work with that. Was nice to be able to finish the whole thing in under 2 hrs with only 1 death.

The only thing I am trying figure out why I am getting some kinda lag spike. I think I will try running once without any addons and see if I still get the spikes or not.

Epic Fail

Went into Naxxramas tnite just to get an idea on how it is before Wrath comes out and was it miserable. We went in with 13 lvl 70s and a couple 6x. We went down the construct hallway and made it up to the 3rd room. The first 2 weren't too bad but that 3rd room just couldn't quite get the timing down so then we decided to move onto a different Old World Raid.

Went into Nax with my tank Skarrde, a feral tank and another tankadin who was having severe problems with being d/c'd all the time. Also only had 2 healers along, a lvl 70 holy paladin and a 70 Holy priest. They were pretty good at keeping up with the splash heals that we had along with keeping the tanks up. First pull was interesting but we managed to survive it and the next few were typical tank and spank pulls. Wasn't until we pulled the 3rd room that was full of slimes that we wiped. After the wipe we came back into the instance and managed to take down the room but had some big slimes spawn in the room that we were trying to rez and ended up wiping us. We get back take down the big slimes and low and behold the little guys had respawned, so back at it again and they wipe us out one more time. After we got back from that we questioned ourselves if we really had what it took to work this instance and decided better not. We then decided to run over to ZG and see if we could get the mounts off the 2 bosses in their. Took them down without any problem and had a few purples drop but nothing worth noting, and no the mounts did not drop.

In some ways I am a little frustrated that we gave up so early on Naxx and I honestly felt we could have worked something out but we were kinda limited in who showed up. Maybe if there had been enough people that were able to come we could have made some head way but we will never know. I know that not everyone in the guild really wanted to run that since it has nothing for them loot wise and they felt it was content that wasn't important. I also know that if it had been Gruul's or even Kara the same people would have asked to go again and again til we beat it even if we had been short a few people.

Maybe try MC or something next time. One other note, you can't summon people into Naxx who aren't attuned for it.

Naxx on Saturday :)

So the guild is going to be running Naxx comin up on Saturday. Lookin forward to a chance to do some farming with the guild of this Old World/New World instance. I wanted to get into it before the expansion just to see how it is for now and see if it changes after Wrath hits stores. So far we have 20 people signed up but may have a few more show up last minute depending on schedules, just one more problem with a casual guild.

Anyways been farming Strat:Undead for rep to get attuned for Naxx and I picked up the attunement with 1 nexus crystal and 2 arcane crystals. Had some interesting drops tho nothing to write home about, was nice to get back there and remember the old days. I remember when that was a 10 man raid that you could do, this was before they gimped it and then put in the 45 min run for upgrading your gear but ah well. That was also when BRD was a nice 10 man as well. Then again that was the days when there were no Greater Blessing either and as a pally you were constantly casting buffs on people that would last for 5 min at a time. That was the time when all pallies were wanted for was their buffbot ability, /shudder. Glad things have changed in that part for sure.

Also the new trailer for Wrath came out today here it is below, hope you enjoy. :)


Wrath of the Litch King Cinematic Intro HD from DrkSnpr14 on Vimeo.

WoW Insider: Defining mains and alts

So what does define a main and an alt? Is it the one you play the most or is it the one you started with? This is a tough question and can be different for each person as they play. For me personally I think it is the one that you enjoying playing the most. Your "main" can move from each of your toons in your arsenal since this is a game you should be playing the way you enjoy. The main thing people seem to forget is that this game is supposed to be enjoyable. I hear over and over about how people can't handle the pressure of having to fill roles, or aren't enjoying the characters they are playing or the spec they are playing. I have always had the stance in our guild that each person plays the character they enjoy the way they enjoy. I don't pay their $15/mo and neither does anyone else in the game so they shouldn't have to play the way that other people want them to play.

Now how does this affect the guild? As a guild we need certain people for runs, we need to have healers, tanks, ranged dps and melee dps. And if we want to take on some of the bigger mobs then we need to have a party that is geared for the target and can fill the roll necessary either through spec or through spell rotation. So what we need is people who are willing to fill those rolls and stick with those characters to help out the others who are looking to improve their gear. The biggest problemis trying to balance the desire of people to try something different and not sacrificing the gear that is necessary for some of the core people that are on the run. Now the advantage we have in our guild for this is that anyone who is on the run gets to roll for the gear. So if someone has a toon that is geared and ready for the instance and they have signed up for it then the loot that is for their spec is available to them. By this I mean you don't have a resto druid rolling against gear for a feral druid or a rogue.

So is there really a difference between a main and an alt in our guild? Not really, we have players in our guild and they decide if they want to take that character with them on a run.

Downranking=obsolete?

