upcoming vacation and random thoughts. . .

Vacation from work means more wow, which for me is a good thing. I've been recently consumed with leveling my mage and druid, mage is safe and sound (relatively) in outlands, druid is level 54 and should get there within the next couple of days. My only remaining character that I have any desire to level is my Shammy, who is currently level 20. Not counting the Shammy, that will bring my tally of horde characters at outlands or beyond to 6 (paladin, warrior, warlock, deathknight, mage, druid). I am reasonably sure the druid will consume my time while he's rested, although dailies and heroics on paladin will still more than likely be at least a part of my time.

I'm seriously considering dropping mining on my paladin for blacksmithing. The horrible pain that is leveling blacksmithing is keeping me from doing it. Also, the only other miner I have is my level 70 deathknight. And although death knights are easy to level, the appeal just isn't there. I also don't think 2 sockets and some BS only ret gear is currently worth it. Also, it would make my warrior obsolete (not that I play him much anyways).

I've dropped tailoring completely (for now). Probably until mage is mid-upper 60's, I'll pick it back up, but until that time, having him an herbalist seems more prudent. I did it so I could have an enchanter again, and with my lock at 60, he can max out, and I have TONS of mats sitting around (both my warlock and paladin were at times enchanters). And a ton of worthless northrend gear waiting to be disenchanted (who really buys items of the boar or of the gorilla or wolf?)

I am making my spiked titansteel helm tonight, putting the ebon blade head enchant on it, slapping an attackpower meta gem in it, and breaking some faces (or spider parts, as it were). I was looking at the boots from exalted ebon blade thinking "why is there a blue gem slot in these?" Green gems and purple gems seem to all have stam or Mp5 as their secondary stat. Stam is great. . .when I'm tanking. I really think I have enough on my ret set as is. Orange gems, well I'm probably going to be using etched (STR and Hit), I only have huge citrine, hopefully I get a few perfects. That should be enough to hit cap me, or nearly hit cap me.

Lastly, I am going to desecrate all the fires I can on my pally. If my numbers are right, its an easy 300 gold or thereabouts. Not too bad for some random flying around.

Random thoughts:
Inscription is really mat intensive and never knowing which minor inscriptions I'm going to get really sucks!

I hate jousting in the argent tournament. So much so, I've gotten valiant marks ONLY by killing icrecrown scourge.

I never get tired of the Ebon Blade daily where you shoot down the dragons. Best quest ever.

I really have no use for achievements, at least they don't incovenience me in any way.

I hate pvp. Even with the new video card, I despise it.

I hate most gnomes. . .unless they blog. It seems like I get constantly ganked by gnome mages and death knights.

I don't see the point of allowing people to transfer factions. My human pally is never coming over to my horde server. Leveling a horde pally 70-80, why would I want to do it again? Plus, I still prefer the look of human pallies (now if they let me make leshif human, but keep him horde. . .best not think about that).

Why is there blue tanking gear, and blue healing gear, but no blue DPS gear made by blacksmithing at upper levels?

Lesson learned. . .

I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about my role in our guild, and the game in general. At times I have been a little moody, maybe a little whiny, sometimes even slightly negative. Yesterday night, was the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. Reports of the demise of Leshif, paladin tank, may have been slightly premature.

I learned a few valuable lessons, but before I get to that, the achievement. I tanked Heroic Nexus. The full run, all bosses! Of course, the tanking helm and cape dropped, neither were upgrades for me. I had the exact same gear as our failed H UK run, and same healer (I did change my spec from a 10/51/10 to 0/54/17, more threat oriented). Speaking of heals, big shout outs to Eus, my paladin partner in crime for keeping me up the whole run. Anyways, the difference between the two runs was our DPS. Our UK run was a rogue (who was good), a ret paladin (I think our GM in his off-spec), and a hunter (who managed 700 DPS on the run). On our Nexus run we had a warlock (raid level), Shaman (also raid level), and a ret paladin (yes, also raid level, see the trend?). I only had to use my emergency button ONCE, on the final boss, and I'm not even convinced it was necessary as Eusy was doing a great job keeping me up. I did have a few issues holding aggro, but I held it pretty well and was able to taunt the mobs back to me without any group wipes.

I learned two valuable lessons as a result of this. Heroics are a group activity. It is not just the healer, tank, and any 3 DPS you can throw together. With an amazingly overgeared group, maybe you can carry 3 sub-standard DPS. I hate referring to other players that way, but it is what it is. That leads me to my next lesson. DPS is not "easy" and you don't just ding 80 and have the ability to move directly into heroics. It took me almost a month after dinging 80 to be "ready" to tank heroics. Maybe there is a little more gear out there for DPS, but there are more DPS characters too. DPS, like any other role, requires effort, research, and a lot of trial and error to get things right.

I meant what I said about focusing on ret. I need a LOT more work before I'm ready to off-tank a raid, but I will do whatever our guild needs. I also need a lot of work on my ret set making it more suited to raiding ret. I'm not hit capped yet, I will be fixing that with some gems. I need a lil less stamina and more strength (yay attack power). It's a work in progress, but I'm actually looking forward to tuesday night. Not because I'll get some emblems or gear (which I prolly will and might respectively. . .I want the sword from naxx-10. . .badly), but because I've set a goal, 1500 DPS, not unreachable as I was between 1000 and 1200 before. Between now and then, I'm making myself a trinket (the emerald boar, yay c/d and attack power), the spiked titansteel helm (besides looking awesome, it should last for a while and shows I'm serious about my ret set), and getting some leg armor and enchants. Before any of this, I'm around 1800 AP, I am looking to get hit capped and raise that number to around 2200-2300.

Self-improvement is a really tricky subject. First of all, its hard to be realistic with yourself, most people will either be too harsh, or overstate their abilities (I've been guilty of both). Secondly, improvement, by definition, requires that you admit that you are weak in some area. Be as frank with yourself as you can, put the work in, and you'll be better for it in the long run, not just in gaming, but at everything in life.

Once upon a time: the end is the beginning?

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Fish. His coworkers played this game called "world of warcraft" and were encouraging him to play too. He bought the game, installed it on his system, but was undecided as to what to play. His friend Ruhtra stepped in and said "retribution paladins are awesome, you should play one", so he did. He named his paladin Leshif and set off to conquer Azeroth. Fish eventually became dissatisfied with Leshif and sent him off to the corner while he played with new characters of different classes, specs, and even affiliations (while Fish would make many alts, and re-uses many of the same names on Horde and Alliance servers, Leshif, as the first is special to him and will never be re-used).

After much experience in the game, Fish decided to change Leshif to a Holy paladin, a change Leshif did not entirely embrace. This was clearly not a path to power. One day, whilest browsing the internet, Fish stumbled on a concept called AoE grinding where one character could take on swarms of enemies at a time. This seemed like a grand idea so Leshif was called to action yet again, his talents changed for the third time.

Leshif finally felt powerful! Not against other players, who were strangely immune and unphased by his new powers, but that weakness only fueled his desire to kill more and more mobs. This seemed to be what he was meant for, fighting 3-8 mobs at a time, leaving trails of corpses in his wake, his health and mana barely taxed at all. Before he knew it, Leshif had reached the level cap, and killing mobs no longer served to increase his power.

Fish was at a loss. He didn't know what to do. He tried using Leshif as a tank in instances. Leshif did not care for this activity at all. Mobs in heroic instances hit much harder than outside (good thing they're stuck there, otherwise players might have some real problems on their hands!) and 5 of them at a time made quick work of the poor paladin. Fish's friend Ruhtra proposed a solution yet again. "Try retribution" he said.

So Fish re-trained Leshif back to his old path to find a new source of power and found it not the retribution he remembered at all. It also was nothing like protection, his trained reactions were useless, it required much more thought and consideration and all the time spent on acquiring sturdy tanking gear was for nought.

Fish was tempted to send Leshif back to the corner, retired except for his skills as a jewelcrafter. A provider for his other characters. However, in consideration, this was not a worthy end for Leshif, his first character, on whom he had spent hundreds of hours. Leshif deserved a second chance to prove that he could become powerful and bring Fish a joy like he had when he had first embraced the art of protection. That day, Fish dedicated Leshif fully to the discipline of Retribution, his Protection duties and abilities would be put on hold until Leshif was able to fulfill his new role: Bringer of Pain. Not just regular amounts of non-elite mob pain. Serious, prolonged, extended, crit fueled, chest pumping, Boss slaying PAIN.

As is often the case, the end turned out to be the beginning.

My first raid. . .

I guess technically Onyxia was my first raid, but 6 man-ing vanilla 40 man content doesn't count. Our guild ran the Spider wing of Naxx-10 on tuesday, which we actually completed and it was a full guild run. It was an eye opening experience for a lot of reasons.