From reading through my various sources(elitistjerks.com, plusheal.com, toomanyanas.com) I have been noticing that quite a few Shamans will down rank their healing to conserve on mana for the fight. Seems that quite a few people found out that the HPS for Healing Wave rank 4 and Healing Wave rank 5 in reference to amount of mana used for it. Also quite a few people would spam rank 1 to get Healing Way to proc on the target since mana cost was low and and cast time was fast. But it seems that Blizzard has made that obsolete. I was reading throught Resto4life and came across this post about how they are making things a % instead of a base mana amount. This really doesn't pertain to my druid as I am always hitting with the highest rank heal that I can since LB only has rank 1 and the others I use to help out when things go south. But for the shaman it does kind of frustrate a person in knowing that the things people have studied for and worked around are now going out the window. In a sense it is like saying here take all your methods of healing and throw them out the window and start from scratch with it. I was thinking that maybe people would maybe go for the downrank for a faster heal but if you look at Lesser Healing Wave there is less mana used in this and only a 1.5 sec cast while Healing Wave Rank 1 still has the 32% mana used and the 1.5 sec cast time. Just looking at it the lesser is the way to go even if it is rank 9

Well just something to think about. :).

Shared Topic: If I Could Have A Class Flying Mount

Hmm would have to agree with Flameshock on this one for the shammies, Would be totally wicked to fly around on a bit of air as the mount. Then again would be cool to go as a lightning bolt as well, I seem to remember one of the latest books by David and Leigh Eddings that one of the gods in there uses a lightning bolt for getting around.

For Paladins it should be a pegasus to go with the warsteeds that they have been using as a theme. Go with different colors? Hmm would be nice to pick a black one out instead of the white but hey I am not too picky about it.

Druids already have theirs and I think that the form idea was the best way to go with it. Just wish I didn't have to come up with the 5k gold to get it.

With leveling my shaman right now I don't have a lot of income so the idea of paying for an epic mount is a little far fetched. Maybe when I get to 80 on all my toons I can finally settle on one that I can farm and make some money with. Just can't seem to generate enough due to getting bored with the grind.

A spork cousin. Why a spork?

So I showed my age a bit in game tnite. Was waiting on the dock for the boat in Theramore more when I saw a player with the guild name Death by spork. I proceeded to quote the line above which is a bit of an embellishment from the line in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I think it went right over the guy's head because he didn't respond whatsoever.

On a positive note I made it to level 44 and trained up, also put my points into Stormstrike so now I can bonk them on their heads with both my maces at once woot. We also finished in Mudsprocket and are now looking to move into Badlands and work there for a while. I still have a number of green quests in STV that I need to take care of but will do it on my own time this weekend I think.

Some Theory Craft that I cam across in the the plusheal.com site, thought you might be interested in taking a look at it. Good work to RickO for putting it up there. Here is a link to the thread that he put up.

Too Cute!

Can't believe I just said that but after hearing about this pet on http://www.twistednether.net/ I felt it my duty to submit myself to the trials of doing a BG. Well I ran one with my wife and after being in there for about an hr we finally one and.....no luck. So will have to try again tomorrow.

On an RL note CZ to Micheal Phelps for getting his 3rd gold medal for the butterfly. Was watching NBC last nite and saw his relay team totally kick butt against the French and win it by a hair. I swear I saw the French guy's shoulders shaking like he was crying. While I may not be an American yet I still say keep up the good fight guys and hope you come home safe and sound.

Keep it Rollin Rollin Rollin

Keep on truckin thru the lvls, am now at 43 and finished most of the quests that come out of Theramore proper, on to Mudsprocket. :)

Also finished most of the quests from Southshore tho have to kill the Warmongers to finish it off there. Always nice to have the wife helping out and getting the quests done faster. With us bein partially AFK for family reunion last week there wasn't much leveling really going on on her part tho I got in a little playing. Trying to decide if I should bother with Uldaman this time around but hey can figure that out later.

Time for Bed. Later all.

Shared Topic Idea: What will I be Doing...

Blog Azeroth put up this shared topic and I thought I would run with it.

What is the first thing I will be doing when Wrath is made available? Hmm, first thing is going to Storm Wind and checking out the harbor then heading over Northrend from there and getting started leveling. I will probably stay restoratioin and try and the +spell gear that drops and see how that works, if it doesn't then I will try elemental and see how that goes so that I can switch back and forth easily. Main thing will be getting to 80. After I have my shaman leveled it will be my Druid, Paladin and then my mage if I have time. Will be interesting to see how it works out and am looking forward to exploring new areas, then again never explored all of the outlands or all of azeroth either.

Maybe I can center on one toon this time. :)

And Then there was Mail

Hit level 40 last nite and put my talent point into getting dual hand weapons. Totally against my nature to have to find slow weapons but hit the AH and picked up a 1 handed mace and have the axe that I had from Duskwood, its a little fast but work with what I have available to me, and I have never been one to spend a lot on stuff from AH until I hit lvl cap. Also upgraded to mail and finally got my chain heal. Totally looking forward to that when I am finally able to use it in a run, though at this rate it could be a few months. Still on course for hitting 70 before Wrath but will have to wait and see how it goes since wife is preggo and doesn't like to play much.

Macro= Woot

Tried out the macro on Thurs and lovin it. Still use Clique to do Purge on mobs and friends but I think I will use it along with Grid. Also came across this addon Quickhealth that I will add when I get back from vacation. Looks like it is better than Instant Health in that it won't cause problems with the WoW target of target, at least that is what the author claims.