Loot drama - We'll get this one out of the way right off the bat. I am not a retribution paladin. I have not leveled retribution since I believe the mid 40's which was over a year ago. My knowledge of retribution is crusader strike, divine storm, and fill in the time in between with whatever. However, that being said, I bought dual spec and went retribution because I figured if I wasn't tanking, I would be able to do something and it was a way to get gear. However, I have very minimal interest in ret gear. I want tank gear. Well, I figured as I leveled prot, run most instances prot, am defense capped prot, prot is my "main" spec. So when I rolled on the prot ring, one of the tanks complained. If I can't get gear, there are easier faster ways to get emblems.

Vent - Never previously used it, wasn't even really sure what it was except a way for people to talk to each other. It was odd hearing peoples' voices that I hadn't heard before. And I guess talking is easier than typing, but apart from raiding, I have no use for it, but I'll leave it installed.

General Impressions - I don't like melee DPS. I LOOOOVE playing my mage, and I love everything about my Dr00d (post about the awesomeness of mangle forthcoming), but I had always seen my paladin as an AoE grinding machine. And maybe thats the problem. I don't feel responsive having to run over to mobs rather than just shift targets. Weapon swings feel slow. I died a few times (not my healers fault, I ascribe to the "If DPS dies, it's their own damn fault" rule). I didn't have a bad time per se, it just wasnt as fun as a lot of other in game activities. I guess I was expecting it to be more grand, not just a harder version of an instance that took more people.

Outlook - I'm severely doubting my paladin is a character to raid with. I am going to give it a few more tries before abandoning it completely, but thats where I'm at now. I honestly don't see the appeal. I think it would be more fun for me on my mage or druid, and I think gearing would be easier on mage or druid. I also think elemental shammy might be fun. I guess I have come to the conclusion I am not a tank, I am an AoE grinder that's level capped in better gear. That still leaves DPS and/or healing and who knows, I might really take to Druid tanking.

the AAAA player. . .

For those of you not familiar with the way baseball works, before a player is deemed "ready" for the majors, they go through a progression of minor leagues. These are graded in quality from A being the lowest level to AAA, the highest level of the minors. However, there are sometimes players who, while being successful in AAA, are not successful at the major league level. These players are often referred to as AAAA (quadruple A) players. I am starting to get the impression I am a quadruple A player in Wow.

I have no problems leveling, farming, running instances at lower levels, all the way up to heroic. Not just as a paladin, deathknight, mage, druid, I've run with them all, and in level appropriate groups, no problems. Once things go heroic, I wilt like a featherweight in the ring with 80's Tyson.

I think part of it may be my mindset. I don't want to kite. I want an instance version of AoE grinding. The boss should be beating on me, the healer healing me, with me generating aggro and DPS burning him down. That might get boring to some others, I like it just fine.

My guild is running Naxx 10 tonight. I am going to participate in the fail. . .er. . .attempt. I say fail because we tried a different 10 man (one of the "easy" ones) and were just crushed. We have some players in the guild who are really good and know their class. We just don't have 10 of them who can run at once and fill every role that needs filled.

This leads me to a curious question. What do I do? My current combination of skills and gear will not carry me. If I can barely get through the first boss of H UK (with 2 wipes on "trash") heroic tanking is not presently a job I can handle. A naxx 10 drop might help, the AC head enchant will help, but these are small improvements. Do I focus on the Druid, get through outlands as fast as I can, and start the process over again? Wow itself is still fun for me. The "progression" game is not.

My weekend. . .

First of all, Happy Father's Day to any and all that it applies to (One of my kitties coughed up a hairball for me, not the Father's Day gift I was expecting, but as I have no human children, I guess thats what I get). I had dinner with my Dad, stepmom and little brother last night, it was a fun time, but I ate way too much and consequently didn't feel that well last night.

Had a hockey game sunday where we absolutely destroyed the other team. It felt particularly good since them not being able to play last week is what screwed us into a double header back to back (the guy who runs the league plays goalie for them). I moved up from defense and played center the 3rd period and most of our better players said I really seemed to click there. When playing defense, I'm a little more tentative because if a guy gets by me, he's alone with the goalie. When I play on offense, I can chase down their defensemen, harass them in the corners and really make them work to bring it up. If they get by me, oh well, there are at least 2 defensemen behind me. I pretty much single-handedly tied up 2 of the other team's better players behind the net a few minutes apiece.

In wow, my weekend was productive and yet not. I did run a few things on my mage. Ran blackrock depths a few times (got shoulders and staff) and sunken temple which was horribly frustrating. I had pretty much all the quests for ST and the group that I was in COMPLETELY BIPASSED THE AREA WITH THE QUESTS!!! Yeah, I got the pants off the prophet and the quest for his head, but I would have been better off grinding on furbolgs. Still, I am right up on level 55, so outlands is just a hop, skip and a jump away. My druid hit level 50, so I picked up mangle and due to a slight miscalculation with the talent tree, I won't get tree form till 51 (yay feral/resto dual spec). I love my druid, I havent gotten a chance to use mangle yet (I pretty much dinged, then had other things to do), but that should be fun. I tried to re-spec w/o thick hide, but I couldn't really make the numbers work, and since I intend this guy to be mostly a bear tank/tree at 80 anyways, figured I may as well keep it.

I say not productive because my paladin did almost nothing over the weekend. I went to bed super early on friday (I guess I was worn out) so I missed my dailies. I didn't do any instances either as DPS or tanking. I basically did my dailies and leveled alts. Not a bad weekend, just not very productive. I am wondering what to do with my jewelcrafting tokens. I have already bought the tanking ring, tanking neck, stam dragon eye, green tanking gem (stam & +def), and a gem for my druid (AGI and stam). There are a few diff caster gems, but my mage won't really benefit from them for some time (I refuse to use blue gems on a non 80, waste of $$), so I'm a little stuck.

Not a very action packed weekend (not necessarily a bad thing), hope everyone else had a nice one as well!

on 5 man teams

I was talking to our GM last night about a post he wrote here. I suggest you read it because it's highly informative and echoes a sentiment a lot of people have had recently. There are just too many people being carried through content, getting cheap easy gear, and then using that gear as a crutch to carry them further. It is almost a self perpetuating cycle.

It got me to thinking about hockey again. I think Wow and hockey have a lot in common. They are both team based activities (I'm talking 5 mans here, I guess the analogy holds true to raiding, its just a bigger team), where the team functioning together as a whole is more important than the individual parts and weaknesses in key positions cause defeat to the team. If an instance run can't do enough damage before the tank dies, that group loses. If a team doesn't score enough to support their goalie, they lose. In hockey, I know what level I can play up to. When I play at this level, the games are challenging, but I make the saves more often than not and my team still has a good chance to win. When I skate out, I play in a lower division because frankly, I'm just not as good skating out as I am in goal, I don't shoot very well, so I am weak in a key area that can be exposed at higher difficulty levels. Imagine if one day, for participating in a game, I was rewarded with an amazing stick that was better than most everyone else's on my team and allowed me to shoot on par with the better players in the division.

Suddenly I can shoot (even though it's the stick, and not me learning proper technique), and since I got this awesome stick, maybe I'll play up a division and try for some skates that make me skate faster. Now, I've just gotten the ability to skate and shoot purely from new gear, why would I bother practicing technique? I can play well above the level I would normally be able to play at with these items alone.

Obviously, that example is preposterous. I play at the level that my skills allow me to. Occasionally I will play in a level I consider "easy" either because I enjoy hockey or a team needs a fill in. I practice to get better, but even with the best gear out there, I would never be able to keep up with a pro player in crappy 2nd hand gear. In Wow, this is not the case. Put me in Ulduar purples and an elite tank in white gear, and I will completely outclass them. Why does Wow encourage gear hoarding over skill developement?

Part of me says "don't worry about it, it doesn't really affect you. People who want to play that way pay their $15 the same as you do." I guess they're not really hurting me, but it bugs me. I felt the anguish in TBC when I hit the level cap and realized it was like being level 1 again. I ground reputation to get keyed for the heroics and even with a well geared group, upper level instances were HARD, there were wipes and CC was mandatory. I feel like I've developed skill an experience and people who get carried through a couple naxx runs for some gear and then think their l33t because of it just feels wrong. I guess I want to respect people who are more "progressed" than me, but more often than not, I just can't.

On a more positive note, I am doing some skills work myself this weekend. I'm going to be tanking some guild runs through the easier heroics, not so much for gear (for me at least, the only instance that has much of anything for me is heroic Utgarde Pinnacle), more to get experience running heroics with our team. I'm looking forward to it. Even if we wipe and things don't go that smoothly, I know why I play. I enjoy spending time with my guildies and contributing to the group.